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minor languages
I've seen lists of the "hardest" languages, and Basque is often on those lists. Sometimes Lithuanian and Hungarian, too.
One (or more) of the Slavic languages is supposed to be horrendously difficult, too, but don't think it was Slovene or Serbian.
they all have 7 cases (except of bulgarian and macedonian, they have articles)
Polish has 3 genders (but masculine is divided in 2, like in most of slavic languages) Slovenian is a piece of cake, the only interesting thing is a dual form
In my opinion, Slovenian and Sorbian are probably the most interesting slavonic languages because they retain the old Indo-European dual form. If you learn well a slavonic language, all the others will be a piece of cake. You have to be smart enough to memorize different noun and adjective ends, that's all, vocab and syntax is quite similar, so be careful not to mix them. Bulgarian and Macedonian don't have cases but a very rich verbal system. Serbian and Croatian have more tenses then most slavic languages as well, but those tenses are literacy and you needn't to learn them at an elementary or intermediate level, you can perfectely survive with other simplified tenses. It is true, however, that Serbo-Croatian has a little bit more exceptions than other slavonic languages but its pronunciation is a breeze.
they all have 7 cases (except of bulgarian and macedonian, they have articles)
Russian and Slovak have 6 cases, they've lost the vocative
I don't consider languages that much from a linguistic perspective. If all that I'm looking for is interesting linguistic stuff, a single language such as German is enough.
I consider factors like the actual difficulty, linguistic affinity to languages I already know, etc. Germanic languages would make very good candidates, because I can expect some of the richest (though small) economies that offer a rich culture, a high living standard (even for a tourist), and also a higher chance of meeting friendly native speakers. Plus, they also tend to understand English better than many others and can help a lot in learning. When I was shopping around languages, though, I didn't find Italian and Spanish particularly interesting.
When I was shopping around languages, though, I didn't find Italian and Spanish particularly interesting
I don't find Chinese or Cantonese interesting either! In addition, I would never live in such an ugly country! The Chinese are destroying all the beauty that past generations had built. What a shame! The only interesting thing of China is the giant panda IoI
Serbian and Croatian have more tenses then most slavic languages as well, but those tenses are literacy and you needn't to learn them at an elementary or intermediate level, you can perfectely survive with other simplified tenses. It is true, however, that Serbo-Croatian has a little bit more exceptions than other slavonic languages but its pronunciation is a breeze.
well, Macedonian and Bulgarian also have some complex tenses. I think more than in Croatian and in Serbian because they lost their cases so they had to reward themselves somewhere else, that is in a verb syntax. But! If you join all those cases in nouns, adjectives, pronouns, tenses and irregularities, Croatian and Serbian have the richest grammar among the Slavonic languages. The pronunciation is another story, it's far easier, the only difficult thing is the pitch/tonal accent, still it's not like in Chinese, that is, you don't have to read the lyrics before listening to the song or you're gonna get it wrong lol.
Indonesian and Tamil are not "minor" languages. Both have more foreign speakers than Spanish for example.
Indonesian is certainly not a minor language with well over 200 million speakers.
I believe Barrack Obama can speak Indonesian?
I'd love to learn Spanish, it's probably the nicest one amongst the minor languages
>>I don't find Chinese or Cantonese interesting either! In addition, I would never live in such an ugly country! The Chinese are destroying all the beauty that past generations had built. What a shame! The only interesting thing of China is the giant panda IoI <<
I acknowledge that. But I disagree. The panda isn't a good national symbol either, because pandas simply are very delicate animals that can't survive on their own without the Chinese. It simply implies the same for our Chinese children. I don't like them. But it's no use for you to complain to me.
I would learn Swedish personally. Sweden is a beautiful place, and the people are very friendly. I've been told by multiple people who learned swedish that its a pretty easy language to learn, and that within three months time in sweden with no prior knowledge you can be fairly proficient in the language.
After that I would learn dutch because its very similar to german. Being someone who understands German, Dutch actually a lot of the time looks like german with a ton of typos, haha.
If you think you can learn Swedish in three months (and you are not Norwegian or Danish), it would be interesting to read about your results.
"I believe Barrack Obama can speak Indonesian?"
I understand that he can greet people, but it's difficult to know how much he knows. |