As was explained in
the previous post, each language poses a different level of challenge to those
who wish to learn it, depending on various factors.
4. Syntax. Linguist
theorist claim that human brains are wired into in the subject-verb-object
structure, meaning that people instinctively expect and understand that
order. Whether this is true or not,
languages not bound by this order, i.e. those that use the case system require
more energy to learn and understand but are much freer in terms of sentence
construction. A comparison of English
and Russian demonstrates this point.
While English may have many words to learn, once the learner recognizes
that a given word is a noun, it requires no more effort to process and apply
that word. The writer/speaker can place
that noun in that form in any place where that word as a noun can enter. For example, the form of the word shelf
is the same in the following sentences: The shelf is not straight; Line up the
shelf; The bottle is on the shelf. The caveat is that the order of words is
vital importance and follows strict rules.
You cannot randomly mix up them up without changing the meaning. By contrast, Russian, like other case-languages,
places various suffixes to nouns depending on its function in the sentence or
what the word before it. The meaning of all this complexity is that learners of
the Russian language do not have the tools to understand or write a proper
Russian sentence until they learn all six cases (which is still easier to do than
the 19 cases of Finnish). So, students
of Russian earn their rewards. On the
other hand, once this skill is attained, it is hard to make an error in
sentence construction since almost anything is allowed.
5. Roots. The rule
in regards to learning a language is that the fewer roots there are, the easier
the language. In other words, you get more miles (kilometers) for every word
you learn. So, Hebrew, a non-developing
language for so long, is extremely easy to learn in that perspective while
English is simply hell. The other issue
with roots is familiarity. To a certain point, being familiar with the roots
from another language eases the process radically. English speakers generally
do not struggle with Spanish because many of the words sound familiar. It can happen that too much familiarity
brings confusion. I studied Italian for
several years. I had to remember the
spelling differences between it and French, a more familiar language for me. For example, the word and is et
in French but e in Italian. The
same issue might arise among speakers of Slavic languages, among others. It always helps to have some knowledge in
advance.
6. Intonation and tone. All languages have intonations, the manner in which various kinds
of sentences are spoken, i.e. statement, question, exclamation, etc. This voice control varies from language to
language and country to country and presents the greatest challenge to
mastering a language since it requires conscious retraining of your voice. For example, English has limited up/down
waves when making a statement: I bought a car. There is almost no difference in tone between
the first and last word. In Russian,
with the equivalent sentence, the first word would have a normal tone but the
volume would decrease until the last word almost disappears. French, by contrast, will resemble a sine
wave pattern, up and down. In Italian,
well, it would like an opera, to my ear at least. However, a far greater learning challenge is
tone-based languages, such as Chinese.
The same sound can have numerous meanings, all depending on the tone of
the pronunciation. Small children pick up those tones quickly but most adults
struggle to master them.
So, it should be
clear that no language is a piece of cake in all aspects nor is any language
impossible to learn. Natural talent can
be factor but motivation, time and effort can overcome any difficulty a
language can pose. Every language opens
the world and its people. This
investment is clearly worthwhile.
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