Kuribo64
Views: 19,851,136 Home | Forums | Uploader | Wiki | Object databases | IRC
Rules/FAQ | Memberlist | Calendar | Stats | Online users | Last posts | Search
03-28-24 03:11 PM
Guest:

0 users reading Why languages make no sense at all | 1 bot

Main - General Chat - Why languages make no sense at all Hide post layouts | New reply

Pages: 1 2 3
PixelDimension
Posted on 10-05-16 12:14 AM (rev. 6 of 10-05-16 12:28 AM) Link | #78227
Posted by Super-toad 65
And yes, wowels in english are a bit confusing -.-


That is because vowels in English do whatever they want - any vowel can really make almost any sound. Vowels are not really thought of as all that important in English. It is not uncommon for people to drop vowels entirely in speech - for example, the name of the Canadian city Toronto often becomes "T'ronno" in casual speech (dropping the first o and the second t), and most English speakers would pronounce my username as something closer to "Pix'lD'mension" rather than PixelDimension. Some accents/dialects also have a tendency to run syllables together - New Zealanders are famous for this, a common example being the way they say the name of their country - "New Zilnd".

Example: "sun" and "son" sound the same
"cot" and "caught" sound the same (in some accents/dialects, not all)
"ball" and "doll" rhyme

Written English and spoken English differ to a ridiculous degree. The only way to learn it correctly is to memorise almost everything, which can be very difficult if you have not grown up with the language. Add that to the unusual sounds like "th" and it is not hard to see why so many people have trouble with it. But as long as they can get the general idea of what you are saying/writing, most English speakers will be very friendly and accommodating toward people whose English is not perfect, because even the native speakers such as myself are confused by it. :)

(For example, a common native-speaker error: Using "there is" instead of "there are" when talking about something in the plural - for example, saying "there's more boxes in the closet" instead of the correct way, "there are more boxes in the closet".)



Yami
Posted on 10-30-16 09:53 AM Link | #79284
Posted by Yoshimaster96
Plus, the kanji in Japanese is MUCH more difficult than these exceptions, at least to me.

Call me weird, but I actually find having Kanji very convenient for languages like Japanese.
The said language has a shitload of homonyms, making it often difficult to distinguish words from each other, when written in Kana-only.
Thanks to Kanji, we can read a piece of text, without the need to guess whether "hashi" means "chopsticks", "bridge", or "edge of a table".

LeftyGreenMario
Posted on 11-01-16 05:51 AM Link | #79379
Besides, Chinese is, if you put it one way, is pure kanji. If you learn kanji, you'll have a VERY general idea about the Chinese.

Me, I had fun learning kanji. I took beginning Japanese and the teacher didn't require people to use kanji, but I did to the point where the teacher had me write hiragana so I *at least* know the word pronunciation I believe.

Yami
Posted on 11-01-16 07:50 PM Link | #79401
Well, at first, it's called "Hanzi" in Chinese, second, they're written differently, because many Characters have been simplified in Chinese, and third, there are around 300 (or even more) Kanji, that have a completely different meaning from their Hanzi counterparts.
Besides, many Kanji/Hanzi can't be used isolated.

As for the third part, consider the Kanji 好:
Japanese: Like.
Chinese: Good.

LeftyGreenMario
Posted on 11-02-16 03:16 AM Link | #79417
Ah, I see. Well, I wasn't trying to imply that by learning Japanese, you learn Chinese and vice-versa, but I do think it helps a bit... unless there are cases where you need to unlearn the other.

Lunarius
Posted on 11-07-16 05:00 AM Link | #79553
Isn't it simply amazing that there are over 6,500 languages in the world? :D Yet, most of us might not find it interesting since we won't know what something is written down in a different language. :P




<Silvreus>I am a random person…
<Silvreus>With a random personality…
<Silvreus>With a random life…
<Silvreus>How fun. :P



Yami
Posted on 11-07-16 05:28 AM Link | #79554
Posted by Lunarius
Isn't it simply amazing that there are over 6,500 languages in the world?

http://www.linguisticsociety.org/content/how-many-languages-are-there-world
"The most extensive catalog of the world’s languages, generally taken to be as authoritative as any, is that of Ethnologue (published by SIL International), whose detailed classified list as of 2009 included 6,909 distinct languages".
Pages: 1 2 3

Main - General Chat - Why languages make no sense at all Hide post layouts | New reply

Page rendered in 0.051 seconds. (2048KB of memory used)
MySQL - queries: 28, rows: 122/122, time: 0.009 seconds.
[powered by Acmlm] Acmlmboard 2.064 (2018-07-20)
© 2005-2008 Acmlm, Xkeeper, blackhole89 et al.