|
Post by mino on Mar 16, 2006 11:01:47 GMT -5
Im can only speak swedish and english but I'ld like to learn Cantonese.
|
|
Thir Jiang Li
Junior Member
1/2 Norwegian, 1/4 Singapore-Chinese and 1/4 Singapore-Filipino
Posts: 190
|
Post by Thir Jiang Li on Mar 17, 2006 5:49:02 GMT -5
The grammar is extremely easy You just wait! I thought it was extremely easy too when I took my first course. Then you learn about the many functions of le5 or liao3. le5's main function is to indicate completion of an action (sort of like tense, but not). Then comes directional and resultative compliments (of which we have very few in English); the particle de5 which indicates the possibility of the completion of a verb--though sometimes using the verb neng2 (to be able to) instead is more appropriate. I could go on forever, lol. On the other hand, in many ways Chinese grammar is probably easier than that of English (and I gather Norweigan). Anyway, best of luck, thirjiangli! ;D Really?! I'm just at the beginners stage, so so far it's been very easy! Well, it's getting more and more complicated now (we're starting to go through some of the stuff you mentioned above), but still it's easier than both French, English and Norwegian At least the verbs doesn't change all the time depending on the person doing it (like in French) or depending if it's past tense, present tense etc. I had a lot of problems at the beginning learning the different sounds though...seperating c, ch, s, sh, z, zh etc., but I'm getting better at it now! Anyway, good luck with your Chinese too! ;D For how long have you been learning it? You'll probably be an expert after being in Shanghai!
|
|
|
Post by friendswithoutcash on Mar 17, 2006 9:09:26 GMT -5
im part chinese as well but i couldnt imagine taking up the language up and unfortunately all i know is "ni hao".... my father understands chinese but ive never heard him speak it, i remember my siblings and i taking him to watch crouching tiger, hidden dragon and he understood the film pretty well as far as i recall. i couldnt understand the film, even with the subtitles. but ive watched it since on dvd (which i must say is a blessing now....aww thank god for quick rewind - those sentences pass by very quickly ) and i consider it to be one of my all time fav films. East-Asian languages have got to be the hardest language to learn in the world i think, because european dialects are related more closely to each other and english. Not only the pronounciation but the written characters. Vietnamese is much more easier to read...
|
|
|
Post by penguinopolipitese on Mar 17, 2006 10:21:47 GMT -5
mandarin is a real bitch. I tried saying something once and ended up saying I was a nazi.
|
|
|
Post by Sensei on Mar 17, 2006 13:51:20 GMT -5
At least the verbs doesn't change all the time depending on the person doing it (like in French) or depending if it's past tense, present tense etc. I had a lot of problems at the beginning learning the different sounds though...seperating c, ch, s, sh, z, zh etc., but I'm getting better at it now! Anyway, good luck with your Chinese too! ;D For how long have you been learning it? You'll probably be an expert after being in Shanghai! Yes! Not having to worry about conjugating verbs or noun declension (eg having to alter a noun to make it plural, by adding an 's' for example) is great. Oh, and the biggest initial consonant I had trouble with at the beginning was x. My x's would always sound similar to my sh's. I still have problems differentiating ang and eng. Oh and the tone sandhi rules can be really frustrating--but later it'll start becoming natural. And thanks for the encouragement btw. Keep up with your Mandarin too!
|
|
pepsicola
Junior Member
The Choice of a New Generation
isaan-polish
Posts: 59
|
Post by pepsicola on Mar 21, 2006 15:48:02 GMT -5
Thai!! i studied it from scratch and i can tel from my ownn expereincee that its' a bitch dificult lanauge to learn.! 1 its a tonal languagge and has tight vowel pronouciatoin. 2. it has five tone marks., wat makes it so difficult is that you could easily say someting with teh wrong tone mark and totally flip the meaning upside down. For exsample 'mai' (new) and 'mâi' (no/not). 3. its' got so many object classifiers (i think 20-30??.) for everythign (humans, amimals, boooks, food.). i mean a 'pen' and a pencil' are in totally diferent classifications despite that they are both the same tools! 4..the consonants are very similar looking and sound indentical, including the vowells,. I have great problems reading because in thai, there is no 'fullstop', 'comma' or a spacebar between each word. so I dont no where one word/syllable ends and where the next beginns., becuse they are crammed together. there are prolly more reassons, but these are some i personaly have found dificult about Thai. The farangs (Westernes) will sure hell find this language to be a cakewalk, I have no doubts.
|
|
korussian
Full Member
half Korean, quater Russian,quater Jew
Posts: 252
|
Post by korussian on Mar 22, 2006 5:25:16 GMT -5
Russian is a mother tongue for me, so it's the easiest language for me^^. Of course, Russian grammar is tough. And I saw many foreigners trying to learn it. Only then I understood how difficult it was. Especially, it's difficult to pronounce letters "‘"-shsh, ""~ts Korean was also easy for me. But I come to an awe when I see Chinese characters! I think it's impossible to memorise. And the accent is difficult, too. But I know that if I begin to study it, I would be able to manage.
|
|
|
Post by indy on Mar 22, 2006 5:44:58 GMT -5
I'm learning mandarin at the moment. I'm being taught by a method that teaches you the basic radicals first and teaches you the characters by showing you the early pictographs they evolved from (so you can see the subject in the character). They usually group the 12 related characters together and put them into a story so you remeber them by creative association.
It's a much better than the way I was taught as a child. Where they just started with "Ni Hao" and taught you phrases and never explained the logic behind the chinese language.
I'm slowly starting to grasp grammer. I'm probably better at reading and writing chinese than I am listening and speaking - which is the hardest skill.
I'm really bad at remebering tones, I usually don't bother even trying to remeber whichis gooing to land me in trouble down the track!
|
|
|
Post by indy on Mar 22, 2006 5:58:44 GMT -5
PS - I'm in awe of the fact that so many of the European and asian members are so fluent at posting in english. Esp those who are still in high school! Only a minority of students in english speaking countries manage to pick up second language. (not counting those who speak another language at home)
|
|
bound4euphoria
Full Member
If you hate me,Why do you keep staring?
Posts: 299
|
Post by bound4euphoria on Mar 22, 2006 7:13:50 GMT -5
i speAK mandarine and i dont know what farsi is
|
|
|
Post by muzo on Mar 22, 2006 16:27:22 GMT -5
^ farsi is persian
and apparently really easy
|
|
|
Post by muzo on Mar 22, 2006 16:51:43 GMT -5
Thai!! i studied it from scratch and i can tel from my ownn expereincee that its' a bitch dificult lanauge to learn.! 1 its a tonal languagge and has tight vowel pronouciatoin. 2. it has five tone marks., wat makes it so difficult is that you could easily say someting with teh wrong tone mark and totally flip the meaning upside down. For exsample 'mai' (new) and 'mâi' (no/not). 3. its' got so many object classifiers (i think 20-30??.) for everythign (humans, amimals, boooks, food.). i mean a 'pen' and a pencil' are in totally diferent classifications despite that they are both the same tools! 4..the consonants are very similar looking and sound indentical, including the vowells,. I have great problems reading because in thai, there is no 'fullstop', 'comma' or a spacebar between each word. so I dont no where one word/syllable ends and where the next beginns., becuse they are crammed together. there are prolly more reassons, but these are some i personaly have found dificult about Thai. The farangs (Westernes) will sure hell find this language to be a cakewalk, I have no doubts. thats a bit like tibetan. central tibetan is also tonal (i can speak it) but writing is very difficult. i know the alphabet but thats about it.. theres also no periods or spaces between words, only dots between syllables. the orthography is really really obsolete, it was last standardized in the 10th century or so, seriously. and its still written the way they spoke 1000 years ago (non tonal) even tho now it switched to tonal.. examples: bkra-shis bde-legs -> pronounced 'tashee deleh'
khyed-rang sku-gzugs bde-po yin-pas -> pronounced 'kherang gussu debo yimpeh'
khyed-rang ga-par phebs-kas -> pronounced 'kherang kaba pehgeh' ^that means the words were pronounced totally differently before, like 'bkra shis bde legs' would be sth like 'bekrashis bedelegis' and now its just 'tashee deleh' wtf
|
|
pepsicola
Junior Member
The Choice of a New Generation
isaan-polish
Posts: 59
|
Post by pepsicola on Mar 23, 2006 3:01:47 GMT -5
Thai!! i studied it from scratch and i can tel from my ownn expereincee that its' a bitch dificult lanauge to learn.! 1 its a tonal languagge and has tight vowel pronouciatoin. 2. it has five tone marks., wat makes it so difficult is that you could easily say someting with teh wrong tone mark and totally flip the meaning upside down. For exsample 'mai' (new) and 'mâi' (no/not). 3. its' got so many object classifiers (i think 20-30??.) for everythign (humans, amimals, boooks, food.). i mean a 'pen' and a pencil' are in totally diferent classifications despite that they are both the same tools! 4..the consonants are very similar looking and sound indentical, including the vowells,. I have great problems reading because in thai, there is no 'fullstop', 'comma' or a spacebar between each word. so I dont no where one word/syllable ends and where the next beginns., becuse they are crammed together. there are prolly more reassons, but these are some i personaly have found dificult about Thai. The farangs (Westernes) will sure hell find this language to be a cakewalk, I have no doubts. Welcome, pepsiCola! Heard that about the script, too... Hm... I just know my German dad's youngest brother married a Thai woman and lives in Thailand. He knows how to speak Thai, and not just since yesterday ;D I wonder how well he speaks... But I think his Thai must be quite good. Hi kyu*ree! hehe thanx... are you half Thai too?? -*i am amir nas*: wow, Tibetan sounds dificuklt, but very interesting at the saem time..!
|
|
|
Post by Sensei on Apr 4, 2006 13:41:05 GMT -5
central tibetan is also tonal (i can speak it) but writing is very difficult. i know the alphabet but thats about it.. I didn't realize that there were different writing forms for Tibetan. I'd be really interested to see them if you can send me a url. I always thought Tibetan was one of the most beautiful written languages. It sort of reminds me of Thai and Khmer. Perhaps they are in the same language family?
|
|
|
Post by TeeHee on Sept 3, 2006 18:53:03 GMT -5
Sign language can be both very simple or very difficult depending on how you look at it. Like any other language, it's got its large complex grammar and vocabulary arrangement, and any "slight" difference in one sign can cause it to be mistaken for another, particularly certain "bad words" . But being that it's a visual language, it also relies heavily on gestures and facial expressions to convey meaning. Even when speaking to hearing people, I tend to use a lot of facial expression and "talk with my hands", so that was never really a problem for me. I guess I just picked up that habit sometime in highschool(when I first started learning sign). This is probably why I don't get along too well with deadpan folks who "joke" while keeping a serious straight face(the internet equivalent to this is people who type stuff online without emoticons), but who still expect me to be able to read their minds and know that they meant it lightheartedly . But that's another post.
|
|