As a native English-speaker trying to learn Czech, I say “ah, yes” to your list. All those things we don’t have to worry about in English! Slavic languages are a real pain in that regard. Our brains are not set up to easily accommodate the entire concept of gender, cases, endlessly conjugating and changing verbs, etc. I understand Finnish is worse. I think I heard that it has 14 cases!
I once had a scientist remark to me that it is easy to speak English badly and still be understood. Yes, but not true of Czech. He also said that “broken English” is the international language of science. True!
I wish I could lay my hands on the URL of an article about the way English is developing into a new dialect in Brussels suited to all the languages there plus bureaucratic jargon. It was hilarious, except to the Brits and the French who were interviewed. The Brits found it painful and the French simply refused to speak any English at all.
P.S. I think these grammar terms are something to learn AFTER you know a lot of the language. I learned a lot of these terms about English because I was curious. It did not help my speaking or writing at all.
"What I was saying is that I don’t believe that being a Polish native speaker gives me any sort of significant edge in learning "
I think it just depends on your definition of “significant”. Polish would be easier if I was…say…Slovenian. Then again, it’d be much harder if I were…say…Chinese. I just think that German is closer to slavic languages than most of the other non-slavic languages out there.
“You seem so excited and enthusiastic about your new challange with Polish and I write stuff that can be potentially discouraging!”
Nah, don’t worry. Most poles seem to be very excited and supportive when they find out that you’re learning they’re language. That’s quite motivating.^^
“I am obviously open to any sort of German/Polish language exchange. If you come up with any difficulties learining Polish don’t hesitate to ask me!”
I guess the difficulty of a language depends mostly on how different it is to your native language and other languages you know. Most people would say that Russian is more difficult than English, Bulgarians might disagree^^
I agree that “bad English” is easy to learn, but I can tell you that learning “good English” is pretty difficult. I’d say that English is harder than Polish when it comes to
spelling (English makes no sense, Polish is almost phonetic)
tenses (English has 16 tenses, Polish has 3…5 if you count aspects as tenses.)
articles (learning when to use which article is not easy, especially when your native language doesn’t have them…like slavic languages and Japanese)
vocabulary (English is a Germanic/Romance-hybrid. It’s like someone trying to speak German and French at the same time. In German, you learn Schwein (pig) and Fleisch (meat) and then you understand Schweinefleisch. In English, pigs magically transform into porc when they get to close to a plate.^^)
word order (which is super-strict in English)
Somebody said “What you find weird about others is probably what they find weird about you”, that probably applies to languages, too.
“I think these grammar terms are something to learn AFTER you know a lot of the language.”
Maybe. I almost completely ignored French grammar and my French is okay. It might be better if had studied grammar, who knows. Grammar helps me with Japanese…because Japanese grammar is completely different from “european grammar”.
I want to learn grammar because I wanna be able to look stuff up. To give just one example, everyone seems to assume that people who search for “Which Words should be Capitalized in a Title” speak fluent Grammarnese.
I LOVE your description of English! So at least there is
SOMETHING difficult in English besides the spelling. Makes me feel better in my battle with Czech. I sometimes feel the Czechs spent those long dark winter nights by the fire embroidering the language. Such a contrast with Hawaiian, for example.
" vocabulary (English is a Germanic/Romance-hybrid. It’s like someone trying to speak German and French at the same time."
This was funny! But it’s worse. English adopts words from every language. Imagine a poor American child just learning to read, being taught the major sounds of the letters, and then encountering “two,” “eight” and “who.” Later running into “ballet” and “khaki.” Even adults are amazed at the word “Czech” and wonder how the z got in there and what it means. (I understand it’s from Polish – the soft sign similar in use to the Czech “haček” over the c. Is that right?)
So many English words are creeping into Czech with their spelling unchanged. Gone are the days when “jam” was changed into “džem.” They will have not only their own sound for “ch” (as in loch) but those in champagne, church, and Christmas. Soon, instead of finding learning to read simple, they will also be floundering and labeled “dyslexic.” Terrible!
RE grammar and French. At age 15 I began French and encountered the gender idea. I decided it was an incredibly stupid idea and refused to spend any effort whatsoever learning gender. That terrible teenage decision is with me still. I am still innately averse to learning gender in Czech but as an adult I make some effort. Of course, I still wonder who in the hell started THAT trend, way back when. And why???
The reason why Czech or native Russian is so complicated, as far as their grammar, is that both of them retained the grammar aspects which were completely lost in English! =)))
In other words, English used to be an extremely complicated language, but it is not anymore! =))) For you to know what’s been happening to the language you just have to know its history! =))) Belive me, huge lots of questions then immediately become answered!
The Brits found it painful and the French simply refused to speak any English at all.