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Thread: Is English A Difficult Language?

  1. #301
    Registered User hannah_arendt's Avatar
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    It`s not possible to learn any language quickly and in easy way. I don`t believe in talent for learning languages. It`s just the matter of work and time.

  2. #302
    Registered User kiki1982's Avatar
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    Hmm, I don't know. That's not to say that a talented person will be able to learn a language fluently in a few months and another will need years, but I think there is something like the ability to adopt strange structures or features more easily.
    Saying that though, my husband's Polish, Czech and Slovak students are consistently better at English than the Spanish, Italians and French. Obviously because they have such elaborate structures that they easily pick up simpler ones.
    The number of English natives I have heard claim that even Spanish is too difficult () because they have no talent is quite high. I guess that has more to do with the idea or ability to think in another language than it has to do with talent. Maybe the idea that everyone has that talent in a larger or smaller amount is introduced to you when you are little.

    Although, my husband must have a secret, because he can pick up basic structures in 2 weeks. Without lessons. I think that's quite amazing.
    One has to laugh before being happy, because otherwise one risks to die before having laughed.

    "Je crains [...] que l'âme ne se vide à ces passe-temps vains, et que le fin du fin ne soit la fin des fins." (Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac, Acte III, Scène VII)

  3. #303
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    Quote Originally Posted by kiki1982 View Post
    ... I think there is something like the ability to adopt strange structures or features more easily.
    And the willingness. I remember at age 11 finding the use of gender ridiculous (das Madchen, what's the sense in that?) Being totally entranced by the logic and rationality of science, at that age, I just gave up on languages as irrational! (I continued to use English

  4. #304
    User Name is backwards :( Eman Resu's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by mal4mac View Post
    And the willingness. I remember at age 11 finding the use of gender ridiculous (das Madchen, what's the sense in that?)
    If it makes you feel any better, there's a convolution there which isn't readily seen. "Mädchen," is a diminutive - just as "kitty" is a diminutive of "cat" in English - of its ProtoGermanic root, "magaþs," [i.e. "meid"] which, like its Old Dutch antecedent "meid" / "meisje" (or is it "meidje? - kiki will know this one) is feminine in its root form, but neutral once it gets its "chen" and becomes a diminutive.

  5. #305
    lichtrausch lichtrausch's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by kiki1982 View Post
    Saying that though, my husband's Polish, Czech and Slovak students are consistently better at English than the Spanish, Italians and French. Obviously because they have such elaborate structures that they easily pick up simpler ones.
    I think it has more to do with the fact that Polish, Czech and Slovak students need English more than the speakers of major Romance languages. Spanish or French will get you pretty far in this world. Czech or Slovak? Not so much.

  6. #306
    Registered User Aylinn's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by lichtrausch View Post
    I think it has more to do with the fact that Polish, Czech and Slovak students need English more than the speakers of major Romance languages. Spanish or French will get you pretty far in this world. Czech or Slovak? Not so much.
    Yeah, I too thought about it. From what I heard and noticed, since people from western Europe have a more comfortable situation, they appear to be often less determined and ambitious.

  7. #307
    Registered User kiki1982's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Eman Resu View Post
    If it makes you feel any better, there's a convolution there which isn't readily seen. "Mädchen," is a diminutive - just as "kitty" is a diminutive of "cat" in English - of its ProtoGermanic root, "magaþs," [i.e. "meid"] which, like its Old Dutch antecedent "meid" / "meisje" (or is it "meidje? - kiki will know this one) is feminine in its root form, but neutral once it gets its "chen" and becomes a diminutive.
    It's 'meisje', but it comes from the same root, you are right. Also Fräulein (everything with -lein is old diminutive, you can see this in Goethe poems, for example). Once upon a time, English used to have genders, but maybe it's what the German author of this lousy book about English we've got at home claims: every immigrant, from the Romans, to the Saxons, Normans, Danes, Vikings and all the others just got so confused they stopped trying and made a language that had many features, but whose structures were pretty basic for everyone. I don't think it is that way, because only round about Chaucer did nearly all genders disappear. There are some left, mind you: England is a 'she', as is a ship and there are a few more that I can't remember.

    Quote Originally Posted by lichtrausch View Post
    I think it has more to do with the fact that Polish, Czech and Slovak students need English more than the speakers of major Romance languages. Spanish or French will get you pretty far in this world. Czech or Slovak? Not so much.
    I may not have explained myself properly: these students are in the same class, same level and work at the EU, so there should be no differences, but Eastern Europeans are definitely statistically better at applying grammar than the French. Don't talk about Spanish students, they're hopeless. And I've been correcting my husband's exams for years now. Italians are 50-50. There are good ones, and there are abysmal ones. Eastern Europeans always come in the upper échelons (70-80%, there are not many who do 90%, I've only come across a handful).
    One has to laugh before being happy, because otherwise one risks to die before having laughed.

    "Je crains [...] que l'âme ne se vide à ces passe-temps vains, et que le fin du fin ne soit la fin des fins." (Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac, Acte III, Scène VII)

  8. #308
    User Name is backwards :( Eman Resu's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by kiki1982 View Post
    Eastern Europeans are definitely statistically better at applying grammar than the French.
    We do not need ze grammar - we have l'amour!

    .

  9. #309
    Bibliophile JBI's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by hannah_arendt View Post
    It`s not possible to learn any language quickly and in easy way. I don`t believe in talent for learning languages. It`s just the matter of work and time.
    It is possible to learn languages in faster and more efficient ways. Second language learning, from both a resource and from a pedagogy perspective is going through a bit of a slump. All these teach yourself x and learn x in 3 months are all nonsense. Basically the only effective method is to have material that is both difficult, and designed to progress at a rapid rate. I have found that all the Chinese language resources available to me, for instance, were all pretty much written from propaganda perspectives with very little to encourage somebody on how to speak, read, or write properly. My Japanese text books they make me use here are dragging my *** through a bunch of unexplained nonsense, which, rather than explain in linguistic terms basic things, sticks primarily to using repetitive patterns to try to enforce understanding.

  10. #310
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    Part of the problem is people have become quite anti-intellectual and "pragmatic" about second language acquisition. That's not to say people don't seek to learn new languages, but they only seek to do it in the most practical manner possible. Reading literature in that language is deemed impractical, you know because people don't speak the way John Milton or Proust writes. It's anti-intellectual nonsense. There's this notion that the most important thing is to be able to speak the language in a "real world" setting, and they believe reading literature doesn't bring you towards that goal. I obviously disagree, since reading Proust or Milton, if in the latter case you're learning English as a second language, will expand your vocabulary and train you to think in the target language. I guess my point is, what's wrong with taking an intellectual approach to learning a language?

  11. #311
    Registered User hannah_arendt's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by JBI View Post
    It is possible to learn languages in faster and more efficient ways. Second language learning, from both a resource and from a pedagogy perspective is going through a bit of a slump. All these teach yourself x and learn x in 3 months are all nonsense. Basically the only effective method is to have material that is both difficult, and designed to progress at a rapid rate. I have found that all the Chinese language resources available to me, for instance, were all pretty much written from propaganda perspectives with very little to encourage somebody on how to speak, read, or write properly. My Japanese text books they make me use here are dragging my *** through a bunch of unexplained nonsense, which, rather than explain in linguistic terms basic things, sticks primarily to using repetitive patterns to try to enforce understanding.
    You are right that we can facilitate many things. Without any doubt nowadays, there is much easier than earliert. We have many textbooks, audio materials and videos and of course software, internet. However you still have to put your effort and time in it.

  12. #312
    Registered User hannah_arendt's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by mande2013 View Post
    Part of the problem is people have become quite anti-intellectual and "pragmatic" about second language acquisition. That's not to say people don't seek to learn new languages, but they only seek to do it in the most practical manner possible. Reading literature in that language is deemed impractical, you know because people don't speak the way John Milton or Proust writes. It's anti-intellectual nonsense. There's this notion that the most important thing is to be able to speak the language in a "real world" setting, and they believe reading literature doesn't bring you towards that goal. I obviously disagree, since reading Proust or Milton, if in the latter case you're learning English as a second language, will expand your vocabulary and train you to think in the target language. I guess my point is, what's wrong with taking an intellectual approach to learning a language?

    Reading literature demans quite hight knowledge. However there are editions adjusted to the levels. As far as I observe my pupils, they don`t want to read any books, even in Polish. I sometimes give them short texts connected with the british or american culture. I think that I can`t do more.

  13. #313
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    Quote Originally Posted by Eman Resu View Post
    ... there's a convolution there which isn't readily seen. "Mädchen," is a diminutive - just as "kitty" is a diminutive of "cat" in English - of its ProtoGermanic root, "magaþs," [i.e. "meid"] which, like its Old Dutch antecedent "meid" / "meisje" (or is it "meidje? - kiki will know this one) is feminine in its root form, but neutral once it gets its "chen" and becomes a diminutive.
    That's interesting. So is every German word ending in "chen" neutral? What about "der Wagen"? Why are cars masculine?

  14. #314
    Registered User kiki1982's Avatar
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    Yes, every word ending in -chen or -lein is neutral. So Fräulein (Miss) too. No exceptions.

    Der Wagen is masculine, because it is, but der Magen (stomach) is also masculine, so probably it has to do with that word structure. There are rules to it, but they only taught them to me when I was two years in. They should have done that earlier. Generally, things ending in e are feminine (apart from weak nouns like der Kunde [customer], but they are few and far between, are mostly developed from verbs, like der Angestellte [official] from anstellen = appoint and refer to people), things in -ung are also feminine, as are words ending in -(i)tät (an ending that also occurs in French and Dutch as -(i)té and -(i)teit respectively), -heit/keit.
    Nouns with plurals in -(¨)er are generally neutral. Masculine nouns usually get plurals in -(¨)e. So you've got two chances to distinguish between male and neutral, even if they look the same.
    Things like Wagen do not get a plural ending or they get an ¨only, like der Ofen, die Öfen.

    Then there are foreign origin nouns that are generally neutral too. Das Auto, for example. Das Handy (mobile), das Baby.

    It's not so hard as it seems, because after a while you get combinations in other cases into your head that help you deduce the gender if you can't remember.

    About the reading thing:

    I just think there is a general contempt for anyone trying to use his/her intelligence. Reading is not only not popular in language learning, it's not popular in general (or it's on the internet, but that's short). Many learners get freaked out by words they can't understand straight away and then give up. Me too, but they weren't interesting books I had to read for French. I only discovered those great books when I was much older. The point is that perseverance is non-existent. If books about 'learn x in 3 months' sell, then you can figure out what the chance is that those same people will try and slog through a children's book in the target language.

    @JBI:

    Don't you think it's to do with textbook writers' perceptions about how things should be taught? I mean, my Russian for Everyone book (one of the best, my hubby used it in uni, despite it's title ) featured as one of the first words in a reading exercise (when we had got to the longer words) the word 'communist'. Capitalist came some 10 chapters later. For the rest it was very methodical, as the Russian language is, even if it was a little propagandist at times (the last text featured a bus with passengers that were all studying things ). On the other side, most of the French textbooks I was so fortunate as to learn from were boring, made you learn pedantic and useless vocab and usually featured texts about French accomplishments and companies (Club Med, for example). Sadly nothing about French chanson (apart from Jean-Jacques Goldman) or the French Revolution. Even less about the French kings. On the other side, the English textbooks were always very interesting and even if you weren't interested in what the teacher was trying to teach you, you would be interested in what the text to teach you it was about. So it was win-win.

    If the Japanese think that repeating things over and over like schoolmasters used to do in England and anywhere for that matter maybe until the 50s (I think they still do this in Africa and other parts of Asia) is productive, then who can blame them for basing their textbooks for Japanese on that? Of course, we would not dream of that and we envisage a language class as an ideal English class: dynamic, fun and interesting on a non-linguistic level, but obviously that's not how they see it, I guess.
    Last edited by kiki1982; 10-16-2013 at 06:58 AM.
    One has to laugh before being happy, because otherwise one risks to die before having laughed.

    "Je crains [...] que l'âme ne se vide à ces passe-temps vains, et que le fin du fin ne soit la fin des fins." (Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac, Acte III, Scène VII)

  15. #315
    Registered User Aylinn's Avatar
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    @JBI: Aren't there any books for learning Japanese prepered by English people who studied Japanese and teach it on a university level? Wouldn't it be better to use them if Japanese ones are no to your liking?

    As for Poland, you can find some interesting textbooks prepared by academics. I have been learning Spanish from such a textbook, now it's rather out-dated, but I don't care, as it is very bookworm friendly. There are some easy, but intriguing and funny fragments from books of notable Spanish authors like Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, etc. And it was the same when two years ago I bought a book like that for my friend who is interested in Latin. At the beginning there are some lessons with texts written for total beginners, but then they proceed by giving fragments from Cicero, Virgil, etc. That seems to me far more interesting way of learning then getting through endless boring texts prepared for language learners.

    Of course, there is also a small dictionary under the text where new words are translated, so it is no problem to undestand the given fragment.

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