Languages

[flexibeast]

Earlier today i read a fascinating essay entitled "Why Chinese Is So Damn Hard". The author of the essay is a long-time student of Chinese himself, and laments not only the fact that there are a hideously large number of symbols to memorise in order to become functionally literate, but that even Chinese people, studying at a tertiary level, can't necessarily remember the ideograms for common concepts such as "to sneeze", and that merely being able to look up words in a Chinese dictionary is considered quite a skill in itself.

Being a language slut, i studied German and Spanish at university - three years of German, two years of Spanish. Sadly, though, German basically wasn't spoken in the circles i moved in. Spanish, though, often was. So the end result was that nowadays, my German doesn't really exceed the basics-of-daily-life level, whereas my rusty Spanish could be brought up to a conversational level with a relatively small amount of time and effort.

In recent times, my linguistic efforts have been directed towards Hindi (due to my ongoing interest in the subcontinent) and Hebrew (due to my interest in Qabalah). A while back i started teaching myself the Devanagari script - that is, the script used to write Hindi - which i found relatively easy and rewarding (although *slaps self on wrist* i've let my daily practice slip). And in learning Hebrew - both biblical and modern, the latter in the form of Ivrit - i've found memorising new words not too difficult, despite the fact that i've not yet encountered many (any?) cognates with Germanic and/or Romance languages.

Interestingly, though, sacred_harlot has (at my request) been trying to teach me some Armenian (which she learnt due to her former husband being Armenian). For some reason, i've found that words in that language don't really 'stick'. Despite much practice, i'm still struggling to learn the numbers 1 to 10 - i can remember most of the words, but not necessarily which number they correspond to.

So i'm intrigued - why should some cognate-less languages be 'stickier' for me than others?
 

Comments

[sacred-harlot.livejournal.com]

Heya Sweetheart,
I have a couple of thoughts on this: 1) I think a lot has to do with association - and being honest maybe your associations with Armenianess are not that positive, due to the way H has been toward you.

2)I think that we more easily remember things that are 'useful' to us or that can be applied to subject areas that interest us, like the Ivrit, is helpful to you for Qabbalah!

Just a couple of thoughts :-*

Love,
Sacred Harlot XXX.

[flexibeast.livejournal.com]

Re. 1) - you may be right, although i don't believe i consciously have negative associations . . . .

Re. 2) Good point. :-)

[not-in-denial.livejournal.com]

I find it *easier* to learn languages that are completely outside of what English is like...for example, I find it easier to remember Japanese words, phrases and grammar than German, because I have to change my way of thinking completely to speak or listen in Japanese, whereas the switch involved in a language like German isn't nearly so severe and I find myself getting confused between one language and another. But if I have to associate a different way of *thinking* in order to have any coherency in another language, then it is easier for me to remember and mimic, because I am working with something that is mostly outside my other experience.

I also agree with Sharlot that it's easier to remember things that interest us.

And other than that, my head is way to explodey to really go into this in any kind of real detail, just wanted to put my 2c in the slot.

[happyevilslosh.livejournal.com]

I find the German\Japanese thing the other way. Japanese grammar makes no sense to me so I don-t remember it easily whereas I just think of German as broken English so I find it easier.

Man that took ages to type. I've chamged my keyboard to dvorak layout and am still getting used to it.

[flexibeast.livejournal.com]

Heh, why the change to Dvorak?

[happyevilslosh.livejournal.com]

It's supposed to be better for you in terms of RSI, allow faster typing and the best reason, because I felt like it. :)

[sacred-harlot.livejournal.com]

Hey there,

just wondered if you wouldn't mind referring to me here as Sacred_Harlot - thanks muchly.

Sacred Harlot.

[not-in-denial.livejournal.com]

Sorry! Didn't realize it was an issue - I'll make sure to do that from here on.

[sacred-harlot.livejournal.com]

Thanks for that much appreciated :-)

Sacred Harlot.

[flexibeast.livejournal.com]

*nod* That makes sense to me; usually i find that similarities help me to remember things, but there are certain areas for me (none of which immediately come to mind) for which similarities merely induce confusion . . . .

[anark1.livejournal.com]

http://www.littlearmenia.com/html/language/numbers.asp.

it does look very tough but i guess english or other languages may look similar to the untrained individual.

"barev dzez hierodule k' nerek but my armenian is not all that great, sh'norhavor lini on giving it a go.
ts'tesutyun from anark1"

yeah it does take some getting used to :)

[flexibeast.livejournal.com]

Thanks for that link! It will definitely come in handy. :-)