Double trouble Barny Rubble? I think I need to tweak my story for bed! 床 I was using Freaky Fred Flintstone before.

Tak47 Wrote:What do you mean "Japanese spends more time at a higher level"?

I mean that on those graphs, the combined area for the Japanese curve is greater than the combined area for the Chinese curve. Thus if those graphs represent learning a language from 0 to native level fluency, Japanese is harder for more time than Chinese is.

I'm not saying that this is reality, I'm saying that that is what the graphs represent. I never thought I would be doing calculus in a discussion about language Memories about my days as a science major...

-edit-
Yay, 1000 posts.

Jarvik7
2007-03-05
Posts: 1000

Today is 2009-03-05

104 weeks. Ten posts a week? Remedial math is coming in handy!

Tak47 Wrote:If you learn in context and through immersion, all grammar in any language is negligible, as it is part of the language itself, not separate. This is why neither language is more difficult.

Does this mean that every single language on this planet is equally difficult? Spanish is as hard as Latin? Esperanto is as hard as Arabic?

Umm.... ok, sure...

Different languages are learned at different rates. In fact, methods can greatly change the rate of acquisition. Certain methods work better than others, depending on the language.

If just immersion works, why should I bother studying at all? I should just watch TV 24/7 and somehow I will be automagically fluent in all the languages of the world. Not only that, if I go 24/7 watching Swahili TV for a year, I will be equally fluent as if I watched Russian TV for a year or any other language for that matter. I will not study, because it's not necessary. I will need no dictionaries or translations back to a language I know. I will be a genius at all languages of the world because "all grammar in any language is negligible"! Umm... ...don't think so.

Your comment convinces no one who has actually attempted to learn a language in earnest.

An article like this:

http://www.language-learning-advisor.com...other.html

fits much better with everyone's experiences.

kfmfe04 Wrote:I will need no dictionaries or translations back to a language I know.

While I generally agree with your post, I don't think either of these things is necessary to learn a foreign language, but I don't want to open up that can of worms again.

bodhisamaya Wrote:Jarvik7
2007-03-05
Posts: 1000

Today is 2009-03-05

104 weeks. Ten posts a week? Remedial math is coming in handy!

Yeah, nice coincidence that I hit 1000 posts on my 2yr anniversary.

JimmySeal Wrote:

kfmfe04 Wrote:I will need no dictionaries or translations back to a language I know.

While I generally agree with your post, I don't think either of these things is necessary to learn a foreign language, but I don't want to open up that can of worms again.

Yeah - that's a tricky point. My personal take is: it's better to go with J->J ASAP, but sometimes, just to make sure that our "guesses in context" are not too far off, it's nice to have a J->E (for more abstract vocabulary). Ultimately, for harder vocabulary, it's much better to get a feel-through-context than just an E translation, but the E translation (if it's a decent one) will make sure we are not too far off base.

Recently, I've been pushing more towards J->J, but for acquiring a lot of vocabulary quickly, J->E along with examples in context (eg iKnow) sometimes helps.

kazelee Wrote:Again I ask, where the hell 900 hours came from....

you fill out a survey before you take the JLPT - presumably they take the average of the number of people that passed. Remember the vast majority of test takers are chinese and thats gonna throw the average low for an english speaker

Tak47 Wrote:Edit: Why in the world did Fabrice delete my previous post? It was exactly the same as this one I am posting right now. I am appalled at this kind of behavior. If you are going to censor anything I say that doesn't conform to your ideas then that proves that this forum is filled with nothing but elitists.

He wanted to say Nazis.

Tak47 Wrote:Edit: Why in the world did Fabrice delete my previous post? It was exactly the same as this one I am posting right now. I am appalled at this kind of behavior. If you are going to censor anything I say that doesn't conform to your ideas then that proves that this forum is filled with nothing but elitists.

Never been called an elitist before. Must be moving up in the world. Who can I look down on now. hmmm...

bodhisamaya Wrote:Never been called an elitist before. Must be moving up in the world. Who can I look down on now. hmmm...

Mememememememe!

[ファブリス]

@Tak47 : because

Calm down, Tak47. The whole discussion is not really worth the emotion put into it. Chinese and Japanese are both hard to learn languages. Which one takes the cup, is for everyone to decide on his own. They are certainly not light-years apart from each other in terms of difficulty.

HerrPetersen Wrote:Calm down, Tak47. The whole discussion is not really worth the emotion put into it. Chinese and Japanese are both hard to learn languages. Which one takes the cup, is for everyone to decide on his own. They are certainly not light-years apart from each other in terms of difficulty.

I couldn't care less what they think. I don't consider either to be difficult. I am merely trying to clear up (blatantly obvious) misinformation as well as voice my own opinion (that neither is difficult). Like I said before, I would have never posted at all in this thread were it not for certain offensive comments that irked me to no end. I have my own reasons for feeling the way that I do; it is not as transparent as some users make it out to be. I took personal offense to the derogatory remark. I now only wish to know the motives behind Fabrice's actions.

Well it's Fabrice's board and he can do whatever he wants. Since I've been here, he's always removed posts or banned people for 1 thing: Disturbing the board to a high degree. If you want to know why, you can bet that's the answer.

To repeat: Calm down, Tak47.

If you react to everything on the net like you have this, you'll have a heart attack before you're 30. Like it or not, other people have different opinions, even if you find them insulting. And to be honest, Tobberoth has done a lot better job of backing up his opinions with facts than you have.

wccrawford Wrote:Well it's Fabrice's board and he can do whatever he wants. Since I've been here, he's always removed posts or banned people for 1 thing: Disturbing the board to a high degree. If you want to know why, you can bet that's the answer.

To repeat: Calm down, Tak47.

If you react to everything on the net like you have this, you'll have a heart attack before you're 30. Like it or not, other people have different opinions, even if you find them insulting. And to be honest, Tobberoth has done a lot better job of backing up his opinions with facts than you have.

I am sorry if anyone thinks that I have caused any disturbance, but I had to voice my opinion. Think whatever you want. This entire thread was pointless and has accomplished its sole mission of causing turbulence among the users. I am done with this discussion, this is not worth the effort. I have wasted far more than enough time and energy on this matter.

Can I have the hour or so back of my life that I just wasted reading this thread? Someone needs to post a warning.

[ファブリス]

@Tak47: I agree that the thread was pointless, more so because the original poster didn't come back to participate in the discussion. So perhaps, indeed the OP just wanted to "troll". However this "me vs. everyone else" attitude is not welcome on this board. You don't "have to" voice an opinion. Argumenting is very ego centric, the bigger the go, the more argumentative you become. It doesn't matter what color you paint this bikeshed..

Fyi everyone, I don't remember deleting much posts in the past. That's not how I used to administer the forum. However I've learned that justifying too much of my "moderating" the forum doesn't make a difference. Unfortunately most of the time the person who feels unjustly moderated (post deleted or topic closed) will argument even more, and basically try to get me into the negativity and the pointless intellectual exercises. I don't have all day to read posts and act as a prosecutor every time someone irritates other members with a self centered attitude.

So I may close a topic or delete a post, in this case I was tired of justifications and assessed my awesome "modmanship" by deleting posts from Tak47, which he posted AFTER my request to him to stop arguing further in this topic. The fact that he reported this topic after a few exchanges with Tobberoth certainly biased my judgment ;-)

I study both but have been studying Japanese for much longer and at university level. Each have their positives and negatives in terms of difficulties.

In Japanese the initial stage is very easy I think, learning hiragana and katakana isn't too taxing and the pronunciation and indeed romaji spelling is quite simply as it sounds in English. Once you move to study grammar then the problems begin, in particular learning things such as transitive and intransitive verbs can be a little daunting, keigo too. Kanji can be a problem due to the multiple readings though that aspect is by in large about dedication and time.

In Chinese, from the standpoint of someone who knows some Japanese; the grammar is far easier as it, in a sense, "doesn't exist" in the traditional sense of the word. Hanzi too isn't a problem as it just requires that you know more, one reading is great! If you're studying the arts traditional hanzi can sometimes be a bit challenging and on the otherhand for someone who knows largely traditional characters from Japanese - simplified characters can look very odd. The main hurdle which I face in Chinese are the tones, I struggle to get them correct.

In summary I think it depends on what you learn first, if you intend to learn both. Both have their easy parts and hard parts and I personally think they compliment each other nicely, I find it odd that more Japanese people don't learn Chinese.

Hi all,

I must say this is quite an interesting topic
Since we're still on this...

I was wondering, given a choice between two languages, where one has relatively fewer grammatical structures and exceptions while the other has complex grammatical structures and frequent exceptions.

Would you generally prefer the former for the ease of learning or the latter for its linguistic challenges?

istel Wrote:I was wondering, given a choice between two languages, where one has relatively fewer grammatical structures and exceptions while the other has complex grammatical structures and frequent exceptions.

Would you generally prefer the former for the ease of learning or the latter for its linguistic challenges?

I don't think either is a terribly good reason for choosing a language, especially one of these. If someone is looking for a language with simple grammar, there are many simpler than these, and likewise there are many that are more complex. I've gathered that Hungarian has an awful lot of conjugations.

But more than that, whether to learn Japanese or Chinese should depend more on which one you will want to use more. Learning any language is a large time investment and anyone approaching is as simply a mental exercise and nothing more will soon be faced with a lot of frustration.

kfmfe04 Wrote:http://www.language-learning-advisor.com...other.html
.

This link pretty much kills the whole point of this (stupid) thread. Although he is wrong in some parts (i.e hanzi not being phonetic) he clearly and concisely shows that this argument is useless, just like some other arguments on this forum, which really leads one nowhere.

What i've gathered so far;

Useless information comparing two completely different languages, people bragging about how much they know, and two arguing for no reason.

Why not discuss something more intellectually stimulating. Arguing which language is harder is shit i heard back in primary school and high school, and shit that linguists argued back when linguists was in its elementary orientalist stage. I'd like to think we are all capable of something more complex than that.

liosama Wrote:

kfmfe04 Wrote:http://www.language-learning-advisor.com...other.html
.

This link pretty much kills the whole point of this (stupid) thread. Although he is wrong in some parts (i.e hanzi not being phonetic) he clearly and concisely shows that this argument is useless, just like some other arguments on this forum, which really leads one nowhere.

What i've gathered so far;

Useless information comparing two completely different languages, people bragging about how much they know, and two arguing for no reason.

Why not discuss something more intellectually stimulating. Arguing which language is harder is shit i heard back in primary school and high school, and shit that linguists argued back when linguists was in its elementary orientalist stage. I'd like to think we are all capable of something more complex than that.

Yes, thank you. After hesitating to check the new posts in here, I am relieved that there is someone that finally has a level head. This is something I have stated from the beginning of this (utterly pointless) thread.

Tak47 Wrote:"Overall I would say that all languages are different, and thus need to be approached in different ways."
"...This entire topic is negligible because it is comparing apples to oranges. It does not work that way...."
"...both languages have their difficulties, and neither is necessarily more difficult than the other overall."

The above are my thoughts on the matter pulled directly from previous posts so no one has to wade through this catastrophe of a thread.

[Katsuo]

azndoofus Wrote:Do You thing learning Chinese or learning Japanese is harder?

Chinese. Mainly due to the writing technique.

Katsuo Wrote:Chinese. Mainly due to the writing technique.

He took yer job!