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Most logical languages | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| PaulLambeth Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5154 days ago 244 posts - 315 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Icelandic, Hindi, Irish | Message 97 of 143 28 October 2011 at 1:47pm | IP Logged | |||||
Haha, yes Mark, even Russian, I imagine, if you study it as a second language (although I've never looked at Russian). My Hungarian friend was confused when I told him that Hungarian is logical; it's a little overblown case-wise but it makes sense if you build up the rules. German would be perfect for me if a few things happened: - a division between nominative and accusative for feminine and neuter singular (and the plural) - if sich were accusative and SIR were dative, instead of sich (like, mich/mir, dich/dir) - if the adjective declensions neatened up a little like the definitive articles - if Herr were Herr in accusative and dative too And if not for numerous exceptions, and the abundance of genetive prepositions, Icelandic'd be up there for logic too. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| strikingstar Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 4954 days ago 292 posts - 444 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin*, Cantonese, Swahili Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written) | Message 98 of 143 28 October 2011 at 3:25pm | IP Logged | |||||
I think this is because the rules seem largely arbitrary. As in they seem to exist in a vacuum. (This is just my opinion from studying Arabic.) In a language like Swahili for example, you can usually count on one plus one being equal to two. Period. In Arabic. One plus one equals two. Unless it's in the afternoon. Then it's equal to 1.95. If it's in the evening it's 2.05. And then if it's a Sunday, it's equal to 1.99. However, if the Sunday also happens to be Eid Al-Fitr, then it's probably equal to 2.075. That's when you fling your textbook against the wall and start screaming like a maniac. 10 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| zerothinking Senior Member Australia Joined 6153 days ago 528 posts - 772 votes Speaks: English* | Message 99 of 143 31 October 2011 at 9:34pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I don't think any language can be considered logical but consistent. It is no more
logical for a language to have consistent rules with few exceptions than not to have consistent rules. When a language is consistent you can deduce things about the language leading to the idea that it is logical. In terms of the structure, logical doesn't apply. Edited by zerothinking on 31 October 2011 at 9:38pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Xerxes Quadrilingual Octoglot Newbie NetherlandsRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4551 days ago 10 posts - 12 votes Speaks: Dutch*, Danish*, SpanishC2* Studies: Biblical Hebrew*, French, English, German, Italian, Latin Studies: Ancient Greek, Turkish | Message 100 of 143 04 November 2011 at 5:16pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Every language has its own logic (sorry). The Basques I know tend to find their
language extremely logic and easy and so on (it's impossible). The same thing for a couple of 'magyarok' and I guess this rule can be applied to the vast majority of people who speak but one language. As for my opinion: Turkish is an extremely ''logical'' language once you get the hang of it (the vocalharmony) and is not entirely useless, having almost the same amount of speakers as German. Other than that, Spanish is hands down the easiest, most widely spoken and most logical (if so to speak) language you'll ever find, regulated by an excellent institution, ensuring this reputation throughout the future. If you want specific opinions please make a poll or something ;). Xerxes 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| koba Heptaglot Senior Member AustriaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5649 days ago 118 posts - 201 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Hungarian, French | Message 101 of 143 04 November 2011 at 5:46pm | IP Logged | |||||
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@Xerxes: Can you please explain to me why Spanish is so logical? I agree that it's fairly easy, but I don't really see an obvious and distinct logic to it, perhaps it's just simple? I think there are other more logical languages (e.g.: Hungarian) and I say that because the language makes total sense after mastering the vowel harmony, that's like the key to understand all the cases and understand the vocabulary.
For example, if a word starts with a back vowel harmony it's very likely that all the other syllables are going to have a back vowel harmony, thus the vocabulary becomes very predictable and easy to memorise, it's something we can do instinctively. Also, the endings are very clear and distinctive, one can easily notice if a word is an adjective, adverb, verb, noun, by looking at it. hang (sound/voice); hangzik (to sound); hangos (loud); hangosan (loudly); hangerõ ("voice-power", that is, volume), hangfal ("sound-wall" = speaker) 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Xerxes Quadrilingual Octoglot Newbie NetherlandsRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4551 days ago 10 posts - 12 votes Speaks: Dutch*, Danish*, SpanishC2* Studies: Biblical Hebrew*, French, English, German, Italian, Latin Studies: Ancient Greek, Turkish | Message 102 of 143 04 November 2011 at 8:25pm | IP Logged | |||||
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@Koba
I am sorry to tell you that I am not very familiar with Magyar =/; I could really not give you any clear arguments as for why Spanish is more 'logical' than Hungarian and it sounds like you are completely right when you state that Hungarian is in a way more logical than Spanish (once you have mastered the vowel harmony just like in Turkish) as for the predictability of words e.g. Now, of course, I could start bragging on about etymology, the fact that Spanish shares a huge amount of words with other languages, has a clear mother tongue, etc. etc. Trying to justify the logical aspects within Spanish vocabulary, but I really do not see the point of such a debate. I think the main issue here is the word 'logical'. It is easy to get trapped in endless discussions nobody really cares about since it at the end really is and will be a subjective topic. The main problem I have with the word is that I do simply not know its exact meaning. It is not explained at all in the first post, so let's just assume we are looking for the following: 'the most self-evident language'. To me, stating that something is self- evident, is the same thing as saying that it is natural; easily comprehended; easy (for a foreigner). I think you already know where I am going ;)... Now, I think you can explain yourself even better than me why Spanish is easy, its main assets being that is it written as it is pronounced (this is huge), its vast vocabulary, making it possible to decir mucho con poco and of course the tremendous amount of speakers. Now I do not think these three points are the main strengths of Hungarian in any way, as I even recall an Hungarian violinist and friend of mine telling jokes in front of the orchestra about difficulties foreigners encountered as for the pronunciation of Hungarian. We were playing Bartóks Két Kép (not that this is useful, provable information to you in any way... :P). Now I am going to use his arguments, hopefully you recognize them. What he told about Hungarian pretty much came down on the fact that it is not an easy language for foreigners to master. He did actually mention that the vocabulary is easy and predictable... Once you have fought your way up to creating a base vocabulary, memorizing all the new Uralic words by heart. Other than that the word order should be completely different for foreigners and the same goes for the verbs. Now, I am sure it is all very 'logical', now that you have mastered the language up to a certain point, but please bear in mind how the average (bilingual) person, just having married an Hungarian man/woman would experience these same 'logical' points. And (sigh) here we have the subjectiveness coming back again, since everything depends on the individual. Although I do think that the majority of persons would state that Hungarian can't touch Spanish, simply because Hungarian is generally spoken of as a harder language to learn. This does however not mean that there are people who'd state the opposite ;)... God, why did I even write all this :D. Bottom line: I depends on the definition of 'logical' and of course on the individual in question. Again, I do really not like these sort of discussions and have difficulties with seeing the point of it ;). If you'd tell me Hungarian is more 'logical' than Spanish, I'd happily believe you, but this does in no way affect my viewpoint since I have simply only heard other people talking about Hungarian. I have never actually jumped in by myself. Hope I answered your question in a way x) Have a nice day! Xerxes P.S. You don't happen to know a method for Spanish speakers to learn Portuguese (apart from reading a lot)? It would make me very happy!! Edited by Xerxes on 04 November 2011 at 8:27pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| koba Heptaglot Senior Member AustriaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5649 days ago 118 posts - 201 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Hungarian, French | Message 103 of 143 05 November 2011 at 2:34am | IP Logged | |||||
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@Xerxes: Spanish is definitely much easier and simpler, and I'm not trying to say that one can master Hungarian easier because it's more logical. Hungarian is still a very complex language besides all and definitely strange for Indo-European language speakers. My point is simply to discuss the logicalness of individual languages, that is, what we can deduce from obviousness and logicality and at this point I don't really see how a language like Spanish is more logical.
It might share Indo-European characteristics and other similarities in the structure that help other Indo-European language speakers to learn it with less effort, but if you see it from that point of view you're not really analysing the logic of the language itself, but rather how the logic of the language is similar to the one in your native language or in other languages that you have already mastered. About a Spanish > Portuguese course, well, I'm not really aware of any good courses. There's one course published by Assimil though, I can't really assess the quality of this one since I haven't leafed it through, but Assimil is generally very good, specially for similar languages since it's bilingual, one can notice at once the divergences. (Mind that this is Portuguese from Portugal, if you want Brazilian Portuguese there's a French course produced by the same company, just look for it on the website) http://www.assimil.com/descriptionProduitDetail.do?paramIdPr oduit=1970¶mIdMethode=1970 Edited by koba on 05 November 2011 at 2:35am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Xerxes Quadrilingual Octoglot Newbie NetherlandsRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4551 days ago 10 posts - 12 votes Speaks: Dutch*, Danish*, SpanishC2* Studies: Biblical Hebrew*, French, English, German, Italian, Latin Studies: Ancient Greek, Turkish | Message 104 of 143 10 November 2011 at 10:02pm | IP Logged | |||||
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@koba
Sorry for the late response! As I wrote in the previous post; If you want "
Good luck out there! Xerxes 1 person has voted this message useful |
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