I am an American, but my wife is Japanese. We’ve been married seven years and speak mostly Japanese at home. Many of our friends are Japanese, and I would estimate that I spend at least half of my day listening and/or speaking Japanese.
For the past 7 years we’ve lived in Portuguese speaking countries (Portugal, Brazil and Mozambique), but never in Japan. I studied Portuguese intensively in a language school for the first year, but after that I haven’t really studied the language. On the other hand, I spend a couple hours a week studying Japanese especially trying to improve my reading comprehension.
Despite more exposure to Japanese and much more effort spent studying it, my Portuguese is still stronger. I can read newspapers and novels in Portuguese and understand 80-90% of most conversations. In Japanese, I still cannot read a newspaper or understand a the TV news except at a very basic level.
So, FOR ME, Japanese is a much harder language than Portuguese.
@Gerdemb
You understand less than 80 percent of what your wife says to you in the primary language you use for communication? Assuming your speaking level reflects this, how are you able to communicate enough to foster, you know… attraction? You must be a handsome man.
In Japanese, I understand almost everything my wife says and when I don’t we can switch to English. The real problem I have with Japanese is reading. Despite quite a bit of effort I can still read Portuguese far better. I also have trouble with more formal Japanese speech such as news reports or speeches, but I think that is a function of not being exposed to enough words through reading. I find that in Japanese, I have to make a concetrated effort to learn new vocabulary whereas without trying very hard I absorb Portuguese words. Probably because it’s more similar to English…
@u50623: That surprises me. Did you spend the same amount of hours on Spanish and English. I’m pretty sure that German is more related to English than to Spanish–if you barely spent any time on Spanish but a lot on English then that could definitely skew your perceptions.
To be fair, Spanish pronunciation is fairly easy for most indoeuropean speakers due to its relatively shallow phonology. So the people who standardized Spanish got it right!
Spanish grammar and verb conjugation are a lot more complicated than in English, conversely.
Relatedness means nothing if you don’t actively take advantage of it. The right approach can do wonders. Some find it helpful if two languages are related - some have the opposite opinion.
@Le Jr
No, unfortunately I am not studying Hungarian on “Full-Time” as I like to call it, but sometimes I do look into my books.
I have been using Teach Yourself, FSI and in Poland I bought really great book (in Polish). I think it is way better than all of the resources I encountered. It is called “ucz się sam - język węgierski”
I bought the book after I abandoned Hungarian. The reason for buying it was the need of having one book for Hungarian. And I thin it’s really good. I skammed through it and it seems really nice.
Too bad I think there’s no translation of this book, sorry
@jeff_lindqvist
I agree. For me Norwegian that is really similar to Swedish was easy to learn but I still have a lot of problems with pronounciation words “Norwegian way” and not the Swedish one. On the other had Hungarian was TOO different so I gave up.
I mean, for me it should be in the middle like German. It is not too similar to Swedish, English or Polish and also it is not too different.
As I’ve only recently started Chinese I have to see this is proving the toughest. I know I’m not brilliant at my Japanese yet but I really think I’m making more progress. With my Mandarin it’s just trying to ‘hear’ some of the sounds. Often this is the ch and q. I also think its going to be some time where I’m comfortable in fitting the pinyin to the Hanzi - is the Hanzi always pronounced in a specific way or does it alter, as in Japanese, in terms of the complete word (context) ?
All that said I’m trying to speak Chinese everyday be that just trying to mirror authentic materials - though I do have to slow some of them down through Audacity just to hear the tones. It’s tough going at the minute but I am enjoying grapplying with the Linq texts and even listen to intermediate lessons just to hear the sounds (not for comprehension). I hope by listening to it a great deal it will really help me ‘hear’ the language.
Funny enough, I’m finding Japanese and Chinese easier than French, albeit I’ve only done one French lesson. It was completely and utterly unfamiliar to me, even though I studied some French back in '75. Being ill right now doesn’t help, but I can see studying something from scratch takes me out of my comfort zone. Farsi isn’t freaking me out, since I’m gradually being exposed to it by casually learning the script (which is itself a fun novelty).
@yotsuba – yes the pronunciation and tones can change on some characters. For instance 差 on its own is cha (4th tone) but when combined with 差别 becomes cha (1st tone). When combined with 出差 pronunciation changes and becomes “chai” (1st tone).
The one that gives me the hardest time is 着 zhe(5) zhao(2) zhao (1) zhuo(2). Not to mention that I used to always confuse it with its look-a-like 差!
I learn them in order of frequency (the most common tone and pronunciation first) rather than than trying to get them all down at once…but when I first learn a character I do note the different pronunciations and tones (fortunately a good number of characters are one pronunciation, one tone). A good dictionary is essential.
@lestry- Sounds good! I need to start using FSI for Hungarian again, but I have a lot of resources for it as it is now. I use Teach Yourself, Assimil, Colloquial, and my roommate is Hungarian so I can practice whenever I want
Don’t give up on it though, it’s such a beautiful, and fun language!
@milestones Thanks for the details about the characters. I think it is going to take me some time to really be comfortable with them but your comments have really helped me think about an approach to learning the characters
@Le Jr
Right now prefer to learn something easier to reach my goal of learning myself 10 languages until my 20th birthday…
I will continue with Hungarian because it is really interesting language. I have been in Hungary and I came back disappointed because my language skills were so awful. My other goal is to visit Hungary again and communicate with people at ¨satisfying fluency¨
I used Assimil too, but I really don’t like these kind of books…I mean they are cool but they have boring topics and I rather learn through music and stuff…I use that type of books just with interesting subjects…very often I’m skipping chapters or I’m just learning grammar instead of boring vocab they’re propose. I’m learning vocabulary mostly through normal books (graded readers) or films and music…
I don’t know which is hardest, they’re all hard or easy in their own ways.
I wanted to say that I love Hungarian, too. Of course, I want to learn it in the future. I’ve been to Hungary once, but it felt like I was in my hometown because 1/3 of the population there speaks Hungarian, and the town is very near the Hungarian - Serbian border.
I have a feeling that ones first new language is often the most difficult. You have to get over the fear and doubt of ever being able to speak fluently with different words and grammatical rules for the first time. Also, language learning takes an immense amount of patience, and until you learn just how much - it is very discouraging (still learning here!)
Yes, one’s first foreign language is often the most difficult. I struggled with English for a long time, as I’ve said before. Knowing now how I tick, I am pretty sure that any other language would have given me the same trouble. I first had to learn to be flexible.
English and Spanish is the easiest language, I don’t know how people finds them hard. For me Russian and Chinese are tongue twister. Hired some Chinese writing tutor almost six months ago but still couldn’t spell it properly. https://plus.google.com/108183226179691657670/
