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What are your hairy goals? | ||
Tags: Goals | Advanced Level | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| JClangue Newbie Canada Joined 3562 days ago 15 posts - 20 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Catalan | Message 81 of 111 19 August 2014 at 6:50am | IP Logged | |||||
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Just spent another hour on Mandarin tonight. Learned another 40 words and at this pace
I'll be at B2 writing skill in not too long! Don't see what everybody is saying when they claim that writing is so hard in Chinese! :) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5140 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 82 of 111 19 August 2014 at 8:05am | IP Logged | |||||
Good luck. I'll look forward to see your progress with those 5 languages in a year :-) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Stolan Senior Member United States Joined 3838 days ago 274 posts - 368 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Thai, Lowland Scots Studies: Arabic (classical), Cantonese | Message 83 of 111 19 August 2014 at 7:53pm | IP Logged | |||||
I'm still learning, it isn't devoid of complexity, but I find it so strange that people keep on ranking it as one of the top ten hardest languages when it is not conservative at all nor is it exceptionally difficult compared to related languages. Go to Taiwan and tell a Hokkien speaker or go to Hong Kong and tell a Cantonese speaker "Mandarin one of the hardest if not the hardest language to learn in the world" and they will stare at you blankly with confusion. Of course, westerners thinking languages outside of the west as Vortigese doesn't help. Edited by Stolan on 19 August 2014 at 7:55pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4513 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 84 of 111 19 August 2014 at 8:02pm | IP Logged | |||||
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At least you changed it from the original, which was even worse... but there's a lot of
sweeping generalizations in that post. Whence cometh your beef with westerners? I also fail to see how conservatism has any influence on complexity at all, but it just might be me. Edited by tarvos on 19 August 2014 at 8:02pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Stolan Senior Member United States Joined 3838 days ago 274 posts - 368 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Thai, Lowland Scots Studies: Arabic (classical), Cantonese | Message 85 of 111 20 August 2014 at 12:38am | IP Logged | |||||
Conservatism refers to the fact that Min Chinese retains far more features that have been lost in Mandarin due to its history such as very unpredictable tone sandhi. But you may have a point: Min/Cantonese is starting to develop tonal morphology, something that Mandarin is not doing as much. A language could innovate but the other doesn't and is "conservative" because of that. I already answered that question before about westerners before. To Iversen: Chinese may not work out but what about getting at least one language of the east Asian typology, something from that sprachbund, into the list of languages you know or at least become familiar with one then decide. Edited by Stolan on 20 August 2014 at 12:47am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cabaire Senior Member Germany Joined 5405 days ago 725 posts - 1352 votes | Message 86 of 111 20 August 2014 at 2:08am | IP Logged | |||||
A language with telepathic elements, where everybody is speaking simultaneously, that sounds great! New challenges! 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4513 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 87 of 111 20 August 2014 at 9:34am | IP Logged | |||||
Maybe in this case. But in general it just means that relatively ancient features of a language are retained. But that really implies zero: ancient features do not have to be complex whatsoever, they could equally well be analytical. So that complexity is affected by conservatism is an illogical statement, it only works if the language was complex to begin with - and whether it is is a matter of debate already because I don't consider Icelandic for example that complex. It's just more explicit in its statements and it has some funny sounds you have to learn. Maybe it is complex from the linguist's or academic point of view, but for the average language learner, that is irrelevant.
No, you spouted rude remarks and made generalistic comments trying to back it up with a very thinly veiled layer of nonsensical linguistic argumentation. Pull the other one, it's got bells on. You are trying to theoretize a discussion about people's impression of language learning (a highly applied skill) with a whole lot of cultural dimensions and then based on that flimsy theoretical framework you are trying to diss a whole group of people. Don't you see that it makes you look a) completely ignorant and b) rude as hell? Making the comment that all westerners consider eastern languages "insect speech" (before you happily changed the term to a form of gobbledigook, which only slightly nuances the statement) is just plain insulting, especially on a forum where Asian languages are cherished. We appreciate it if your prejudices don't come into play here and certainly not based on some rather flimsy linguistic argument. Edited by tarvos on 20 August 2014 at 10:43am 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4513 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 88 of 111 20 August 2014 at 9:35am | IP Logged | |||||
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Double post edited out. Edited by tarvos on 20 August 2014 at 10:42am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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