Pachelbel's Canon in D

I came across this very interesting page when doing a little bit of poking around into languages:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks:Language_Learning_Difficulty_for_English_Speakers

Useful if you intend to learn a language and want to estimate how much time and effort you'll need to spend.

Originally posted by NoEarthlyReason
I came across this very interesting page when doing a little bit of poking around into languages:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks:Language_Learning_Difficulty_for_English_Speakers

Useful if you intend to learn a language and want to estimate how much time and effort you'll need to spend.

Excellent.

Originally posted by NoEarthlyReason
I came across this very interesting page when doing a little bit of poking around into languages:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks:Language_Learning_Difficulty_for_English_Speakers

Useful if you intend to learn a language and want to estimate how much time and effort you'll need to spend.

Thanks for posting this. Excellent indeed and quite helpful.

One of my favorite episodes of 'The Wonder Years' was the one where Kevin Arnold tried to outdo boy-genius Ronald Hirschmuller at playing the Canon in D on piano.

Canon in D is one of my favourite pieces of all time. A musician myself (clarinet) I can appreciate all the musicality of the piece. I love the baroque character of he harpsichord and the smooth chords. I like ornaments but not in excess.

Originally posted by Tygert
Canon in D is one of my favourite pieces of all time. A musician myself (clarinet) I can appreciate all the musicality of the piece. I love the baroque character of he harpsichord and the smooth chords. I like ornaments but not in excess.

What's your favorite non-Baroque clarinet piece? Mine is Brahm's clarinet trio and after that his clarinet quintet.

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
[b]Pachelbel's Canon in D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOA-2hl1Vbc

10,512,062 Hits

Somehow familiar the first time you hear this soothing classic.[/b]

One of my all time favorite pieces. Thanks for posting...🙂

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
[b]Pachelbel's Canon in D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOA-2hl1Vbc

10,512,062 Hits

Somehow familiar the first time you hear this soothing classic.[/b]

Getting back to the Pachelbel Canon in D!
You guys probably know this, but Bob Paravonian's take on this old favourite is absolutely hysterical! Entitled Pachelbel Rant. I laughed for hours. You must see.....

YouTube&feature=youtube_gdata_player

YouTube

Sorry... to all the purists out there 🙂

Originally posted by sonhouse
German is tougher? I thought German was pretty easy in HS. I saw an ad for some language tape or other, it said, German, the language you already know🙂

German is harder because the basic words relating to physical objects / are all familiar, but the more complex and abstract words don't have any relation to ours (eg, "milk" is "Milch", but "science" is "Wissenschaft" ). This means that progress suddenly becomes difficult after the basic terms are learnt.

On the other hand learning a Romance language often means memorising new words for basic terms (eg, "lait" for "milk" ); but the complex terms are often very close ("science" identical in Frence, for instance). Moreover, the basic words often have parallels in English technical terminology (we can remember "lait" via "lactic" and "terre" via "terrestrial" ). So I think Romance languages, overall, are easier for an English speaker than Germanic ones, even though English is, at base, a Germanic language.

Originally posted by Teinosuke
German is harder because the basic words relating to physical objects / are all familiar, but the more complex and abstract words don't have any relation to ours (eg, "milk" is "Milch", but "science" is "Wissenschaft" ). This means that progress suddenly becomes difficult after the basic terms are learnt.

On the other hand learning a Romance language o ...[text shortened]... than Germanic ones, even though English is, at base, a Germanic language.

Thank you, teinosuke. Sonhouse was making me feel very inadequate. German is very hard and harder than any romance language. I taught myself Italian. I could never do the same with German or Russian or Japanese.

Originally posted by Teinosuke
German is harder because the basic words relating to physical objects / are all familiar, but the more complex and abstract words don't have any relation to ours (eg, "milk" is "Milch", but "science" is "Wissenschaft" ). This means that progress suddenly becomes difficult after the basic terms are learnt.

On the other hand learning a Romance language o ...[text shortened]... than Germanic ones, even though English is, at base, a Germanic language.

Looking at Wissenschaft, it sounds like 'wise craft', is that close? Just looking at the word closely.

Originally posted by sonhouse
Looking at Wissenschaft, it sounds like 'wise craft', is that close? Just looking at the word closely.

The German "-schaft" is actually cognate to our "-ship" as in "comradeship" (a term which is in fact directly analagous in German - "Kameradschaft" ). Our word "craft" is Germanic, but Kraft means "strength" or "force" rather than "skill" as in English.

"Wissen" I believe is related to "wise" and "wit" in English.

I wrote carelessly in saying that complex German words are unrelated to English words, but it's often the case that the connection needs quite a bit of thought to unravel.