Search results for 'tag:Genders tag:Consonants' matching tags 'Genders' and 'Consonants'

Re: Which language is most difficult language for people to learn?

Hoa Thai — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 12:43:06 GMT

CalifJim wrote:
I read somewhere that Mario Pei, the linguist, tried to learn a different language every year. He supposedly claimed that Vietnamese was the most difficult.

CJ

I disagree with the linguist Mario Pei not because I am a Vietnamese. It is because I have seen, in my country, a couple of TV hosts and many shop owners speak our language fluently and write better than most of our people do. Amazingly, all of them have lived in Vietnam for only a few years. For instance, Joe Ruelle, who has been in Vietnam for only 3 years or so, has his own blog written in perfect Vietnamese and speaks the language without a foreign trace. People say that Joe is a Vietnamese who had plastic surgery in order to look like a Canadian!

For me, after years of learning French, English, Japanese, and Korean in that order - I find that:

1. Korean is the easiest to learn. After learning its unique phonetic vowels and consonants, one can arrange them together to form / spell various monosyllabic words; and string the words together, using a few grammar rules, to make sensible sentences. After two years learning the language, I now can comfortably watch KBS TV- programs.

2. French is second. Its grammar is structural and without exceptions. Spelling the words is as they sound. The hardest part is to memorize the gender of its vocabulary (i.e., masculine vs. feminine).

3. English is next. This multi-syllable language has the richest dictionary in the world with all of the borrowed words from a score or more foreign languages, including Latin / French / German / Japanese / Vietnamese, etcâ¦you name it. It also has too many exceptions in both grammar and pronunciation, along with its homophones and all of its nym's (homonym, capitonym, etcâ¦) that give Spelling-Bee contestants nightmares.

4. Finally, Japanese is the hardest with its two syllabaries: hiragana and katakana, plus about 8000 kanji's. This multi-syllable ideographic language is too culturally, hierarchically, and gender sensitive. I was told, one needs to know about 2000 kanji's to reach college-level proficiency and 2000 more or so to be considered as a scholar. In number, those are not huge compared to hundred-thousands in English but they take a decade or more to learn! Thus, the language is VERY difficult.

After 2 years learning the language, I can only manage to limitedly engage in daily, social conversation and no more. Now my Japanese friends rather use their broken English to talk to me! I owe them a lot since they have to deal with the language, to them, is the most difficult one in the world.

Having said that, I must say all languages are equally difficult for foreigners, who are not familiar with the cultures in which they are used, to learn. Absorbing literal meanings might be manageable, but understanding the deep connotation is often impossible.

CIAO,

Hoa Thai

Re: two questions on articles

Clive — Tue, 20 Jun 2006 00:51:31 GMT

Hi,

I have one more question on No. 2, what would you do if the list contains a list of countable nouns with a mix of vowel initial sounds and consonant initial sounds and thus, engender a possible article consistency problem? Could I just put the article "a" in front of the word "planner" and do away with all other articles for the rest of the words listed?

The terms/words like a planner, an??? agenda, a schedule, timetable, to-do-list, and checklist are ... Generally, I'd be inclined to put an article in front of each item in such a case, eg for a shopping list. But the above example is not really a list of items, it's a list of words, so I don't think you necessarily have to have any articles at all.

The terms/words like planner, agenda, schedule, timetable, to-do-list, and checklist are ...

I am sorry but this just came up, what is this word "to-do-list"? I know what that is but is this some kind of idiomatic phrase? Yes, it's an informal name for a list of things that you have to do. Just say 'a to-do-list'.

Best wishes, Clive

Re: Grammatical gender

Miche — Tue, 08 Mar 2005 09:22:13 GMT

Hi, Khoff and all you native English speakers!
I've always been sympathetic with English/American people trying to study my native language, Bulgarian. We are lucky, because it is easier for us to learn English. It doesn't sound strange that inanimate nouns do not have gender in English - it just makes it simpler. That's one of the reasons why I believe English will certainly become an universal language one day (if it hasn't yet).
As you note, you can guess the gender in Russian by the spelling. It's the same in my native language (it is similar to Russian). However, little children tend to make mistakes with the gender of words that do not fit the pattern (e.g. feminine nouns ending in a consonant and vice versa - these are the exceptions). In Bulgarian, there is no set rule for "Caterogry A" and "Category B" nouns, but it is not that difficult to tell the gender in most cases.
However, you sometimes use gender for inanimate nouns in English and they do not always correspond to the gender in my native language. Such for instance is the case with "ship" - feminine, right? It is masculine in Bulgarian. Also, in literature, you can sometimes refer to Death as he. In Bulgarian death is feminine. However, Moon (f.) is the same gender in my language, while Sun (m.) is neuter in Bulgarian. I just remember them - they are not too many in English and most of them are rarely personified.
A curious point to mention is that the words for girl and boy in Bulgarian are neuter, while woman and man are feminine and masculine, respectively. I guess the explanation has something to do with cultural/social notions.
Hope somebody from France will give you a clue for remembering gender.