Poll: One world language... that isn't yours.
- Thread starter Squilookle
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Every sentence would make it sound like you're casting a spell.Toaster Hunter said:
I would say English. It's not my primary language, but it's one I speak almost as good as my primary language. Biology words are still hard in English though... damn my country for only having university books in English...
I think you missed his point:Vykrel said:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_languages
English is not that closely related to the romanic languages. Sure it's related to them but it's much more like the other germanic languages and of them the west germanic languages are on top (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Germanic_languages).
Although as everyone knows the north germanic ones are the best.
Anyway my vote is for English
and i think you missed my point, just as he did. im not talking about how the languages are related. i honestly dont care about that.pffh said:
im looking at it in the simplest way that i can. i am not a linguistics expert, such as you fine gents... im just a guy, and all i know is that Spanish has a lot of words that look very very similar to English words. some of them are even exactly the same. so, thats the language i would choose.
get it now?
But how closely languages are related directly translates to how similar they are (both grammar and the words themselves). So for example even if Spanish is similar to English, German is much more similar and would be that much easier for an English speaker to learn.Vykrel said:
Besides building up a vocabulary is not the most difficult thing when learning new languages. It's learning the grammar and with closely related languages the grammar is quite similar.
So am I and I, too, have also studied Spanish. I'm saying that while English and Spanish share similarities because they are in the Indo-European language family (and because of globalization), they are in different subsets of the Indo-European language family.Vykrel said:
Spanish is in the Romantic language subset, meaning that it evolved from the Latin spoken by the Romans (something having to do with the Romans is called Romantic regardless of how touchy feely it is). Other Romantic languages include: Portuguese, Catalan, French, Italian and Romanian. These languages are closer to Spanish on a word-to-word comparison than English is.
English is in the Germanic language subset. It is descended from a language that was spoken by people in present day Scandinavia who then went on to conquer and settle Germany, Austria, the Netherlands and England. The major languages of this subset include: German, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, English and Frisian. These languages are closer to English on a word-to-word comparison than Spanish is.
For instance the Spanish word for water is "agua", while in German it is "wasser". Same as with the word white: in Spanish it's "blanco" while in German it's "witte". See how the English word is closer to the German word?
Anyway, hopes that helps! I might have gone a bit over board in my explanation because I find language an interesting topic. If you have any other questions I'd suggest going to wikipedia and looking up "Indo-European languages", "Romantic languages" and "Germanic languages" or talk to your Spanish teacher. Cheers!
German is the only other language I'd be able to effectively communicate in, so I'll indulge in a little selfishness and pick that. Besides, it's from the county that produced Rammstein and Blind Guardian. Their language has to be doing something right.[footnote] Please don't hate me for my taste in music[/footnote]
It's not wether you speak it already or not, but if it's your primary language. Go read the first post again.Red Rum said:
Squilookle said: