Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2007 March 24

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March 24

Easiest language for native English speakers to learn?

Just curious. Thanks.137.99.165.83 07:54, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, in the UK at least, French is the most widely taught language in schools, and is even taught at some primary schools. So that probably says something about the ease of learning it. I hear people say that Spanish is relatively easy to pick up, too. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 09:47, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

My native is not English but Dutch...but I think French isn't as easy Spanish. Without trying to offend anyone..French is a really hard language when it comes to the difference between how a word is written and how it is pronounced.Evilbu 10:35, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

French also has a number of sounds that can be difficult for English speakers to master. Spanish has fewer such sounds, in my opinion. I don't know, grammar-wise, if any Western Romance language is significantly harder for English speakers than any other. In any case, I'd say Romance languages (especially Western Romance) and Germanic languages (especially Western Germanic, such as German, Dutch, and Frisian--the latter two being closer to English than German is) are the easiest languages for English-speakers to pick up. That's not a fact though, it's my personal impression --Miskwito 10:53, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I found French difficult at school. On the other hand, German was a doddle for me. That may have been something to do with the teaching though - my German teacher was a large-breasted MILF whilst my French teacher was a crap teacher... :) --Kurt Shaped Box 11:06, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Notice the questioner didn't ask what the easiest foreign language is, just the easiest language. Obviously the easiest language for native English speakers to learn is English. After that, my money's on Scots. —Angr 11:20, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. Scots lacks everything that makes Spanish, French, and German easy to learn: a well-established teaching standard, a sizable corpus of literature, and abundant tools for second-language learners. Compare this to the infinite opportunities available to a student of Spanish. I'd go as far as to suggest that Scots is one of the most difficult languages for an English-speaker to learn, not only because of the factors I've mentioned, but precisely because of its similarity to English, which makes it difficult to get into the mindset required to learn a foreign language. I imagine Russians would find it similarly difficult to learn Ukrainian. Bhumiya (said/done) 20:14, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

The Scandinavian languages (Swedish, Danish and Norwegian) also probably are relatively easy... 惑乱 分からん * \)/ (\ (< \) (2 /) /)/ * 13:40, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Danish is most definitely not easy, for phonological and orthographic reasons, and Norwegian is confusing because of its competing written standards and their difference the spoken language. Swedish, on the other hand, has a fairly regular grammar, with (if I am not mistaken) much simpler declension and conjugation than German. It is also reasonably phonetic. I think Swedish is the easiest language for an English-speaker to learn in theory. In practice it isn't, because it's not widely taught in English-speaking countries, and there are few tools available to learn it independently. In practical terms, the easiest language for American English-speakers to learn is Spanish. You can walk into any American bookstore and find a huge selection of books, computer programs, and audio lessons teaching Spanish. Bhumiya (said/done) 20:14, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

The easiest language to learn may be an English-based creole language, such as Sranan. Creoles tend to have a very simple and regular grammar: no grammatical gender, agreement, cases, conjugations, etcetera. They also tend to have the same word order as English, like SVO. If it is English-based, knowing English helps in learning the vocabulary. For example, Sranan waka = "to walk", agen = "again", fowru = "bird" ("fowl"), krin = "clean".  --Lambiam^Talk 15:08, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Just one extra note : if you have to choose between German and Dutch, Dutch is definitely easier than German (about the same structure when it comes to word order, lots of similar words, but less conjugations than in German, less conjugations, and only two genders instead of three). And if Kurt can get that MILF teacher to teach Dutch as well, it will a super-doddle :).Evilbu 16:38, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree that Dutch is theoretically easier. But from a practical perspective, it's much harder to find materials about it in English-speaking countries. You're way more likely to find stuff about German. And Dutch classes? Forget about it. Bhumiya (said/done) 20:17, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

How about a constructed language, such as Esperanto? — Sebastian 22:44, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

In the realm of conlans, Ido is a simplified descendant of Esperanto, and allegedly easier to learn.  --Lambiam^Talk 23:19, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure Ido is really simplified from Esperanto, and the fact that some English vocabulary was changed for Romantic vocabulary won't help the English speaker to learn it. More importantly, the same reasons that Bhumiya calls on to make German easier than Dutch work here too. Ido has never had the speaker base of Esperanto, and its highpoint was long pre-Internet. You can find a wealth of language learning material for Esperanto, in book form and online, as well as audio and video (YouTube has an interesting collection of material in Esperanto.) Also, there's a lot more opportunity to speak with Esperanto speakers in real life.--Prosfilaes 15:37, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Pig latin if you count it as a language, then by far the easiest. dr.ef.tymac 16:56, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

It is 2007; I don't think you need to say that a language might be easier to learn than another only because you can "walk into a bookstore" and find a shelf of materials on learning that language. If you want to learn Swedish, just order the materials from the Internet. Or go into a large bookstore in a major city and buy a teach-yourself package, or enroll in a class at a university. The easiest language for a native English speaker to learn is either going to be a constructed language like Esperanto or a natural language that is very similar to English, like Frisian. My guess is that Esperanto would be easier, although it might depend on your specific goal in learning the language. For example, do you want to be able to learn enough to "get by" in that language, or enough to read scholarly books in that language, or to write them? It may well be that one language is easier to learn to read, while another language is easier to learn to speak, while a third is easier to learn to write, and a fourth is easier to learn to hear. For example, I find it difficult to understand spoken French (because there are so few consonants and the words all run together) but easier to read French. For German, my experience is the opposite: somewhat easy to understand when spoken but more difficult when written. It might also be that one language is easier to learn to speak enough to get by (i.e. make yourself understood) while another language would be easier to learn enough to speak grammatically. I've studied Old English (Anglo-Saxon) and found it quite difficult despite the fact that you would think it would be close to modern English. I've also studied Esperanto and found it very easy -- much easier than any other language I've studied. --Mathew5000 22:51, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

There are several problems with that. The best way to learn a language is still to spend at least months in an environment speaking only that language. As for enrolling in a class at a university, it's 150 miles from my home to the nearest program that teaches Swedish. (Even if I lived in the local metropolis, it'd still be 100 miles.) If I want to learn Finnish, it's just 800 miles. If an American decides to learn Frisian at the local U, they better live in Madison, Wisconsin.[1] A language is not terribly easy to learn alone, and even with the Internet having good teaching material can be hard to get for the more obscure languages.--Prosfilaes 10:21, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Okay, but the question here is "What is the easiest language for native English speakers to learn? Just curious." It isn't really answering this question to say things like "Spanish is easy to learn because there are lots of materials about it in a bookstore, while Dutch is difficult to learn because it is hard to find Dutch-language classes." The question doesn't specify anything about location; it just asks what is easiest for a native-English speaker. Obviously if this native-English speaker happens to reside in Bucharest, then Romanian would be one of the easiest languages to learn, but so what: it isn't answering this question to say "Romanian is easy to learn if you live in Romania", just as it isn't answering the question to say "Spanish is easy to learn if you live in the U.S." or "French is easy to learn if you live in the U.K." --Mathew5000 19:41, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

A completely theoretical answer can exclude all such practical details, but I don't think it's not answering the question to point out that practical details matter a lot more than the language. It's like answering the question "What will happen if I let go of this ball?" with "Provided there are no other forces acting on it, it will just hang there." It's true, but it's going to mislead you if you take it for a statement of what happens in the real world.--Prosfilaes 12:36, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Esparanto or Ido, as they have been constructed from the group up to be easy to learn. Esparanto takes about three weeks to learn, which is fairly fast as languages go. 67.177.170.96 02:59, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

In terms of a language which one might take for credit, I believe from personal experience that the answer is classical Latin. First, meaning: by far the greater part of English vocabulary is derived (directly or indirectly) from Latin roots. That means one usually has a cognate in English that reflects the meaning of the Latin. Second, orthography: you're dealing with the Roman alphabet and no accent marks. What could be simpler? Third, spelling: the sound-spelling link is straightforward. I have no idea how anyone learns English spelling, as it sometimes has little to nothing to do with its pronunciation. Fourth, pronunciation: each nation pronounces Latin in the way most comfortable for its native speakers; native English-speakers speaking classical Latin may not be understandable to native Russian-speakers speaking classical Latin, but neither of them is "wrong". Fifth, grammar: Latin doesn't believe in irregular anything. Okay, a bit of an exaggeration, but not much of one. One need only compare the number of "irregular" verbs in Latin and in French to understand the importance of this point. Latin was the first foreign language I learned, and definitely the easiest. (Note that I am referring to classical Latin: medieval Latin is another thing altogether.) I've also taken classical Greek, French, and German. Cheers! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 129.106.121.163 (talk) 17:15, 28 March 2007 (UTC).

proverbs

how can ı find proverbs' meaning?

Selam. I assume you mean English proverbs. There is a list of wikiquote:English proverbs on Wikiquote; for some of these this list also gives the meaning. Other places you can look: The Phrase Finder, List of proverbs at BYU/ELC, GoEnglish list of idioms, UsingEnglish list of idioms. If the proverb is, for example, "A stitch in time saves nine", what you can also do is enter that in the Google search box (with the quotes), together with the word "meaning". There is a good chance that some of the first hits are of pages that explain the meaning of the proverb. Finally, if all else fails, you can ask here.  --Lambiam^Talk 23:55, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Doorless door

It's common, inside houses, for many doorways to lack doors. What word would best describe such a thing? "Doorway" sounds ambiguous, "door" implies a hinged lid. I did a search of "doorless doorway" and found more than a thousand hits, but that's wordier than I'd like. Does anyone know of a special term, perhaps a piece of architectural jargon, for this species of wall-hole? Thanks! Bhumiya (said/done) 19:48, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Opening? --MZMcBride 03:04, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm guessing Bhumiya is referring to the "door frames" without doors, although they're not door frames either. "Threshold" maybe? Xiner (talk, email) 03:11, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I considered threshold, too. And I think you could probably get away with architrave -- technically, the decorative moulding that frames a door, window, or other opening.

But our article on Door seems clearly cited, and it says the following things:

• a door is a hinged/sliding panel that covers a generally floor-length opening in a wall
• the term "door" can refer to the sliding/hinged part, but it can also be / is also used to refer to the OPENING ITSELF.
• the term "doorway can only refer to the opening.

Near as I can tell, if we take these things together, it seems those portals/passageways are technically either doors (by the second definition above) or doorways whether they are framed or unframed, or even whether they were ever intended to hold a door or not. I'd say "door" is much more misleading when you're talking about a panel-less opening, so "doorway", however ambiguous, may be as accurate a term as we've got. As noted above, "architrave" would work, too, even if it may not be as accurate as doorway; at least it is certainly less misleading, because hardly anyone knows what the heck it means. Unless you think "a generally floor-length opening in a wall" is the term you were looking for, Bhumiya.  :-) Jfarber 03:56, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I'd go with "doorway", or "archway" if it has an arched shape. My house also has windows between two rooms, where one room was added later. Find a term for that ! StuRat 07:11, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I've heard them called "pass-throughs." — Michael J 20:48, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I would probably say "portal" or "entryway".--Pharos 19:13, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, everybody! Bhumiya (said/done) 04:25, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

It's surprising what problems architecture can throw up. In Russian "fortochka" is an everyday word, the appliance having been used for centuries to ventilate houses in extreme conditions. There is in fact an English technical term, "transom", but very few English speakers know what it means. (It's one pane of a window which you can open separately.) - EAH (Edward Hansen)

Use of H in the Byzantine period

The Madaba Map seems to use H for the spiritus asper, as in "ΗΑΓΙΑ ПОΛΙΣ". Our article Eta (letter) doesn't mention such usage. Was that standard?
(Lambiam, if you read this: I got there through the sigma article, which points out this map as an example of the lunate sigma. Guess how I got to that page. Funny how remote areas come together, isn't it?) — Sebastian 23:31, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I read it. I think the Η here is the feminine form of the definite article. The text should be split into words like this: "Η ΑΓΙΑ ПОΛΙΣ ΙΕΡΟΥΣΑ[ΛΗΜ]": "The Holy City Jerusa[lem]".  --Lambiam^Talk 00:06, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

My assumption (edit conflict: also) would be that your quotation consists of three words: ἡ ἁγία πόλις. Wareh 00:08, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Ηὕρηκατε! That's why I like it here! — Sebastian 06:38, 25 March 2007 (UTC)