Which Asiatic language can be really important?

Erik   Mon Jan 14, 2008 7:54 pm GMT
I would like to know which Asiatic language can be really important. People say that Chinese can be the new must learn language, but I am not sure.

Other languages like Arabic, Hindi or Japanese, are in the top ten, but I do not know if they can be really important this century.

Thank you.
Guest   Mon Jan 14, 2008 7:59 pm GMT
Only European languages can be important, and within European languages, only the ones that sound nice could be important (French, Spanish, English, Italian), and from those "nice-sounding" languages only the easy ones could be important (just English and Spanish).
Guest   Mon Jan 14, 2008 8:34 pm GMT
I don't believe that Spanish is easy, it has many verbal conjugations and the use of the reflexive pronouns is very productive and tricky. Also you have the Spanish subjunctive making the Spanish language the most complicated language from the verbal point of view in the world.
Guest   Mon Jan 14, 2008 8:54 pm GMT
Navajo verbs seem to have many aspects, but it has not 50 tenses like Spanish has. Also the distinction between ser and estare is difficult.
furrykef   Mon Jan 14, 2008 10:16 pm GMT
<< Also you have the Spanish subjunctive making the Spanish language the most complicated language from the verbal point of view in the world. >>

Every time somebody claims the Spanish subjunctive is difficult, I ask them to give me a "difficult" example sentence and ask me whether the verb should be in the subjunctive to see if I get it right. So far nobody has done this. Until somebody does, I will continue to believe that the subjunctive is not all that complicated.

- Kef
Guest   Mon Jan 14, 2008 10:21 pm GMT
The difficultness or easiness of the subjunctive is based on statistics not in the fact that you may find it easy or difficult. Most of people who study Spanish find it difficult.
Guest   Tue Jan 15, 2008 12:45 am GMT
"The difficultness or easiness of the subjunctive is based on statistics not in the fact that you may find it easy or difficult. Most of people who study Spanish find it difficult. "

>>Actually it's the opposite, anyone who's studing any language always finds a new language to be diffcult, but with Spanish they always say it was pretty easy (that's why they take it), unlike English where people always get frustrated about having to learn twice as much because of its rediculous spelling and complicated sounds, it has too many rules and too many exceptions that just make people hate it.

BTW, remember that Esperanto takes you 7 months to learn, Spanish a year and English 7 years, and if you don't believe that, just ask for proof of it, and I'll find the link.
Guest   Tue Jan 15, 2008 1:02 am GMT
Ok, where is the proof? I guess that it's easy to achieve good command of Esperanto because nobody speaks it natively so you simply learn it and it will always be good if you can throw a few sentences syntactically correct.
Guest   Tue Jan 15, 2008 1:43 am GMT
Yes, because in esperanto there are no criteria for what sounds natural, only what is grammatically correct. One of the hardest parts of a natural language is sounding natural, though it might be easy to reach gramatical correctness.
Guest   Tue Jan 15, 2008 2:14 am GMT
Here it says why Spanish is easy.
http://www.language-learning-advisor.com/easiest-language-to-learn-survey.html
And here it says that Esperanto is five times easier than Spanish ans ten times easier then English... you do the math.
http://usono.wordpress.com/what-is-this-language/
Guest   Tue Jan 15, 2008 2:19 am GMT
The first link says this:

"The reasons for Spanish were varied but not surprising. Many found the grammar relatively easy with its regularity and easy spelling. Others keyed in on the common vocabulary, either borrowings between Spanish and English, cognates or common borrowings from Latin.

"

These reasons are plain wrong. Spanish has many irregularities. It has many irregular verbs. Another example is the reflexive pronoun se. How do you know if it' reflexive or not? It has many uses and exceptions. About cognates, there are also many false friends so it's a disadvantage .
Sunnerb   Tue Jan 15, 2008 2:25 am GMT
Well, English is the dominant language of communication among Asians.

I guess if it's not because of its characters and tones, Chinese would have become more dominant than it is today.
Guest   Tue Jan 15, 2008 2:32 am GMT
Spanish has almost no irregular verbs, unlike English, there are a whole bunch of them in English, besides did you read the second link? it clearly says that Esperanto is 5 times easier than Spanish, and 10 times easier than English, hopely you'd know what that means? And finnaly it also explains why english is so difficult to master.
SJF   Tue Jan 15, 2008 2:53 am GMT
I think it depends on which country and which culture will be more and more influential in the world.
From the economic and political points of view,I think Chinese and Arabic will be more important in next 10 years than in present days. India is a rapidly developing country but only in North and middle India is Hindi widely accepted and spoken,in the south,many people prefer to speak English.And when I travelled in India,I met a young man from Goa and he can speak English,Hindi,French and his mother tongue(I forget what that language is),and I felt that he liked to speak English rather than Hindi to me. But if one wants to know deeply about Indian society and custom,Hindi or Sanskrit or some other native languages must be learned and one can surely understand the importance of mastering a native Indian language.
Japanese is important nowadays but I don't think it will become more and more important. Persian will be more important if Iran keeps fighting with the Westerns.
Gues   Tue Jan 15, 2008 3:00 am GMT
"Persian will be more important if Iran keeps fighting with the Westerns."

Persian is unimportant and if Iran keeps fighting with US it will dissapear.