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[Muz]

Dude, Muz, Chinese people don't all know multiple dialects.

That's the point. Takes a genius to even learn the language, much more to learn multiple dialects. Tried learning Chinese, but it's damn difficult.. most of my Chinese friends can't even write or speak it fluently. I have a friend who can't even spell her name in her native language (but can do fine with the Roman alphabet) XD

[Emperor_Jonathan]

My Spanish teacher (only did it for a year) two years ago could speak like 9 different languages inc. English. He was able to teach all but two of them. He tried learning Mandarin, but gave up after 6 months. Incredibly hard language to learn.

[Jackrabbit]

I really hate learning it. I'm gonna stop and start on German instead. I plan on living there at some point.

[Micro102]

the only othe rlaunguage i know other then english is ASL....schools messed me up made me take french then spanish then french again. apparently they didint have a french class...

[inaluct]

Look, the thing is, though, that Chinese isn't even an Indo-European language. It's different from English because it's so far separated, not because it's a "harder" language. The difficulty of learning a language is relative.

Most of us here grew up speaking English or other closely related languages. For us, Chinese is hard to learn because it's so different. For someone who grew in Chongqing, English would seem alien and difficult to learn.

And really, it's the most commonly spoken language on the planet. How hard could it be?

[Emperor_Jonathan]

Definatley not the hardest. IMHO I reckon the hardest would be that African tribal language, you know the one with the clicks.

Mandarin is pretty hard even to almost all languages in the countries that surround it, it's only the most commonly spoken language because the  China is so densely populated. It is a very hard language because we're comparing it with the most widespread language, English.

[JoshuaFH]

I heard Russian was a pretty hard language.

[Emperor_Jonathan]

Yeah, that teacher I mentioned knew Russian.

[JoshuaFH]

Sweet?

[Kagus]

English is actually a pretty lame language...  It's got plenty of rules, but it never follows them.  You can't really "learn" English, you either speak it or you don't.  That's because you need experience with it in order to figure out all the idiotic pronunciations or spelling oddities...  "Through" is one of the most ridiculous words I can think of.

Esperanto is supposed to be the easiest language to learn and use efficiently, but nobody does.  It's a scientific language, rather than a cultural one.  Therefore, there's no tradition-linked reason for someone to learn it.


I've been trying to find an IQ test to bugger around with lately, but the likelihood of finding one even halfway decent on the internet is pathetic...  I took one, but that turned out to be utterly bogus.  Seems you just have to find some official place to take one...

And yeah, it is indeed a bit difficult to accurately test something when you don't know what you're testing for.  I was reading an article about intelligence and how people will generally interpret ability in local cultural values as exhibiting intelligence.

Myself, I always considered intelligence to be the ability to learn.  Being able to wrap your mind around new concepts or simply learn something new with ease.  And not just memorizing, actually learning something.  Finding out how and why it works.

This is in contrast with knowledge, which is the stuff you've already picked up along the way.  Although intelligence and knowledge are closely linked, they're not the same thing.  You could essentially teach an imbecile the same things you could teach a genius, it would just take a hell of a lot longer.


I use this difference in order to argue away any doubts of my intelligence.  I really am passably intelligent, I'm just bugger-all in regards to knowledge.

And you've got to admit, I've got to be at least a little clever in order to pull that one off.

[Awayfarer]

Look, the thing is, though, that Chinese isn't even an Indo-European language. It's different from English because it's so far separated, not because it's a "harder" language. The difficulty of learning a language is relative.

Most of us here grew up speaking English or other closely related languages. For us, Chinese is hard to learn because it's so different. For someone who grew in Chongqing, English would seem alien and difficult to learn

Case in point: the Chinese kid and the Korean kid in my Japan 102 class make the rest of us look like chumps. It's not because they're superintelligent, it's because many Asian languages have ties to the Chinese* method of writing. They have a common ancestor, like Europeans languages that are derived from the Roman alphabet.

I'm an English major. I'm taking Japanese for my foreign language requirement. There is a HUGE amount of difference between the two. Take the following for example...

English: "What time is it?"
Japanese: Ima nanji desu ka.

A more literal translation of the Japanese sentence might be, "Now, what time (time is) question mark."
"Ka" is more or less the equivalent of a question mark, yet it is not punctuation (that sentence still needs a period). "Desu" isn't even exactly a word, it's something you use when conjugating nouns to indicate that said noun is positive. Not to mention what happens when you throw in kanji. The symbol for time is literally something like "sun-temple". (Note: I'm a raw beginner here. If anyone who understands Nihongo better than I do wants to chime in, pelase do.)


*I know that there isn't exactly one Chinese language, but it seems that there must have been an ancestor tongue from which they're derived.

[Cthulhu]

I wish I were still under the age of 12, I'm pretty much stuck with fluency in English.

My kids are going to know so many languages.  If they don't I'm going to make them feel bad about it for the rest of their lives.

[Yanlin]

You're going to teach them Cthuluian?

[Cthulhu]

I'm not sure what that language is called actually.

[DJ]

My language, Croatian, is pretty damn hard. Sure, you might learn to get the correct declension and conjugation, and maybe even with time learn to roll your r-s and pronounce lj properly. But I've never met a foreigner who could pronounce words likes stršljen (strshljen for those without Central European alphabet installed) properly.