Xcaliber

[LaVaca]

Whatever happened to xcaliber? I looked though some old topics and it seems all of his posts are deleted or something; their not there.

Haven't seen him post for awhile either..

[longshot]

He told me he's been really busy at Berlitz studying English. I told him he was obviously lying.

[Snapp]

Last time things got steamy on here with him being confronted for deeding Rsen, he disappeared for a while. Maybe he's doing that again.

[Adhara]

English is not an easy language to learn if you're not a native. It's a common misconception of north americans. In fact, any language learned after childhood is hard and I hear that the older you are, the harder it is.

All things considered, I think his Enlglish is pretty good.

And to answer the first post, if by Xcaliber you mean Xcalibur, he has posted quite recently.

[DCSL]

I feel lucky that I learned to speak English first. I've learned Latin, Spanish, some French, Japanese, some Russian, et cetera... the only thing that's given me trouble is Mandarin, but I'll beat it yet.

English IS a very hard language if you didn't grow up with it. If you at least have a background with other Romance or Germanic languages, it's slightly easier... I can't imagine what it takes to learn English from an Asian language.

[longshot]

Oh god...

I teach English in Japan. I fully understand the difficulties involved in learning English.

I was joking around about Xcalibur.

Lighten up, please?

Thanks.

[Betheny]

I've been told English is the hardest language to master. It's so intricate, half of those that speak and write it every day don't do it properly.

[Xcalibur]

No sorry, I don't think english is the hardest language, French is, or chinese, but not english.

I just lack some vocalubary and some syntax. It's hard to learn a language when 99% of people around you doesn't speak it at all. I even consider my english really good because of that.

I don't know why some of my posts were deleted

The reason i don't post has no concern with evading anything.

Snapp, stop your speculation, last time i left 2 months it's because of studies and it will happen often again.

[Drew2]

By the age of about 12, your brain literally "hardens" and new information is not as easily imprinted anymore. That's not to say you lose the ability to learn, it just takes more effort to 'memorize' things after that point. However all people are different and some, through continued use of their brain, retain some of its elasticity and absorb things easily well into their teenage years.

There's a little biological psychology for you. I will now go to school. Have a nice day.

Edit: This is to explain the difficulties of learning new languages for adults. It's also why children should have a mutlilingual environment.

[Edited on 9-23-2003 by Tayre]

[AnticorRifling]

Russian, chineese and english are the three hardest languages to learn. Because there is nothing quite like russian, chineese (madrin maybe not sure) has so many specific characters (like 2000+ let me know if that figure is off) and english because it has some of the dumbest and strangest rules when it comes to a spoken and written language.

[Fabled]

Aswell as all our 'slang' I would imagine?

[longshot]

Originally posted by AnticorRifling
Russian, chineese and english are the three hardest languages to learn. Because there is nothing quite like russian, chineese (madrin maybe not sure) has so many specific characters (like 2000+ let me know if that figure is off) and english because it has some of the dumbest and strangest rules when it comes to a spoken and written language.

Chinese has over 10,000 characters. These characters, or "Kanji", compose the Chinese written alphabet. Now, not all of these characters are everyday kinds of characters, so the general use set falls somewhere around 6 or 7 thousand.

What makes Chinese on of the hardest though is (surprisingly) not the written language, but the spoken language. It's a tonal language, which makes it very difficult to speak. The same syllable can be accented many different ways. (In Thai, it's five. I don't know the number for Chinese.) In English, we use rising and falling tones to convey questions and emotions... in Chinese, this completely changes the meaning of a word or phrase.

Japanese uses these same characters (or Kanji). However, the general use set for Japanese is only 2,000. Someone not experienced in either language might wrongfully assume that 2,000 is much easier than 10,000, and that Chinese is much harder. With regards to the written language, this is not the case.

Most characters in Japanese have multiple readings. This is not true in Chinese. The symbol for "small" will always be pronounced in the same manner in Chinese. In Japanese, it could have upwards of five different readings that can only be known through memorization. The reading changes depending on its use in a sentence, and other characters placed after it.

There are also four alphabets in Japanese. The Kanji as discussed above, hiragana, katakana (the alplhabet for foreign loan words), and romanji. Some words are actually written in roman letters. For example, Japan Railways is "JR". An office lady is an "OL", and they are written that way.

This is why I'm very skeptical of the argument that Chinese is harder. Many people see the 10,000 vs. 2000 and think Chinese is more difficult. Also, the fact that Japanese is not a tonal language allows people to be able to grunt out a few words to convey meaning, and they immediately "speak" Japanese.

In fact, I'm willing to bet money that the people on these boards who say they "know Japanese" would not be able to pass the second level of the national standard Japanese exam (or the 2kyuu nihongonouryokushiken). Yet, this test consists of reading and listening that is equivalent to a middle school level.

But anyways, Excalibur, why'd you deed that guy?

[Xcalibur]

Anticor, I believe russian, chinese, but no, not english

Have Avoir
I have J'ai
You have Tu as
He has Il a
We have Nous avous
You have Vous avez
They have Ils ont

Stupid laws?
YOU DARE THINK ENGLISH HAS MORE?

let me open my grammar

Just quoting a few

1) All noun finishing with OU ends up with a S in plurial form BESIDE

Caillou, bijou, chou, genou, hibou, fou, joujou.. don't remember the last one

All noun finishing with EU ends up with a S in plurial form BESIDE
I don't even remember (think it's bleu and pneu)

Enough with those, let's go to the real complicated stuff

In english In french

The table LA table
The wall LE mur
The planes LES avions

We got articles, you got the same, feminine, masculine, plurials

More complicated stuff coming

To know is Connaitre, right? wrong!

Need to put that damn ^^^^ accent

Connaître

So I know is Je connaîs? Wrong
The ^ is only when the letter after is a T

More accent

Accent Grave (`)

L'accent grave is a sign that is put on letteres "a" "e" "u"

Never put an accent grave on a letter E
Who precede a double consonnes or two consonnes after

terrible (2 r)
peste (2 consonnes after)

who precedes a X
texte (x after)

I have around 2 hundred more pages of stupid laws...

My teacher of litterature in college saids to some people that French has the most law... with exceptions
:bouncy:

[longshot]

...?

[LaVaca]

I also heard chinese was the hard. I always loved tokyo in japan. (Cooler gadgets than stuff in US) Some of the coolest stuff in japan never gets released in US . Thats why I want to go there.

ive tried many different guides for learning japanise. It is hard. Some of them look good but are totally incomplete.

Maybe you can teach me some sometime ?

:P

[Tsa`ah]

Originally posted by Fabled
Aswell as all our 'slang' I would imagine?

That reminds me of a clip I saw of the Oscars. A female comedian was walking the audience with a microphone and stopped by Bill Cosby and started in with the ghetto slang while posing a question to him pertaining to the success of the Cosby show. He turned slowly and said "It's because we spoke english".

By far one of the funniest things I have heard the man say.

[Edited on 9-23-2003 by Tsa`ah]

[Betheny]

Your English seems passable... are you taking classes for credits, or are you going to improve your English for your own personal frustration/enjoyment?

[Edaarin]

I thought English was harder than French...

[Solkern]

Actually english is, Due tot he fact we use the same words in so many diffrent ways, while other languages aren't like that
"A" can be used in like 20 diffrent ways, thats why people have trouble learning it.

[DCSL]

Originally posted by longshot
This is why I'm very skeptical of the argument that Chinese is harder. Many people see the 10,000 vs. 2000 and think Chinese is more difficult. Also, the fact that Japanese is not a tonal language allows people to be able to grunt out a few words to convey meaning, and they immediately "speak" Japanese.

In fact, I'm willing to bet money that the people on these boards who say they "know Japanese" would not be able to pass the second level of the national standard Japanese exam (or the 2kyuu nihongonouryokushiken). Yet, this test consists of reading and listening that is equivalent to a middle school level.


I took three years of college level Japanese, which amounts to Japanese VI... although VI was really just "Read this in the original Japanese and translate/write a paper on it." I'm no great shakes at kanji, I'll admit... half the time, I have to look them up, although I've at least managed to memorize most of the radicals I've come across. As long as the kanji have furigana at the side, I'm okay, though.

Although you are obviously the expert.. :rolleyes: I still find Mandarin much harder than I do Japanese. It's not the vocabulary and the writing system that gives me trouble, it's the speaking. Japanese pronounciation and vowel sounds are very like Spanish, which was my second language, so it's much more comfortable for my mouth to form those sounds.

With Mandarin, it is utterly foreign. The sounds, the tones, et cetera.. they kick my ass. It probably doesn't help that I'm learning Mandarin in an informal setting from a bunch of monks that barely speak English, anyway... but that's why I think Chinese is harder.

A comparably hard language to learn and speak that no one has mentioned is Gaelic.. I tried. I tried reeeeaaal hard. But it eventually hurts my throat when I practice it and I still can't make some of the sounds properly, so I gave it up. It's the only language to utterly defeat me when I tried it, although Mandarin is coming close... But I haven't given up on that yet, heh!

[Edaarin]

What I meant was. I had more trouble learning English than I had trouble learning French.