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Easy exotic languages | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| bela_lugosi Hexaglot Senior Member Finland Joined 6235 days ago 272 posts - 376 votes  Speaks: English, Finnish*, Italian, Spanish, German, Swedish Studies: Russian, Estonian, Sámi, Latin | Message 1 of 19 20 November 2008 at 4:44pm | IP Logged |
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I was wondering.. which exotic languages are easy for us Europeans to learn? :) That is, easy both grammatically and to pronounce. I already know that most Asiatic languages are hard, so I was thinking about an African language or a tribal language in some other part of the world. Any ideas? :)
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| Leopejo Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Italy Joined 5890 days ago 675 posts - 724 votes Speaks: Italian*, Finnish*, English Studies: French, Russian | Message 3 of 19 20 November 2008 at 5:11pm | IP Logged |
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Yes, from the very little Malay I know, it seems very very easy grammatically and the pronounciation too. Besides, the words resemble... Finnish words at times.
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| SlickAs Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5658 days ago 185 posts - 287 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French, Swedish Studies: Thai, Vietnamese | Message 4 of 19 20 November 2008 at 5:59pm | IP Logged |
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I did 2 years of Indonesian at high school (as is reasonably common in Australia, Indonesia being our closest neighbour). I can tell you that the pronunciation is easy, the grammar is easy, and it is written in the roman alphabet.
What is hard is remembering the vocab once you are not using it compared to a non-exotic language. It takes FAR more maintenance to prevent it getting rusty. To the point where it is a pain in the neck, really, and you just forget the language entirely, leaving the text-books on your shelf ... then before a holiday to Indonesia brushing it up for 20 or 30 hours and forgetting it again once you leave. I will never bother learning it properly, just brush it up yet again should I decide (or need) to take another trip there. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| slidemasterx Pentaglot Newbie Philippines Joined 5666 days ago 37 posts - 42 votes Speaks: English, Tagalog, Cebuano*, Spanish, DutchC1 Studies: Portuguese, French | Message 5 of 19 21 November 2008 at 7:04am | IP Logged |
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Tagalog is also a pretty easy language to learn. It's a mix of malay, Spanish, English and chinese. There are lots of free resources on the internet. From what I read, Tagalog doesn't use "to be" so sentence structure is quite simple.
The good thing is that you will always find Filipinos which ever country you are in to practice Tagalog. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| jez Diglot Newbie Netherlands Joined 6087 days ago 37 posts - 37 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English Studies: Spanish | Message 6 of 19 21 November 2008 at 7:23am | IP Logged |
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I also heard Indonesian is very easy. No plural, conjugation off the top of my head.
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| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6053 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 7 of 19 21 November 2008 at 2:53pm | IP Logged |
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I have never studied it, but Malay/Indonesian is probably a good candidate, although seeing it as "exotic" depends on you not being from South or South-East Asia. It is supposed to be relatively easy to learn, which would make it easier to acquire it as a second language.
Many languages do not use to be. Russian does not, and Turkish often does not. However, they can make up for this simplicity with other complexities... 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| bela_lugosi Hexaglot Senior Member Finland Joined 6235 days ago 272 posts - 376 votes Speaks: English, Finnish*, Italian, Spanish, German, Swedish Studies: Russian, Estonian, Sámi, Latin | Message 8 of 19 22 November 2008 at 4:45pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks for all the replies! :) I think I'll study Bahasa Indonesia in the future.. having read a few things about it online I'm very curious.
Any other ideas, people? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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