Hey Pandas, What Are Your Opinions On Different Languages And The Ease Of Learning Them? (Closed)
As a linguist, I've always been interested in different languages: English, Russian, Japanese, Swahili, you name it. I probably know a few words in it. Let's hear what you, the community, have to say about this.
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English speaking American here: In my position, learning languages is difficult. I'm currently trying to learn German on my own, and it's cemented that belief. It also doesn't help that I've been learning the rules and illogical guidelines of a dialect that is the linguistic equivalent of a s****y quilt my entire life, in traditional public school format.
My first language is Urdu, which I am not as good as I’d like, but I can get by.
English is, well, English.
I know a bit of Arabic since I’m Muslim.
I’ve been learning French for 6 years now, so I can get around on it, but all the different past tenses and how formulaic it can be is something I struggle with.
Recently I started learning Turkish, and for the most part it is straightforward, but I don’t understand how you can use a bunch of apostrophes to combine a whole phrase in to one mega-word.
I once read a book and got inspired to learn Vietnamese. Kept it up until I got bored of Duolingo. Then I watch a video on the hardest languages and Vietnamese was apparently one of the hardest. I was confused because I didn’t find it that hard, I even still remember a sentence or two!
My point is, Vietnamese is not that hard imo.
I am literally making a 0 in Spanish class rn over a "Participation credit" assignment. Well, IT WAS A LIE. I was FASCINATED by other languages, but now I don't like learning any more at all;-;
I know 3 languages and I'm bad at them all but here's what i think about them.
Hindi- pretty easy if you already speak Urdu or Nepali. But way too hard if English is your primary language. The grammar is too different. But hindi is more flexible language. And the best thing, if you know hindi, you can easily learn more than 20 other languages spoken in India.
French : It is neither too easy nor too hard.
English: I'm an Asian so the stereotypical thoughts of Americans about our accent makes me feel bad. Still english is pretty easy, maybe the easiest language in this list. But i would say English is easy to use but really hard to master. I'm still not too good at
English is my native language and for me personally the romance languages are fairly easy to learn, but most everything else not so much. I do okay with French and am pretty decent at Spanish, but the asian languages I’ve tried are much more difficult because of the many differences in grammar/sentence structure. I’m conversational-ish with Japanese and can say choice useful phrases in Mandarin and Korean, but I doubt I could ever master any of them, especially the writing which is a whole other challenge. Other languages like Arabic, Hebrew, Punjabi, Russian, Polish… those I can basically only swear in and ask where the bathroom is. Lol
Swearing and asking where the toilet is: Travel essentials. Learn these before any vacation.
I learnt Australian sign language (AUSLAN) several years ago. It’s a beautiful and as you can imagine, very expressive.
As English is my first language, it wasn’t hard at first to learn basics. However, it’s a nuanced language and you can spend years (like me) to be truly fluent.
Thanks for all of the feedback, guys! I didn't think this post would get very popular.
Thanks for all of the feedback, guys! I didn't think this post would get very popular.
