| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
Kramer
Joined: 27 Aug 2006
Posts: 16
|
 Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 8:20 am Post subject: Languages rated by difficulty for native English speakers |
 |
|
During my research I came across this interesting language link. The Foreign Service Institute of the US Department of State has a long history of foreign language training. In this summary they have created a chart that rates the difficulty of learning specific foreign languages for a native English speaker:
http://www.nvtc.gov/lotw/months/november/learningExpectations.html
This could come in handy when trying to figure out how difficult it might be to learn a new language at a potential teaching destination.
Here are the easy languages:
| Quote: |
Afrikaans
Danish
Dutch
French
Italian
Norwegian
Portuguese
Romanian
Spanish
Swedish |
And the hardest language: Japanese
Most languages are roughly twice as difficult to learn as those on the easy list above. The hardest languages are about four times as difficult.
I would also be interested in seeing a chart that shows the reverse, how hard it is for native speakers of various languages to learn English, but I have never seen one.
Kramer |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
basiltherat
Joined: 04 Oct 2003
Posts: 952
|
| Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 8:56 am Post subject: |
|
|
very surprised at these results. i made an attempt at swedish and found it particularly difficult. astounded that malay / indonesian is not among the easiest.
best
basil |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
saint57
Joined: 10 Mar 2003
Posts: 1221
Location: Beyond the Dune Sea
|
| Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 8:59 am Post subject: |
|
|
| I've often heard that Bahasa Malay is quite simple. Unfortunately, I've learned none. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Kramer
Joined: 27 Aug 2006
Posts: 16
|
| Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 9:25 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Quote: |
| astounded that malay / indonesian is not among the easiest. |
It does appear, however, that these two languages are in a special category along with Swahili that places them between the easiest and middle blocks of languages. So, besides German plus the languages that I listed above, they are the easiest languages to learn.
I count a total of 61 foreign languages rated.
I only speak Spanish and I think it is pretty easy for an English speaker to acquire but it has still been a lot of work. So these charts have made it clear to me just how daunting it must be to learn some of these other languages.
Kramer |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
dmb
Joined: 12 Feb 2003
Posts: 8397
|
| Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 10:13 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Quote: |
I would also be interested in seeing a chart that shows the reverse, how hard it is for native speakers of various languages to learn English, but I have never seen one.
|
It does exist. It is quoted in Teaching and Researching Reading by Grabe and Stoller. But I can't remember by whom and I don't have a copy at hand. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
ls650
Joined: 10 May 2003
Posts: 3484
Location: British Columbia
|
| Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 1:21 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| basiltherat wrote: |
| vastounded that malay / indonesian is not among the easiest. |
I'm not. Before I went to Indonesia, I'd read that it is supposedly one of the easiest langauges to learn but I found it very difficult to accumulate vocabulary. On the other hand, in comparison I find Spanish is an order of magnitude easier, simply because of all the cognates it has in common with English.
I don't think Indo is easy at all; there are few borrowed words from English, so learning the language at a beginner level consists of memorizing a lot of new vocabulary before you can begin to use the language in any real fashion. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
basiltherat
Joined: 04 Oct 2003
Posts: 952
|
| Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 2:02 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Quote: |
| I don't think Indo is easy at all |
i think indonesian is relatively simple for us for several reasons, for example:
1. verbs are generally not conjugated.
2. generally the equivalent of 'be' is not used.
3. tenses are changed just by adding a word such as 'sudah' (already), belum (not yet), 'sedang' or 'lagi' (for the progressive)
4. you can get by with just stringing words that you can find in the dictionary together.
example : 'anda mau ke mana' (same for past, present or future) = you want to where ? compare this to 'where are you going ?' or 'where do you go ? or 'where did you go ?' or (God forbid) 'where have you gone ?'
5. each letter of the alphabet has only one sound and you generally pronounce every letter a word possesses.
I think vocabulary is a problem in all languages, not just Indonesian. Although I agree borrowed words can help.
i agree that some aspects of indonesian can be difficult, but just to get your point across can be simpler than most other languages ... once u have grasped some vocabulary.
best
basil |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Deicide
Joined: 29 Jul 2006
Posts: 1005
Location: Caput Imperii Americani
|
| Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 2:43 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Quote: |
| People often ask: "How long will it take me to become proficient in ...?" This question is almost impossible to answer because a lot depends on the person's language learning ability, motivation, learning environment, intensity of instruction, and prior experience in learning foreign languages. |
I think this is the main point. There are far too many factors involved in second language aquisition that one may say what is easiest and what is not. Having said that, isn't it obvious that languages with lexical, syntactic and morphological similarities will be easier to learn than ones that don't.
All the continental Scandinavian languages have enough in common to make them very easy. Sure there are some difficulties, e.g. the postpositioned definite article: Danish bil (car) and biler (cars)> bilen (the car) and bilerne (the cars) (common gender f/m), hus (house) > huset (the house) (neuter). That seems to be the only thing that could be midly confusing to a native English speaker. That and gender which in standard Swedish and Danish is common and neuter and in both varieties of Norwegian masculine, feminine and neuter. Verbs are incredibly easy having only an infinitive and a single conjugated form for all persons:
Danish bo (to live in the sense of inhabit)
jeg bor vi bor
du bor de bor
han bor
Anyway I just wanted to show how easy a closely related language can be. On the other hand a highly inflected language such as Serbian is a nightmare for an English speaker as would be Inuit (a polysynthetic language). So I think lexis, morphology, syntax and phonology in terms of overall similarity are the real factors. Even 'difficult' languages for native English speakers such as Finnish and Hungarian can be more easily learned if one has an understanding of agglutinating languages. Of course the more languages one has under one's belt the easier others become...anyway...I am a bit of a language geek...sorry for getting carried away...  |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
rusmeister
Joined: 15 Jun 2006
Posts: 867
Location: Russia
|
| Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 3:53 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| What about the legend of Navajo Indian being universally difficult? (Don't forget they were used during WW2 as code interpreters and the Japanese never broke the code.) |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Deicide
Joined: 29 Jul 2006
Posts: 1005
Location: Caput Imperii Americani
|
| Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 4:20 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| rusmeister wrote: |
| What about the legend of Navajo Indian being universally difficult? (Don't forget they were used during WW2 as code interpreters and the Japanese never broke the code.) |
Well in language typology classes we learned this kind of thing about the verb aspect in Navajo:
Aspects and subaspects
The Primary aspects:
Momentaneous - punctually (takes place point in time)
Continuative - indefinite span of time & movement with specified direction
Durative - indefinite span of time, non-locomotive uninterrupted continuum
Repetitive - continuum of repeated acts or connected series of acts
Conclusive - like durative but in perfective terminates with static sequel
Semelfactive - single act in repetitive series of acts
Distributive - distributive manipulation of objects or performance of actions
Diversative - movement distributed among things (similar to distributive)
Reversative - result in directional change
Conative - attempted action
Transitional - shift from one state to another
Cursive - progression in a line through time/space (only progressive mode)
The subaspects:
Completive - event/action simply takes place
Terminative - stopping of action
Stative - sequentially durative and static
Inceptive - beginning of action
Terminal - inherently terminal action
Prolongative - arrested beginning or ending of action
Seriative - interconnected series of successive separate & distinct acts
Inchoative - focus on beginning of non-locomotion action
Reversionary - return to previous state/location
Semeliterative - single repetition of event/action
I would tend to think that life is too short to learn Navajo..... |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Venti
Joined: 19 Oct 2006
Posts: 171
Location: Kanto, Japan
|
| Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 5:06 pm Post subject: |
|
|
I'm sure the fact that a language like Japanese was rated the most difficult is not surprising to most, especially given the large amount of Kanji that one must learn to read and write it.
I came to Japan two years ago having previously studied Japanese in college for only a year. By the time I'd been here for a year, I was using it as my main language for communication. I can't compare the difficulty of learning it to the difficulty of learning any other foreign languages because I was never serious about learning another, but I can say that it was painful for the first 6 months and became quite comfortable after that.
I wonder if the reason so many foreigners living in Japan have difficulty becoming good at Japanese is that Japan is so accomodating to English speakers. One could get by for an entire lifetime in Japan knowing only English and some key words and phrases in Japanese. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
nickpellatt
Joined: 08 Dec 2006
Posts: 1522
|
| Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 6:35 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Ive never been good at languages, and find them all equally hard.....
Have spent time in China and Spain and struggled to learn either.
Interested to see swahili is rated as an easier language to learn...I spent 4 months in Kenya this year and found it hard...but I think in part...this is because you rarely hear it spoken, as people tend to favour tribal languages or even english.
I am more interested in how a language works, which I find fascinating, but no so hot at learning to speak it. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Henry_Cowell
Joined: 27 May 2005
Posts: 3352
Location: Berkeley
|
| Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 7:12 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| basiltherat wrote: |
i think indonesian is relatively simple for us for several reasons, for example:
1. verbs are generally not conjugated.
2. generally the equivalent of 'be' is not used.
3. tenses are changed just by adding a word such as 'sudah' (already), belum (not yet), 'sedang' or 'lagi' (for the progressive)
4. .5. each letter of the alphabet has only one sound and you generally pronounce every letter a word possesses.
i agree that some aspects of indonesian can be difficult, but just to get your point across can be simpler than most other languages ... once u have grasped some vocabulary.
|
This is a very common perception about Malay/Indonesian. Yes, it's very easy to learn a pidgin version of the language to communicate basic information and needs. About how many other languages can we say the same thing? Many, I think.
It's true that there are no "tenses" as we know them in other languages. But even though verbs are not "conjugated," verbs in Indonesian do indeed take numerous affixes to indicate meanings other than simply time-related. (Deicide has nicely described the nature of aspect in language.) I like to think of Indonesian verbs as having "declensions" that are indeed EXTREMELY difficult to learn and to use. I began studying Indonesian 37 years ago -- and I'm still learning how to use it.
"you can get by with just stringing words that you can find in the dictionary together"
Yes, this produces the perfect pidgin Indonesian. I can do the same in Dutch, French, and Thai. This does not mean that I consider myself a speaker of those languages.
me English good speak |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Deicide
Joined: 29 Jul 2006
Posts: 1005
Location: Caput Imperii Americani
|
| Posted: Fri Feb 02, 2007 3:30 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Henry_Cowell wrote: |
| basiltherat wrote: |
i think indonesian is relatively simple for us for several reasons, for example:
1. verbs are generally not conjugated.
2. generally the equivalent of 'be' is not used.
3. tenses are changed just by adding a word such as 'sudah' (already), belum (not yet), 'sedang' or 'lagi' (for the progressive)
4. .5. each letter of the alphabet has only one sound and you generally pronounce every letter a word possesses.
i agree that some aspects of indonesian can be difficult, but just to get your point across can be simpler than most other languages ... once u have grasped some vocabulary.
|
This is a very common perception about Malay/Indonesian. Yes, it's very easy to learn a pidgin version of the language to communicate basic information and needs. About how many other languages can we say the same thing? Many, I think.
It's true that there are no "tenses" as we know them in other languages. But even though verbs are not "conjugated," verbs in Indonesian do indeed take numerous affixes to indicate meanings other than simply time-related. (Deicide has nicely described the nature of aspect in language.) I like to think of Indonesian verbs as having "declensions" that are indeed EXTREMELY difficult to learn and to use. I began studying Indonesian 37 years ago -- and I'm still learning how to use it.
"you can get by with just stringing words that you can find in the dictionary together"
Yes, this produces the perfect pidgin Indonesian. I can do the same in Dutch, French, and Thai. This does not mean that I consider myself a speaker of those languages.
me English good speak |
If pidgin counts I reckon I can 'speak' 10 languages.... |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
shuize
Joined: 04 Sep 2004
Posts: 1270
|
| Posted: Fri Feb 02, 2007 4:24 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Venti wrote: |
I'm sure the fact that a language like Japanese was rated the most difficult is not surprising to most, especially given the large amount of Kanji that one must learn to read and write it.
I came to Japan two years ago having previously studied Japanese in college for only a year. By the time I'd been here for a year, I was using it as my main language for communication. I can't compare the difficulty of learning it to the difficulty of learning any other foreign languages because I was never serious about learning another, but I can say that it was painful for the first 6 months and became quite comfortable after that.
I wonder if the reason so many foreigners living in Japan have difficulty becoming good at Japanese is that Japan is so accomodating to English speakers. One could get by for an entire lifetime in Japan knowing only English and some key words and phrases in Japanese. |
I think the difficulty of Japanese is overrated -- mostly by the Japanese themselves.
I've had a number of conversations with Japanese who insist that their language is the hardest language (and therefore unique) in the world and seem positively disappointed when I disagree.
I enjoy explaining to them in Japanese that, sure, kanji is hard and takes time, but nothing that can't be overcome. And, as the post above suggests, speaking basic Japanese is pretty easy: The verbs are almost all regular and there's even less intonation than English or ... the fun part ... Chinese, which, as I tell them, most English speakers who've studied both say is much harder than Japanese. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
