Originally posted by Von BardelebenWhich sign language? American Sign Language? French? Russian? Actually, it's only easier for those who are visual and are better at interpreting visual cues. I've actually never seen anyone sign with their lips firmly closed. Hmm.
sign language so easy you don't even have to open your oral :x
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Babytalk is the easiest language to learn. This is why every baby knows
it from the moment of birth.
I want milk = Buaaaaaaaaaah!
I want comfort = Buaaaaaaaaaah!
I want food = Buaaaaaaaaaah!
I want a new set of diapers, 'cause the ones I'm wearing is irritating my
sensitive skin = Buaaaaaaaah!
I like you = goga?
Can it get any easier? To understand the language is of course an
entirely different matter. 😛
Originally posted by c99uxEnglish is my primary language (and secondary) and I asked the same question as a child. My English teacher told me that English is a little of every language in the world put together with a latin base. Trying to put a rigid form of rules on a language with so many different inputs would be impossible. If you think American English is hard, try learning some of the different slangs in some of the larger cities.
English is only more difficult because it's not generally phonetic.
2 very simple examples:
Cough, Rough, Though, Through, Thought, Bough: all contain the same "ough" but all are pronounced differently.
Woman, Women: Why does the "o" change?
Originally posted by c99uxbut the grammar is easier than others ...
English is only more difficult because it's not generally phonetic.
2 very simple examples:
Cough, Rough, Though, Through, Thought, Bough: all contain the same "ough" but all are pronounced differently.
Woman, Women: Why does the "o" change?
german is phonetic but i hate the four declinations !!! ( nominative, genitive, etc )
i think dutch is between them ... whta a clever people they are ! 🙂
Originally posted by c99uxTrue but, I eat, you eat, he/she/it eats, we eat, they eat
English is only more difficult because it's not generally phonetic.
2 very simple examples:
Cough, Rough, Though, Through, Thought, Bough: all contain the same "ough" but all are pronounced differently.
Woman, Women: Why does the "o" change?
Hardly rocket science.
Pronunciation can be hard, but it's the only thing.
Originally posted by zintierivfinnish has 14. it gives people speaking analytic languages (ones with a lot of prepositions etc) quite a lot of problems... the again, word order is pretty much free for the same reason, as you see the object-subject relation straight from the word itself.
but the grammar is easier than others ...
german is phonetic but i hate the four declinations !!! ( nominative, genitive, etc )
for example 'cat bit the dog' can be written:
kissa puri koiraa
kissa koiraa puri
koiraa puri kissa
koiraa kissa puri
puri koiraa kissa
puri kissa koiraa
-and they all mean exactly the same thing.
in english the meaning changes totally:
cat bit the dog
dog bit the cat
and most of the permutations wouldn't even mean anything.
finnish is also almost perfectly phonetic, so writing it is relatively easy.
btw, being phonetic or not doesn't have any connection to how difficult a language is. it's simply an indication of how old its ortography is. - french and english have simply been written so long that they have mutated quite far from their written versions. where as finnish ortography is so young (although the language is very old) it's still spoken like it was back then. in 300-400 years it'll be just as unphonetic as french or english, as no grammarian nazi has ever been able to prevent any living language to break out of its old grammar.
Originally posted by asromacalcioyou just don't see the difficulties because english is your first language. for example, he/she/it is a odd concept for anybody coming from any language without such differentiation. and prepositions are very hard to get right for anyone speaking a synthetic language (the ones that seldom use prepositions or not at all). articles? well, we don't have them. the '-ing present tense', don't have those either.
True but, I eat, you eat, he/she/it eats, we eat, they eat
Hardly rocket science.
Pronunciation can be hard, but it's the only thing.
there's lots of things in germanic languages (english, swedish, german, norwegian...) that other languages have no counterpart. you just don't notice them because it's your first language. just like I never noticed finnish has different conjugation depending on whether it's positive or negative, not before a english speaking guy asked me why it's so.
I go - minä menen.
I don't go - minä en mene.
I can obviously only comment on languages I have personal experience with. I did not say that Irish or Polish are the most difficult languages to learn. As for Hungarian or Basque, I am not in any position to offer an opinion on the difficulty of these languages from the perspective of a learner.