Written by Konrad on 10.12.2009 at 22:58


Right...I was referring more to "fluency" and not "native-fluency".

Ah okay, there's a huge difference between the two. Get drunk and you'll become fluent (or is that fluid) in all languages

Written by Marcel Hubregtse on 10.12.2009 at 22:55

Second languages are best acquired before the age of 7 (more or less) after that one will never obtain the level of a native speaker.

Damn, I moved to sweden a couple of years too late .
I moved when I was 12 and started to learn swedish one week after arriving. I took me around a year to learn more than enough so I could go to school like a normal kid.
My accent is very strong, it annoys me...
Fortunately it seems like it is something that is caused by my low selfsteem since most of the people I've met tell me that they are suprised about my apparently good swedish.

Swedish was very easy for me to understand, even though my accent suck I do know how the word sounds 85% of the cases.

Written by Konrad on 10.12.2009 at 22:14

Learning the Cyrillic alphabet wasn't too difficult for me, although I can't understand what the fuck I'm saying it only took a few days before I could make all the sounds (except for the silent sounds). As for Russian/etc. grammar, yeah that was explained to me once and it seems incredibly difficult.

Of course, Cyrillic is not difficult at all...it's an alphabet and actually derived from the same ancient characters as Arabic and Latin alphabets...
I wouldn't say Russian grammar is that difficult. Of course, there are once again some peculiarities but every language has'em. If you have studied Latin, then you will also dig Russian (which is more simplified like lots of Indo-European languages have during history)... I speak Russian without problem but I write very bad in it....with English it's vice versa...I can write it rather well but when it comes to speaking, I ain't that much used to it....thing is...speaking English literally wears out my face and voice muscles...the pronunciation is just too different from my own language's which means I have to use my speech organs in a radically different manner....

Written by Valentin B on 10.12.2009 at 22:07

Hmmm.. i'd say the greatest challenge someone from an English-speaking country would have would be learning Russian and to a lesser degree, Romanian(the pronunciation is totally different and it's no wonder there are so few fluent english speakers here).
why Russian? because not only are the languages totally different, but even the characters are totally different.

I think the only language that a native English-speaker would be able to learn more or less properly with minor accent and such would be MANDARIN. The pronunciations of these two are rather close...no rolling Rs in either...well the tones and sibilants can pose some problem at the beginning but otherwise they should be comfortable...
Russian pronunciation is indeed a life challenge for English speakers....but the language is Indo-European which means that they ARE related....they were once one language...some thousands of years ago....and Romanian was once this language too....it's very nice to study Persian, actually...it has quite a lot of Latin, something of Russian, something of Germanic languages, something of Celtic....and well...I think that Latin is essential...everyone should learn it because once one has at least some knowledge of Latin, most other Indo-European languages will become A LOT easier to understand and learn in an instance....it's horseshite when some people say "Learning Latin is a waste of time." Latin is the showcase Indo-European language...it's like in the middle of all the other languages and all languages either are related to it or have taken loanwords from it...

Written by [user id=5630] on 10.12.2009 at 22:36

the word hippopotamus would be "river horse", which is also a reference to the original Greek meaning.

It's "river horse" in Estonian as well... as well as in Chinese... yes, hippo is Greek for horse and potam(something) is Greek for river...
By the way, in Russian hippo is called begemot... begemot is the name of a mythical monster (besides being a popular Polish music act)...mayb they thought it was begemot when they first saw hippos...

Written by Ernis on 10.12.2009 at 23:57


It's "river horse" in Estonian as well... as well as in Chinese... yes, hippo is Greek for horse and potam(something) is Greek for river...
By the way, in Russian hippo is called begemot... begemot is the name of a mythical monster (besides being a popular Polish music act)...mayb they thought it was begemot when they first saw hippos...

IN Dutch it is Nijlpaard which means "Horse from the Nile"

Written by Valentin B on 10.12.2009 at 22:07

to this day the only thing i can read in the cyrillic alphabet are USSR(CCCP) and Spartak Moskva(spelled Chaptak Mockba or something)

Cnaptak Mockba, ya.
Although I have difficulties to learn Russian I believe it's my teacher's and my own fault. The language doesn't seem so hard since Latvians hear it every day and I think there's no one who couldn't say something in Russian. I write badly and the width of my vocabulary is like... 1/5000 of everything but I still could communicate.

Considering that even native Latvians make many mistakes in word spelling or grammar which is... umh... a nightmare (that's my everyday work in Latvian lessons - dunno how it is in other languages), I would like to say that Latvian is among the most difficult languages. And, since it's spoken among very little amount of people - surprise, surprise - it's not mentioned anywhere.
Lithuanian is quite similar to Latvian and it actually seems more difficult than my native language. When I hear Lithuanian I firstly start to think the person talks in freaky Latvian or in a horrible Russian because it somehow sounds more Slavic.

Talking about more 'popular' languages, I think I probably would have difficulties with Polish if I wanted to learn it. It has many Z's and W's and the words sometimes seem unpronounceable to me. I know some words but, of course, they're also very easy to pronounce (a few words tourist should know, hehe).

Written by Valentin B on 10.12.2009 at 22:07

Hmmm.. i'd say the greatest challenge someone from an English-speaking country would have would be learning Russian and to a lesser degree, Romanian(the pronunciation is totally different and it's no wonder there are so few fluent english speakers here).
why Russian? because not only are the languages totally different, but even the characters are totally different. Romania is neighbors with 3 slavic or part-slavic countries with cyrillic alphabet and almost no-one knows a word in Ukrainian, Russian or Bulgarian. to this day the only thing i can read in the cyrillic alphabet are USSR(CCCP) and Spartak Moskva(spelled Chaptak Mockba or something)

Спартак Москва and lol all can reads CCCP and there is diference in rusian and serbian cyrlilic

I don't think a poll is accurate to determine which language is more difficult to learn because it mostly depends on the person who is learning. But anyway, I voted Chinese 'cause I think it's more "complex" than the others in the list; but I wouldn't know for fact. I do know, because I took courses at university, that classic latin is complicated, because the grammar is pretty complex, but again, it depends on the person. Some people get this things much easier than others.

Written by Ernis on 10.12.2009 at 23:57

Written by Valentin B on 10.12.2009 at 22:07

Hmmm.. i'd say the greatest challenge someone from an English-speaking country would have would be learning Russian and to a lesser degree, Romanian(the pronunciation is totally different and it's no wonder there are so few fluent english speakers here).
why Russian? because not only are the languages totally different, but even the characters are totally different.

I think the only language that a native English-speaker would be able to learn more or less properly with minor accent and such would be MANDARIN. The pronunciations of these two are rather close...no rolling Rs in either...well the tones and sibilants can pose some problem at the beginning but otherwise they should be comfortable...
Russian pronunciation is indeed a life challenge for English speakers....but the language is Indo-European which means that they ARE related....they were once one language...some thousands of years ago....and Romanian was once this language too....it's very nice to study Persian, actually...it has quite a lot of Latin, something of Russian, something of Germanic languages, something of Celtic....and well...I think that Latin is essential...everyone should learn it because once one has at least some knowledge of Latin, most other Indo-European languages will become A LOT easier to understand and learn in an instance....it's horseshite when some people say "Learning Latin is a waste of time." Latin is the showcase Indo-European language...it's like in the middle of all the other languages and all languages either are related to it or have taken loanwords from it...

I too am pissed off when someone says that learning Latin is a waste of time. Anyone who says that obviously has no idea that half of the English language derived from Latin. Even today, we are creating new English words from the original Latin.

Written by tulkas on 11.12.2009 at 02:30

I don't think a poll is accurate to determine which language is more difficult to learn because it mostly depends on the person who is learning. But anyway, I voted Chinese 'cause I think it's more "complex" than the others in the list; but I wouldn't know for fact. I do know, because I took courses at university, that classic latin is complicated, because the grammar is pretty complex, but again, it depends on the person. Some people get this things much easier than others.

That's why it's more of an opinion poll...but I've gotten a better idea of why languages are considered more difficult from you guys, keep it going!

Mandarin, My uncle can speak a little bit and it sounds really hard. But as for other languages the one for the bush man of africa would be pretty hard considering they dont really have a specific form of writing and some words are just clicks. Its actually pretty intresting because some historians believe its the oldest language and shows how we communicated a million years ago and how we started forming sounds (besides clicks). Its like a mix of what language is now and what it was when we first started talking.

Written by Konrad on 10.12.2009 at 15:12

On a funny note my brother (we have different fathers) is fluent in Finnish but he learned it from his father and grandparents...as a result he speaks as a 90 year old lady would and when he went over there people thought he was a bit weird hahaha.

That can be explained by the fact that the spoken Finnish and the written Finnish are almost like two different languages. The spoken one's got many rules of its own and it has butchered roughly a half of the written vocabulary, although not as radically as by completely reshaping the words, it's mostly just by abbreviating them. And when you add all the dozens of dialects into the picture, it's impossible to keep track of the whole language unless you're both a native speaker and a higher level linguist.

The written Finnish is like one of those dialects, only that it's spoken nowhere in the country and written everywhere. Yes it's true, you never hear it anywhere, but I'm sure it's what is taught to foreigners. 90 years ago might have been a different situation, but these days the written Finnish sounds natural only when it's written. There are few occasions that you can ever hear it spoken. A politician's trying to sound factual on television; old Finnish movies from the fifties and back; someone's quoting somebody else in a movie or a book (the sudden change of tone really gives it away every time - imagine for a second the sound "these" would make); a child has learned a new word; someone's trying to sound funny (usually while drunk). In fact there are numerous scenes in comedies where there's a character trying to sound serious that way while the others make fun of him or her, and the audience is in on the joke too of course. It's like we all were born after the language died and everyone accepts it. I've yet to meet anyone who prefers the written language in everyday conversation or even an elderly person complaining about the decline of formality in speech.

However still the written Finnish looks very modern when it's written and suddenly all the amusement and pretense is magically gone. The forced tones of PC politicians and comedic jackasses never even cross your mind. Some people write the spoken one and personally I think it looks pretty awful unless it's in the right context - like in a short story where a certain kind of atmosphere is necessary for the prose. I don't know if most languages in the world are like this, but I'm sure Finnish belongs in the extreme end. At least English seems to be in the other extreme, but I'd like to know where everything else is. How many of you are bilingual in one language?

Yeah...all of the people said he sounded like a 90 year old lady. I guess it makes sense, since his grandparents left about 70 years ago, taking that Era of spoken finish with them.

What do you mean bilingual in one language? You mean bilingual? That means you speak two languages. If that's what you mean yes, I speak/read/write English and German fluently, and despite what my profile says, my Spanish is pretty good as well. It seems like there are a shitload of people on here who speak at least like 5 languages.

Bilingual in one language as in if one of your languages is like I described Finnish when it comes to the difference between the spoken and the written version - if it feels like they are two different languages.

Hmm here in denmark many people says that danish is, one of the hardest language to learn.

is that true or not?

Written by Soulweeper on 12.12.2009 at 14:38

Hmm here in denmark many people says that danish is, one of the hardest language to learn.

is that true or not?

No it isnt , maybe its much harder learn how swedish but defenetly not hard , like I sad from all Europjan langauges hardest is finish n hungarian and estonian and lappi

Written by Bad English on 12.12.2009 at 14:48

Written by Soulweeper on 12.12.2009 at 14:38

Hmm here in denmark many people says that danish is, one of the hardest language to learn.

is that true or not?

No it isnt , maybe its much harder learn how swedish but defenetly not hard , like I sad from all Europjan langauges hardest is finish n hungarian and estonian and lappi

okay thanks

Written by Bad English on 12.12.2009 at 14:48

Written by Soulweeper on 12.12.2009 at 14:38

Hmm here in denmark many people says that danish is, one of the hardest language to learn.

is that true or not?

No it isnt , maybe its much harder learn how swedish but defenetly not hard , like I sad from all Europjan langauges hardest is finish n hungarian and estonian and lappi

swedish is the easiest language of Scandinavia, as one of my friends said who lives in finland but Im not sure. what is your opinion?

I really dont like to vote on this page for the very first time. (I vote even in very bad polls like anal sex lol)

others: Doutch, French, Italian ! really dont think that any of these languages are easy, specially when you can find special schools and learning places about them. a lot of books. so how can you think that French is an easy language but Japanese isnt ? casuse you cant understand some signs? I dont think so. you can learn signs. the hardest thing is the grammer and accent plus vocab's counts.

english is one of the easiest languages in the world but nowadays it has became hard! cause the number of words so much. they have a lot of german, french, turkish, persian, itallian and etc words in their vocab right now.

every language is hard, its very hard to talk a language without accent. so we dont have any easy language.

Written by [user id=31891] on 24.12.2009 at 00:57

Written by Bad English on 12.12.2009 at 14:48

Written by Soulweeper on 12.12.2009 at 14:38

Hmm here in denmark many people says that danish is, one of the hardest language to learn.

is that true or not?

No it isnt , maybe its much harder learn how swedish but defenetly not hard , like I sad from all Europjan langauges hardest is finish n hungarian and estonian and lappi

swedish is the easiest language of Scandinavia, as one of my friends said who lives in finland but Im not sure. what is your opinion?

I cant tell because Im use to it , but before I know it it sounds easyer how norvegian n danish, so it might be even I dunno good swe, what i know same thinks I do not know in noirvegian and danish

Written by Bad English on 24.12.2009 at 01:27

Written by [user id=31891] on 24.12.2009 at 00:57

Written by Bad English on 12.12.2009 at 14:48

Written by Soulweeper on 12.12.2009 at 14:38

Hmm here in denmark many people says that danish is, one of the hardest language to learn.

is that true or not?

No it isnt , maybe its much harder learn how swedish but defenetly not hard , like I sad from all Europjan langauges hardest is finish n hungarian and estonian and lappi

swedish is the easiest language of Scandinavia, as one of my friends said who lives in finland but Im not sure. what is your opinion?

I cant tell because Im use to it , but before I know it it sounds easyer how norvegian n danish, so it might be even I dunno good swe, what i know same thinks I do not know in noirvegian and danish

plus Icelandic and fisnish

Written by [user id=31891] on 24.12.2009 at 01:30

plus Icelandic and fisnish

Finland is not Scandinavia and finsih dont belongs to same langauge groop its not Indo-European languages so I have no clue, there all grammer and all is totaly diferent, its not possible learn it if wanna start eralier and do it good and fats, otherwise its werry werryt hard

Written by Bad English on 24.12.2009 at 01:39

Written by [user id=31891] on 24.12.2009 at 01:30

plus Icelandic and fisnish

Finland is not Scandinavia and finsih dont belongs to same langauge groop its not Indo-European languages so I have no clue, there all grammer and all is totaly diferent, its not possible learn it if wanna start eralier and do it good and fats, otherwise its werry werryt hard

haha! is not Scandinavia? they were a part of Sweden for years! and their second official language is Swedish. but maybe their language is so different I dont know. it Doesnt mean that they are not Scandinavian man, how can you say that!

Icelandic is so different either, but Scandinavian.

Written by [user id=31891] on 24.12.2009 at 01:47

Written by Bad English on 24.12.2009 at 01:39

Written by [user id=31891] on 24.12.2009 at 01:30

plus Icelandic and fisnish

Finland is not Scandinavia and finsih dont belongs to same langauge groop its not Indo-European languages so I have no clue, there all grammer and all is totaly diferent, its not possible learn it if wanna start eralier and do it good and fats, otherwise its werry werryt hard

haha! is not Scandinavia? they were a part of Sweden for years! and their second official language is Swedish. but maybe their language is so different I dont know. it Doesnt mean that they are not Scandinavian man, how can you say that!

Icelandic is so different either, but Scandinavian.

If you ignore the history and geography there's nothing Scandinavian about Finland, least of all when it comes to the language and the culture.

I'm going to be studying Finnish and Norwegian at University in 2010...I'll let you guys know if I tear my hair out in rage at the difficult.

Written by Graveheart on 24.12.2009 at 02:36

Written by [user id=31891] on 24.12.2009 at 01:47

Written by Bad English on 24.12.2009 at 01:39

Written by [user id=31891] on 24.12.2009 at 01:30

plus Icelandic and fisnish

Finland is not Scandinavia and finsih dont belongs to same langauge groop its not Indo-European languages so I have no clue, there all grammer and all is totaly diferent, its not possible learn it if wanna start eralier and do it good and fats, otherwise its werry werryt hard

haha! is not Scandinavia? they were a part of Sweden for years! and their second official language is Swedish. but maybe their language is so different I dont know. it Doesnt mean that they are not Scandinavian man, how can you say that!

Icelandic is so different either, but Scandinavian.

If you ignore the history and geography there's nothing Scandinavian about Finland, least of all when it comes to the language and the culture.

so you are Russians to be honest. but again it talks about history and geography man. Im really lost. so why your falg is really Scandinavian? I cant understand.

Written by Graveheart on 24.12.2009 at 02:36

Written by [user id=31891] on 24.12.2009 at 01:47

Written by Bad English on 24.12.2009 at 01:39

Written by [user id=31891] on 24.12.2009 at 01:30

plus Icelandic and fisnish

Finland is not Scandinavia and finsih dont belongs to same langauge groop its not Indo-European languages so I have no clue, there all grammer and all is totaly diferent, its not possible learn it if wanna start eralier and do it good and fats, otherwise its werry werryt hard

haha! is not Scandinavia? they were a part of Sweden for years! and their second official language is Swedish. but maybe their language is so different I dont know. it Doesnt mean that they are not Scandinavian man, how can you say that!

Icelandic is so different either, but Scandinavian.

If you ignore the history and geography there's nothing Scandinavian about Finland, least of all when it comes to the language and the culture.

so you are Russians to be honest. but again it talks about history and geography man. Im really lost. so why your falg is really Scandinavian? I cant understand.

http://combination.nordicvisitor.com/travel-deals/combination-tours/ what is this really?

Written by [user id=31891] on 24.12.2009 at 02:44

Written by Graveheart on 24.12.2009 at 02:36

Written by [user id=31891] on 24.12.2009 at 01:47

Written by Bad English on 24.12.2009 at 01:39

Written by [user id=31891] on 24.12.2009 at 01:30

plus Icelandic and fisnish

Finland is not Scandinavia and finsih dont belongs to same langauge groop its not Indo-European languages so I have no clue, there all grammer and all is totaly diferent, its not possible learn it if wanna start eralier and do it good and fats, otherwise its werry werryt hard

haha! is not Scandinavia? they were a part of Sweden for years! and their second official language is Swedish. but maybe their language is so different I dont know. it Doesnt mean that they are not Scandinavian man, how can you say that!

Icelandic is so different either, but Scandinavian.

If you ignore the history and geography there's nothing Scandinavian about Finland, least of all when it comes to the language and the culture.

so you are Russians to be honest. but again it talks about history and geography man. Im really lost. so why your falg is really Scandinavian? I cant understand.

http://combination.nordicvisitor.com/travel-deals/combination-tours/ what is this really?

I think yes, you could say we're closer to Russians than Swedes as far as language and culture, but then again we're somewhat distanced from them as well. The only linguistical neighbors are Estonian and Hungarian, but we don't share any significant history or borders with them. I know it's very confusing, we're placed in the middle of many different countries and still we stay quite unique. I can't explain the flag either, but whatever the shape is it still doesn't say Scandinavia. With tourism I'm sure it's only natural to include Finland in the Scandinavian program because of the geography.

Written by Graveheart on 24.12.2009 at 03:16

Written by [user id=31891] on 24.12.2009 at 02:44

Written by Graveheart on 24.12.2009 at 02:36

Written by [user id=31891] on 24.12.2009 at 01:47

Written by Bad English on 24.12.2009 at 01:39

Written by [user id=31891] on 24.12.2009 at 01:30

plus Icelandic and fisnish

Finland is not Scandinavia and finsih dont belongs to same langauge groop its not Indo-European languages so I have no clue, there all grammer and all is totaly diferent, its not possible learn it if wanna start eralier and do it good and fats, otherwise its werry werryt hard

haha! is not Scandinavia? they were a part of Sweden for years! and their second official language is Swedish. but maybe their language is so different I dont know. it Doesnt mean that they are not Scandinavian man, how can you say that!

Icelandic is so different either, but Scandinavian.

If you ignore the history and geography there's nothing Scandinavian about Finland, least of all when it comes to the language and the culture.

so you are Russians to be honest. but again it talks about history and geography man. Im really lost. so why your falg is really Scandinavian? I cant understand.

http://combination.nordicvisitor.com/travel-deals/combination-tours/ what is this really?

I think yes, you could say we're closer to Russians than Swedes as far as language and culture, but then again we're somewhat distanced from them as well. The only linguistical neighbors are Estonian and Hungarian, but we don't share any significant history or borders with them. I know it's very confusing, we're placed in the middle of many different countries and still we stay quite unique. I can't explain the flag either, but whatever the shape is it still doesn't say Scandinavia. With tourism I'm sure it's only natural to include Finland in the Scandinavian program because of the geography.

this way you are not Vikings, true?

Written by [user id=31891] on 24.12.2009 at 01:47

Written by Bad English on 24.12.2009 at 01:39

Written by [user id=31891] on 24.12.2009 at 01:30

plus Icelandic and fisnish

Finland is not Scandinavia and finsih dont belongs to same langauge groop its not Indo-European languages so I have no clue, there all grammer and all is totaly diferent, its not possible learn it if wanna start eralier and do it good and fats, otherwise its werry werryt hard

haha! is not Scandinavia? they were a part of Sweden for years! and their second official language is Swedish. but maybe their language is so different I dont know. it Doesnt mean that they are not Scandinavian man, how can you say that!

Icelandic is so different either, but Scandinavian.

Finland is not Scandinavia geograpicaly and never jhas been there even they have was part of Swe and not all fins like swedish language
Icelandish is liie old norvegian what they use in Norway in 11th century before sauled away

Written by [user id=31891] on 24.12.2009 at 03:38

Written by Graveheart on 24.12.2009 at 03:16

I think yes, you could say we're closer to Russians than Swedes as far as language and culture, but then again we're somewhat distanced from them as well. The only linguistical neighbors are Estonian and Hungarian, but we don't share any significant history or borders with them. I know it's very confusing, we're placed in the middle of many different countries and still we stay quite unique. I can't explain the flag either, but whatever the shape is it still doesn't say Scandinavia. With tourism I'm sure it's only natural to include Finland in the Scandinavian program because of the geography.

this way you are not Vikings, true?

Yes, that's true.