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Hungarian OR Finnish - please help! | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| foram Bilingual Pentaglot Newbie United States Joined 5967 days ago 6 posts - 7 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish*, French, Portuguese, German Studies: Russian | Message 1 of 64 19 December 2007 at 11:53pm | IP Logged | ||
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I can hardly believe that this has not already been asked (I did searches)
Up till now, I relied on the top 10 world languages list. But instead of progressing to Japanese, I had a great idea: I read that if I learn Hungarian or Finnish, then I would be a HERO. :) Besides, the latin alphabet is so welcoming! But WHICH ONE? There are no discussions on this site. Each time I read about the other one, I can't decide. Here are my findings so far: Finnish Pros:
Hungarian Pros:
This is very important for me because each one will sap away 2 years of my life, and this is not transferable (they are really too distant). Usefulness does not matter, I'm only in it for the money [difficult language badge]. Please correct this and please tell me some more! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 6938 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes  20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 2 of 64 20 December 2007 at 6:06am | IP Logged | ||
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I think that both are comparably hard if you have an Indo-European background. Apart from the initial charge that you get from learning either of these languages, do you believe that you could sustain a solid effort for the next two years devoted to either of these languages? Why do you want to learn either of these languages? There are plenty of "difficult" languages out there, and learning for example, Navaho could also satisfy your desire to learn a "difficult" language.
By the way, Hungarian verbs are just another way of treating actions and "make sense" in their own way. In addition, Finnish has "consonant gradation" (e.g. -kk- > -k-) which means that consonants in a word change depending on its case. Sometimes the changes aren't predictable. The Finnish profile here didn't mention consonant gradation. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6379 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 64 20 December 2007 at 11:27am | IP Logged | ||
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I think I've read somewhere that Hungarian orphography isn't phonetic.
And it's pretty rare that the changes caused by consonant gradation in Finnish aren't predictable. ;P Although I'm not sure it all matters that much. Better base your choice on the culture: if you like it, it will motivate you greatly. I could recommend some Finnish music if you're interested, just say what genres you prefer ;) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| kewms Senior Member United States Joined 5969 days ago 160 posts - 159 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese | Message 4 of 64 20 December 2007 at 12:03pm | IP Logged | ||
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Chinese and Japanese are both pretty tough, too, and are spoken by orders of magnitude more people than Finnish and Hungarian combined. Usefulness aside, that means you'll have more opportunities to show off how smart you are, since you're more likely to encounter someone who actually speaks the language.
Katherine 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| alancairns Diglot Groupie Canada Joined 6072 days ago 49 posts - 51 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish | Message 5 of 64 20 December 2007 at 7:08pm | IP Logged | ||
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Why not go for glory and study Basque?
ALAN 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| foram Bilingual Pentaglot Newbie United States Joined 5967 days ago 6 posts - 7 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish*, French, Portuguese, German Studies: Russian | Message 6 of 64 20 December 2007 at 10:16pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hello All, thanks for the quick replies! I apologize for the overambitious, almost infantile first post.
I have a lot of admiration for Basque culture too, alan. I did a school project on them and tried to make people sympathetic for Basque nationalism. However, I always have to explain to North Americans what Basque is. Finnish on the other hand, has been more widely touted by tourists and emigrants' friends as a language that nobody can learn. At least I think. Thoughts? Chung I read your Hungarian review and didn't think that that same person would reply to my post! I also heard your hungarian sound, and it is very useful. I found it not rushed like the native videos, which don't have captions anyway. A story, I ran into a Hungarian online, and instead of saying "hey" i said just one word "nemetorszag". Then he said "WOW, how do you know that??? Can you say any other words?" "Magyarorszag" "omg why do you know these things" and then i was sad that that was all I knew and it was nominative. Serpent thanks for encouraging that Finnish isn't utterly irregular. I guess Finnish is more phonetic but that takes its toll on your tongue muscle. How about pop genre? They usually sing clearest. I estimate that I can retain the interest for one or two years. You see, I readed (sic) German learners every night because I couldn't hold back the interest, and that was because I learned 3 new cases. The hardest part now will be to buy comparable finno-ugric books. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| foram Bilingual Pentaglot Newbie United States Joined 5967 days ago 6 posts - 7 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish*, French, Portuguese, German Studies: Russian | Message 7 of 64 20 December 2007 at 10:33pm | IP Logged | ||
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Oh btw Katherine, I're not just going to dump Japanese. I enjoy anime and I have some friends who are trying to sway me to Jap. They told me about wa and ga. But then I will just know what they know and it's not such a discovery.
(Yes ditching Mandarin. Holy cow 4000 letters that I'd neglectingly forget unless I practice for my whole western life) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ElfoEscuro Diglot Senior Member United States cyworld.com/brahmapu Joined 6071 days ago 408 posts - 423 votes Speaks: Portuguese, English* Studies: Japanese | Message 8 of 64 20 December 2007 at 10:52pm | IP Logged | ||
Hah! Even the easiest Circassian language easily eclipses Finnish in that regard. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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