Asian languages are easy for Asian to learn.

English is simple compared with other languages, IMO - the exceptions aren't as difficult or numerous compared with Chinese or Japanese.

 

I dont know why people always think they are correct. First of all. English is NOT the hardest language to learn. It is THE easiest language to learn. Anyone can learn english without a problem. The grammar, sentence construction, usage, is VERY easy. No latin language is hard to learn. The HARDEST language to learn, and this is not open to debate, I didnt make it up.....(in order, top 5)

Japanese
Chinese
Russian
Hebrew
Arabic

Russian is an EXTREMELY difficult to learn, due to grammar structure and word use. Any cyrillic language is like that.

And so you know I am not talking out of my a$$, I speak English, Spanish, Italian, Russian, and Hebrew fluently, and am learning japanese.
(No accent in any language (slight one in spanish))

English is childsplay.

 

How is japanese the hardest language?

 

I'm sorry! Even though I don't know you, I still have to call BS on that "no accent" thing. Why? You live in America yet you claim to have no accents when speaking those foreign languages? It doesn't matter how long you've learned them, but unless you actually live and acclimate in a foreign country long enough, you WILL have accents no matter how good your verbal and written abilities are. There is no exception to that rule!!! An American-born Asian kid who speaks an Asian language frequently at home would STILL have an accent in it. But the kid won't have an accent in English because his/her brain has already naturally acclimated to the English language.

So are you still telling me that you speak 5 languages without an accent in any (except in Spanish)? Are you certain about that? Would you like to put a once-in-a-lifetime wager on that? I'd be willing to bet everything I have in my life to challenge you. I will gather a native speaker from each listed language and have them listen to you. Are you sure you still don't have any accents (except in Spanish)?

Back to the topic at hand: Asian languages are extremely difficult to learn to a foreigner. The easiest in that group is probably Vietnamese, since it's based on the French alphabet and language structure.

 

If you dont like hearing other people's opinions what the hell are you doing on a message board? I guess you come here just to blow your own trumpet and talk down to people or is there something Im missing in your post

 

Glad to know your opinion is always the right one. Ill keep that in mind....



But to Saab9-3, id say take Japanese classes, you might like it. What do you have to lose?

 

[QUOTE=NFRs2000NYC,Jan 9 2005, 03:49 PM] Not even close.

 

I've done a little japanese, french, italian and latin and when I finish my current degrees I'll probably start from scratch on japanese and maybe also Italian. I think that I'll learn the basics myself and then travel and learn from the natives so I'm surrounded by it.

 

i don't understand why people think Japanese is difficult. you think you can convey an idea in English many ways, try doing it in Chinese - i can assure you there are much more options in chinese.

the difficulties that come with japanese is probably their dialects: i can speak both kansai-ben and tokyo-ben, but i find kansai-ben more difficult to understand because it can easily be slurred. oh, and there's the okinawa dialect: i can't understand my friend's grandma at all, it's like it's not even japanese but it is.

 

Has anyone taken Ancient Greek? I took a year of that and had a horrible time. I hate languages that are extremely inflected, where the slightest difference in spelling or accent marks can change a word or turn one word into three. On the other hand, French is slightly inflected, with all of the masculine/feminine nouns, and I loved learning that.

So I have heard conflicting reports- should I take Korean or Japanese as my introduction to Asian languages? It seems to be the concensus that Chinese should be ruled out for a beginner.