Learning a Language

[Spiffor]

An English-speaking native will find it easier to learn French than Japanese, since a huge part (I'd say about half) of English words are from romance or French origin.
The grammar is not as alien as in Japanese, and the fact that both languages put the verb after the subject (rather than at the end of the sentence) sure does help.

But in general, there are so many aberrations in French that many a Frenchman makes tons of mistakes.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Spiffor
But in general, there are so many aberrations in French that many a Frenchman makes tons of mistakes.

Subtle. What a nice, backhanded way of complimenting oneself

[Dauphin]

I find Spanish the easiest language to speak and write in, far easier than French. I have trouble listening to French people speak as its too fast and I often end up covered in spit (but maybe thats just because I'm English).

I also have a theory that European peoples talk as though they represent their rail services. Hence English is slow with vast variation across the country, Spanish and Italian is lazy or relaxed with no-one is bothered about reaching a destination, German is clunky and French is fast and slick.

[Drake Tungsten]

I find Spanish the easiest language to speak and write in

I found Spanish rather easy to pick up as well. It's really too bad that I let my skills atrophy after high school.

[Wraith]

--"and the vocabulary is not that plentiful."

Hehehe. Sure it isn't. You've never looked at one of the big Kodansha dictionaries, have you?

Personally, I think there's two main difficulties for learning Japanese. Kanji, obviously, is the really big one (probably why it's rated 5). It also doesn't matter if you don't care about literacy, just conversation, so are we talking full literacy here, or just spoken?
The other is the huge number of homophones in the language. You'd be surprised how many different meaning the same syllables can have.

--"Yes, although the large amount of inflection and the differences between casual, polite, humble and honorific forms of words are difficult for speakers of English."

This isn't too bad. As long as you don't look Japanese, you won't be expected to get it right anyway, so you can almost always get away with using a simple polite form.

Wraith
"We can lick gravity, but sometimes the paperwork is overwhelming"
-- Wernher von Braun

[Drake Tungsten]

As long as you don't look Japanese, you won't be expected to get it right anyway, so you can almost always get away with using a simple polite form.

I know. I never use anything other than keigo form.

Still, it is difficult if you want to really master the language, as opposed to getting by via frequent playing of the gaijin card.

[Brent]

Dutch is easy to understand for a native English speaker who's studied some German. Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish should be about as easy, but not Icelandic. As for unrelated languages, aren't Hawaiian, Tahitian, Tongan, Samoan, and Maori supposed to be easy? Hebrew seems somewhat easy so far, although reading any foreign alphabet is a stumbling block, as is reading right to left.

It's easier to me to memorise foreign words when they are the most different from English.

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by Spiffor
An English-speaking native will find it easier to learn French than Japanese, since a huge part (I'd say about half) of English words are from romance or French origin.
The grammar is not as alien as in Japanese, and the fact that both languages put the verb after the subject (rather than at the end of the sentence) sure does help.

But in general, there are so many aberrations in French that many a Frenchman makes tons of mistakes.

I think French is usually considered to be the hardest western language using the Roman alphabet. It also seems that it is easier for a Frenchie to learn English than it is for an English to learn French. Just mastering the masculine and feminine takes years for a non-native speaker.

[Puma]

A highlight of teaching Spanish (I am no excellent speaker :P), to English speaking friends, is getting them to pronounce the double rr. OMG, it's soo funny. Whenever they try the word "perro" they give you "pegro" instead.
On the other hand, one of the things that still smokes me in Arabic is that I have trouble pronouncing what I read due to the absence of strict vowels (as in the Roman alphabet), which also makes everything so context dependent.
Learning a new language is a lot of fun; but you may find yourself quitting (happened to me lots of times) if you don't have people with the grammatical fluency and patience to bear your noobness. There is only so far you can get with online guides and reading material. The best advice I think I can give is to find people who are willing to put up with your curiosity, and who won't let you screw up your pronounciation.

[DaShi]

Oooh, a language pissing contest!

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris


I think French is usually considered to be the hardest western language using the Roman alphabet. It also seems that it is easier for a Frenchie to learn English than it is for an English to learn French. Just mastering the masculine and feminine takes years for a non-native speaker.

I seem to recall that of the languages spoken in Europe with a Roman alphabet, linguists said that Polish was most difficult for a non-native speaker, although I suspect anyone familiar with either Romance or Germanic/Nordic languages might also find Basque, Finnish and Magyar presenting problems.

And let’s face it, Erse, Scots Gaelic, Breton, Welsh and Cornish and Manx will present problems of their own- most especially because of idiosyncratic orthographies.

As for Russian- well, who needs two ablative cases?

[Brent]

Another way I try to learn languages is music. Christmas carols with versions in both languages are good.

[Drake Tungsten]

Christmas carols with versions in both languages are good.

That's how I learned Arabic.