Re: Rating Languages

Hmm, in the languages I've studied I suppose the bits I've found really
hared are:

Norwegian: the two tones.
Cantonese: the tones.
Russian: the scary clusters and the alphabet. I find it really hard to read
a non-roman alphabet.
Arabic: where to start? Just the language! Especially the pharyngeals and
the script.
German: the case system. It just seems so *weird* after Latin.
Sanskrit: atmanapada/parasimanpada
Catalan: the velar "l"
Gaelic: /G/. I just can't really pronounce it in the middle of a word in
Gaelic. I have no problems in Spanish, though.
Spanish: por/para
Greek: the optative

Yoon Ha Lee wrote:

> On Monday, September 24, 2001, at 05:52 PM, Herman Miller wrote:
>
> > It'd be interesting to put together a list of the features of various
> > languages that are considered difficult (at least to English speakers).
> > Here's a few examples I can think of (not all of these are languages
I've
> > actually tried to learn, but at least ones I know something about -- and
> > it's nowhere near a complete list of "difficult" features, just a few
that
> > come to mind).
> >
> > Ancient Greek: verb conjugations.
> > Arabic: tricky alphabet, short vowels unwritten, emphatic consonants.
> > Chinese: writing system, tones.
> > Finnish: noun declension, consonant gradation.
> > Georgian: consonant clusters.
> > Irish: spelling, initial consonant mutation.
> > Japanese: writing system, levels of politeness, syntax.
> > Korean: "tense" consonants.
> > Russian: palatalized consonants, perfective vs. imperfective verb stems.
> > Thai: no spaces between words, complicated spelling of tones.
> > Tibetan: spelling.
> > Vietnamese: unfamiliar vowels, tones.
> > Zulu: clicks.
>
> Hmm.  My sister found all the case declensions in Latin quite painful, so:
> Arabic: the laryngeals and pharyngeals (?)--I can't distinguish between
> them.
> English: for many I've known, the spelling.
> Japanese: writing system.  The syntax looks reasonable to me, but I have a
> biased Korean perspective...
> Korean: The damn vowels, which I tend to read in rotation or reflection.
>    It is *not* an alphabet for people who have trouble with left, right,
up
>    and down.
> Latin: case declensions.  (My sister's unwitting contribution.)
>
> French: the fact that the r's give me a sore throat after about an hour.
> German: the fact that the r's give me a sore throat after about an hour.
>    (Ditto for [x], though I like the sound.)
> Spanish: the fact that my trilled r's come out stuttery even after a lot
of
>    practice and Dan Sulani's advice, though I think I've been making them
> too
>    far forward, because when I moved my tongue back a bit it became
somewhat
>    easier.  But then it starts sounding like I'm inserting [h] before the
>    trill.  I know, I know, practice...
> Do we sense a trend here?  :-/
>
> I confess I haven't encountered such a rich variety of languages closely
> as others have...
>
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La plus belle fois qu'on m'a dit
          "je t'aime"
                   c'était un mec
                             qui me l'a dit...
Francis Lalane
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