Subject: MYSTARA-L Digest - 22 Jun 2005 to 23 Jun 2005 (#2005-130) From: Automatic digest processor Date: 24/06/2005, 17:00 To: Recipients of MYSTARA-L digests Reply-to: Mystara RPG Discussion There are 6 messages totalling 376 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. My language is the hardest!!! (Was: New Heraldry Style) (3) 2. (Slightly OT) Re: My language is the hardest!!! (2) 3. My language is the hardest!!! (Was: New Heraldry Style) ******************************************************************** The Other Worlds Homepage: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/OtherWorlds.asp The Mystara Homepage: http://www.pandius.com To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM with UNSUB MYSTARA-L in the body of the message. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 17:36:10 +0900 From: Thorfinn Tait Subject: Re: My language is the hardest!!! (Was: New Heraldry Style) > Personally I have always thought English to be a > relatively simple language...at least in relation to > Italian. Verb coniugation is almost non-existant in > English. In Italian, even Italians often make > mistakes...8-) > > Ok, let's start a flame war about which language is > the most difficult one!!! 8-) 8-) 8-) Hehe, this always makes for a very subjective and sometimes heated discussion. It seems many people in the world are convinced that their language is more complex, and therefore harder to learn, than anyone else's. ^^;> Living in Japan and teaching English as a Foreign Language for five years, I have been exposed to the debate on two sides: some Japanese people and some foreign learners think that Japanese is the hardest language, while some English speakers and English learners think that English must be. Both arguments centre on how "complex" the languages are, how many words each has, the difficulty of the writing and spelling systems, etc. Naturally there is little to no empirical evidence, because there is no way for most people to compare the difficulty of language learning unless they try to learn both languages as a non-native themselves - and even then, the different personal motivations and reasons for learning will skew the data radically. In the end, I've come to the conclusion that the biggest deciding factor on how hard a language is is the attitude of the learner. Native speakers of any language tend to share similar levels of fluency in their own language, usually meaning they can speak it well enough to change and warp it for their own purposes. (Perhaps some languages are more flexible than others, but I'm not convinced even of that.) Learners on the other hand are hugely affected by their motivation to learn, their environment, and how much effort they put in. I don't see how this can be compared. For example, many people will tell you that Japanese is "one of the hardest languages to learn", and it's a stereotype among learners of Japanese. But I haven't found any such thing in the six years I've been learning. Yes, some areas require more practice and studying than others, but I don't see that it's difficult - it just takes time. Put in the time, and you will get the results. Then again, I was highly motivated for the first 4 years of my study... Anyway this is an interesting topic to discuss, especially given the multinational makeup of this list. Does anyone disagree with my ideas? :-) Thorfinn ============================================ Thorfinn Tait --------- thorf @ chokai.ne.jp Land of the Rising Sun, 5 years and counting ============================================ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 11:03:58 -0400 From: Angelo Bertolli Subject: Re: My language is the hardest!!! (Was: New Heraldry Style) Thorfinn Tait wrote: > For example, many people will tell you that Japanese is "one of the hardest > languages to learn", and it's a stereotype among learners of Japanese. But > I haven't found any such thing in the six years I've been learning. Yes, > some areas require more practice and studying than others, but I don't see > that it's difficult - it just takes time. Put in the time, and you will get > the results. Then again, I was highly motivated for the first 4 years of my > study... > > > I took Japanese, and I definitely thought that learning how to speak Japanese was difficult, but I never had the opinion that it was inherently harder than another language. In fact, I sort of got the impression that it was easier because there is no work in learning new sounds. I still can't hear some chinese or arabic sounds. But then again, I also pretty much decided that I wasn't going to care very much about reading/writing japanese. > Anyway this is an interesting topic to discuss, especially given the > multinational makeup of this list. Does anyone disagree with my ideas? :-) > > I just wanted to add that it also depends on a couple of other things: 1) The level at which you can make mistakes in a language and still be considered acceptable (and understandable) 2) The level at which you think in terms of the language. #2 is really important because in the case of Japanese, I think it's much harder to think in English "translate on the fly" than to just think in Japanese when you want to speak in Japanese. That's because of the different structure. It's much easier to "translate on the fly" another European language because many of the structures are similar. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 09:58:27 -0700 From: Brendan Corliss Subject: (Slightly OT) Re: My language is the hardest!!! Well, I'll throw my 2 kopecs in... The two foreign languages I'm the most proficient in are German and Japanese (although not especially so in either case). >> From my experience as a native English speaker, I found German very easy to pick-up. I believe the similarities between the languages help tremendously but again, as both Angelo & Thorfin stated, the motivation and ability of an individual student can have a significant impact. As for my experience with Japanese, I've never studied formally, but I have several Japanese friends and I live in one the more Nihon-centric areas outside of Japan: Seattle. From what I've encountered, the basics of Japanese are fairly logical. I think the difficulty in learning Japansese comes from trying to speak it well, which is more of a cultural issue, IMO. I still believe that English is the most unnecessarily complicated language in common usage. Or maybe just exceptionally inconsistent. I think that's the biggest problem with English; even though other languages may have more rules, every English rule seems to have numerous exceptions and no logical way to figure them out. While many people find English relalively easy to learn, I think there are 2 major factors: 1. most European languages, especially German and French, share many origins to English 2. Due to the international culture/political influence of the British Empire & United States over the last several hundred years, English is easily the most widespread language in the world. So speakers of other languages are usually exposed to it from a young age. Anyway, just my thoughts... To get things back on topic somewhat, I've given some thought to the whole Darokinian/Thyatian language thing. As I've stated before, I use Esperanto for Thyatian, but on further consideration, Esperanto may be more appropriate to Darokinian, as that language represents more of a combination of several others. Then of course, you can stick with Thyatian as Latin (obviously). What do you guys think? -Damon aka Brendan Corliss Corliss Enterprises, Ltd. Darokin City "May all of your endeavours be Golden!" __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 19:12:19 +0100 From: Jon Cole Subject: Re: (Slightly OT) Re: My language is the hardest!!! Being English, I can happily say that we all think ours is the hardest / best language, mostly because we are too lazy to learn anyone else's :-) also we all look down our noses at American English (probably because their Empire is now bigger than our Empire) As for Thyatis - a mix of Latin, Italian and German for the 3 tribes, and Darokinian is just a derivative of Thyatian. All of which translates to everything being Enlgish with a variety of silly accents. :-) Jon ----- Original Message ----- From: "Brendan Corliss" To: Sent: Thursday, June 23, 2005 5:58 PM Subject: [MYSTARA] (Slightly OT) Re: My language is the hardest!!! > Well, I'll throw my 2 kopecs in... > > The two foreign languages I'm the most proficient in > are German and Japanese (although not especially so in > either case). > > From my experience as a native English speaker, I > found German very easy to pick-up. I believe the > similarities between the languages help tremendously > but again, as both Angelo & Thorfin stated, the > motivation and ability of an individual student can > have a significant impact. > > As for my experience with Japanese, I've never studied > formally, but I have several Japanese friends and I > live in one the more Nihon-centric areas outside of > Japan: Seattle. From what I've encountered, the basics > of Japanese are fairly logical. I think the difficulty > in learning Japansese comes from trying to speak it > well, which is more of a cultural issue, IMO. > > I still believe that English is the most unnecessarily > complicated language in common usage. Or maybe just > exceptionally inconsistent. I think that's the biggest > problem with English; even though other languages may > have more rules, every English rule seems to have > numerous exceptions and no logical way to figure them > out. While many people find English relalively easy to > learn, I think there are 2 major factors: 1. most > European languages, especially German and French, > share many origins to English 2. Due to the > international culture/political influence of the > British Empire & United States over the last several > hundred years, English is easily the most widespread > language in the world. So speakers of other languages > are usually exposed to it from a young age. > > Anyway, just my thoughts... > > To get things back on topic somewhat, I've given some > thought to the whole Darokinian/Thyatian language > thing. As I've stated before, I use Esperanto for > Thyatian, but on further consideration, Esperanto may > be more appropriate to Darokinian, as that language > represents more of a combination of several others. > Then of course, you can stick with Thyatian as Latin > (obviously). > > What do you guys think? > > -Damon > aka Brendan Corliss > Corliss Enterprises, Ltd. > Darokin City > > "May all of your endeavours be Golden!" > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around > http://mail.yahoo.com > > ******************************************************************** > The Other Worlds Homepage: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/OtherWorlds.asp > The Mystara Homepage: http://www.pandius.com > To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM > with UNSUB MYSTARA-L in the body of the message. > ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 15:29:41 -0300 From: Steven Carter Subject: Re: My language is the hardest!!! (Was: New Heraldry Style) I'm a Canadian Anglophone. French wasn't difficult and I can still read a good deal and remember a smattering. Comparatively I found German horrendously difficult and forgot all of it. I'm learning Cantonese now. Not an enormous challenge. Interest and motivation are part of it. I think part of the difficulty with German was the number of _similarities_ with English. Another is maturity. On 6/23/05, Angelo Bertolli wrote: > Thorfinn Tait wrote: > =20 > >For example, many people will tell you that Japanese is "one of the hard= est > >languages to learn", and it's a stereotype among learners of Japanese. = But > >I haven't found any such thing in the six years I've been learning. Yes= , > >some areas require more practice and studying than others, but I don't s= ee > >that it's difficult - it just takes time. Put in the time, and you will= get > >the results. Then again, I was highly motivated for the first 4 years o= f my > >study... > > > > > > > I took Japanese, and I definitely thought that learning how to speak > Japanese was difficult, but I never had the opinion that it was > inherently harder than another language. In fact, I sort of got the > impression that it was easier because there is no work in learning new > sounds. I still can't hear some chinese or arabic sounds. > =20 > But then again, I also pretty much decided that I wasn't going to care > very much about reading/writing japanese. > =20 > > Anyway this is an interesting topic to discuss, especially given= the > >multinational makeup of this list. Does anyone disagree with my ideas? = :-) > > > > > I just wanted to add that it also depends on a couple of other things: > 1) The level at which you can make mistakes in a language and still be > considered acceptable (and understandable) > 2) The level at which you think in terms of the language. > =20 > #2 is really important because in the case of Japanese, I think it's > much harder to think in English "translate on the fly" than to just > think in Japanese when you want to speak in Japanese. That's because of > the different structure. It's much easier to "translate on the fly" > another European language because many of the structures are similar. > =20 > ******************************************************************** > The Other Worlds Homepage: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/OtherWorlds.asp > The Mystara Homepage: http://www.pandius.com > To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM > with UNSUB MYSTARA-L in the body of the message. > ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 21:33:24 -0700 From: Chris Cherrington Subject: Re: My language is the hardest!!! (Was: New Heraldry Style) Obviously all our languages are not to difficult to learn, as we speak = them 8-) I have been trying to learn elvish for years, but with only introductory classes in Spanish, French, Latin, and German, I never mastered any of = them. Although I have learned the kitchen version of all these languages = including Creole (well, I don=92t know any version of kitchen Latin, but a = smattering of Italian, all the words that are similar to French or Spanish). Mainly I = get by with enough phrases to warn the dishwasher not to touch the pan it is = hot "no tocar, muy caliente". Of course, now that I work in a jail, I am learning a variety of signing with all the gang communiqu=E9s.=20 ------------------------------ End of MYSTARA-L Digest - 22 Jun 2005 to 23 Jun 2005 (#2005-130) ****************************************************************