How many languages can you speak

However My Hungarian auntie can speak

Hungarian
German
French
Spainish
Russian
Can understand Norwigian
English
Italian
 
English, and when I can be bothered I can remeber/say/type/understand quite a lot of German. I did know quite a lot of French at one point from learning it in school, but I lost interest in it and focused on learning German instead.
 
Castiel said:
Given that it is a 'respect' language I would disagree....Not to mention that each character has various pronunciations, in some cases dozens...added to that the need to marry this up within two separate syllabaries and the inconsistancy of the rules regarding the structure and even native speakers complain of difficulty in understanding the messy grammar system.

It is not as straight forward as Chinese in grammar, although pronunciation in Chinese is all about tone and inflection which makes it far more difficult in that regard.

However, the point is that you claim Japanese is much simpler than English, and this simply is not supported lingustically, especially grammatically.
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Sure, if you wanted to, for example, work in Japan you would need to learn the honourific form amongst others which complicates thing but generally the short and long forms would see you through just fine. I meant pronounciation in relation, to say Chinese (as you mentioned), not in the fact that there could be several different ways to pronounce a symbol. Combining these with the Japanese symbol sets I would argue actual makes the language a hell of a lot easier. It is easier to differentiate between verbs/adjectives etc. All languages have their grammatical compexities (English being one of the worst), but in basic terms the grammatical structure is largely unchanging. For example normally the subject and verb are found in the sentence-initial and sentence-final positions, respectively. When you start to use ellipsis though obviously this changes, but I'd still argue it is easier than a lot of English sentence structure, especially as slang works its way in to most levels of conversation (unlike Japanese).
 
timebomb26 said:
Sure, if you wanted to, for example, work in Japan you would need to learn the honourific form amongst others which complicates thing but generally the short and long forms would see you through just fine. I meant pronounciation in relation, to say Chinese (as you mentioned), not in the fact that there could be several different ways to pronounce a symbol. Combining these with the Japanese symbol sets I would argue actual makes the language a hell of a lot easier. It is easier to differentiate between verbs/adjectives etc. All languages have their grammatical compexities (English being one of the worst), but in basic terms the grammatical structure is largely unchanging. For example normally the subject and verb are found in the sentence-initial and sentence-final positions, respectively. When you start to use ellipsis though obviously this changes, but I'd still argue it is easier than a lot of English sentence structure, especially as slang works its way in to most levels of conversation (unlike Japanese).
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I disagree with regard the grammar, primarily because English is far more forgiving (unless you're a grammar nazi) than Japanese, especially with verbs and adjectives doing all kind of strange things depending on who you are talking to or who is talking to you.....but to all intents and purposes English is, for the majority of people at least, easier to master than Japanese.......unless you're Korean or Chinese of course.

You may personally find it pretty straight forward, but from a purely lingustic perspective the innate complexity of Japanese means it is considered more difficult than English, as a rule.
 
timebomb26 said:
Tell that to my girlfriend when she was learning English!
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Haha....if she is Japanese I can understand her difficulty. Which is why from a personal perspective it is largely dependent on the native language of the student....which is why I was careful to point out that I was making the observation from a purely lingustic perspective.
 
timebomb26 said:
Yes, on the surface that's what my post said, but it was aimed towards arrogant English speakers. I have heard many people say that everyone should learn English just because it is "better", and this is simply not true. Yes, it the predominant language for business and that is why most people learn it, but that doesn't mean it's better. Many English people hold the view that foreigners coming in to our country should make an effort to speak the language, so why would it be any different for us going abroad? I genuinely get embarrassed when I see an English person abroad making no effort at all.

Also, so what if someone only ends up speaking a language to a non-fluent level? Does that mean they shouldn't bother trying to better themselves? When I lived in Japan if I didn't work my ass off studying the language I wouldn't have got anywhere or done anything. Why would I rob myself of the privilege of exploring such a wonderful country? And re the museum thing, I don't really see your point, "less words"? If you're trying to say English is a simple language, it isn't. I could argue that Japanese is much simpler, in that everything has to be in very explicit terms.
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So why not just say English people who work and live abroad should make an attempt to fit in including learning the language. However, that is completely different to what your post said. If you are going to go on a rant then at least make the rant specific to what you are having a good moan about.

And I didn't say English was a simple language I said it was an efficient language for conveying a message in the minimum amount of words. Surely you can see how this is beneficial and maybe an aspect of it's universal appeal.
 
Castiel said:
Given that it is a 'respect' language I would disagree....Not to mention that each character has various pronunciations, in some cases dozens...added to that the need to marry this up within two separate syllabaries and the inconsistancy of the rules regarding the structure and even native speakers complain of difficulty in understanding the messy grammar system.
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Grammatically Japanese is not particularly complicated in my opinion. I would say less so than English, and it certainly has less exceptions and irregularities. It's generally pretty logical and concise, though like all languages has its own oddities. It's just so completely different to English that it requires a lot of adjustment. The fact that it's heavily context based can also make it hard for a beginner to grasp at first, like it requires a different mindset.

I've not seen complaints of a messy grammar system (some Japanese do struggle with keigo though, which they are generally not trained in until after finishing school). Personally I find it really quite elegant (not including counting words!). I love Japanese verb conjugation.

Note that the two syllabaries have identical sounds, it's only the characters that differ and they are very simple. I learned katakana in a single afternoon.

I think the difficulty in learning Japanese mostly comes from the writing system and just how _different_ the language it is to English. I also find the limited phonology presents quite a challenge. It's a double edged sword though; easy to speak, but the small number of sounds results in many homophones and words that sound extremely similar.
 
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Xordium said:
So why not just say English people who work and live abroad should make an attempt to fit in including learning the language. However, that is completely different to what your post said. If you are going to go on a rant then at least make the rant specific to what you are having a good moan about.

And I didn't say English was a simple language I said it was an efficient language for conveying a message in the minimum amount of words. Surely you can see how this is beneficial and maybe an aspect of it's universal appeal.
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I'm bored of this now. My post said I don't like people who think everyone should speak English.
 
Been learning German on and off for years, and have just started a 'French in three months' course.
Its difficult because French certainly seems to be much more of a 'flowing' language than either German or English.
 
Castiel said:
Japanese is certainly not simpler than English, at least not from a lingustic perspective.

Quite the opposite.
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I would love to be able to speak a few languages but i'm rubbish at them.

I can say a few things in German after being in Austria for while.

Very very basic French from school.

The most success i've had is with Japanese. I found it very easy to speak, and found the sentence structure pretty simple.

I took a look at Spanish recently and it doesn't seem too bad, so am going to try and practise over the summer.
 
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