After Chinese, easier to learn languages?

[Scoobyqueen]

I have been thinking about learning another language now that I feel comfortable Chinese occupies its own "language centre" in the brain.

[Hofmann]

I think Arabic would be a good challenge. Korean is the most difficult L1 (no citation; sorry), and the FSI thinks Japanese is most difficult for monolingual Anglophones. However, that might not be the case now that you already know Chinese.

[roddy]

After Chinese, easier to learn languages?

After Chinese, hopping up Everest juggling pianos and singing the Lithuanian national anthem probably seems like a walk in the park.

Have you read Renzhe's post on Portuguese? I think it's fair to say that even if it's not actually easier, it seems a lot easier, and that's great for motivation. Even something like Russian or Farsi at least has an alphabet.

[Scoobyqueen]

That rant from renzhe is very useful with some astute comments and wit on the thread. Thanks for recommending it.

@ hoffmann - I was not looking for another steep hill. Indicentally I am not allowed to learn Arabic as a colleague already speaks it and has forbidden me to learn it as I would ask too many questions...(but I think he wants to keep this as his niche).

[jbradfor]

At the very least, you seemed to have developed very good language study skills. That should make learning any other language easier. [i can on imagine how much Chinese more I would have learned in undergrad if I had my current study skills....]

[Scoobyqueen]

I can on imagine how much Chinese more I would have learned in undergrad if I had my current study skills..,

Good point. It reminds me of Imron quoting someone else saying something like I have spent ten years learning Chinese, still cant speak it but I have learnt patience.

[imron]

It reminds me of Imron quoting someone else

David Moser. No point giving me partial credit each time.

Someone once said that learning Chinese is "a five-year lesson in humility". I used to think this meant that at the end of five years you will have mastered Chinese and learned humility along the way. However, now having studied Chinese for over six years, I have concluded that actually the phrase means that after five years your Chinese will still be abysmal, but at least you will have thoroughly learned humility.

[jbradfor]

I can on imagine how much Chinese more

Did I really type that? I really MUST proofread better. This is embarrassing.....

[Scoobyqueen]

Did I really type that? I really MUST proofread better. This is embarrassing.....

Sorry should have proofread it myself before quoting you. However, I actually dont think it matters if something is not 100 percent correct as long as it is understood. To draw a parallel in language learning, it is better to communicate even though some of it may not be completely correct. This is how children succesfully learn.

@ imron - I was merely highlighting your ability to identify a good source. That is a skill as well. Incidentally my job involves quoting other people :-)

[renzhe]

Portuguese is good fun! And still a very relevant language.

It's not too hard, but it still has its share of delightful quirks, especially the phonology. Vowel height (avó / avô) and nasalised vowels (nau / não) are a riot and an interesting challenge.

The grammar is very close to Spanish, easy to get started with and obtain a basic level, but with lots of room at the top when you get to flowery language and mood.

At the moment, I like it better than Spanish (which I learned as a teenager).

[Scoobyqueen]

It's not too hard, but it still has it's share of delightful quirks, especially the phonology

It is my impression that Portuguese has a whole range of sounds eg. nasals, dark L (normally what you would hear in east end of London or I think Essex) guttural r and then a rolled r coexisting etc. Do you know by any chance if it is one of the languages containing the most different sounds?

[renzhe]

I don't think that it has the most sounds worldwide, but it's definitely high up there when it comes to Indo-European languages. Consonants are pretty straight-forward (there are two r's like in Spanish, but the rolling one has been replaced by a French-style one in most dialects), however the vowels are very rich. A friend mentioned 14 different vowels, but I think that there might be a few more. And then you have about 20 diphtongs and triphtongs.

[Hofmann]

I honestly think Middle Chinese is fun to speak. But you're probably not considering dead languages.

[歐博思]

I have been working with Korean for a while so I can add some on it:

Pluses:

1)Solid alphabet with consistent spellings.

2)Dwindling use of Chinese characters in South Korea. If you know traditional characters this is a moot point regardless. But us simplified guys have to learn a few characters again.

3)Do you play Starcraft?

Minuses:

1)System of honorifics and age based respect endings. Even Koreans can sometimes have trouble.

2)Consonants have 3 forms which can be tricky to distinguish on their own, but with longer sentences it is easier because the tense letters cause a small 'hitch' in the rhythm of the sentence in my opinion. Here's a link to better see what I mean here: http://www.koreanwikiproject.com/wiki/index.php?title=%E3%84%B1_%E3%84%B2_%E3%85%8B_additional_practice

and if you want to try a quiz:

http://www.koreanwikiproject.com/wiki/index.php?title=%E3%84%B1_%E3%85%8B_%E3%84%B2_quiz

3)Grammar is SOV and can be weird to people coming from SVO languages.

[amandagmu]

Spanish! It is spoken by a large part of the world, most notably most of Central and South America, islands in that area, and many immigrant groups to North America - not to mention the country of Spain (a lovely place to vacation for lengthy periods of time). I'm biased since my husband is Spanish and I need to learn it anyhow, but I started last Spring taking adult education classes once a week on the side - 1.5 hours x 8 weeks or something. I think I learned more in that than I did in my entire first year of Chinese.... I'm basically fluent in French though, so learning Spanish for me just requires a few swaps and pronouncing the whole word without nasal sounds. (Ok, maybe an over-exaggeration, but you know what I mean.) Maybe it's not as easy for others!

I also started up with German last summer (my current home is Berlin so this makes sense) and after a few weeks I was so happy to be able to start reading bits and pieces in the newspaper. (Nothing like having a language one can immediately build new vocab in...!) The only downside is that German grammar is tough and many Germans speak English.... so that's a different sort of problem. I have never encountered this problem when visiting my in-laws, family, and friends in Spain!

Also, not that it's super easy either, but French is a lovely language to read in. I adore French literature, philosophy, and film, and highly recommend studying that language if you're interested in any of those fields.

[anonymoose]

Consonants have 3 forms which can be tricky to distinguish on their own

Yes!! I had a look into Korean once, and that was one of the things that kind of dampened my enthusiasm. I just listened to the link you provided. I cannot distinguish the first from the third sound. I mean, if I listen carefully, I can kind of slightly hear more of a forceful puff of air after the third sound, but it is not distinct enough to have any confidence when listening to one in isolation (like in the quiz).

[knickherboots]

I studied Japanese for three years after I had a handle on Chinese, and having a solid base of Chinese characters on which to draw was a big help. I think some students find Japanese harder than Chinese, and others vice versa, depending on their aptitude. Japanese has a more elaborate grammatical structure. In that sense, it is more "rule based" than Chinese, where I've found that becoming fluent requires more brute memorization and familiarity with idioms. It shares with Korean the system of honorifics or "politeness levels", which takes a fair amount of effort. On the bright side, because Japanese is not a tonal language, speaking it in a way that is relatively easy for natives to understand is exponentially easier than achieving the same in Chinese.

[skylee]

because Japanese is not a tonal language,

Not sure about this. The stress does change the meaning AFAIK ... But what do I know.

I think Japanese is very 易學難精.

[renzhe]

Japanese is a pitch-accent language, which is a category between "fully" tonal languages (like Thai, most Chinese dialects, Vietnamese etc.) and stress-based languages (like most European languages).

Other pitch-accent languages include Swedish, some South-Slavic languages (Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian, some Slovenian dialects), and Shanghainese.

[Glenn]

I think Japanese is very 易學難精.

I agree. Although I get the sense that's the same for every language. renzhe's comments indicate it's the case for Portuguese. But then again maybe my definition of 易學難精 is a bit too broad.