# Learning to speak another language **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 20, 2004, 6:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/learning-to-speak-another-language/251284 "2004-06-20T06:24:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Ponster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponster/32/17081_2.png) [@Ponster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponster)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2004, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/learning-to-speak-another-language/251284/21 "2004-07-01T13:20:29Z")
> [@pravnik](#): > > It’s extremely easy to learn a foreign language. Merely move to another country, meet a beautiful woman who speaks no English, and fall deeply, deeply in love with her. > > Ah, you must excuse me…I have something in my eye… > 😉 Laugh as you may but it’s what I did. Went to France in 1998 to watch the World Cup final, found myself arm-in-arm with a French girl (and 1 million other people) walking through the streets after their 3-0 victory and 6 years later… As what the others said, finiding yourself forced to speak a forign language by placing yourself in a group of people is the best way. Imaginf yourself learning German for example and in a group of German speakers. Newt someone brings up your country of origin and makes a joke of sorts, at which the others laugh at. Nothing makes you learn faster then that need to express yourself. Understanding what people are saying to you is one thing and it’ll come with study, but being able to freely express yourself isn’t something easily learned in books but through conversation with others. ---
**Author:** ![Merkwurdigliebe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/74df32/32.png) [@Merkwurdigliebe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merkwurdigliebe)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2004, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/learning-to-speak-another-language/251284/22 "2004-07-01T14:26:46Z")
> [@hibernicus](#): > > In my experience (I studied it for 5 years), German is a very difficult language to learn to speak _well_. Never mind how closely related to English it is - that is not a good guide to how easy you will find it. For what it’s worth, Dutch is a significantly easier language to learn (although in practice, that depends on availability of resources). > > The reason German is so hard to learn to speak well (although quite easy to learn to speak badly), is that if you don’t correctly identify (i.e. guess) whether a noun is masculine, feminine or neuter, then the adjective endings and the form of the article will all be wrong. Very noticeably wrong, more so than in French or Spanish. In addition, you don’t readily learn by hearing - you hear “der Maschine”, but that doesn’t mean that “Maschine” is masculine (“der”); actually it is feminine (“die”) but here in the dative case. In French, once you hear “la machine”, you know it’s feminine, end of story, same in Spanish (la máquina). Plurals are also more difficult in German than any other language I can think of. > > The end result is that you can study it for years, and still not be confident of being able to speak it correctly. Hell yes. That’s the problem with German. I never felt confident that I ever say anthing right. People often tell me that my German is really good, but I still can’t tell you the article for damn near any given noun. I guess by now I just sort of know without thinking consciously for a lot of them, but that’s just from repeatedly hearing it. That is indeed the problem with German. Another problem is that the ending er and e sound a lot alike in spoken German. You can of course use this to your advantage by just mumbling the ending 🙂 I’ll give you the typical construction of a German sentence. If you want to say, I gave him the book. You have to start like this. In german people use the English equivalent of have given instead of simple past tense, so you have to start of with “I have” then you remember that in German the other part of the verb comes at the end. So then you have to figure out what is the indirect and direct object, which isn’t so hard because they also exist in english. Put the indirect object in the dative case and the direct object in nomative case. But first before you do that you have to know which gender the direct object is. There are 12 different ways to say the word “the” in german, and also to say the word “a” or any adjective. Okay these are just the endings, and there are only 6 variations, but you have to be aware of things like this. So I have to disagree, kellner, people seem to think that German should be so much easier for us English speakers and all, but it certainly isn’t. If you want to learn a foreign language as an English speaker that has pratical purpouses, I would choose Spanish or Dutch. Dutch grammar is probably more complicated that English, but I believe less so than German. It is also the closest language to English (with the exception of other dialects in Friesland). Spanish is easy because we english speakers have the advantage of having our vocabulary chock-full of latin-origin words. There are so many examples of this. It will also depend on your personal learning style of foreign languages, which you don’t know yet. I imagine that German would be much easier for people that are meticulous and want to understand everything gramatically before even speaking a word. I am the complete opposite and I just want to talk and learn things that I hear. That’s pretty easy to do in Spanish, and that’s probably why I found it to be easy. German is much harder to do this with as there are just so many permutations of possible endings, etc, but for a person with a very mathematical brain, maybe its easier? ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2004, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/learning-to-speak-another-language/251284/23 "2004-07-01T14:32:20Z")
> [@Mathochist](#): > > Now, the interesting thing is that when it really comes down to it they speak “better” English than quite a few Americans. I don’t know if the same thing holds in other languages, but English is insanely bendy. Many deformations of the language still communicate the same idea, and so they’ve become acceptable, at least in local enclaves. Maybe this reflects some aspect of Anglophone culture (shades of Sapir-Whorf), but I’m willing to bet that just as few Mexicans speak “proper” Spanish as Americans speak “proper” English. That’s 'cause “proper” English is just school English. It’s a dialect few people speak; its native population seems to be elementary school teachers. The rest of us speak a more natural form of English, because we learn our English at home. When your only exposure to a language is the school version, that’s the style you’re gonna know. I’d rather be able to speak it as it’s spoken. ---
**Author:** ![Mathochist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c89c15/32.png) [@Mathochist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mathochist)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2004, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/learning-to-speak-another-language/251284/24 "2004-07-01T19:52:29Z")
> [@Excalibre](#): > > That’s 'cause “proper” English is just school English. It’s a dialect few people speak; its native population seems to be elementary school teachers. The rest of us speak a more natural form of English, because we learn our English at home. When your only exposure to a language is the school version, that’s the style you’re gonna know. I’d rather be able to speak it as it’s spoken. And that’s something that cannot be learned except through continuous ongoing exposure to native speakers. Unless I get tenure in Budapest, that’s not going to happen in all likelihood. ---
**Author:** ![chaoticbear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f07891/32.png) [@chaoticbear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chaoticbear)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2004, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/learning-to-speak-another-language/251284/25 "2004-07-02T04:52:23Z")
> [@Merkwurdigliebe](#): > > Hell yes. That’s the problem with German. I never felt confident that I ever say anthing right. People often tell me that my German is really good, but I still can’t tell you the article for damn near any given noun. I guess by now I just sort of know without thinking consciously for a lot of them, but that’s just from repeatedly hearing it. That is indeed the problem with German. Another problem is that the ending er and e sound a lot alike in spoken German. You can of course use this to your advantage by just mumbling the ending 🙂 > > I’ll give you the typical construction of a German sentence. If you want to say, I gave him the book. You have to start like this. In german people use the English equivalent of have given instead of simple past tense, so you have to start of with > “I have” then you remember that in German the other part of the verb comes at the end. So then you have to figure out what is the indirect and direct object, which isn’t so hard because they also exist in english. Put the indirect object in the dative case and the direct object in nomative case. But first before you do that you have to know which gender the direct object is. There are 12 different ways to say the word “the” in german, and also to say the word “a” or any adjective. Okay these are just the endings, and there are only 6 variations, but you have to be aware of things like this. I completely agree with this. When I was in Germany, all of the Germans told me that I spoke _excellent_ German, and that they couldn’t believe that I was an American student when I spoke. That broke down in my mind when… hmm, I think it was the second I opened my mouth. And even when I say something completely correctly grammatically, it’s not the way that the Germans would say it. Like German’s ability to move the object to the front of the sentence, or the fact that they almost always use “denn” instead of “weil” (Two conjunctions that mean “but,” one moves the verb to the end of the clause, the other doesn’t.) I felt stupid when I said “Ich hab’ das nicht gewusst!” and they looked at me, sort of nodded, then made it a point to say 30 seconds later “Ich heiße Hans???” _Glare at me_ “\*\*_Das wusste_ ich nicht.” That’s exaggerating a bit, but you probably (Ok, maybe) get my point. Anyway, my fluency got better when I was there, but I think I speak stupid people German now. ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2004, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/learning-to-speak-another-language/251284/26 "2004-07-02T06:11:44Z")
> [@Mathochist](#): > > And that’s something that cannot be learned except through continuous ongoing exposure to native speakers. Unless I get tenure in Budapest, that’s not going to happen in all likelihood. Oh, no question. Both my Spanish and my Mandarin Chinese are way more proper-sounding than my English. I have yet to have the opportunity to spend serious time with native speakers. I’m not saying it’s some sort of failing if you sound a little bit like a textbook - you’ll be understood at worst, and maybe sound smarter at best. I’m just saying that “proper” English isn’t somehow _better_ English. ---
**Author:** ![kellner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c2a13f/32.png) [@kellner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kellner)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2004, 11:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/learning-to-speak-another-language/251284/27 "2004-07-02T11:02:22Z")
> [@Merkwurdigliebe](#): > > Hell yes. That’s the problem with German. I never felt confident that I ever say anthing right. Ignore that. You will be understood. Of course you will make mistakes - just like every non-native speaker. > [@](#): > > People often tell me that my German is really good, but I still can’t tell you the article for damn near any given noun. I guess by now I just sort of know without thinking consciously for a lot of them, but that’s just from repeatedly hearing it. That’s exactly the way it is supposed to be. For native simple nouns there aren’t useful rules anyway. > [@](#): > > Put the indirect object in the dative case and the direct object in nomative case. Accusative actually 😉 > [@](#): > > So I have to disagree, kellner, people seem to think that German should be so much easier for us English speakers and all, but it certainly isn’t. If you want to learn a foreign language as an English speaker that has pratical purpouses, I would choose Spanish or Dutch. Dutch grammar is probably more complicated that English, but I believe less so than German. It may be easier to learn for English native speakers, but there is no such thing as an easier language in general. Many English speakers are overly terrified by complex morphology (word forms) because English has a relatively simple morphology and makes up for the difference with its complex syntax. Those English speakers who try usually perform very well and certainly not worse than those with other native languages. > [@chaoticdonkey](#): > > And even when I say something completely correctly grammatically, it’s not the way that the Germans would say it. This is true, but you will never achieve that in any second language anyway. So it’s not your fault. I know that I sound very odd from time to time, but I’ll have to live with that. ---
**Author:** ![Merkwurdigliebe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/74df32/32.png) [@Merkwurdigliebe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merkwurdigliebe)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2004, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/learning-to-speak-another-language/251284/28 "2004-07-02T12:46:07Z")
Yeah keller, I take it you are studying linguistics? I only took one class, but I know some of the basic theories upon which it lies. I really enjoyed it, and I agree that all languages are the same difficulty from the beginning, but dificulty is a relative thing, too. Obviously its easier for a Spanish speaker to learn portugese than to learn Russian. But Spanish would be harder for a russian to learn than Polish, I suppose. We do have simple morphology in English, which I suppose does make us afraid of a lot of things. But let me ask you a question about this. In academic papers, there are often things published by non-native speakers, and if they are bad enough, I can tell. But I think that the weird thing about English is that it is so flexible. When someone writes something that doesn’t “sound” right, you can’t say for sure that it is wrong! I don’t really even know what English class was for back in grammar school. There really weren’t that many concrete rules that we learned. But I think that the fact that English is so flexible in this manner that we sometimes incorporate incorrect usage. But my quesiton is this: how tolerant are German academics of declination errors in work? Is it something that is taken for granted as something all foreigners do? Is it a glaring mistake like subject-verb disagreement is in English? SV disagreement sounds really bad to me, do germans think the same way with incorrect declinations in German? I am having a little bit of trouble finding an example, but you mention our complex syntax. Could you give some examples that give Germans trouble learning english? ---
**Author:** ![kellner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c2a13f/32.png) [@kellner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kellner)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2004, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/learning-to-speak-another-language/251284/29 "2004-07-02T13:22:16Z")
> [@Merkwurdigliebe](#): > > how tolerant are German academics of declination errors in work? Is it something that is taken for granted as something all foreigners do? In spoken German this is indeed taken for granted. In written works this is slightly more complicated because this is a rare error among native speakers and non-native speakers in Germany mostly publish in English. So in a published work you are expected to fix it, but things like slides for our lectures (about half of my lecturers aren’t native speakers) often contain these mistakes. > [@](#): > > I am having a little bit of trouble finding an example, but you mention our complex syntax. Could you give some examples that give Germans trouble learning english? e.g. conditional clauses, progressive tenses, placement and order of adverbs and the explicit distinction between adverbs and adjectives. ---
**Author:** ![chaoticbear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f07891/32.png) [@chaoticbear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chaoticbear)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2004, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/learning-to-speak-another-language/251284/30 "2004-07-02T13:31:31Z")
[QUOTE=kellner] In spoken German this is indeed taken for granted. In written works this is slightly more complicated because this is a rare error among native speakers and non-native speakers in Germany mostly publish in English. So in a published work you are expected to fix it, but things like slides for our lectures (about half of my lecturers aren’t native speakers) often contain these mistakes. [QUOTE] Lol… when my exchange student was here, we were in a parking lot and he said “something something something in unserer Gesichte.” I giggled and said “in unseren Gesichten. Now I can say that I’ve corrected you on your German once.” It wasn’t really much of a big deal that he had messed it up. ---
**Author:** ![Aldebaran](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Aldebaran](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aldebaran)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2004, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/learning-to-speak-another-language/251284/31 "2004-07-02T16:14:57Z")
In my opinion there is no language you can not learn and no age at which you can not start studying an other one. You only need to have access to it and the will to learn it. Then even a handicap like Dyslexia can not stop you, although you need sometimes teachers who understand your problem (and whenever you need to write something that is important, you have to rely on others to see if Dyslex was yes or no in a coma while you where writing the masterpiece). In my experience the greatest obstacle for people who grew up with only one language - like sadly enough most of the people who happen to have English as first language - is that they were deprived of having contact with other languages untill they decide to start learning a next one. That has its consequences, because you know only grammar, syntax etc… of that single language, you only developped and ear and a feeling for that single language and every other language is as foreign and strange to you as if it came from Aliens. If on the other hand you grow up in a family or a country where several languages are spoken daily and/or where media of all kinds are available in several languages, you develop an ear and a feeling for several languages at the same time. You even don’t need to become immersed in them, not even have to study them, for being able to distinct one from the other when listening (or looking at printings). That is a great advantage whenever you undertake a language study even if that language happens to fall outside those you already became exposed to. For example: I grew up with 3 “first” languages which was an excellent basic for every further language study I did (especially since Arabic belongs to such a different language group then French or Dutch). I never received lessons in English, yet I started reading books and comics in English when I was about 9 years old. I choosed stories I could read first in a language I already knew and used a dictionary. (This is a method I would recommend to everyone who wants to learn a new language). Contact with spoken English was available while looking at TV serials and movies. That was a very good training especially when I was in the country of my mother, because there they were subtitled in a language I already knew. By the time I went to the university there, using English to learn other languages (grammar books, dictionaries etc… ) was not such an immense obstacle it otherwise would have been. Needless to say that my reading skills in English are 1000% better then I can write it. When it comes to speak it, I think I have now and then an accent that has its origin in several other languages. Nobody can ever guess where I come from when they hear me talking 🙂 I use that to mislead the CIA whenever I visit the US undercover. Salaam. A . ---
**Author:** ![Sycorax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a4c791/32.png) [@Sycorax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sycorax)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2004, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/learning-to-speak-another-language/251284/32 "2004-07-02T22:04:49Z")
Something to consider: how often are you going to use the new language? Do you want to learn another language just so you can say you’ve learned it, or are you going to be able to put it into practice where you live or travel? To coin a phrase: use it or lose it. I taught myself the basics of Spanish many years ago and still retain some words and phrases; however, when faced with the opporunity to use it, it doesn’t come to me naturally. I travel to Florida a lot, and there are a lot of Spanish-speaking people there (true, mostly service people in hotels and such); but there have been occasions when I wished I could converse well enough to be understood. I’ve considered taking courses, but now I’m going to be moving to an area of Florida where there are very few Spanish-speaking people, and I don’t think I’d have an opportunity to use it. I believe there are clubs of like-minded folks who get together just for that purpose – to converse in the new language, but if it isn’t going to serve any practical purpose, perhaps you won’t want to put the time and effort into it. ---
**Author:** ![Doobieous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/da6949/32.png) [@Doobieous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doobieous)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2004, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/learning-to-speak-another-language/251284/33 "2004-07-04T07:11:35Z")
The thing about second language learners is they always sound very formal, unless they’ve spent time learning idioms and slang of whatever language they’ve learned. I remember talking about how i speak Spanish to the Family that my work partner and I had hooked up with (We were doing Anthropological field work, and i’m not even an anth major, but that’s beside the point). They mentioned that in Mexican Spanish at least, idioms and slang are very common place, and i’d agree a lot with what they said. I mentioned that when I speak Spanish, i speak the standard. I can be understood, but i probably sound very “textbook” and “academic” to someone who speaks a very “down home” colloquial dialect. What i speak is very straightforward, direct and “logical” (as far as what the textbooks teach). I do use a few idiomatic expressions, such as “tener ganas de…” (which means “to feel like (something)”, but that’s because it’s the way to express that same English idiom. But, idioms are the most subtle aspect of language learning for a second language learner to get (as has been said). It’s very tricky to get. But, as i’ve said, native speakers are ALWAYS impressed (well, save for a lot of Parisian French, i’m told) when you speak their language, even if you don’t speak it perfectly. The other thing they told me in Mexico was that I pronounce the words very well, and i don’t sound “American”, even though i know i don’t pronounce it as well as I could (my rolled r’s tend to be weak, and i tend to use v in words spelled with V’s only because it’s force of habit due to English :). ---
**Author:** ![donegalwombat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecb155/32.png) [@donegalwombat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/donegalwombat)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2004, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/learning-to-speak-another-language/251284/34 "2004-07-06T02:30:59Z")
Loctan, you could consider learning a language that is less common, or even endangered. One advantage is that there will be a **very** supportive community, and fluent speakers will be very keen to help learners because everyone wants to promote the language. The disadvantage is that it may be a little harder to find books, people to speak with, etc. A tip for learning any language: Get an email “pen-pal” who is also learning the language. I used to play “twenty questions” in Irish, and it really helped me get comfortable with basic sentences. Email is great for beginners because you can take as muchtime as you need. I know enough French and Spanish to get the gist of a magazine article. But the day is not too far off when I will be fluent in Irish (Gaelic), and that feels very rewarding. So whatever language you choose, adh mór (good luck)! ---
**Author:** ![Mathochist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c89c15/32.png) [@Mathochist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mathochist)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2004, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/learning-to-speak-another-language/251284/35 "2004-07-06T13:38:06Z")
> [@donegalwombat](#): > > Email is great for beginners because you can take as muchtime as you need. Great for writing but horrible for speaking, especially if you’re learning a lesser-known language which usually is not pronounced as you’d expect from English. Definitely the case with both Magyar and Gaeilge. ---
**Author:** ![scotandrsn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a4c791/32.png) [@scotandrsn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scotandrsn)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2004, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/learning-to-speak-another-language/251284/36 "2004-07-06T14:02:20Z")
If you are just learning a new language for the sake of learning one, as opposed to needing it for work (in which case I might recommend Latin-American Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, or Korean), and you want one that won’t be too unfamiliar in terms of grammar, I recommend starting with a smattering of Middle and then Old English. Imagine! Read The Canterbury Tales and Beowulf in their original tongues! I have an ulterior motive, of course. Look at any comprehensive language tree, and you will see that our English lies on the Anglo-Frisian branch of the West Germanic Languages. Once you have an OK grasp of older versions of English, West Frisian is a snap, and you will then be able to converse with several hundred thousand culturally repressed people in the Netherlands (and impress folks at parties by knowing where [Famke Janssen](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000463/bio) (Jean Grey from the X-Men movies) got her name). Frisian at this point has been heavily influenced by Dutch, so you could move on to that language from there with relative ease. You’d be tri-lingual in no time! ---
**Author:** ![Mathochist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c89c15/32.png) [@Mathochist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mathochist)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2004, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/learning-to-speak-another-language/251284/37 "2004-07-06T14:25:21Z")
> [@scotandrsn](#): > > and you will then be able to converse with several hundred thousand culturally repressed people in the Netherlands This has got to be the only time I’ve ever seen “Netherlands” and “repressed” in the same sentence. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2004, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/learning-to-speak-another-language/251284/38 "2004-07-06T14:26:56Z")
For lesser-used languages, Icelandic, Cree, Inuktitut, or Slovenian might be interesting. **scotandrsn** , isn’t the difference between Old English and Middle English so great that you’d have to learn them separately? I’ve also heard that Old English is very difficlut to learn because it has all the declensions and cases and things that fell out of English during the centuries of Norman-French rule. If you do learn Old English, though, I suspect you’ll have a leg up on Icelandic and Old Norse as well as being able to move forward into Frisian. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/learning-to-speak-another-language/251284.md?page=1)