demagogue on 19/4/2017 at 10:34
I studied Japanese by self-study for like a decade. It didn't make any real dent until I took a formal class for 6 terms which in a few months blew all those years of self-study out of the water, moving me from like JPT4 status (the proficiency test, standard way to gauge ability) to easy JPT2 status very quickly.
It's a monster language of course. Even after all that study, I'm still very amateur with it.
It might be influenced by perception, but I believe Japanese is relatively tougher for even Japanese to learn compared to English for English speakers to learn, if only because of memorizing all the characters.
Mandarin has the advantage of a very simple grammar, so easy to learn except again the character memorization. Germany has a wacky grammar like Japanese (verb going to the end sometimes) and it has more cases, and is gendered, etc, than English, but at least it's consistent. Same for French. The saving grace is since so much of French (and the other Latin languages) and German are in English, there's a lot to build from.
Starker on 19/4/2017 at 11:39
For me, it's the katakana words that trip me up, actually.
[video=youtube;RC07J2v66b8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RC07J2v66b8[/video]
demagogue on 19/4/2017 at 12:27
Yeah, my building has a room called either a Learning Cafe or a Running Cafe. (I finally figured it was Learning because the a was long, but it's a close call.)
The other one that tripped me up recently was Rejjaashiitto. The only thing that made sense to me was Ledger Sheet. Turns out it was Leisure Sheet, referring to the blanket you put down for a picnic. I think it would have taken quite a long time before I could have guessed that.
Other things only have a tiny " difference, so are easy to mistake, like Shirley and jewelry.
Also relevant:
Inline Image:
http://i64.tinypic.com/2s93uyw.pngNicker on 19/4/2017 at 13:10
I am taking an immersion course in Kindy. The local dialect is derived from English but uses implied grammar instead of arbitrary rules (e.g. past tense of GO is GOED, not WENT). A similar naivety is applied to spelling. Word creation follows standard phonetic rules but may result in terms highly dependent on momentary cultural context if not outright invention. It is also similar to tonal languages except that it uses two levels of volume instead of variations in pitch. These are the shout and the sub-audible mumble. Regrettably only native speakers are able to derive any practical sense from this particular language feature.
Starker on 19/4/2017 at 18:25
There are quite a few katakana words where you just have to know what they mean. Like...
クレーム kureemu
コンセント konsento
レンジ renji
デマ dema
Yakoob on 20/4/2017 at 00:42
Quote Posted by Starker
Ah, being bilingual must be nice. I had to learn English the hard way and up until Chinese it has without doubt been the most difficult language I've ever learned.
Oh it's the same for me, I learned English in school (and via games/movies/internet) and became bilingual. Or does the term mean specifically knowing since birth? If so, apologies.
Quote Posted by Kolya
So Japanese is easier to you than English?
Not sure if it was at me or Starker but if me - I can't really compare since I was already fluent in English by the time I was learning Japanese. Which is also why my Japanese has gotten really bad, no real reason to keep it up. I'm not otaku enough, don't want to live there, nor want a Japaneezu Waifu...
The pronunciation, though, is much easier. I literally read Japanese like I would read Polish and people were surprised how excellent my accent apparently is.
Quote Posted by Thirith
It's funny how much languages tie in with relationships. My wife's Swiss-Slovak, but since we met during our studies at the local English Department and always spoke English to each other, it feels decidedly weird to talk to her in any other language, except for the occasional code switch.
i speak with my sister in English mostly too :p but this reminded me of an interesting thing I noticed when hanging with a bunch of international (mainly European) people during my masters program. All of us switched to English as it was the most common language and thus allowed everyone to participate.... except the french. Who would happily sit at the other end of the table only speaking in their tongue, everyone else be damned. Those arrogant pricks :joke:
demagogue on 20/4/2017 at 00:57
Oui, I've seen French do that. Even when you know they know English just fine, and doing it in French cuts out 3/4 of the people. At least they do it with charm, the smug bastards. :D
After the US and UK become petty small isolationist countries on the track they're own, maybe future native English speakers will do it for the next lingua franca. (Except that no language is in line for that honor anytime soon. But if one were, I could see that happening.)
Starker on 20/4/2017 at 02:35
Well, considering that the century of China is coming and Mandarin is kind of a lingua franca already...
Starker on 20/4/2017 at 03:12
Certainly, nothing beats actually living in the language environment, but I would not knock self-study that easily. I got myself close to fluent in German that way. If you actually have the motivation to learn, you will definitely get there. On the other hand, I know people who have lived in Japan and don't know anything except some very basic phrases.
