Words in other languages.

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@Charlie

I say "mice" for both the biological and the computer kind...

 

I suppose that any language that isn't your native tongue can be difficult to learn. I base my comments on most people I've met who have tried to learn English. They found the Romance languages easier because they were similar. English also has one of the largest vocabularies. They had difficulty finding the right word with just the right connotation.

For those who said that English is easy, what was your first language? What level of mastery do you feel you have? Do your countrymen find learning English easy as well? For those who cited other languages, are the rules you mention as varied as English? Obviously there are a lot of forms but if you can conjugate all in the same way, it would be not be as difficult. I took some French and Spanish classes and found that conjugation and tenses were more uniform, meaning less variations. But I may not have gone deeper into the languages to really find out.

Oh, another reason is that I think that English is a difficult language to master is that a lot people who claim that English is their first language are mutilating it.

 

Gah, I hate grammar. And I love it. Meaning, I want to spell and pronounce everything the way they should be done. But I'll steer far off the rules that make things the way they are.

I know the very basics, and I mean like junior-high basics, of English, Swedish and Finnish grammar. Yet I can speak all of them fluently. It's amusing really, always b*tching about the mistakes my friends make with English, but not willing to go all the way. I guess I'm a hypocrate somehow. Well, doesn't bother me as I've always been one to go with instinct rather than pure logic and reason alone.

The have vs of thing was new to me though.

A little more Finnish:

Musta = colour 'black' / "i think that" (slang)
Multa = soil / "from me" (slang)

Although they're both officially considered "slang", everyone uses those words. The correct form of the word "musta" would be "minusta" ("multa" -> "minulta"), and that's something you only see on TV. Same for the other word. Such as the common stupid joke that ends with "saat 'multa' markan". It translates to "I'll give you a dollar", but the joke about it is that it also means "you'll get a dollar made out of soil". Couldn't think of any other equally important words. Finnish language really doesn't have too many of them, it seems.

Edit: I go with those who say English seems so easy because there's so lot of it. Finland officially has two languages: Finnish and Swedish. Although Swedish is a dying language here, we still have towns that are consisted of even up to 90% of Swedish-speaking people. I originated from one such town, 'Tammisaari', or 'Ekenäs' in Swedish.

Even growing up in that town, most of my Finnish classmates are better at English than Swedish, although most of the shop-keepers etc speak Swedish there. Granted, much of that is thanks to the fact that you don't really need to use Swedish in Finland, you'll get by just perfectly with Finnish and English alone (in our capital city it's easier to get customer service in English rather than Swedish, in most places). Still, I think it's a good testament to the fact that TV and other media, which -if not Finnish- is 99% English, has had a great influence over people.

Finnish itself is not even a relative language to English. Swedish is, though. As is German and who knows what else (though I believe those were the only two well-known English relatives).

I consider myself very well-versed in English. I used to work at a job where some 50% of everything I said each day had to be in English. Although it's been 1.5 years since I was there, I still use English a few times a week. My pronounciation is very good when I've the patience to take my time instead of trying to speak quickly, like the rather blunt and 'clumsy' Finnish language is spoken. Even if I can't compete with those who have English as their mothertongue, obviously, I'm positive that for a foreigner who's only once gone abroad, I'm doing very well indeed.

But others are not like me. They weren't gaming geeks since being 8-9 years old, or fantasy literature geeks (well ok, I don't deserve the title of a 'geek' in that, as I only have around 80-100 books as opposed to some who have closer to 500) since mid-puberty. They didn't think English along with drawing & art were *the* most fun and interesting subjects in school either. Anyway, I never found the language too hard. Though it pissed me off to no end when I found out I'd spelt the word "whether" (used to say "wether", which is an animal) wrong for the last 3+ years in a row without ever noticing it.

Man I have the energy to write again today.

[ May 07, 2005, 13:07: Message edited by: Foradasthar ]

 

Obviously my native language is Greek and I have been taught English, German and French for 6 or 7 years. I feel that I speak and write greek in a very good level but not perfect. Yes, all my friends, who can speak or have been taught more than one foreign language, believe that English is the easiest language to learn. Personally I base my opinion on that in english I have never had the hard time I have had with prepositions and articles in German or with almost everything in french (mainly because I hate the french language but it was obligatory to take its classes in high school).

The examples I cited are concerning only the regular forms of nouns and verbs and not even all of them. In Greek the usual endings of the male nouns are -os, -as and -is and of course their conjugation varies. Just compare the conjugation of "anthropos" (see my previous post) with the conjugation of the word "andras":

Singular
andras
andra
andra
andra

Plural
andres
andron
andres
andres

This is happening everywhere as well. The most recent trend here is to reverse the syllables of the words. Perhaps it's just the next step to evolution of the languages.

Edit:

Oops, you mean what level of mastery do I feel that I have in english and not in my native language? Well in this case I feel that I speak English in a satisfactory level, which means that I can be easily understood by others and I can easily understand what others tell me. I spoke better 5 years ago, when I was in England for my MSc, but since then SP is the only place that I use English daily.

[ May 07, 2005, 21:06: Message edited by: BOC ]

 

There are hundreds of them in Turkish. If I start to write them, it will take hours...

 

I'd definitely see English as being one of the hardest languages - I guess I am lucky having it as my first language. With most other languages there are much fewer hononyms and there are clearer rules to constructing sentances and congregating words. Of course there will always be exceptions in any language, but it seems as if there are more in English.

Although German is my worst subject at school school (16 last year, 17 last term) I can see some sense in most of it - there seems to be a rule for everything.

In German
stunde - lesson (school)/hour (unit of time)

 

Hmmm. Heres one, in german. the word schwanze. Meaning tail, and...something else. A friend of mine told his german penfriends(who are so hot, it makes me feel ill) that his cat had a broken schwanze.
We haven't stopped laughing at him yet.

 

@ Daie

Sucks to be the cat

As a grade-schooler in the Philippines, I learned Tagalog (native lang.) and English. English was easy then because I learned it at a young age from "the ground up". When I emigrated to America and started the 5th grade, my teachers told me I spoke better than most of the other children. I guess it's because I learned the more "formal" English as opposed to "American" English.
Unfortunately, in the struggle to adapt to my new environment, I pretty much stopped speaking Tagalog altogether, thus I can barely speak it today. Rather embarassing, actually.
I took French and Spanish in high school and found both languages fairly easy, but as above, I've lost my facility with both due to non-use.
.
.
.
What do you call a person who speaks two languages? Bi-lingual.
What do you call a person who speaks three languages? Tri-lingual.
What do you call a person who speaks one language? American.

 

For Swissgerman speakers, English is perceived as by far the easiest language of all languages that may be mandatory at schools here. That would be easier as Italian, French and Spanish.

Compared to English, other languages are an intellectual challenge. And that's why there's such a run for English in schools, because English is the least common denominator. There are many who wish to reduce the other languages so their misunderstood children will finally get the grades they deserve, instead of being overburdened with languages that require an actual effort to learn.

But there's a catch. This is completely different for people whose mothertongue is Italian or Spanish. They in general loath English and love French, as French comes a lot easier to them. That means, a romance speaker is in general way ahead in French, while a germanic speaker is in general way ahead in English.

And yes, I live in Babylon.

So, for me there is no doubt, that the perceived difficulty of a language depends on the mothertongue. And for all speakers of a germanic language, English is as easy as it gets. Or at least way easier then slavic or romance languages.

For French speakers, English is slightly more difficult than German. (but that's a very close call)

For me personally, I just babble English, but my French was a personal effort that I am proud of.

 

For those who said english is hard, have your learnt Latin or Greek?

 

@ el timor.

People who speak one language- American. That language being American. Theres a saying over here, but I won't repeat it.

Joking, my friends from across the pond, I fully acknowledge that English is a ^**%* language, and I actually prefer French as a language. It's more lyrical.

 

@All people that diss my precious English,

I say English is just different. It's unfair to call it easy. Yes, it's easy to speak it at a reasonable level, but once you start studying it seriously (and I mean don't mean high school level here) you'll discover that it's one of the trickiest languages around. English grammar is just one huge exception. The problem with English is that even the native speakers don't speak grammatically correct.

Modal Verbs, tenses, adverbials, vocabulary (problematic relation pronunciation-spelling)...they are harder than in any language I've ever studied (and that includes Dutch, French, German, Spanish, Latin and a tiny bit of Greek).

German for one, is an incredibly stable language, once you know the rules, you're set. Of course, you have the gender and the cases, which makes it a hard language to learn to speak fluently, but other than that, gründlich und logisch.

Dutch (mother tongue) is one of the hardest languages to learn as a non native speaker, so I've been told. I wonder why...

The romantic languages are not much harder than any other imho.

What's really at another level of difficulty is a language like Chinese, because it generally has so little in common with the mechanisms of the big European languages.

 

English is easy to learn, but hard to master. The more you know it, the more you realise you don't know and possibly can't ever know.

Must get back to learning German one day. The verb table looks the same as the English one. And after Latin and Greek, the cases and genders aren't going to be anywhere near difficult.

Heck, if only I could make my French better. It's probably always going to suck.

 

Oh I must have a word, being some one who studies, (not fluent), but studies 6 languages, I must say English is quite tough. First of all in relation to Japanese, we have conjugation, which, for those of you who are learning any language is tough, let alone one with changing rules such as English. Next, in relation to spanish, french, and the other romance languages, also on the topic of conjugation: English has no "set" rules for how to conjugate verbs. English has something different for every word.

Of course, these are just my 2 cents.

 

@Uytuun
I'm allowed to diss Enlgish, it's my first language. And, you're right, most native speakers don't speak it properly. Especially chavs *spits*

A friend and I are trying to return older words back into common useage. Words such as 'rapscallion'.

 

That's actually pretty similar to my story, except replace "Philippines" with "Norway," "Tagalog" with "Bokmal" (main dialect of Norwegian), and "5th" with "3rd." I've almost completely forgotten Bokmal, and both my mother and my sister make fun of me for that. At least I assume they're making fun of me. I can't actually understand them.

 

Wow, I didn't expect this much reaction to my post. I'm glad though. I think we all should speak our mother tongue and another language (not necessarily English) fluently. It would be great if that happened. I would like to learn more languages. I don't think I'll ever take up Finnish or Dutch though.

Oh, as for Latin, my Jesuit professors say that it's quite a flexible language.