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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| benzionisrael Triglot Groupie Spain Joined 4476 days ago 79 posts - 142 votes  Speaks: English*, Japanese, SpanishB2 | Message 1 of 14 15 April 2012 at 12:56pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I have plans to learn Serbo-Croatian and Modern Greek. I want to learn both up to a level of upper B2 or C1 depending on how I progress in each, but I dont know which to study first. Also I dont know whether or not it would be wise to learn them both at the same time.
Does anyone have any suggestions? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Einarr Tetraglot Senior Member United Kingdom einarrslanguagelog.w Joined 4424 days ago 118 posts - 269 votes Speaks: English, Bulgarian*, French, Russian Studies: Swedish | Message 2 of 14 15 April 2012 at 1:44pm | IP Logged | |||||
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In my opinion, I'd definitely discourage you to learn them both at the same time. (right now I'm refurbishing three languages because I have to, and I have hell of a time doing it, regardless the fact I've spent years of studying them)
First, do mind the fact that you'd need to learn two new alphabets. Yes, Serbs do write in Latin script, but originally Serbian is written with Cyrillic letters. That aside, you won't have such problem with Croatian (alphabet-wise). Also bear in mind the fact that Serbian and Croatian (though mutually intelligible) are two separate language, and it will most definitely require you lots of time and effort in order to master one of them (though I recommend you first start with Serbian, just in case), so you can build-up later with the second one. Of course, regardless of your choice, whichever language you pick up first, you'll be able to both communicate with it effortlessly in Serbia and Croatia by speaking it(In Bulgaria as well, since Bulgarian is very close to both these languages, and from my personal experience, it's very easy for both speakers to comprehend each other and vice versa). Another bonus to it all is that you'll be able to understand Macedonian and Bosnian rather easy too. That said, I'd like to move on to Greek and will definitely state, that I'd rather pick it up first as a target language, and only then, later on, move to either Serbian or Croatian. It's a beautiful and very rich language that would give you solid basis if you'd fancy being a prominent language learner. And don't get put off by the alphabet - it's extremely easy to master, and though many may say that the language is very difficult, after all it's the only one of its kind amongst the Indo-European languages, it's very rewarding and a lot of fun to study. Yes it's not mutually intelligible with any of it neighboring languages (and any other language for the matter of fact) whatsoever, but it will give us a solid basis for you to see how a quite a large amount of words in other languages actually derived from Greek. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6408 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 3 of 14 15 April 2012 at 5:46pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I think it mostly depends on whether you have enough time for both. If you're not sure, just try. Worst case scenario is that you quit one, but it'll still be easier next time.
Also, if you mostly just like the alphabet - simply learn it. It's been said many times that if it's your main reason, the fascination will soon wear off, and you'll be left unmotivated for the rest of the language learning journey. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| benzionisrael Triglot Groupie Spain Joined 4476 days ago 79 posts - 142 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese, SpanishB2 | Message 4 of 14 22 April 2012 at 6:42pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I can already read a reproduce cyrillic script and understand the Greek alphabet. I can read Greek sentences but I am still not comfortable writing it.
I am not learning any for their alphabets. I prefer latin over cyrillic for esthetic reasons. I think the Greek alphabet is beautiful however. But that is not my main reason. I genuinely like both of the languages. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Merv Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5084 days ago 414 posts - 749 votes Speaks: English*, Serbo-Croatian* Studies: Spanish, French | Message 5 of 14 23 April 2012 at 3:33pm | IP Logged | |||||
The most important thing you can do now is to focus. Your profile says B2 for Spanish and that you are in Spain. Why not polish the Spanish? Becoming fluent in SC or Greek will be much harder than Spanish. Once you master Spanish, pick one of them and focus. And do not think that the large number of technical terms with Greek roots in Western languages will help you all that much, because Greek will be a whole system of totally unfamiliar words and grammar. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| benzionisrael Triglot Groupie Spain Joined 4476 days ago 79 posts - 142 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese, SpanishB2 | Message 6 of 14 23 April 2012 at 8:37pm | IP Logged | |||||
Although my profile says I possess level B2 in Spanish I think my actual level is already C1 because I have passed more time in Spain and Latinamerica since taking the examination. I have just not taken the C1 exam yet. So for that reason I havent written my Spanish proficiency level as C1. I have already learned all the grammatical concepts, can manage all verb forms, possess a decent sized vocabulary, etc... If I live in Spain my Spanish will improve naturally. I am even considering starting a degree course at a Spanish university in the near future. It is always good to polish something continuously so that it will be even better than what it already is, however at the same time I would like to invest in other languages. Even if I dive into Serbo-Croatian or Greek, I don´t intend to neglect my acquired knowledge of Spanish. Fortunately I have many friends in Spain and many from Latinamerica with whom I maintain contact. As a consequence I am able to maintain a high level of motivation for maintaining and bettering my knowledge of Spanish. Edited by benzionisrael on 23 April 2012 at 8:40pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| benzionisrael Triglot Groupie Spain Joined 4476 days ago 79 posts - 142 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese, SpanishB2 | Message 7 of 14 25 April 2012 at 2:54am | IP Logged | |||||
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Update: I have just recently began checking out a few lessons of my new language textbooks and have explored a bit of both Serbo-Croatian and Greek. In these last two days I have studied the basic verbal conjugations, acquired a bit of vocabulary and have taken a glance at the nominal and adjectival case system of Serbo-Croatian, and then I learned how to write the Greek alphabet, learned some basic expressions and took a brief look at the Greek verbal paradigms and the genders of nouns.
Both of them seem really interesting languages to me and I would like to learn both in the long run. Right now I am just playing around with and exploring these two languages, but I feel that soon I will have to make the decision of which one to focus on first should it be unfeasable to study both at the same time. I feel much beauty in the Greek script even though its orthography is harder than that of Serbo-Croatian. Written SC is more phonetic and therefore easier that written Greek which is unphonetic at times and contains irregularities. I like the simplicity of SC orthography on the other hand. However, the case system seems difficult to comprehend at this stage whereas Greek nominal and adjectival declension is much more simple. It can be a handful memorizing and understanding the case system. I don´t know if to focus on the case-heavy difficult language first and gain experience in that sort of ballgame or whether to study the less case-heavy language first and secure an investment. I want to get proficient in another language fast, both in speaking and writing. I fear that complex case systems will be difficult to reproduce in real speech. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Merv Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5084 days ago 414 posts - 749 votes Speaks: English*, Serbo-Croatian* Studies: Spanish, French | Message 8 of 14 25 April 2012 at 2:28pm | IP Logged | |||||
I agree that Greek script is very beautiful, maybe the nicest script out there other than Georgian. I'm not sure about your impression that Greek is easier. I think FSI/DLI states that they are pretty comparable in difficulty, at the category 3 (of 4) level. I don't know what to say about your worries regarding case declension, other than that a lot of major languages involve cases, and oftentimes harder systems than those of SC or Greek. Westerners tend to get spoiled by the Romance languages and simpler Germanic languages (Dutch, Nordic) into thinking that cases are something insurmountable. They're not. You just need to practice and think about 3x harder to make a sentence because you're not just worried about getting the verb in order, but also the nouns, adjectives, and pronouns. Eventually it all becomes second nature. Edited by Merv on 25 April 2012 at 2:31pm 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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