The hardest language to learn

[blobru]

Well, either that or too many orgies.
I was under the impression that it's generally accepted that almost nobody actually spoke Classical Latin as it was written and as it survives today, probably for the reasons you describe. Rather, it was a sort of lingua franca (heh, there's your Latin) for the educated classes, especially as dialects in spoken language were likely to differ from one end of the Empire to the other.
...

Yeah, I think pretty much all the uneducated plebes would have spoken "Vulgar Latin" (always makes me smile, sounds like a language of nothing but swear words: "Hey Dickus, bite-us me!"); Classical Latin in discourse being reserved for the patrician ruling class. Yet, how Cicero and Caesar ever said even two words to each other I have no idea.
When I was studying Latin at university, I came home for Xmas once and went to visit a friend whose parents spoke Italian. By this time I had 3 semesters of written Latin under my belt. To everyone's amazement, especially mine, I was now able to understand most of what the parents were saying, and could carry on a slow simple present tense conversation (they had to fill in a lot of words of course, the Romans didn't have toasters, etc). So I guess Classical Latin devolved into Vulgar Latin which led directly to Italian -- in a sense, Italian is 'modern' Latin.

 

[Senex]

Jive.

Jive isn't that hard. I'm a pretty good jive translater. Let me pick on a post from Fran, someone whom I've previously tranlated into Swedish. This is from this very thread

Fran:

Apparently, according to a TV-program I once saw, of all the Scandinavian languages (except for Finnish who isn't related to the rest of them) Danish is the hardest to learn to speak. It seems Danish kids are the ones who are the latest to learn to speak their own language when they start to talk.

Swedes are notoriously bad at understanding spoken Danish, I think. When a Dane realizes you are Swedish they just sigh and starts to talk English while a Norwegian happily continues speaking Norwegian when encountering a Swede

Personally though I think that Icelandic and Färöiska is bit more difficult to understand than Danish, but that could be becuase you so seldom hear it.

Now in jive...

Apparently, acco'din' t'a TV-honky code ah' once saw, uh all de Scandinavian languages (except fo' Finnish who ain't related t'de rest uh dem) Danish be de hardest t'learn t'rap. It seems Danish kids is de ones who is de latest t'learn t'rap deir own language when dey start t'talk. Ya' know?

Swedes is noto'iously baaaad at dig itin' rapped Danish, ah' dink. Ya' know? When some Dane realizes ya' is Swedish dey plum sigh and starts t'talk English while some No'wegian happily continues rappin' No'wegian when encounterin' some Swede

Sucka'ally dough ah' dink dat Icelandic and Färöiska be bit mo'e difficult t'dig it dan Danish, but dat could be becuase ya' so's seldom hear it. Man!

 

[Harpoon]

Senex, were you ever a passenger on an airplane where everyone who ate the fish got sick?

I see some other drook voted for Russian. Two of us. We're on a roll.

Russian has five cases: nominative, accusative, dative, prepositional and the dreaded genative case.

I say dreaded because the genative case, especially in the plural, doesn't seem to have rules at all. Nouns and adjectives adopt different suffix ending depending on the case, gender and number. The changes are predictable, except in the plural genative -- makes Anglo students bonkers.

As for the truism in an earlier post: use it or loose it: I attended the Defense Language Institute 1963-65. It was a 12-month intensive course.

I was conversant upon graduation, and could read and understand Pravda. On a bet, I read "Vyna ee Meer" ("War and Peace") in Russian. But I last spoke it in 1970. Little remains.

Even back then I got little use out of it other than the hush-hush stuff we did for the NSA in Europe and Turkey. But a few weeks after I moved to Braunschweig, I met a young Polish woman who had lived in Germany since she was 17.

Her English sucked, as did my German. But I asked her if she spoke Russian, knowing it was a requirement in Eastern Bloc countries.

She did. We had a lovely thing going until the suits told me I had to break it off or the security of the Free World was in jeopardy.

Nonetheless, I was thrilled to communicate with someone in a language that was native to neither of us. I know millions of people do that daily using English, but it was a big deal to me back then.

And speaking of English, I'm sure many of the UK posters on JREF think English is the hardest language for Americans to learn.

 

[Elind]

Apparently, Icelandic is quite difficult. This English savant learned it in a week, though.

Yes, I saw that a while ago. Interesting in that it seems to prove the premise that language is wired as much as learned, even though it takes a savant to prove it. I don't think this man was a "genius" in the Einstein sense, his brain was wired to accept language.

 

[Ryokan]

Sure - although the Danes, Swedes and Norwegians I'm sure would argue their languages are different - at least different enough to be considered three separate languages, and not just accents.

Naw, they're the same language, really. The only reason they're considered different languages is political.

Scandinavia has an enormous amount of dialects, and I find I understand someone from Stockholm much easier than a Norwegian with a dialect from some parts of southern and southwestern Norway.

 

[Elind]

Jive isn't that hard. I'm a pretty good jive translater. Let me pick on a post from Fran, someone whom I've previously tranlated into Swedish. This is from this very thread

Fran:

Now in jive...

Apparently, acco'din' t'a TV-honky code ah' once saw, uh all de Scandinavian languages (except fo' Finnish who ain't related t'de rest uh dem) Danish be de hardest t'learn t'rap. It seems Danish kids is de ones who is de latest t'learn t'rap deir own language when dey start t'talk. Ya' know?

Swedes is noto'iously baaaad at dig itin' rapped Danish, ah' dink. Ya' know? When some Dane realizes ya' is Swedish dey plum sigh and starts t'talk English while some No'wegian happily continues rappin' No'wegian when encounterin' some Swede

Sucka'ally dough ah' dink dat Icelandic and Färöiska be bit mo'e difficult t'dig it dan Danish, but dat could be becuase ya' so's seldom hear it. Man!

That's cool. Funny thing is it almost sounds Swedish. In case I haven't mentioned, I was born there and speak it. Danes politely slow down a bit and then I can understand them. Norwegians...well, it wasn't too long ago we let them loose.. nuff said.(joking, , but true).

Language is funny though. I learned French at an earlier age, and still speak it with an accent that surprises (pleasantly) Parisians. I also used to speak pretty fluent Spanish, but that was learned at a later age and I can't do too much with it anymore. Even used to be passable at German, which at least has a lot of common vocabulary with Swedish/Norwegian/ (arrgh) Danish, but that too has passed.

Oh, and then there were those seven years of Latin, but I try hard to forget that.

I think that other than some obvious talents for language in individuals, certainly youth helps.

On the other hand I also think that nobody has an excuse for not learning the language of the country they live in. I'm old (ish) but I'm sure I could move to anywhere in the world and learn to function at a reasonable level in any language at a speech level and I don't think I have any special talents.

That's what pisses me off when I run into people here (US) who can't speak English. Laziness and people who coddle them, because same coddlers think it's a major life hurdle to learn a language just because they've been too lazy to try.

 

[lula]

Language is funny though. I learned French at an earlier age, and still speak it with an accent that surprises (pleasantly) Parisians. I also used to speak pretty fluent Spanish, but that was learned at a later age and I can't do too much with it anymore.

Honey, that's textbook psychology. Once you get past about age 12, learning languages becomes infinitely more difficult. There is a term for this but it escapes me now. I went to France when I was eleven and picked up the language easily when I was there. I went to New Caledonia a couple of years later and it just didn't come. Funny....

That's what pisses me off when I run into people here (US) who can't speak English. Laziness and people who coddle them, because same coddlers think it's a major life hurdle to learn a language just because they've been too lazy to try.

I abhor this attitude. Have you ever moved overseas, to a country where you don't speak the language? It's HARD. It takes time. If that makes me a coddler, well, whatever. I'd rather be a coddler than a bigot. Maybe the people you run into who have trouble with English have only just moved to The States. As we've already established, English is an incredibly difficult language to learn. To dismiss people to have initial troubles with it as 'lazy' is simply not fair. Maybe you could get of your high horse and make a greater effort to learn the languages of minority groups in your country - or maybe it's you that's too 'lazy'? Or maybe you could step back and realise how lucky you are to have English as a first language? Not everyone has that luxury. [/rant]

 

[timhau]

Yes, I saw that a while ago. Interesting in that it seems to prove the premise that language is wired as much as learned, even though it takes a savant to prove it. I don't think this man was a "genius" in the Einstein sense, his brain was wired to accept language.

I'm not at all sure special cases like that guy have anything to do with how normal people learn things, just like autistic math savants don't necessarily tell us anything of the way normal people do or learn math.

 

[Vitalstatistix]

Honey, that's textbook psychology. Once you get past about age 12, learning languages becomes infinitely more difficult. There is a term for this but it escapes me now

I guess you're referring to the so-called 'critical age'. As you indicate, it used to be a general accepted idea among psychologists and psycholinguists that this was around your twelfth. Used to be, because since research suggested that this critical point is individually variable they've changed the term into 'critical period'. As many probably have experienced themselves, it is still possible to learn a new language in your late teens, twenties and even older. Yes, it's likely to take some more time. But then again, the more languages you speak, the easier it beomes to learn a new one.

 

[Elind]

Honey, that's textbook psychology. Once you get past about age 12, learning languages becomes infinitely more difficult. There is a term for this but it escapes me now. I went to France when I was eleven and picked up the language easily when I was there. I went to New Caledonia a couple of years later and it just didn't come. Funny....

Sweety, you read too many theoretical books. I learned French in my late teens and Spanish in my 30's and I could speak the latter too, although I have lost the fluency, presumably because it was learned later than French.

I abhor this attitude. Have you ever moved overseas, to a country where you don't speak the language? It's HARD. It takes time. If that makes me a coddler, well, whatever. I'd rather be a coddler than a bigot. Maybe the people you run into who have trouble with English have only just moved to The States. As we've already established, English is an incredibly difficult language to learn. To dismiss people to have initial troubles with it as 'lazy' is simply not fair. Maybe you could get of your high horse and make a greater effort to learn the languages of minority groups in your country - or maybe it's you that's too 'lazy'? Or maybe you could step back and realise how lucky you are to have English as a first language? Not everyone has that luxury. [/rant]

Actually English is my second language. French third, Spanish 4th and German would be 5, but I don't do very well with the latter anymore. I have no special linguistic skills believe me. It's a matter of whether one has to learn or not. Immersion works like a charm. I started to learn Arabic once too, but since the educated Arabs already spoke English the only places where one might need it was bargaining in the shops, and that took only a few dozen words and numbers to do.

Perhaps lazy isn't the best word, but it comes close. When we coddle immigrants (I'm one) with schooling in their language, annoying telephone systems that say "press 1 for English, 2 for..", government forms and translators at our expense and so on, then why should anyone bother to make the effort?

I'm not on a high horse, but I think you are with your apologies for why one shouldn't get down and dirty with a language. As to English being difficult, that's only true if you want to play at a certain level. There are plenty of native born English speakers with a vocabulary that's 10% of yours or mine, and we won't talk about grammar. They are perfectly understandable, to the limited extent they express themselves.

Rap music ring a bell with you?

 

[Giraffe107]

"press 1 for English, 2 for.."

In Switzerland they have this option- one for German, two for French, three for Italian and four for English. While I do speak German well, I appreciated the option of being able to speak in the language I know best. I regard it as courtesy to be able to explain yourself in the most coherent way.

And as for what language bilingual children think in, when I was little (and much better at German) I thought in English and German- depending on who I was talking to. That way, I could say something without having to 'translate' it first. My mother, who lived in Germany for 38 years, now thinks in English.

 

[Elind]

You don't mean real German do you? It's not quite that is it? Scweitzerdeutz, or however you spell it. Now why would they have English as well? That sounds condescending to me.

Anyway, Switzerland has an entirely different history and it's amazing it has stayed together all this time given the cultural differences and languages. Something to be learned there I'm sure. Geneva/Lausanne is where I learned my French.

The US has no such geographical distinctions. The language is English. I have no respect for those unwilling to accept that.

 

[-Fran-]

No, not really. Norwegian and Danish are very similar, Swedish however is quite different. If you can read Danish or Norwegian understanding written Swedish should not be too much of a stretch. Spoken Swedish however sounds very different to spoken Danish or Norwegian - which are very Germanic sounding, while Swedish sounds almost Russian (..but maybe that's just me?). Norwegians and Danes can converse together to a degree in their own respective languages, but not Danes and Swedes or Norwegians and Swedes.

I think it's linguistically true that Danish and Norwegian are a little bit more closely related to each other than any of them to Swedish, but I think most Swedes really think it's much easier to understand spoken Norwegian than spoken Danish. Though Norwegian has two rather distinct versions, Bokmål and Nynorsk, and one of those can be trickier to get then the other, though at the moment I can't remember which is which

We Swedes sound Russian I've never heard that before

 

[-Fran-]

Yeah. It's the only Scandinavian country where "Sorry, I don't speak Norwegian" (from a Nordic-looking blond guy, at least) results not in a switch to English but a switch to a s-l-o-w and LOUD version of the local language. The contrast to Denmark, where even bums asking for change know English, is striking.

That's so funny, uh... in a rude kind of way I've never thought about if they do this.

And no, the six years of Swedish I had at school doesn't mean I understand spoken Norwegian. I have a hard enough time keeping up with the kind of Swedish you speak on the other side of the bay.

Yes, I can imagine. There's a difference between the Swedish taught in Finnish schools, and Finlandssvenska? I am not quite clear on this?

 

[-Fran-]

Jive isn't that hard. I'm a pretty good jive translater. Let me pick on a post from Fran, someone whom I've previously tranlated into Swedish. This is from this very thread

Fran:

Now in jive...

Apparently, acco'din' t'a TV-honky code ah' once saw, uh all de Scandinavian languages (except fo' Finnish who ain't related t'de rest uh dem) Danish be de hardest t'learn t'rap. It seems Danish kids is de ones who is de latest t'learn t'rap deir own language when dey start t'talk. Ya' know?

Swedes is noto'iously baaaad at dig itin' rapped Danish, ah' dink. Ya' know? When some Dane realizes ya' is Swedish dey plum sigh and starts t'talk English while some No'wegian happily continues rappin' No'wegian when encounterin' some Swede

Sucka'ally dough ah' dink dat Icelandic and Färöiska be bit mo'e difficult t'dig it dan Danish, but dat could be becuase ya' so's seldom hear it. Man!

*LOL* Hey, why do you keep picking on me?

 

[lula]

We Swedes sound Russian I've never heard that before

Okay it really must just be me..

 

[lula]

Actually English is my second language. French third, Spanish 4th and German would be 5, but I don't do very well with the latter anymore. I have no special linguistic skills believe me. It's a matter of whether one has to learn or not. Immersion works like a charm. I started to learn Arabic once too, but since the educated Arabs already spoke English the only places where one might need it was bargaining in the shops, and that took only a few dozen words and numbers to do.

Tell me about it. Is there any other way?

I do see your point on this, it just upsets me when people dump on those with English problems...probably because it's often so closely linked to racism, in my experience at least. i.e. "Those stupid Asians who can't speak English should go home".

I have met people who try so, so hard to learn languages and just can't do it. Some people just don't have the aptitude for it, for whatever reason. What a lot of people don't realise is that it's a lot harder for them to be so isolated in their community than it is for us to have to repeat things a few times in the McDonalds line.

 

[timhau]

Yes, I can imagine. There's a difference between the Swedish taught in Finnish schools, and Finlandssvenska? I am not quite clear on this?

At least 20 years ago when I was in school, what we learned was (mostly) Finlandssvenska. The taped language material we listened to was mostly Finlandssvenska, with some standard, newsreader-type 'Rikssvenska' (do you guys even use that term?) thrown in occasionally. The result is that while I'll gladly speak Swedish in Åland and our coastal, Swedish-speaking areas (some parts of Ostrobottnia excepted), I'm really tempted to switch to English even in Stockholm. However, even though when watching Tina Nordström on TV I depend almost entirely on subtitles, I have no problem reading Dagens Nyheter or Svenska Dagbladet. In other words, my Swedish is a mess (but for a mess, it's pretty advanced even if I say so myself ).

 

[Professor Yaffle]

What do they speak on Planet X?

 

[timhau]

What do they speak on Planet X?

Various dialects of Xsh.