FORTHCOMING POST... Making Sense of CYRILLIC!

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Part 3: What Easy New Language to Learn? Italian? Spanish? Think farther...

Welcome to the third and final instalment of "What Easy New Language to Learn..." of course 'easiness' is shaped by subjectiveness and personal influences, a language learned through pleasure in contrast to a language forced upon you, will be learned quicker, regardless of any innate 'difficulties' or 'easy' features that may be bound within the language itself.

The third and final language we will look at today... is a language that ranks equal in its primary country to another 10 languages... Afrikaans. Of course, Afrikaans is spoke also in Namibia, Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland. It has 6.45 million native speakers, but up to 12-16 million people worldwide have some knowledge of the language.

Alike Norwegian, which featured in Part 1, Afrikaans is a West Germanic language and therefore a member of the Indo-European language family.

Essentially, Afrikaans is the African version of Dutch, in fact until the early 20th century, Afrikaans was still considered a dialect of Dutch. Despite similarity however, Afrikaans poses far fewer problems when trying to acquire proficiency. Hence, Afrikaans' approval and Dutch's disapproval as one of the the three languages contained in this series of posts.

What makes Afrikaans 'easy' to learn??


Afrikaans, unlike Dutch, and similarly to Norwegian has NO verb conjugation by person. 


Alike English, Afrikaans has NO grammatical gender. Words are neither female, male, neuter etc.


Afrikaans DON'T express the Perfect or Pluperfect tenses... 
In simple terms...


Ek het gebreek, can mean either 'I broke' or 'I have broken!'


To make an object plural, Afrikaans generally employs the ending -e or -s
ex. land (land) -> lande (lands)
artikel -> arikels


Afrikaans has a word order similar to Dutch, which isn't too far removed from English, but isn't that straightforward either. 


Potential Hurdles


The letter 'G' in Afrikaans, is pronounced with a strong guttural sound akin to the 'ch' found in the Scottish word 'Loch' or the fourth letter of the Welsh alphabet, found in words such as 'Chwarae' (to Play.)


Although learned fairly easily, this may pose problems for some with oral comprehension. 


Adjectives change a little before the noun... although this is found with many Indo-European languages. 


IT MAY BE HARDER TO FIND SPEAKERS' OF AFRIKAANS BY LISTENING IN,  IN A LANGUAGE THAT HAS 11 OFFICIAL LANGUAGES, THAN SAY TO FIND A NORWEGIAN SPEAKER IN NORWAY. 

Part 2: What Easy New Language to Learn? Italian? Spanish? Think farther...

In part 2 of What Easy New Language to Learn? I would like to draw all of your attention to the exotic East. 

The Iranian language Persian or Farsi is found on the Indo-Iranian branch of languages, thereby making it a relative, albeit fairly distant, of other Indo-European languages. It is spoken in 10 countries and natively by 60-70 million people. 

Iran  Afghanistan  Bahrain  Iraq  Tajikistan  Pakistan  Uzbekistan  Iranian diaspora  Kuwait  UAE

WHY BOTHER WITH PERSIAN?

Due to the countries where it is spoken, I foresee, like many, that the Persian language will soon be an important world language, and an essential learn for all linguaphiles or media moguls. 

In addition to this the language is interesting... it is written in an aesthetically pleasing script. The same script that renders all the wealth of beauty found within great Persian Literature such as, Attar's The Conference of the Birds, One Thousand and One Nights and Yeki Bud Yeki Nabud (Once Upon a Time.) OR, THE PRINCE OF PERSIA :L  

So, how difficult exactly is Persian/Farsi to learn..? Stupid question huh?.. Well, at least based on the post title! 

Welcome features...

Persian verbs in the PAST tense all conjugate regularly! ABSOLUTELY NO EXCEPTIONS. In fact, conjugation, as a whole, is pretty straightforward... except  for a sometimes irregular PRESENT tense STEM... But, that poses no great setbacks!

ARTICLES... THINK AGAIN!

Articles such as 'Le' 'La' or 'Les' in French, 'La' and 'El' in Spanish or the 'der' 'das' and die's etc, found in German... DO NOT EXIST in Persian... this surely saves a lot of dictionary time, and spares annoyance. 

GENDER... THINK AGAIN!

Say good bye to the Female, Male, Neuter and other grammatical genders found in other European languages such as Spanish, French, German, Italian and even Norwegian.

VERBS

All verbs end in -dan or -tan!! BUDAN - TO BE

REMOVE -AN = PAST TENSE STEM (3RD PERSON HAS NO SUFFIX)

EX. HE/SHE/IT WAS = Bud

Garm bud, means... It was warm (garm) or این گرم بود.

SOME DIFFICULTY... IT SEEMED INEVITABLE.

As you can see from above, Persian is written in a Perso-Arabic script, meaning, that it has a non-Roman alphabet which has to be learned. This script however, isn't too difficult, sure it'll pose problems to begin but overall it's ok... there is some variation to be found, but don't panic!

This script is beautiful looking, and once learned will amaze people when being written by your smug selves! Here are a few helpful things that will get you well on your way!

Alphabet

Perso-Arabic Script

Persian Phrases and Examples

Where to begin... Get a good course book... TRY THIS ONE

Part 1: What Easy New Language to Learn? Italian? Spanish? Think farther...

My goal, despite my blog's name, isn't to learn as many languages as humanely possible. I have always believed in QUALITY before QUANTITY when concerning language learning. But, there are occasions when I myself like to step outside my current language learning frames, French and Spanish, and to dip my toes in the fresh pools of another language, similar languages usually fit the bill, allowing me to see in essence a different rendition of the current language I'm studying. Linguistically, written French and Italian aren't all that different. From seasoned polyglots to amateurs however, quantity matters. Indeed, Spanish, Italian and French all learned consecutively, greatly reduces their respective learning times. That will surely rack up your number...

Here, however are my suggestions... all of which should be easier learned than expected, and if you care, look vastly more impressive under your belt than the much sought after Romance Languages...So, let's roll on language number 1.

NORWEGIAN

You may be wondering... Norwegian, Why Learn Norwegian? Only around 5 million people speak Norwegian, and those are mainly in Norway... Norway's a cold, desolate place.

Here are reasons to make you think again...

Norway's standard of living has been voted one of the highest in the world for many years. In fact, Norway isn't how you entirely imagine it... a quick Wiki search or the Norwegian Facebook group will change your mind.

LANGUAGE DIFFICULTY

Norwegian, being a Germanic language, contains many English cognates that will help you on your way when trying to build a sizeable vocab.

Here are some examples...

tre - tree

busk - bush

gress - grass

hund - dog (hound)

katt - cat

mus - mouse

regn - rain (sounds like 'Rhine' - as in the river)

snø - snow (said, 'snuh')

vinter - winter

sommer - summer

Norwegian Grammar

Norwegian grammar is surprisingly straightforward... easier than French or even Spanish.

Norwegian verbs are among the easiest to conjugate with any language in Europe.

With the Present Tense, one but only has to add -r to the end of the infinitive, regardless

of who's doing the the action.

ex. Ha - to Have

Jeg har - I have

du har - You have (singular)

han har - He has

vi har - We have

dere har - You have (Plural)

de har - They have

Past Tense has the -te suffix, whereas English has -ed

Plurals are formed by adding -r to the end of a word that ends in a vowel, and -er to a word

ending in a consonant.

Word Order is similar to that of English, often SVO

and so on...

Mutual Intelligibility (source)

Norwegians can... understand 88% of SPOKEN Swedish. (Swedes -> Nor = 48%)

understand 89% of WRITTEN Swedish. (Swedes -> Nor = 86%)

Norwegians can ALSO... understand 93% of WRITTEN Danish. (Dan->Nor=89%)

understand 73% of SPOKEN Danish. (Dan->Nor=69%)

Fancy learning 100 or more words a day??

Today, I will show YOU how one can learn, with enough creativity, ten's or hundred's of words a week!

I will outline to you many methods that have worked for many:

The sagacious Hungarian polyglot Kató Lomb was THE great advocator of context to deduce the meaning of words; the famous Lectoglot was thus named aptly "Kati Kontext" by her friends. Kató was a vociferous reader, and indulged in swallowing as many enjoyable works of foreign literature as she could to learn her languages.

In her book "Polyglot, How I Learn Languages" chapter 14, Kató suggests using First Language dictionaries to provide the meaning of the word, and an example of the word being used in a sentence. She suggests learning words that share the same root to draw connections and improve the connectivity and relationship of words, synonyms and antonyms can also be called upon. The autistic savant Daniel Tammet, speaker of over 10 languages, (having learnt Icelandic in a week), also advocates such "hyper-connectivity" highly when learning vocab. Her, is one such demonstration with French found in Kató's book:

abolition (manumission)

affected (maniéré)

begging (manche)

crank (manivelle)

cuff (manchette)

demonstration (manifestation)

demonstrator (manifestant)

to emancipate (émanciper)

handcuffs (menottes)

handle (manche)

to handle (manier)

handling (manutention)

horse training (manège)

to maintain (maintenir)

mandate (mandat)

manifesto (manifeste)

manipulation (manipulation)

manual (manuel)

manual labor/er (main-d’œuvre)

manufacture (manufacture)

manuscript (manuscrit)

muff (manchon)

now (maintenant)

one-armed man (manchot)

operator (manipulant)

Logic, thus far has been the tool used to build your vocabulary... Here comes the best bit... creativity!

The mind has a tendency to remember things better if say they are funny, scary or bizarre. In fact, any method that evokes the reaction of any or all of the senses proves to be worth while.

Have you ever suddenly when met by a smell been flooded with memories associated with your prior smelling of it?

This is where creativity rears its head.

Many people have over the years when revising for their exams, tried the technique of listening to a specific song when revising a certain subject matter. The theory being that when you are sitting your exam that all you'd have to do is recall the song, and along with it would be the connected facts. This, is an example that has proved useful for many... but we can do one better.

MNEMONICS & IMAGINATION

HOMES : Maybe you have seen this mnemonic phrase before, if not, HOMES, an easy to remember acronym... is a common example of how mnemonics can speed up memorisation.

Huron Ontario Michigan Eerie and Superior. Or, the 5 great lakes.

Here is another example:

This time using an entire sentence, to memorise the order of the colours' of the rainbow.

Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain :

RED ORANGE YELLOW GREEN BLUE INDIGO VIOLET

Another such example is the use of RHYMES & CATCH PHRASES:

I before E, except after C...

Or when sounded like 'A' as in Neighbour and Weigh

Now, here is when it gets creative, sure it'll take effort and about 15 mins to create such a mnemonic, but, that same effort will make it stick in your mind.

Here is Stuart Jay Raj's creation from an interview in Tomisimo.

Minggu – You’re mingling in church on Sunday.
Senin – And then on Monday after church you go back to ’sinnin’.
Selasa – Then like an Italian waving his hands in the air, you exclaim ‘Selasa’ (at last) Monday is over!
Rabu – Then you call the ‘rabi’ to come and cleanse your sins.
Kamis – The rabi ‘comes’ (Kamis).
Jumat – The rabi performs a weird ritual by ‘jumping on the mat’ (Jumat) to cleanse the sins from Monday.
Sabtu – And then it’s the Sabbath… ready to go and mingle again the next day on Sunday (Minggu).

The above are only examples... the rest is in your hands... remember think full of emotion, humour or logic (if you prefer)... such methods... will get you learning many, many words daily. Reading alone sometimes allows you to learn many by context.

Passive Listening to Learn Languages??

Research published last year has revealed amazingly what many have always philosophised to be true...

The ground breaking research from Victoria University in New Zealand has revealed that listening to incomprehensible input, i.e. language that sounds like gibberish to you, can ameliorate your understanding of the foreign language over time, as new sound patterns are absorbed into the depths of the brain.

'However crazy it might sound, just listening to the language, even though you don't understand it, is critical,' study author Dr Paul Sulzberger said.

It seems obvious to many that our ability to learn and understand language will be improved by immersion to the sounds of the language that you are learning.

Babies, since birth are flooded by new sound patterns daily... by the time their required speech apparatus has developed they are all ready able to speak.

But can adults be language sponges akin to infants? The areas of the brain related to 2nd language acquisition the Wernicke's and Broca's area suffer from a phenomena called 'language plasticity,' where the brain's ability to adapt to new language learning for adults is stunted compared to children's because of lesser brain 'elasticity.'

Researchers from University College London have proven before that language learning "boosts brain power" Their experiment's "scans revealed the density of the grey matter in the left inferior parietal cortex of the brain was greater in bilinguals than in those without a second language."

So, the many benefits of language learning for the brain have been well-established, i.e. a reduced rate of contracting dementia earlier in life. But one mustn't forget also the many personal benefits of language learning, a new perspective can be gained on political issues (see Stu Jay Raj's recent post,) new light can be thrown on how your native language works and how you can improve your work, among others.

So, my advice to you all would be to create an environment that stimulates your language learning, and stretches those synapses. What could be easier for a Spanish learner to greatly improve their capacity, than to say, allowing Spanish TV shows or radio stations play in the background when at home, doing chores, crosswords or while relaxing. Eventually, after enough exposure, you will begin to hear breaks between the initially unceasing waves of sound, you will be able to feel a distinct rhythm and cadence, and finally you may even begin recognising words or speech patterns. One can greatly expedite their language learning through enjoyment and being in a relaxed environment... this background babble seems to fit the bill neatly.

Thousands of free radio stations

Watch foreign language TV Shows and Films.

How to set the gears in motion...

Many of you have come to this blog salivating over the thought in becoming proficient in another tongue, however how can one achieve such a formidable feat?

The list is long of those who have achieved great success in learning several, or many languages. But how does one approach such a task.

Firstly, having gone through the process of learning foreign languages myself I can suggest a few methods that will keep you all in good stead when embarking on your first mission to acquire a new language.

One of the foremost problems I have come across when learning a foreign language is the uncertainty and doubt that runs through the eager pupils' minds when faced with such an apparently insurmountable task.

To leverage oneself I would suggest calmness, good material, patience and desire.

Firstly, I would suggest that the pupil should delve into bookstores or browse online to acquire a quality course book... this course book will be used as your main crutch, outlining the course of your learning process. I would personally suggest finding a copy of the Assimil foreign language learning books, along with others such as... the Teach Yourself or Colloquial series. (For a detailed outline of each courses' strengths and weakness, please refer to polyglot Professor Arguelles' site for thorough video reviews on self instructional material, in addition to a wealth of other interesting musings.) Another seasoned language instructor, whose audio-only course I would highly recommend, is the late Michel Thomas, whose personal brand covers languages from French to Arabic, Russian and Mandarin. Michel Thomas' famous formula for language learning can be seen in action in a BBC documentary. Another major benefit of Thomas' method is that he gets you talking instantly, boosts your confidence incredibly and calmly and collectedly walks you through grammar without any burdensome technical vocabulary.

Indeed, language success can be described by a simple formula written by the famous Hungarian polyglot Kató Lomb in her magnificent book, "Polyglot, How I Learn Languages", which can be found in PDF form here.

Invested time + Motivation

--------------------------------- = Result

Inhibition

Kató like I myself am, was a great advocator of reading to improve foreign language proficiency. She warned of the dangers of the novel/magazine etc. becoming boring, and advised to only look up words if they could not be deduced from context. She stated... "What is important will sooner or later emerge again and will explain itself if necessary... It's much more of a problem if the book becomes flavourless in our hands due to the many interruptions than not learning if the inspector watches the murderer from behind a blackthorn or a hawthorn."

I, myself usually begin with LingQ, a marvellous website by Steve Kaufman that provides a huge cache of articles/stories/interviews all with accompanying audio and highlighted words, that when hovered over, reveal their definitions... this I have found invaluable, deleting any need of a dictionary.

I simultaneously follow my LingQ endeavours devouring any of the target language material I can find, Wikipedia is useful for access to material in both your native language and acquiring language. Blogs and Facebook prove to be valuable assets allowing you to see naturally used, daily dialogue.

Like the Greats of the past, Cardinal Mezzofanti and alike, I find that translation using a bilingual text is an excellent way to acquire a new language. The YouTube sensation Luca, whom provides constant hope, also is a great advocator of this approach and it has kept him in good stead through 10 or so languages. I highly suggest you read his outline and watch his multilingual videos.

An ample and timeless children's book has been employed many a time, as it is fairly simple, enjoyable, illustrated (to provide some meta-linguistic context) and easily found in many foreign languages for comparison. The novel "The Little Prince" by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, is consequently one of the most purchased books ever... Fortunately, it is easily found in many languages online in PDF format by a simple Google search... to save time, here are copies in French, Spanish, English and Esperanto.

Comparative Difficulty of Languages

Language Difficulty Desirability Time Needed? (Estimate)

Romance

Languages

French 3 5 18 months*

Spanish 2 5 12 months*

Italian 2 3 12 months*

Portuguese 2 3 12 months*

Germanic

Languages

English 3 5 14 months (proficient level)

German 4 3 30 months

Norwegian 2 1 6 - 8 months

Celtic

Languages

Welsh 3 2/3 18 months

Other

Mandarin** 3-5 5 12-36 months

Esperanto 1 2 2 months

* Time needed to learn significantly reduces with knowledge of one or more other Romance Language. If already proficient in say French, your time needed to learn Spanish or another Romance Language should be approximately 6 months.

** Spoken Mandarin is relatively straightforward, simple grammar poses no real difficulties, however tones may seem daunting at first. Written Mandarin however is extremely difficult.