Language Meme

[elenothar]

This one's right up my alley...

1st foreign language learned

English. We started learning it in school in year 5.

1st language you self studied

Leaving aside all the languages I learned at school, I guess Spanish? My sister lived in Barcelona for years and I got curious. I never got super far with it, but there's enough overlap with languages I do know that it's not completely hopeless.



Language you wished was your native language

I find this really hard to answer because language is quite tied up with surrounding culture and identity in my head and it's really hard to ask for a different native language without changing all the surrounding circumstances of growing up. I'm pretty happy with German, I guess.

Language you wish you studied more

French - solely because I did it for a few years at school and came away not at all fluent, which in retrospect seems a bit of a waste. I was too wrapped up being just at the brink of fluency with English at the time (and had a terrible teacher), but I wish I'd put more effort in.

Language you wish wasn't so hard

Chinese. I'm having lots of fun trying to learn, but man is it hard.

Language you have officially quit

I never really officially quit a language - often enough the urge to look at it comes back an indeterminate time later - but I suppose the closest I've come is Russian, which I tried for a summer or so and haven't touched since.

Language you wish you could speak every day

I'm strangely attached to speaking English, possibly because it's the language I can express myself best, so I'm pretty happy with where I am with that.

Language that everyone speaks but you never want to try

I don't think I've come across a language I wouldn't want to try if I had infinite time.

Language everyone speaks and you want to try

Arabic, maybe? Not sure how to interpret 'everyone', exactly, but there's a lot of Arabic speakers and it's not a language I've tried at all so far.

Language that makes you nervous

I'm not sure how a language would make nervous, to be honest. There's plenty that are hard, but that's a different kind of feeling.

Language that feels soothing

Italian. I find the pronunciation quite soft, when it's not being yelled at a football stadium.

Language that feels like a businessman in a suit

German, I guess? It feels pretty formal to me, though not necessarily in a bad way.

Language that feels like grandma's home cooking

Weirdly, my answer to this is Irish Gaelic. No, I can't tell you why. It's just the vibe.

Language that feels like a mad scientist’s experiment

... Also Irish Gaelic. But that's mostly because the orthography and the pronunciation are So Far Apart.

Language you think is overrated

As much as I love English, the answer is definitely English. It's just got such a privileged status in the world that it's hard for me to go with anything else.

Language you think is underrated

Apart from, like, all of them? Brutal question to ask a linguist, but I might go for Icelandic, which is supremely charming and obviously not spoken by many people.

Language with the hardest pronunciation

Anything with tones. So, for me, Chinese is the only language I'm learning that has that, so Chinese it is.

Language with the easiest pronunciation

It's hard to look past the native language bias with this question - German is pretty regular, too - but I might say Latin? Except for how it depends whether you're learning German Latin, French Latin, English Latin... still very regular either way though.

Language with the easiest grammar

English. There are a few things you need to wrap your head around, but mostly it's pretty easy.

Language with the hardest grammar

Of the ones I've personally tried to learn, Chinese (it's grammar issues don't look similar to the ones I'm used to, but that doesn't mean it's easy). I don't think it's the hardest full stop though.

Language with the best writing system

If we define best as 'the one I like the most', then Chinese.

Language with the worst writing system

Also Chinese. It's just too damn hard to learn.

Your language learning guilty pleasure?

Learning to read and write a language and never really getting beyond basic phrases in terms of speaking out loud because that's the hardest part of language learning for me.

Comments

[velithya]

oh wow, how many languages do you know?

(And also I'm intrigued as to what your native language actually is? I saw in your bio that you're in the UK and sort of just assumed you were English first language but clearly that was an incorrect assumption! ^^;;; You're not obliged to indulge my curiosity of course ♥)

[elenothar]

Ah, I wouldn't say I know all the languages mentioned. It's a combination of having dabbled in quite a few (without getting anywhere near fluent) and a linguistics degree which has exposed me to a fair variety of languages in general. The only ones I claim real fluency in are German and English. Well, and Latin, which doesn't really count. French, Spanish and Mandarin are all more piecemeal, and other languages, like the Scandinavian ones and Italian I've never done any formal learning for, but have some understanding courtesy of similiarities with languages I do know.

German is my native language - I lived in the UK for several years, though it occurs to me I should update the bio since I'm currently in Canada 😅

[velithya]

*facepalm* this is what I get for making assumptions!! Hahahaha OTL

That's still heaps!! I'm very impressed! Do you have occasion to use your French much in Canada or are you more in English speaking parts?

[elenothar]

Eh, I take it as a compliment that my English is good ;)

I'm in Ontario not Quebec, so I don't need the French, but everything is bilingual here, so it always feels like I should be better at it than I am...

[velithya]

Oh, your English is excellent I actually assumed you were a native speaker ^^;;;

ah, if you're not in the mainly French-speaking parts then there's no reason why you would use your French that regularly! Don't beat yourself up about not being "good" at it, IMO. ♥

[elenothar]

Thank you ❤
(not that there's anything wrong with noticeably non-perfect English, but given it's something I've put a lot of time and effort into, it's still nice to hear)

Honestly, language learning is the one area in my life where I'm actually ambitious, so it's less beating myself up and more feeling vaguely disappointed with myself. But I can only concentrate on one new language at a time, and currently that's Mandarin so *shrug*

[velithya]

Ah, yeah, I hear you!! And Mandarin is so complex too with tones/etc! I have enough trouble just vaguely remembering my university Japanese (I am nowhere near fluent and I wouldn't say I'm conversant either, but I can buy things and ask for directions and I mostly remember my hiragana okay ^^;;;) let alone throwing tones into the mix!

I shall wish you the best of luck with it! ♥

[elenothar]

The luck is much needed! The tones are developing into the bane of my existence...

[nnozomi]

Arabic would be so neat to learn! Except I'm afraid of the written form...

Language with the easiest grammar
English. There are a few things you need to wrap your head around, but mostly it's pretty easy.
I wish I could bottle this and sell it to the Japanese educational system...

Language with the hardest grammar
Of the ones I've personally tried to learn, Chinese (it's grammar issues don't look similar to the ones I'm used to, but that doesn't mean it's easy).
Yes! All the grammar difficulty is in weird places and sort of mixed up with syntax...

Your language learning guilty pleasure?
Learning to read and write a language and never really getting beyond basic phrases in terms of speaking out loud because that's the hardest part of language learning for me.
One reason it's nice to be able to do so much language stuff online where speaking is secondary at best... ;)

[elenothar]

Arabic would be so neat to learn! Except I'm afraid of the written form...

I suspect I don't have it in me to learn another very different alphabet any time soon (if ever), if I persist with Chinese, which is more than enough to be getting on with.

I wish I could bottle this and sell it to the Japanese educational system...

Ah, well, to be fair, I'm sure I have a Romance/Germanic language bias here. I do think English is probably harder to learn for people whose native language is quite different, it's just that of the languages I know well enough to comment on, I think it's the easiest, grammar-wise (also, I think of the grammar mistakes one could make, few give rise to real ambiguity - it might sound wrong, but the reader/listener would still be able to tell what you mean).

Yes! All the grammar difficulty is in weird places and sort of mixed up with syntax...

With the syntax and with the writing system, yeah. Which, to my mind, makes it harder to figure through. It seems less clear-cut 'learn this rule and then you'll be fine' than the sort of grammar say Latin throws at you.

One reason it's nice to be able to do so much language stuff online where speaking is secondary at best... ;)

Indeed! It's one of the reasons I haven't yet convinced myself to do a proper course, which would force me to do that... (the main other being that I'm too far along for absolute beginner and not far enough along for intermediate, which is an awkward place to be)

[tinny]

I'm strangely attached to speaking English, possibly because it's the language I can express myself best

I still find this fascinating, that you can express yourself better in English than in German. Maybe not all that surprising considering how much time you spent in the UK, but still... it's something I have a hard time wrapping my head around, because my brain absolutely doesn't work like that. No language will ever be as central to me as German.

Weirdly, my answer to this is Irish Gaelic. No, I can't tell you why. It's just the vibe.

Ha! :D I don't think I've ever heard Irish Gaelic spoken. I probably should search, just to test the effect. :D

I might go for Icelandic, which is supremely charming and obviously not spoken by many people.

Another one that I've never heard spoken and now want to hear. :D

Arabic, maybe?

I get the reluctance re: new script, but I think it's probably very very easy compared to Chinese. (Isn't everything? :D )

[elenothar]

I still find this fascinating, that you can express yourself better in English than in German. Maybe not all that surprising considering how much time you spent in the UK, but still...

I don't think it's just that - I did spend my most formative years in Germany. Rather, I think it's a combination of my family not being the type to talk about emotions, so I really only got into the habit of that sort of thing once at uni, among English speakers, and the fact that I started writing seriously (or as seriously as an eleven-year-old can) fairly early on and did so in English. A lot of how I express myself in English is built on a foundation of creative writing (and reading - I can't even remember when I last read an entire German book). There are absolutely things I can talk about more easily in German - maths, trees, Kuchen, the goings-ons at home... basically anything that I was used to speaking about in German. That just doesn't extend to talking about how I'm feeling, somehow.

Another one that I've never heard spoken and now want to hear. :D

It's very Scandinavian (with a slightly more archaic feel to it than, say, Danish or Swedish), so I don't think you'd find it very surprising. I just like it :D

I get the reluctance re: new script, but I think it's probably very very easy compared to Chinese. (Isn't everything? :D )

It's still a whole new language family, so very very easy seems a little unlikely :P But I agreet that it's likely not as hard as Chinese, given that it's not a tonal language, and from the little I know, the writing system is much less... varied than the Chinese characters, so probably easier to remember all things considered.

At any rate, it's a moot point - my brain can really only manage seriously trying to learn one language at a time, and I'm getting stubborn enough about Chinese I don't think I'll give up on that anytime soon.

[tinny]

It's still a whole new language family, so very very easy seems a little unlikely :P

Oh, sorry! I was referring solely to the script. It's phonetic, and similar to Hebrew in structure, so I thought that seemed doable. I have no idea what other linguistic features Arabic has, and wouldn't presume to comment on their difficulty. :)

At any rate, it's a moot point - my brain can really only manage seriously trying to learn one language at a time, and I'm getting stubborn enough about Chinese I don't think I'll give up on that anytime soon.

Oh yeah, same. I mean, I've immersed myself in Korean this past month, and I didn't feel like learning it *at all* - which is unusual. All I picked up is Thank You, that's it. (And I'm not even sure that's applicable in all situations...)