Best language to learn?

Marsden

Klingon is the fastest growing language in the world, trekkies can speak it and they seem pretty on the ball.

Micky Dolenz

I find that a lot of people speak English as a common languge and may not speak to a native English speaker to often. This increases their desire to do so. Most of my friends are fancisted by slang and use of idioms.

Yurt2

OnTheCouch wrote: »

I think the above is a significant reason why Anglophones are not generally good at languages. Unfortunately for language enthusiasts, it is still fairly easy to travel and even live in large swathes of areas across the globe while only knowing English.

The flip side to this, as Micky points out, is that foreigners will want to speak English with you once they hear/find out it's your first language. This can be for a number of reasons: a desire to practise, a belief that English is the language to speak, an assumption that your knowledge of their language will be inferior, or simply because they believe that's the polite thing to do. Unfortunately, this can often set a pattern, whereby any conversation subsequently will be done through English. From personal experience, I have no problem responding to this in their language if they try this on me and I believe I'm good enough, (it often becomes a battle of wills). However, outside of social situations, say for example in the workplace, this 'feuding' can seem a bit inappropriate.

A significant problem is often that contrary to popular opinion, because English is so much an international language, many foreigners would actually prefer to speak it rather than their own language. A notable example for me was with an ex, who, even though I spoke her language better than she spoke English, always become a lot happier when I switched to the language of Shakespeare, Keats and Wordsworth.

As for the French, although they are getting better at English compared to say 30-40 years ago, their overall knowledge is still nowhere near as proficient as for instance the Danes or the Icelanders. I haven't personally come across the situation that Aard mentions, but I'm sure it is possible, as Anglophones are even worse at French for the most part.

The polyglot Benny Lewis, the author of the aforementioned Fluent in 3 Months book, gives some very good tips for language learning. I certainly don't agree with everything he says, among which is his claim that all languages are as easy as each other to learn, it's just a question of desire, but he does make a large number of very relevant points. Of course a lot of these things involve hanging out with locals in different countries around the world, which is something that other than lack of time and money, many people would find uncomfortable doing. But still, he does show where there's a will there's a way if you like.

A good blog on 'language battles':

http://www.sinosplice.com/life/archives/2010/05/18/language-power-struggles

This is a particular problem when learning an Asian language. You are visibly not a native and the target language speaker will automatically switch into 'must speak English mode' upon seeing you, and will likely only budge if your target language level is a lot higher than their English. This is not so much a problem if their English is fluent as there is little point in persisting in the target language, but it is a problem if they're a student, their English is ropey and are just using you for language practice or to gain face in front of friends.

Frustrating but if you have resolve, your level gets better and it will happen less and less.

On that Benny chap: Sorry, but anyone who says they're fluent in a language after 3 months is a fraud. He learns a predictable set of phrases to predictable responses in every language he attempts and on observance of his videos does a crappy enough job in a lot of cases. I'm all for promoting language learning but chewing up the berlitz phrase book for a dozen languages does not make you a polyglot.

Herb Powell

Deenie123 wrote: »

English.

Honestly, you're probably better off learning to speak and write really good English than learning another language very poorly. That's unless you want to go into international business of some sort where you're expected to speak a second language, obviously.

http://www.iflscience.com/brain/new-study-reveals-most-influential-languages

Learning to speak and write well

Aard wrote: »

Yes it is a bit sink-or-swim in those cases. I guess aptitude is the wrong word, maybe some people have an "ear" for it....or is that even more uselessly vague I wonder. I keep being reminded of an American woman I used know in France. She had very good French -- extensive vocabulary, good command of complex sentence structure. However she had the most atrocious accent, very heavily American, with zero attempt to speak with even a semblance of a French accent. No rounded vowels, no uvular "r". Even had the nasal American twang, but failed to nasalise the French vowels when needed. It was horrible, and I'm probably being kind with that description. French people thought she was a novice when speaking to her at first just because of her accent. Whereas I had a fairly good accent (with inversely good command of French at the time :pac:) and people would assume that I had better French because of it.

I'm not sure what that anecdote has to do with anything.

Accent is absolutely crucial, and it's something I feel lots of people are either too embarassed/self-concious or lazy to attempt properly. Some of the stuff I hear is like you said, so fuccking grating, I just don't get it.

OnTheCouch wrote: »

I certainly don't agree with everything he says, among which is his claim that all languages are as easy as each other to learn, it's just a question of desire,

Well they kind of have to be, by virtue of the fact that all humans learn a language. It's a matter of practice. What is true (and what I think you mean?) is, depending on which language family your native language belongs to, you may have a head start at a number of other languages. But on a basic, completely objective level, every human being has the competence to learn a language, and the fact that the so-called "difficult" languages even exist shows that they are not beyond the capability of humans.

This goes for accents too, any human is capable of making any sound that exists in any given language, it's just a matter of practice. It's just not particularly easy to sound exactly like someone who has been speaking a particular language their entire life.

OnTheCouch

Yurt! wrote: »

A good blog on 'language battles':

http://www.sinosplice.com/life/archives/2010/05/18/language-power-struggles

This is a particular problem when learning an Asian language. You are visibly not a native and the target language speaker will automatically switch into 'must speak English mode' upon seeing you, and will likely only budge if your target language level is a lot higher than their English. This is not so much a problem if their English is fluent as there is little point in persisting in the target language, but it is a problem if they're a student, their English is ropey and are just using you for language practice or to gain face in front of friends.

Frustrating but if you have resolve, your level gets better and it will happen less and less.

On that Benny chap: Sorry, but anyone who says they're fluent in a language after 3 months is a fraud. He learns a predictable set of phrases to predictable responses in every language he attempts and on observance of his videos does a crappy enough job in a lot of cases. I'm all for promoting language learning but chewing up the berlitz phrase book for a dozen languages does not make you a polyglot.

Thanks for that link it was great! Really encapsulated what I was trying to say myself. As you mention, another problem English speakers will encounter when abroad is meeting people who just use them as a free language resource and are not interested in them as individuals as such. I think this is where you see a lot of the language struggles occur, like in China in your link, but also in other countries. Where your usefulness and what he or she has to gain from your company for the native speaker is reduced to zero if you insist on speaking their own language.

I do think you're being slightly harsh on Benny mind you. Sure, 'Fluent in 3 Months' is somewhat misleading and is mainly a catchy marketing slogan. And yes, many of the languages he claims to speak are hardly at a C2 level. Moreover, I was initially sceptical myself when I heard him speak some of them. But still, a lot of day-to-day communication is not particularly high-brow stuff. Ordering a sandwich, paying for a train ticket etc. Conversations with new people tend to nearly always follow a script in addition. Whereas there is no miracle cure for anything, I do maintain he makes a lot of great points, mainly to do with communicating with locals. Not sure I would buy his book on the other hand, as most seems already available online.

Herb Powell wrote: »

Learning to speak and write well



Well they kind of have to be, by virtue of the fact that all humans learn a language. It's a matter of practice. What is true (and what I think you mean?) is, depending on which language family your native language belongs to, you may have a head start at a number of other languages. But on a basic, completely objective level, every human being has the competence to learn a language, and the fact that the so-called "difficult" languages even exist shows that they are not beyond the capability of humans.

This goes for accents too, any human is capable of making any sound that exists in any given language, it's just a matter of practice. It's just not particularly easy to sound exactly like someone who has been speaking a particular language their entire life.

Sure, I mean as an adult in his 30s from Europe it's going to be far easier for me to learn Portuguese or Catalan than Mandarin or Arabic. Yes, objectively we mostly all have the capability of learning any new language. Unfortunately, we pick up stigmas and mental blocks over the course of our lives which albeit often ridiculous, simply end up holding us back. Which did not exist as a child, when we learn a language first. Some of my mono-lingual friends, who clearly have a semi-functioning brain just like myself, would look at me as if I had three heads if I were to suggest they could pick up another language. It would be akin to asking them to jump over their house or outrun a car. Their mental patterns are so fixed at this stage that it almost literally becomes impossible for them internally to even imagine it. Confidence is huge and this is a clear limiting belief. Humans often trick themselves into being afraid or unsure about something trivial and this is a good case in point.

So for us Europeans, learning languages that are similar to those that we know already may not be any more difficult than more exotic ones, but there is a sense of the familiarity about them. This gives us confidence to keep going and makes progress quicker. I think the best way of putting it is not that it's theoretically any harder. No, simply the overlap with our existing knowledge gives us an extra boost, with which our developed, adult brains, where we have picked up all sorts of ridiculous nonsensical theories over the years, makes us believe we are making faster progress with a language that seems vaguely recognisable.

pconn062

Aard wrote: »

Good job, being at that level after a couple of years is no mean feat. Entirely hypothetical, but how much longer do you think you'd have to give yourself to be at native-level fluency?

Thanks, it was a lot of hard work but because I love the language it never feels like a chore.

Hmmm, I think it would involve much more immersion, probably a move to Germany for a while to get to native-levels (if I could manage that). It is an ambition of mine to move for a while after I finish my studies.

Calina

Yurt! wrote: »

On that Benny chap: Sorry, but anyone who says they're fluent in a language after 3 months is a fraud. He learns a predictable set of phrases to predictable responses in every language he attempts and on observance of his videos does a crappy enough job in a lot of cases. I'm all for promoting language learning but chewing up the berlitz phrase book for a dozen languages does not make you a polyglot.

I should at this point take the view that I don't bother watching his videos but I picked up the book because one of the things that fascinates me is how stuff like his site gets to succeed for the reason that I'd question the quality of fluency. While I haven't got around to reading it, the book did fall open on a discussion of what fluency is (and let's be honest, it is a continuum to some extent) which did indicate to me that his definition of fluency fell far short of mine.

The strategies required to learn a language may vary - the Guardian is running a language learning series and they have some pieces on that subject. What it boils down to is that language isn't absorbed passively by reading the text book. You have to work at it. It's a bit different to general knowledge in that respect.

I'm not sure how you get a book out of that but anyway.

Calina

pconn062 wrote: »

Hmmm, I think it would involve much more immersion, probably a move to Germany for a while to get to native-levels (if I could manage that). It is an ambition of mine to move for a while after I finish my studies.

I don't know what you're studying but I strongly advise it, not just from the point of view of learning the language. What struck me most - and I think Ireland benefited from other people like me - is that when you live somewhere else where some things are done well, like public transport, health service provisions, infrastructure development and housing provision/tenancy rules, you have a view of how things can be improved if you come back here. I saw it in Ireland in the early 2000s; there was a huge advance in how we looked at things, and how we tried to fix stuff rather than doing the yerrah it'll do trick. It['s a slow process to catch up but I see some evidence of it happening in some places.


Plus yeah, you get fluent in the language which opens up a load of books (and I don't know how good your German is but Kindle/amazon will deliver some German stuff now as well) that don't necessarily appear in English, for example.