It depends greatly on the normal speed people talk at. English is painfully slow for me. I’m constantly being told to slow down when I talk - I always want to tell them to listen faster! I love watching movies that have been translated from Spanish, because they have to speak English really fast to keep up with the action. That’s the speed it should be spoken at. In my experience it seems that Latin languages are spoken faster than Germanic dialects.
Why not? It’s possible in Latin. In general, almost any sentence consisting of a pronoun subject and a verb (and nothing else) will translate to a single Latin word. It can also translate longer, if you want, but that doesn’t substantially change the meaning. And some of those single words are even just a single syllable. For instance, in Latin, to say “I swim”, you would just say “no”.
we have many one-word sentences in english too. most of them of 4 letters
Arturas
That answer explains in detail why it took me so long to learn German. I had people explain the “rules” of the language rather than teach it.
Once I had a prof teach it to me without worrying about diagramming stuff, I nailed A’s for 3 years.
Of course, if I had to follow the “rules” right now, I’m not sure I’d pass 2nd grade English.
What?
Drat!
There are a lot of one-word sentences in Finnish as well, due to the fact that the subject of a sentence is implied by using different endings:
“Syön.” “I eat”. (also transitive, as in “I’m eating”.)
“Syöt.” “You eat.”
“Syö.” A command: “Eat.” Also “He/she eats”, although probably used as an answer to a question rather than as a free-standing sentence. i.e. “What is he doing?” “Eating.” = “Mitä hän tekee?” “Syö.”
And so on and so forth.
In answer to Insecta: Yes, I screwed up. The flow of words coming out of the mouth is dependent on two things. 1) the consonant-vowel ratio. Spanish has one consonant followed by one vowel, usually. Simple vowels, not diphthongs. Germanic and esp. Slavic languages, you have lots of consonants to wrap your tongue around, also dipthongs, and these take time since a slight break is necessary to avoid slurring (if you notice, Spanish is seldom slurred whereas people have a lot of trouble understanding me). 2. The mechanics of the mouth. My mother said some people have perfectly alligned jaws, like one of the guests on Cosby and the man who used to do the micro-car commercials. Ordinary people cannot make their jaw go that fast. On the other hand, I myself wonder if it has to do with where the words are pronounced: on the tip of the tongue or in the throat. Most people in the US speak from the back of their throat and move their mouth less. (Try Greek- I don’t think they move their mouth at all.) People from the UK speak with the tip of their tongue. My favourite example is when I fell off my bike in the Italian Riviera. The nice Italian who stopped asked how old I was. I answered ‘twunny’ and he figured he asked the wrong question as he was expecting ‘twenty’ (British English pronunciation).
As to Lite: Thank you for the comment. You would have done great in my class then. I have a different method of teaching that works if the student is motivated. If you learn all the grammar rules using only 100 words (quite possible), what can you read? Absolutely nothing. If you know say 6000 words but virtually no grammar, what can you read? about 80% of many texts. But words are best learned at home, not in the classroom. Now if I hire a math teacher, there are plenty of rules to explain (and reexplain in my case), so s/he is going to earn his/her money. If I need two weeks of grammar instruction and the rest is on my own, who is going to study a foreign language for 4 years at a college in order to work 2 weeks a year? Thus the lie about grammar. Grammar is an advanced subject that is valuable once you have a good vocabulary. I learn languages by sitting at home and reading books and newspapers. The first book should be a translation into the language to avoid dialectical and ‘interesting’ consrtructions (like in Shakespeare). My Niece and nephew are learning English this way right now and succeeding.
Hijack in progress
Lite: You realise there are two ways to handle a foreign language? To read and think in it are far different than translating it. The former requires you to understand the meaning of the words, more or less. Since you don’t think of the equivalents each time, you get the feel for the language. This is far easier and more enjoyable than the latter. The dictionaries in this day and age for many language are pretty well made, i.e. by memorising the equivalents, you can make direct substitutions and with minor tweaking get readable English (I only translate into English, the usual international standard of translating into one’s native language.)
I also taught for two years (one Latin, the other English) so I know quite a bit of the nit picky grammar as well. If someone tells you English grammar is easy, they just haven’t looked at, say, ‘A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language’ Randolph Quirk (Longman), which has 1777 pages (nearly two thousand), and no exercises, just explanations in size 10 font and I think they left out a few points. It is nasty as hell; so is Lithuanian, if you want to go to the same level. However, I do not use that knowledge of grammar when translating. Either the construction works or it doesn’t. I have to know who is doing what and get the same idea into the target language. I do not have to know that ‘who’ is called the subject. But I do need to know that ‘who’ needs to be in nominative case, except under x situations. Mostly it is common sense. If I have ‘moon dog bark’, there is only one possible meaning. I only have to know when something is different, such as if dog is in dative rather than nominative (participle/gerund).
There are always a few nasty words. German has four nasty particles: ja, noch, … Those take practice and an instructor but are very advanced. Then there are odd phrases and words without a direct correspondence. But these are no great problem to the overall translation.
By the way, I do very tight translations, as these are easier than free form. The order of the original sentence generally allows me to include all the points and lead into the next sentence as well. Changing the grammar requires lots of manipulation in order to get everything in.
Incidentally, Dover has a nice book out for simplifying learning German from English. You can direct order from the publisher as well.
The important thing is to have a good time in the language.
OK, hijack has been peacefully settled.
The language of pain is most forthright.
I recall a psychological experiment where Welsh speakers performed far works thatn english speakers in a short term memory task invoving reciting words. The explaination given was that our memory has a aureal “tape” that lasts for a few seconds and, since welsh words are longer than english ones, you could store less on the tape.
IIRC, honto means “really.” AFAIK, so desu [ka] means, “it is” (meaning “yes, it is” as opposed to “really?”).
At least that’s the way I always use them.
I’ve never heard this claim, and it seems suspect to me. I don’t think it’s any harder for me to remember something in Welsh than in English, and Welsh isn’t my first language. Do you have any cites?
Language of love. Zero syllables=infinite meaning.
Yes, language of love, zero syllables. So why does it take so long to get your point across? (And I do not mean that humorously, just that it can (does not have to) take a long time before the other person responds the way you are hoping for.)
Cerowyn said:
Ah, soo desu ka? Omoshiroi desu nee.
I looked up “hontoo” in my Japanese dictionary, and it says that “hontoo ni” = really. It also says that “hontoo” by itself means “true” or “real.” Hontoo desu ka = Is that true?
IIRC, “Soo desu ka” is used more in general conversation like saying “hai” every few sentences or phrases or so to let the speaker know that you’re engaged in the conversation. You wouldn’t use “hontoo desu ka” the same way you use “soo desu ka.” I hope this makes sense. I haven’t had enough caffeine yet, and much to my dismay my Japanese skills have gotten quite rusty.
It was specifically to do with the very short term memory. The theory is that we basically have a scratch space which stores pretty much unencoded information in raw form for a very short while in which we are able to do manipulations.
Unfortunately, my first year psychology notes are not too crash hot. Looking through them however, it appears the study was done on remembering a sequence of numbers in welsh and english. The name of the memory is the phonological loop. Doing a quick google, I get a reference to:_** Ellis and Hennelly (1980)**
Make of it what you will.