Languages and Linguistics

[ant]

I really like how Spanish spelling and pronunciation is straightforward. I've never misspelled a Spanish word.
But I do have a problem-- I still can't pronounce the Spanish RR sound.
I just can't figure out how to do it.

I also like how there's more freedom in Spanish on how you can place the verbs and adjectives in different places.
This doesn't happen in English.

Thinking about it, English even has a set order for multiple adjectives.
For example, you can't say "Italian small green piano", you have to say "small green Italian piano" and everything else is supposed to be wrong.

Another thing is, although it's acceptable in American English to say "Me and my friends...", it's considered grammatically wrong in British English.
It should be "My friends and I".

I know for fact that most non natives have this problem. have you tried the "butter" method? say butter like an American speaker and the sound the "tt" make are close to the "rr"'s, as in the tongue position. actually, the "L" is more similar to the spanish "R" than the english "R". your tongue should be behind your teeth but not touching it. try to roll your R's without saying an actual word. just the RRRR sound. the start putting it into words. there's a cool tongue twister for this. "R con R guitarra, R con R barril, mira que rápido ruedan las ruedas del ferrocarril." here's me saying it if you need help: http://vocaroo.com/i/s0y9nSEI1q5F

yeah, it's what I like about Spanish, it's not so systematic, it's more fluid, and prettier

you can do that in Spanish as well! or even say pianito instead of piano chico

actually, it's not grammatically wrong in Spanish per se, it's just consiered to be plain rude tu put yourself before the others, so it's funny when people say "yo y mis amigos" instead of "mis amigos y yo". (besides the latter sounds better) theres a funny saying "el burro por delante para que no se espante" which means "the donkey goes first so it doesn't get scared" -- I don't know if people use donkey as a substitute for dumb / not intelligent in English too, but that's what it means

 

[Rugi]

The reason English is so weird is because its what happens when a german language gets its grammar grossly simplified and adopts a tonne of weird pronunciation rules and latin vocabulary. There are pretty much no major languages which are as stupidly hybridised as English. Add to that that English doesn't actually change the spelling of foreign words to fit English phonetics and every single foreign word in English ever uses its own languages spelling rules rather than English plus the English script being outdated for European standards and all sorts of fun come out.

I still dont think English is the hardest language in any way shape or form.
English grammar is really easy and most European languages have much harder grammar than English with genders, cases, annoying amounts of exceptions, agglutinations etc.

English writing though difficult has nothing on Japanese which has three writing systems one of which is an inconsistent ideographic system that takes literally years to learn.

English pronunciation has some strange sounds and isn't consistent with the writing but Chinese is tonal has quite a few of the weird sounds English has and crapton of minimal pairs that dont exist in pretty much any other European language I know of. Oh and despite what Chinese people insist pinyin is horribly inconsistent.

 

[MetnotstandImMärchenland]

Although the differences between British and American English are often minor, it throws a non-native speaker off more often that you'd think.

For example, after the announcement of a game called "For Honor", a friend of mine though they misspelled the title, before I told him that I basically doesn't matter whether you add another "o" or not. Same thing with armor/armour for example.

A question for you language enthusiasts: My former teacher marked the word 'surely' in my texts back in the day and claimed that the word does not exist, although I was able to find it in online dictionaries. Is it somehow considered a slang word or 'unclean' English?

 

[Martin]

A question for you language enthusiasts: My former teacher marked the word 'surely' in my texts back in the day and claimed that the word does not exist, although I was able to find it in online dictionaries. Is it somehow considered a slang word or 'unclean' English?

I can confirm that your former teacher is wrong. Surely is a word and it's not looked down on as slang afaik, although I'm not quite sure if you'd ever use it outside of a conversational setting.

 

[gvmgvm40]

English isn't easy whether you're native or not tbh. Not only can half of the English population not actually speak or write it properly (big hyperbole here, but even still I get a out of some of the... "creative" ways that English language is used by native speakers), but apparently it's also hell for non-native speakers to learn as well due to it not following any of its rules with any kind of consistency while lacking certain structural devices such as gendered vocabulary that can help with the learning process.

For one, people speak their native language "properly" by definition - or to put it differently, language is what it is, there's no "proper" or "unproper" use of one's native language. They may be speaking a different dialect, but there's nothing that makes Received Pronunciation or General American dialects inherently more "proper" than a Scottish accent or African-American vernacular. Writing is a human invention that didn't exist for most of human history and still doesn't in some places, it's something you consciously learn after childhood, so you can talk about writing "rules". You can't say the same for language.

As for the second part, well, it depends on your background. There's no objective difficulty for languages. Irregularities in English (well, also irregularities in language in general) tend to be the remnants of previous borrowings or change, so there's still some sort of a "pattern" to irregulaties (e.g. Indo-European ablaut); compare English to sing/sang/sung to German singen/sang/gesungen for example. If you're a Germanic or Romance language speaker chances are you'll have a much easier time with English than I did as a Turkish speaker.

On the other hand, humans can and do learn languages when they need/want to. Look at Chinese or Arabic for example, one has an alphabet that requires a lot of memorization and the other is notoriously irregular with very rare sounds and grammar features, and yet tens to hundreds of millions of second-language speakers learn them alright. I would argue that learning a language largely depends on its prestige, usefulness and learning/practice opportunities rather than that or this writing/grammar/sound feature. In that regard, English is a very easy language to learn, hence how there are literally hundreds of millions of second language speakers of it.

 

[The Adventures of Tintin]

India has so many languages. There is about 1652 mother tongue languages in India. That is fascinating

 

[Cresselia~~]

India has so many languages. There is about 1652 mother tongue languages in India. That is fascinating

When I was little, my Indian classmates told me that India had 124 languages.

Edit: According to Census of India of 2001, India has 122 major languages and 1599 other languages. However, figures from other sources vary, primarily due to differences in definition of the terms "language" and "dialect".

That is truly fascinating. Way more than China has. I can't even imagine getting to hear one sentence of each of them.

 

[Martin]

Bumping to say that, if anyone's learning Japanese, a really nice resource is this YouTube channel. I don't really have very much to say about it, but the content is extremely useful and covers a range of topics which are generally extremely useful for anyone who is learning the language, whether that be explaining difficult concepts like は vs が better than probably the vast majority of teachers would, whether that be highlighting things like what kinds of things are rude or overly formal/unnatural in ordinary conversation, or even just basic vocabulary things. I've embedded the は vs が video below if anyone's interested, but there are loads of videos on her channel so yeah I strongly recommend looking down the video list and watching them one by one.

 

[Cresselia~~]

Bumping to say that, if anyone's learning Japanese, a really nice resource is this YouTube channel. I don't really have very much to say about it, but the content is extremely useful and covers a range of topics which are generally extremely useful for anyone who is learning the language, whether that be explaining difficult concepts like は vs が better than probably the vast majority of teachers would, whether that be highlighting things like what kinds of things are rude or overly formal/unnatural in ordinary conversation, or even just basic vocabulary things. I've embedded the は vs が video below if anyone's interested, but there are loads of videos on her channel so yeah I strongly recommend looking down the video list and watching them one by one.

Wow, she's really good at explaining!
I wish she could do videos on N4~N3 level Japanese grammar though.

 

[Rugi]

Wow, she's really good at explaining!
I wish she could do videos on N4~N3 level Japanese grammar though.

Try Nihongo no Mori, They have a lot of videos targeted towards N3/N2 learners

 

[Acklow]

Здравствуйте! Меня очень жалко для людей которые будут учится русский язык.

(Hello! I feel bad for people that are going to learn the Russian language.)

Russian is tough. Also I concur with Rugi, Chinese is fairly easy to learn grammar-wise. My only biggest trouble when I was learning it in high school was memorizing the characters. Pinyin was my best friend lol.

 

[patlop2307]

I really like how Spanish spelling and pronunciation is straightforward. I've never misspelled a Spanish word.
But I do have a problem-- I still can't pronounce the Spanish RR sound.
I just can't figure out how to do it.

I also like how there's more freedom in Spanish on how you can place the verbs and adjectives in different places.
This doesn't happen in English.

Thinking about it, English even has a set order for multiple adjectives.
For example, you can't say "Italian small green piano", you have to say "small green Italian piano" and everything else is supposed to be wrong.

Another thing is, although it's acceptable in American English to say "Me and my friends...", it's considered grammatically wrong in British English.
It should be "My friends and I".

If you're not a portuguese or spanish native it's gonna be hard for you to roll your "r". Guess the best way to learn it is to dock your tongue on your palate and breathe out all the time

 

[internet]

dont learn dutch its not worth it. everyone worth speaking to in it knows english. unless you really wanna imbibe that dutch humor i guess

 

[Rugi]

dont learn dutch its not worth it. everyone worth speaking to in it knows english. unless you really wanna imbibe that dutch humor i guess

I've heard bilingual German/English speakers say that they can read Dutch pretty easily, thoughts?

 

[aurora]

Languages have interested me for a while. My mum is fluent in Sicilian and English and can hold conversations in Spanish, French and Italian, so I guess I've always been fascinated by that. I myself can only speak English fluently, but I'm currently studying French at university with the long-term goal of eventually being able to use it at a professional level. Separate to that, my exploits on Duolingo and other sites have brought me into contact with many other languages, such as Dutch, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian and Estonian. Unfortunately, this has not turned me into a polyglot, but it hasn't been a complete waste of time; I can somewhat comprehend written examples of (and make simple sentences out of) the first four of those.

Speaking of Duolingo... since I've been using it on and off for so long, I feel like I'm qualified enough to say that it's not going to be useful if it's all you do. I feel like this is self-explanatory but something that bounced off my thick skull for quite a while nonetheless so I'll reiterate what I've found anyway. I made that mistake far too many times before realising that it isn't the be-all, end-all of language learning. You have to expose yourself to the actual spoken language, written extracts of the language where you can see how sustained compositions look, and other apps like Clozemaster and Memrise, which both offer things - such as contextual examples of language use and higher-quality voice clips - that Duolingo does not.

 

[patlop2307]

I've heard bilingual German/English speakers say that they can read Dutch pretty easily, thoughts?

Since I'm a German myself I have to say that reading wise you're right, but when it comes to talking I hardly understand anything.

 

[Rugi]

Auslan real meme language

 

[Rugi]

Snip

Duolingo's quality heavily depends on how you use it. If you plan to use it as a prompt for what to learn next and for drilling it can be great. If you plan on actually learning from it ahahahahhahahahahhaha. Even the good languages on it are acceptable at best. The Spanish one seemed fine although since it wasn't my dialect it always felt a bit icky. The Japanese one is a piece of shit do not bother. The Chinese one really heavily favours Beijing dialect and learning characters neither of which I care about (I already know most characters from Japanese all I want are their readings). If the courses were more customisable I think they'd be better. Remember that the people that work on the Duolingo courses often aren't teachers. They are simply passionate people following a template. This is fine at the basic level but it's flaws honestly show so quickly. The grammar explanations are at best convoluted and at worst outright incorrect.

 

[Tenebricite]

Question to this thread: If you could choose any two languages to be fluent in, what would it be? With my first language being English, I'd choose Mandarin Chinese (due to it's usefulness) and Latin (not directly useful, but one of the only dead languages with some use at all. I really love seeing the similarities between English, Spanish, etc. and Latin words, and I just think the language sounds and looks very good)

 

[Rugi]

Question to this thread: If you could choose any two languages to be fluent in, what would it be? With my first language being English, I'd choose Mandarin Chinese (due to it's usefulness) and Latin (not directly useful, but one of the only dead languages with some use at all. I really love seeing the similarities between English, Spanish, etc. and Latin words, and I just think the language sounds and looks very good)

I already have Japanese, Spanish and English so I would pick Chinese and Korean. Though Chinese is my current priority after Japanese I actually want to learn German/French a lot other European languages far more than Korean. That being said I already speak a European language fluently so learning Korean in the long term would probably take much longer than German so gotta be economic here.

Other contenders would be to learn Hebrew so my mum would shut up about it. Russian is European and I'm mildly interested in it but since I have no intention of visiting Russia and the Russian language is very different from the Germanic and Latin languages I'm used to. However if I had the magical chance to learn it freely I would.

 

[Lou]

I'm a really big fan of learning languages, that is the main reason I joined Smogon in the first place. I wanted to improve my skills so I decided to be part of the spanish translation project. Of course i'm not the best but I think it was worthy cause I've learned too many things in a small period of time and I can speak or write fluently (still need some help sometimes but it is ok). I would really like to learn Korean or maybe Japanese. Portuguese looks good too :)

 

[Tenebricite]

I'm a really big fan of learning languages, that is the main reason I joined Smogon in the first place. I wanted to improve my skills so I decided to be part of the spanish translation project. Of course i'm not the best but I think it was worthy cause I've learned too many things in a small period of time and I can speak or write fluently (still need some help sometimes but it is ok). I would really like to learn Korean or maybe Japanese. Portuguese looks good too :)

I totally understand how that is one of the main reasons u joined here in the first place. One of my favorite things on here is meeting people from different countries/cultures who speak different languages.

 

[Akai]

I totally understand how that is one of the main reasons u joined here in the first place. One of my favorite things on here is meeting people from different countries/cultures who speak different languages.

I'm agree with Tenebrice when you learn a new language you learn some vocabulary however you discorver a new culture. In my opinion more you know about a new culture easier is to learn another language.

 

[Tenebricite]

I'm agree with Tenebrice when you learn a new language you learn some vocabulary however you discorver a new culture. In my opinion more you know about a new culture easier is to learn another language.

Exactly! That's why things such as travel and living/working in different countries are such valuable experiences.

 

[Akai]

If someone i

Question to this thread: If you could choose any two languages to be fluent in, what would it be? With my first language being English, I'd choose Mandarin Chinese (due to it's usefulness) and Latin (not directly useful, but one of the only dead languages with some use at all. I really love seeing the similarities between English, Spanish, etc. and Latin words, and I just think the language sounds and looks very good)

Well I speak French (mother tongue) and English, I have to pick two languages, what it would be ? :thinking:
I will choose Spanish and I don't the second one too much possibilities! However, I choose Spanish because I want to travel and discover south America so that'd be necessary because the majority of the countries speak Spanish and the language sounds good !