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Similarity between languages | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Antigrav_7 Newbie Philippines Joined 5071 days ago 17 posts - 20 votes | Message 1 of 9 10 August 2010 at 7:08am | IP Logged | |||||
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A simple question:
How long can a person who has become proficient at German expect to master Dutch? How long can a person who has become proficient at Czech expect to master Russian? it sounds like a really easy question, but what I want to hear is how many months exactly (or years), especially from someone who has done things that are similar to the ones above, the troubles he/she had, underestimating things,etc, did you use a German-Dutch vocabulary memorisation method (thus reinforcing the German that was learnt before, etc.), any interesting techniques that could take advantage of these similarities, a way to overcome false cognates, etc. Sorry if this sounds like a stupid question.....I'm just a newcomer in the world of languages:D 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Derian Triglot Senior Member PolandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5089 days ago 227 posts - 464 votes  Speaks: Polish*, English, German Studies: Spanish, Russian, Czech, French, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 2 of 9 10 August 2010 at 10:19am | IP Logged | |||||
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No, that's not a simple question. You demand a simple answer, but the question is not easy.
First main difference: Dutch is the most similar language to German. Whereas Russian is the least similar to Czech among all other Slavic languages.
If you demand in a months/years answer then I'd say it's possible (fast learner, intensive study) to learn: - Dutch - in under a year* - Russian - in over a year* * - if you have already mastered German/Russian and are fluent in the language. That's as precise as one could answer that question. Unless you provide us with more information. Edited by Derian on 10 August 2010 at 10:21am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| eumiro Bilingual Octoglot Groupie Germany Joined 5055 days ago 74 posts - 102 votes Speaks: Czech*, Slovak*, French, English, German, Polish, Spanish, Russian Studies: Italian, Hungarian | Message 3 of 9 10 August 2010 at 10:42am | IP Logged | |||||
1. The alphabet is different, but relatively easy to learn, since you have mostly one Cyrillic character equivalent to one Czech special character: č = ч, š = ш, etc. 2. The pronunciation is similar, and a Czech person speaking the Russian language with the Czech pronunciation can be understood (and vice-versa). 3. Grammar is similar. If you master all the Czech cases, then it is very similar in Russian. Even such issues like cases in numbers are analogical: 2,3,4 items are nominative plural in Czech, while genitive singular in Russian, 5 and more items are genitive plural in both languages 4. Vocabulary: this may be a problem. There are many identical words (dom/house), many systematically different words (a group of characters in Czech is replaced by a different group of characters in Russian) and many totally different words with quite a many false friends. There is an excellent weekly show in the Russian edition of the Czech radio with complete texts and podcasts: Давайте говорить по-чешски! (Let's speak Czech!), where you will encounter all these false friends. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| OlafP Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5216 days ago 261 posts - 667 votes Speaks: German*, French, English | Message 4 of 9 10 August 2010 at 12:48pm | IP Logged | |||||
Some 2300 years ago a Roman was walking through Greece towards Athens. He was already somewhat tired from the long journey and wondering how far it would be to his destination. Next to the road he saw an old peasant working in his field and decided to ask him: "How long is it from here to Athens?" The peasant turned around, came closer, looked at the Roman from head to toe and said: "Walk!" The Roman responded: "I know that I have to walk, but for how long?" The Greek said again: "Walk!" At this the Roman got a bit impatient: "Listen, pal, you don't have to treat me like a fool. I'm a Roman citizen and want to attend courses on philosophy in Athens. Now, would you be so kind as to tell me for HOW LONG I have to walk?" The peasant said: "Walk!" The Roman shook his head, turned around to continue his travel, thinking: 'This peasant is stupid like a nut. Let's hope there are smarter guys around in this country, otherwise I would have come here in vain.' When he had walked some distance, he heard the peasant behind him shouting: "TWO DAYS." The Roman turned around and shouted back: "HOW COME YOU COULDN'T TELL ME BEFORE?" The Greek responded: "HOW COULD I HAVE KNOWN BEFORE I SAW YOU WALKING?" 19 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6484 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 5 of 9 10 August 2010 at 1:09pm | IP Logged | |||||
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With closely related languages you also have to take into account how much passive input you have had before starting your formal studies. I had seen/heard a lot of Dutch and visited the Benelux countries many times before I decided to learn the language, - and I had even made a photocopy of a Dutch grammar in the 70s and read some pages in it then without proceeding to learn more of the language. It is totally impossible to quantify the effect of this, but I'm sure it has helped me to get a foothold in Dutch fairly quickly. Besides I had listened to a lot of Low German which is a close relative of Dutch.
But to answer the question in a precise way (which you can't use for anything!), I did Dutch wordlists and read a TY textbook and spelled my way through genuine texts (mostly from the internet) on an on-off basis for at least half a year, and then the 28. October 2007 I discovered that I could understand Dutch internet TV almost fluently - after a long period where I hadn't listened to Dutch at all! If I had spent all my time on Dutch before that memorable day then the preliminary period could probably have been cut down to a month or two of concentrated study. In the case of Portuguese I went from almost scratch to simple conversations in a month, and I had to do it fast because I had booked a trip to Cape Verde. A few months later I did my first monolingual trip to a Lusophone country (Moçambique, soon followed by Portugal itself). In this case the 'crutch' was of course Spanish (and to some extent Catalan). So if you don't expect advanced error-free fluency, have some background in language learning in general and work hard then a few months should be enough in these cases. Edited by Iversen on 10 August 2010 at 1:20pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Ygangerg Pentaglot Senior Member United States Joined 5099 days ago 100 posts - 140 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Arabic (Written), Mandarin, French Studies: German | Message 6 of 9 21 August 2010 at 8:35pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I knew Spanish quite well when I started learning French. At that point I could read, say, an encyclopedia entry in French without having ever studied it, simply by virtue of the triangulation one can use from knowledge of English and Spanish (I find I can do this with any Romance language except Romanian). So I was rather arrogant and took a semester of French, studying lackadaisically.
That was two years ago. Now I'm paying for my arrogance and laziness because while I can still read French quite well, it is difficult for me to produce. The moral: learning a similar language to one you're proficient in, you have an advantage, but you still need to study wisely. If I had studied wisely, I think I would have been advanced enough to have an intelligent conversation in French after just a couple months. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Antigrav_7 Newbie Philippines Joined 5071 days ago 17 posts - 20 votes | Message 8 of 9 25 August 2010 at 10:50am | IP Logged | |||||
1 person has voted this message useful |
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