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GambateBingBangBOOM
Joined: 04 Nov 2003
Posts: 2021
Location: Japan
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 Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2007 5:08 am Post subject: |
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I meant IndoEuropean South Asian languages (ie Indo-Iranian languages) might be easier to learn for native English speakers than Japanese.
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| On one occasion, we were made to sit through an hour long "lecture" by a Japanese professor about how the Japanese language was inherently superior to English. He based his whole petty argument around ideas such as "Japanese doesn't use personal pronouns because we are a selfless people. The most common word in English is "I" because English speakers only think of themselves!". |
1. In colloquial English, personal pronouns are often dropped.
2. Spanish regularly drops the subject too. |
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japanman
Joined: 24 Nov 2005
Posts: 281
Location: England
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| Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2007 5:51 am Post subject: |
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Indeed so but Spanish verbs are very accurate to reflect the pronoun within the verb, so it could be said that Spanish is even more accuate than English.
But loads of languages drop the pronoun to make conversatiuon easier. From my little knowledge of Thai, that drops it all the time and there is no way that language makes Thai people "selfless".
Surely the most common word in English is "the" not "I"? |
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japanman
Joined: 24 Nov 2005
Posts: 281
Location: England
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| Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2007 5:53 am Post subject: |
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| Saying which language is the most difficult is impossible but it looks like Basque, Hungarian or Finnish are the most difficult for English speakers. |
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Dipso
Joined: 28 Apr 2004
Posts: 194
Location: England
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| Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2007 3:03 pm Post subject: |
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Just today one of my Japanese colleagues complained to me that English is "too precise". She was struggling with some advanced articles grammar at the time and said "Japanese people don't care about how much or how many. It's not important to us." Make of that what you will, but I felt the old "selfish English" argument was rearing its ugly head again. I was feeling contrary and said, "But on the other hand, one could just as easily argue that Japanese is vague and imprecise" and she was quite taken aback that I dared to suggest such a thing.
I have been hearing this kind of comment fairly frequently from my Japanese colleagues of late and it strikes me as rather bizarre. These are people who spend their working lives teaching English and I would hope that they have some passion and affection for the English language.
*goes quietly bonkers* |
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JonnyB61
Joined: 30 Oct 2006
Posts: 216
Location: Japan
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| Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2007 3:53 pm Post subject: |
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| Dipso wrote: |
| I felt the old "selfish English" argument was rearing its ugly head again. |
Not that old chestnut again!
I had to sit politely and listen to all that crap ad nauseum in Hong Kong in the early 90's.
Let me summarise it for you: 'My bicycle is nicer than your bicycle, so nurr!' 
There was a book called Games People Play by Eric Berne (Edited with thanks to FuriousM). This conversation could have have been slotted right into that book.
What comes as a shock, I think, is that this is often touted by supposedly educated and thinking people. My university lecturers would have run a mile before allowing themselves to be associated with such reductive notions. So when those in this neck of the woods, who you would expect to have a better grip on things, suddenly spout this twaddle, it can be inclined to wrongfoot you for a while.
Having said all this though, the Brits are notorious for telling everyone else (especially the French) that their language is illogical and, by inference, inferior. Traditionally, they baulk at those languages which give gender to inanimate objects. So, I suppose it's just the way of the world.
What can I do? Have another glass of shochu I think! 
Last edited by JonnyB61 on Thu Jun 21, 2007 1:28 am; edited 1 time in total |
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japanman
Joined: 24 Nov 2005
Posts: 281
Location: England
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| Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2007 11:39 pm Post subject: |
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| I always think that the precision of languages like English or German gives you more flexibility to be as vague or precise as you you like. Scientific or buisness documents or conversations need pin point accuarcy but then poetry and novels can be very vague and dreamy. |
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japanman
Joined: 24 Nov 2005
Posts: 281
Location: England
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| Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2007 11:45 pm Post subject: |
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| My Japanese friend says that English spread accross the world because it's easy, if it were difficult, it wouldn't have spread so far. Nothing to do with the British army having bigger guns than anyone else. |
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gaijinalways
Joined: 29 Nov 2005
Posts: 2279
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| Posted: Thu Jun 21, 2007 1:23 am Post subject: |
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He's right, the Americans have bigger guns  and promoted the hell out of the Internet  . The British only started the process of spreading English, especially to America.  |
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Nismo
Joined: 27 Jul 2004
Posts: 520
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| Posted: Thu Jun 21, 2007 1:29 am Post subject: |
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| English is easy! I could speak it pretty well when I was just 5 years old. |
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GambateBingBangBOOM
Joined: 04 Nov 2003
Posts: 2021
Location: Japan
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| Posted: Thu Jun 21, 2007 1:56 am Post subject: |
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| japanman wrote: |
| My Japanese friend says that English spread accross the world because it's easy, if it were difficult, it wouldn't have spread so far. |
The grammar is very siumilar to French grammar. The long words are very often similar to French long words with the same meaning. The short words are very often very similar to German words with the same meaning, and some parts of the grammar (the parts that seem very different from French) are often almost the same as German.
All of this means that for people who speak either Romance or Germanic languages, English isn't all that hard.
Most (not all) of the languages spoken in Western Europe are either Romance languages or Germanic languages.
And so English spread across Western Europe as an international language. Eastern Europe used German (before unification) or Russian. But Eastern European countries weren't in the postion to colonize heavily.
So this meant that it was either the language spoken or an international language used throughout Western Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand. Those were most of the rich countries throughout the world. Have not countries that wanted access to that market needed English.
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Nothing to do with the British army having bigger guns than anyone else. |
Obviously the spread of English across Asia was due to interaction with English speaking peoples (from Britain or the US). This was through trade or war. But most of the time, it was war (or at least military people). |
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furiousmilksheikali
Joined: 31 Jul 2006
Posts: 1660
Location: In a coffee shop, splitting a 30,000 yen tab with Sekiguchi.
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| Posted: Thu Jun 21, 2007 2:07 am Post subject: |
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| GambateBingBangBOOM wrote: |
| This was through trade or war. But most of the time, it was war (or at least military people). |
In some cases there was simply no distinction between trade and war. The East India Trading company is an example of this. |
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gaijinalways
Joined: 29 Nov 2005
Posts: 2279
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| Posted: Thu Jun 21, 2007 5:34 am Post subject: |
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| Definitely true. Colonization did have its benefits, though some rue the 'language of domination'. Witness the rise of English through business and scientific advances, some asked for, some just dealt out piecemeal. |
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king of the bees
Joined: 13 Jun 2007
Posts: 14
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| Posted: Fri Jun 22, 2007 12:25 am Post subject: Re: English is easy |
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| japanman wrote: |
| "English is easy" "English is clear" "English is easy to understand and simple" etc, I hear these kinds of phrases often. They often come from people who don't speak such good English. |
Ah, the old Dunning-Kruger effect.
| wikipedia wrote: |
The Dunning-Kruger effect is the phenomenon whereby people who have little knowledge systematically think that they know more than others who have much more knowledge. ...
1. incompetent individuals tend to overestimate their own level of skill,
2. incompetent individuals fail to recognize genuine skill in others,
3. incompetent individuals fail to recognize the extremity of their inadequacy,
4. if they can be trained to substantially improve their own skill level, these individuals can recognize and acknowledge their own previous lack of skill. |
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning-Kruger_effect
I'm a frequent victim of this myself. |
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japanman
Joined: 24 Nov 2005
Posts: 281
Location: England
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| Posted: Fri Jun 22, 2007 1:16 am Post subject: |
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| That is very true indeed. Reminds me of an old ladies group I used to teach who had never been to England, knew nothing about England at all but were all experts on anything English. I was just a fool compared to their vast knowledge. |
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