Hey guys, I am interested in learning a new language this summer. Although I have a job, it's not too many hours, so I have a lot of free time. I would like to do something productive and learn a language if possible. The two languages I am interested in learning are French and German. Anyone have an idea on which is the easiest to learn?
And to anyone who learned a language on their own, how did they do so? I'm thinking a language program like Rosetta Stone.
Thanks!
Lysenko United States. June 05 2011 21:58. Posts 2045
No language is easy. Pick one that's meaningful to you, because you will have to stick with it to make progress.
Edit: French may be grammatically closer to English, but it still really comes down to what language you think you'll use and what will keep you motivated.
As I study 6 diffrent languages @ highschool, i might help you a bit .
German is prolly the easiest as its closer to English than French. Both German and English are West-German languages as French is a roman language, like italian. Dunno what else you would like to know, but if you want to learn it as quickly as possible, go with german
If you want a simple language to learn basically any of the Oceanic languages like Indonesian, Malaysian and Bogan are pretty simple. I had to do Indo classes in High School and it was basically a free B/A depending on how much I turned up lol. Aside from that I've learnt a small amount of french and I did Japanese for like 5 years when I was in High School.
Hiya! :D:D:D:D:D
nbaker United States. June 05 2011 22:47. Posts 939
On June 05 2011 22:30 Integra wrote: Wouldn't Swedish be the easiest though? Half of our language already consists of English words
Scandinavian languages are often hard to learn for foreigners for many reasons.
Why do you wanna learn a new language? People usually have some kind of motivation. German? lots of modern philosophy and other literature is written in german. French? no clue, girls? You are learning a language to use it for something. I would say you have to figure out what that something is.
I know a couple of languages myself. Learned them because I wanted to read some famous literature. One more thing, if you are trying to learn to speak a specific language for some reason then the best/most fun way is to travel to the country and stay there for a while.
I've been taught both and german was by far the easiest since there are very few exceptions to the rules where as in french you are surprised when it actually adheres to the rules.... I still get nightmares about the french verbs...
DwmC_Foefen Belgium. June 05 2011 23:54. Posts 2139
My advice would be to immerse yourself in the language all the time as much as possible and learn it similar to how to you learned your first language. I learned Japanese by at first watching lots of kids TV and reading simple stuff like comics and gradually moving on to harder stuff so that now I read novels/academic papers and watch the news on TV etc. (Edit: and talking to natives on Skype helps a lot too) As for which to pick, I would go with whichever interests you the most and not think about which is harder because honestly I don't think language learning is "hard" so much as it just takes a lot of time and to put in that time you're gonna need interest and motivation.
Last edit: 2011-06-05 23:58:54
ただ水の泡にぞ似たりける
Deja Thoris South Africa. June 06 2011 00:17. Posts 646
The Germanic / Dutch languages seem have vocab and rules that aren't too massively confusing to people whose native language is English.
French / Spanish / Italian all form a different branch that quite simply defeats my little mind!
If you wanted to learn languages for business German will be more useful than French. However, Spanish is more widely spoken than German or French so you might want to give that some thought.
To learn a language effectively you need to immerse yourself in it. That means practising it in practical situations. It's all very well repeating into a computer microphone, it really focuses the mind when you need to order food or ask for directions in a foreign language though.
As a French guy who studied German for quite a few years, I can tell you German is way easier than French for grammar, syntax, conjugation, etc...
German has pretty strict rules, whereas French has a LOT of exceptions to myriads of subtle rules. As a result, I doubt you can get to a semi-decent level in French over summer, whereas you could probably get the basics of German. The biggest problem of course would be vocabulary, as only time or immersion can help here.
As of which to choose, it depends on WHY you want to learn a language. Because sincerely, German is close to useless unless you want to live in Germany. It is only spoken in Germany, Austria, and some parts of Switzerland, and people there usually speak English pretty well.
French however, is the official language in many African countries, Belgium, Switzerland, and is widely spoken in many countries (somehow people all over the world learn French at school). And French people are TERRIBLE at languages in general and English in particular, so knowing the language is very useful even for tourists here.
On June 05 2011 23:54 DwmC_Foefen wrote: I'd go with German It can sound unbelievably gay
WAS? NICHT SCHWUL!! >:/
or amazingly harsh and awesome ^^
ok..i can live with that :D
(funny...most germans consider french sounding pretty "gayish" )
On June 06 2011 00:17 Uraeus wrote: As of which to choose, it depends on WHY you want to learn a language. Because sincerely, German is close to useless unless you want to live in Germany. It is only spoken in Germany, Austria, and some parts of Switzerland, and people there usually speak English pretty well.
French however, is the official language in many African countries, Belgium, Switzerland, and is widely spoken in many countries (somehow people all over the world learn French at school). And French people are TERRIBLE at languages in general and English in particular, so knowing the language is very useful even for tourists here.
tbh...that should not be of that significance if you dont consider living in the country
If it comes to usefullness one should perhaps consider chinese (though it should be a lot harder than french/german)
"Eyo lesson' here, Bey. You're comin' at the king, you best not miss."
MoltkeWarding Canada. June 06 2011 01:09. Posts 4641
They're about equally difficult, although for different reasons. Germans are more tolerant of your mistakes though.
I would advise against Rosetta stone, or any other such overpriced programme. Do yourself a favour, and go down to your local used book store, and look for language-learning materials, preferably pre-1970. The awful commercialisation of language learning delivers the typical effects of dumbed down gimmicks. Flip through the book, and you can often gauge the vocabulary-span of that given book. If there are fewer than 1000 words, it's probably not worth purchasing. Other telltale signs are the infusion of "games," "cultural information," or colourful pictures. Avoid all of these as you would poison.
Finally, avoid the Internet. Find a good hand dictionary, course book, and tapes. If you are good with phonetics, you probably don't even need tapes, but apparently they are supposed to be of help if you are good at audiocentric learning.
Last edit: 2011-06-06 01:10:38
IamBach United States. June 07 2011 01:10. Posts 1058
French is easier than German imo but then no language is going to be too easy. French might take a bit less time to learn but a lot longer to master imo. Both have lots of great literature though French might have the edge. Music German wins by a long shot. Bach, Mahler, Schubert (though they are pretty difficult to understand if you don't have a the lyrics in front of you). If your not into that kind of stuff, then I would check out Wir Sind Helden on youtube. They are really easy to understand and fun to listen to.
Really if I were you I would try learning Spanish. I know it may seem kind of boring if your American, but it is a really fun language and not too challenging grammatically but rather getting a hang of idioms and all the verb cases are, but usually thats the kind of stuff people like!
Just listen http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__lCZeePG48
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