Japanese with its damn counters. In English, we have them occasionally, like "two sheets of paper", or the somewhat optional "three bottles of beer", but Japanese must have a counter for everything. "neko nipiki" (cats two animals). "gakusei san-nin" (students three people). I more or less refuse to learn them (I have mentioned that my Japanese ability is shit, haven't I?), but it is fun to cross them, from time to time. "gakusei nijyu-go hiki" (students twenty-five animals).
Mmm.... Not really. It has the vestige of a dual system in that the word for the number two itself, has vestigial declensions that are the remnant of a complete declension system that affected all nouns and adjectives that described anything that was 2 of a thing. Russian also had this, btw, but it's eroded in both languages so that there's singular [1], one group of plurals [2,3,4], and another group of plurals [5 and up]. Czech may have more of the vestigial dual system present than Russian, though, since of the Slavic languages Czech is regarded as the most conservative (keeping to the oldest forms), where Russian is regarded as quite derived (changed). Russian used to have a vocative case, like Czech, but not anymore.... technically. There are still vestigial forms in Russian that are from the old vocative case, like when you say My God! in Russian, which is Боже мой! (Bozhe moi!), that Боже is the vocative form. Nominative would be Бог (Bog).
That's really interesting. That's like marking a grammatical gender. The word gender just means kind (the two words are actually cognates) when referring to grammar. It's not really referring to reproductive accoutrement, despite the way we use words like masculine, feminine, and neuter to talk about Indo-European grammatical gender. Any idea or concept can be treated as a gender in a language.
I'm currently learning Italian, and it makes it easier, because the Italian for "I was cycling yesterday" is the same as "I cycled yesterday" or "I had cycled yesterday". But it does mean that I'm not at all sure that the recipient of that message would understand exactly which of those three messages I intended.
Wait, you're suggesting that Chinese and Japanese have genders because of the way they categorise objects? (I've forgotten what these "unit" sort of words are called... you know like herd, flock, school, bottle etc)
Under the greater umbrella of linguistics, I would say yes, this is a form of grammatical gender, although what you describe in Chinese and Japanese is not usually engaged that way by Western linguists. But, put aside grammatical gender as you know it in Indo-European languages because that's just one form where there's masculine, feminine, and sometimes neuter. When you branch out into other language families you find gender demarcation for all sorts of things. There are languages that have genders related to things that are long, things that are round, things that are square. There are languages that have grammatical gender for things that are used in the home, things that are used in the field, things for children, things for adults. The core idea around which a grammatical gender can be formed can be pretty much any idea, so yes, I would say that this form of having to name not only the actual item, but also its category is a kind of grammatical gender. As I mentioned earlier, the word gender and the word kind are cognates. GeNDeR KiND Ignore the vowels because they are never considered when looking at roots in I.E. languages, and know that G and K are part of an interchangeable group of phonemes (the gutturals) that often trade places with one another when languages branch off. In this case, we get a core of GND and KND, and since G and K are sisters, it's the same core wrapped around a clearly similar meaning, thus the same word. BTW, the opinions I expressed above are the kind of thing that start flame-wars amongst linguists and conlangers because, as stated, in the West, the idea of grammatical gender is prejudiced to the manner and form of Indo-European grammatical gender, and the grammatical gender of other language families that do it the same way as I.E.
I'm sure there has to be a way of flagging the three different meanings, though it may well have a different syntactic form than expected. Like, for example: The way articles can change meaning in English doesn't work the same way in Spanish. In English, cars have four wheels is not the same as the cars have four wheels. The first is a general statement about all cars, the second is a statement about an understood group of cars. In Spanish, you can't forgo articles, ever, so the difference is made by which form of article you use, of which there are several. As to the actual sentence you cite in Italian, in Spanish all three forms exist, but the third is very rarely used in common parlance and instead is denoted through follow-up syntax, not dissimilar to the way that the different between the implied meaning and expected syntax of forms like I went to the park and I had gone to the park in English. The reason for those two forms is so eroded in common parlance that I had went to the park is a common thing to hear, this admixture pointing out the current opacity in the general public between the use of the two forms. Had wrote, had ate, had ran... You see it all the time. This opacity tends to create a situation where extended follow-up syntax is used instead to recreate the difference in use and meaning.
I've been learning French as a second language on and off for the past two years, and I can hold a simple conversation in French provided the person I was speaking to slowed down and enunciated. I find French fairly easy to read because of the large amount of common vocabulary with English, and the grammar - although not easy - isn't all that difficult when compared to many other languages out there. But it's hard to understand spoken French because of the non-intuitive rules on which liaisons to use and not to use. It doesn't help that French tends to be spoken quickly and softly, and that all the vowels and consonants tend to slur together into a puree. "Comment ca va" is more like "k'monsva", and "je ne suis pas" is more like "shweepa". That said, I can understand a lot more when I watch online clips with French subtitles or when I listen to songs. The hardest part about learning a language is being able to find reliable language exchange partners who will actually speak to you in your target language. I don't live somewhere where there are many French speakers - save for the odd tourist here and there - so I usually go online to find exchange partners. Many of them are just there because they think you'll give them free English lessons.
Good question, Judd Based my own experience I am not sure everyone has the ability to be fluent. I spent three years having private lessons then another five trying to learn by osmosis and yet I still cannot converse with the indigenous natives other than with grunts, short phrases, body and sign language. Same here. But anything much beyond that such as the financial state of the country or why this year's bean crop had failed, I would not have the first clue. No they don't mentally translate. I am not fluent but some words phrases just 'stick' . My mind just processes the information either listening to the spoken word or a written. The only time I mentally translate is usually when I speak.
No, not everyone has the ability to be fluent (maybe?). But some people do, and it can be quite impressive. My daughter's experience with Japanese began when she spent nearly a year working there, and came back with "enough Japanese to be able to flirt." She then studied the language quite assiduously, and passed a qualification in it. When she returned to Japan for a holiday, she was able to converse very comfortably with (and much to the surprise of!) the natives.
They do reckon you slow down as you get older...but they also reckon you slow down more if you don't even try to learn something new. I'm currently learning Italian for fun, while my daughter is learning Spanish for her next expedition...
It can be, but the old idea of "between 2 and 7 years of age" has been pretty much dispelled. Language is what I do for a living and I didn't learn my third language until I was well into my late teens. Necessity, in my opinion, can much more of a driving factor than age. I learned to speak Russian in just about a year because it was my job, the job was military, and if I failed the school I knew I was going to be placed in a shit job because my language school is one of the most expensive schools in all the U.S. armed forces. Basically, they weren't going to spend any more money on me if I washed out, so pass and become an elite interpreter, or fail and become a cement specialist.
Agree. I love the 'sound' and body language. Italian was one of the core subjects at school, which was unusual. Probably on the syllabus because I went to an Italian convent school. When the nuns were angry they reverted to their mother tongue and oh boy, you don't want to receive a tongue lashing in Italian.
Wrey, I was thinking more towards the senior end of the age spectrum. Yes, I can see why you were 'driven' to learn a third language so quickly and applied yourself so diligently Your motivation was 'need' not 'want'. My motivation was 'want' not 'need'. I can get by with just English. Was I lazy when I quit the lessons, you bet. I now regret it. Looking back, I think it was due to the fact my teacher buried me in grammar when all I wanted initially was basic conversation, then grow my knowledge from there. In the U.K. not enough emphasis is placed on the importance of learning a second language in schools.
I can also testify that you never fully get the same thought process while speaking a language other than your native one. I am fully conversational in both Spanish and English, to a point where I can shift my accent from one to another flawlessly, and still have to think a lot while speaking english, which is not my native one. That said, you can definetely get to a point where people can't tell you're not (using Wrey's term) organic at another tongue.
