Fri May 16, 2008 14:53 pm When easier languages are harder |
|
|
Has anyone ever had the experience that learning a language that people say is "easy" is harder than learning a language that people say is more difficult?
Americans always claim that Spanish is the "easiest" foreign language to learn, and that language is always the choice of kids who have to take a foreign language course and don't want to study much. Meanwhile, American students avoid German, because they think it's difficult. Most of them will never even go near a Slavic language, because they think those languages are impossible to learn.
Even though I'm American, I learned German and French easily, learned Italian even more easily, and I developed a high level of proficiency in one Slavic language with a bit of effort. Other Americans think I've achieved the impossible. However, no amount of effort seems to make me proficient in Spanish, because even though my conscious intellect understands the logic of that language, my subconscious doesn't seem to accept certain aspects of it, such as third person forms of verbs that end in "-o", two indirect objects in the same sentence, and other eccentricities of the language.
So for me, the "easy" language is harder, and the "harder" languages are easier. |
|
Jamie (K) I'm a Communicator ;-)
Joined: 24 Feb 2006 Posts: 3915 Location: Detroit, Michigan, USA
|