Omniglot forum • View topic - What languages are you learning and plan to learn?

Dillon D · Joined:Wed 12 Aug 2009 6:44 pm Posts:47 Location: Colorado

Talib wrote:

reputation as a difficult language (which I think is mainly due to its fusional grammar) is undeserved. People who say that should try Classical Chinese or Classical Arabic, then get back to me.

Very much agreed, German is just as easy as any other romance language.

formiko · Joined:Sun 19 Apr 2009 8:31 am Posts:404 Location: Angola

linguoboy wrote:

If it makes you feel any better, Formiko, it's not just gender and adjective endings that are your bugaboo in German. You also have a fair bit of trouble with syntax, which is equally unintuitive to English-speakers in many respects. There is no easy way to fix this; you simply need more practice in order to internalise the rules.

Actually, it's not the understanding of these forms. It's the creation of these forms. But thanks for reminding me of how good I'm doing :roll:

Talib · Joined:Sun 19 Apr 2009 8:22 am Posts:768 Location: Canada

Dillon D wrote:

Very much agreed, German is just as easy as any other romance language.

I hope you weren't implying German is a Romance language (!).

I'd say it's both easier and harder in different ways. Verb conjugation aside, Spanish grammar comes a lot more intuitively to me than that of German. But German had the advantage of a lot of its vocabulary being cognate with English, which really helps me figure out what something says.

linguoboy · Joined:Sun 19 Apr 2009 9:02 am Posts:1010

formiko wrote:

Actually, it's not the understanding of these forms. It's the creation of these forms. But thanks for reminding me of how good I'm doing :roll: :x

Nichts zu danken! Positiv zu vermerken ist, dass es schon einige Zeit vergangen ist, seitdem du etwas geschrieben hast, das ich mir überhaupt nicht zusammenreimen konnte. Das ist schon was!

Delodephius · **Posted:** Wed 13 Jan 2010 8:34 pm

Talib wrote:

Dillon D wrote:

Very much agreed, German is just as easy as any other romance language.

I hope you weren't implying German is a Romance language (!).

Now why you people always ask something like this I'll never understand. Of course he didn't mean that German is a Romance language. He's obviously not an ignorant person.

Sobekhotep once taught me the word subaudition which means "the act or process of understanding or mentally filling in a word or thought implied but not expressed". But now I realized it doesn't actually translate completely my native Slovak word domyslieť si which also incorporates the above definition but also the ability to ignore the possibility or implication of what you might think is an error in something some person said, but ignoring your a priori knowledge of the person's intelligence. I think this is pointing out the banal mistake, or something like that. I think to figure out would serve as a better translation, maybe there is something better.

Dillon D · Joined:Wed 12 Aug 2009 6:44 pm Posts:47 Location: Colorado

Talib wrote:

Dillon D wrote:

Very much agreed, German is just as easy as any other romance language.

I hope you weren't implying German is a Romance language (!).

I'd say it's both easier and harder in different ways. Verb conjugation aside, Spanish grammar comes a lot more intuitively to me than that of German. But German had the advantage of a lot of its vocabulary being cognate with English, which really helps me figure out what something says.

Not quite sure why the word other was in there. But there are many people who believe German and even RUSSIAN to be romance languages! All are part of the Indo-European family, but that's about it!

Delodephius · **Posted:** Wed 13 Jan 2010 9:14 pm

Haha. Now don't I feel stupid. :oops:

Talib · Joined:Sun 19 Apr 2009 8:22 am Posts:768 Location: Canada

Nothing was implied - it was in jest. But I have heard people seriously say that English is descended from French and/or Latin, so beware.

Anders · Joined:Wed 20 May 2009 10:23 am Posts:52 Location: Sweden

Talib wrote:

Italian, an overrated language

No, Italian is the sexiest lang there is!!

linguoboy · Joined:Sun 19 Apr 2009 9:02 am Posts:1010

Anders wrote:

No, Italian is the sexiest lang there is!!

Any language can be sexy in the right mouth. Italian just sounds to me like Spanish with more arm-waving.