Apparently this is what it takes for a native english speaker to learn another language at a basic level based on the training US diplomats go through:
>average of 25 hours of study a week are 5 hours of study a day if studying only on weekdays >plus the additional required 4 hours of daily study by yourself >that makes around 40 hours a week completely dedicated to studying a single language, the same amount of hours the average worker takes every week for doing his job >native english speakers need to study a language for an average of 9 hours a day, full time, if they want to become at least conversational in a romance language or swedish/norwegian dialects after around 600 hours of study (half a year through this schedule) >tfw most speakers of those languages in the map could actually learn english properly at a conversational level after 2 or 3 months of hard work on such a harsh and intensive language learning schedule Is that the reason why native english speakers love the idea of speaking other languages so much? Why is it so incredibly hard for them to learn other languages?
for me it's because growing up my parents always told me I was fucking retarded compared to Europeans because I only knew English. Europeans (according to them) knew at least 3-5 languages on average and that's why they were so smart. I grew up dabbling in lots of random languages but never becoming fluent in any of them. I've pretty much stopped caring at this point because I've gotten over the "Americans are retarded because Americans XD amirite" meme. I want to learn Hebrew, and get better at Italian, and maybe learn some more about Polynesian/Pacific languages but that's it. Now I can understand several languages on a conversational level but I was always too shy to speak (even though I never had a typical American accent) because I thought I would be ridiculed. For most Americans I think it's that they have heritage from places they have 0 real connection to and they want to gain some connection through language/culture, while others just admire Europeans and (like me) hate that we really don't get much exposure to push us to learn another language here.
Benjamin Howard
Which is it: Asian parents or Jewish parents?
Colton Sanchez
russki kikes
Kayden Gomez
日本語ってそんなに難しいのか. I seriously don't get why Japanese is seen as this impossibly hard language. I guess that gives me confidence that I can learn languages that actually matter too if they're easier.
Gavin Murphy
user, where are your manners?
Hudson Butler
Aren't many Japanese under the impression that they have a "special brain" that allows only them to fully understand their own language? I remember reading that many Japanese get very uncomfortable read: assblasted when foreigners speak Japanese too fluently.
Henry Thompson
I wouldn't doubt that on many issues of nuance a foreigner could never compete with natives (and I'd have a hard time taking a Westerner very seriously as a teacher of Japanese, generally) but as far as functional fluency is concerned I don't see what's holding anybody back. I'd say the Japanese aren't entirely unjustified in their belief that foreigners aren't wired to learn it- in a sense it's one of those languages where you might just never reach "native" level. I still have trouble understanding lots of regional dialects and comedy where they speak really quickly with tons of colloquialisms. But I'd doubt very much that it's really so significantly more difficult than say, Chinese or Russian. Not that I'm qualified to talk about those languages.
Josiah Jenkins
...
Isaiah Thompson
>French is about as hard to learn as Swedish
Owen Adams
respect your parents for a long life suka debil
Owen Edwards
I've been learning this goddamn language off and on for YEARS and I just can't crack it, I'm a dumbass desu
probably just need to go the teacher route and stop being an autist
Luis Parker
Same. Unless I study every day it all leaks back out.
Liam Price
I live in Brussels among Eurocrats. They all have shitty children who already speak 3-4 different languages at age 12. I'm very jealous. But it seems that being forced to speak multiple languages at a very young age is the best way to learn.
Gabriel Edwards
How the fuck can Japanese be harder to learn than tonal shit like Chinese?
Gabriel Howard
people who learn chinese are usually more dedicated than weebs
Gavin Parker
But those stats are referring to US diplomats, not weebs.
Jaxon Jackson
US diplomats are secretly weebs
Carson Thompson
>I'd have a hard time taking a Westerner very seriously as a teacher of Japanese Why? Wouldn't they be more helpful than a native? Considering they were once in your position, they should be much more capable of explaining all the nuances and confusing bits rather than saying "That's just how it is". I suppose the latter would be useful for developing an accent and cultural knowledge, but that's minor compared to wrapping your head around everything else.
Owen Ortiz
>saying "That's just how it is". LITERALLY THE WORST
Gabriel Reyes
This attitude is common throughout East Asia, in my experience. It often rubs off a bit on foreign learners, who consider the target language part of a secret club and get assblasted at other foreigners learning it.
Gabriel Howard
Aside from the tones, Chinese is easier than Japanese. And getting the tones right isn't that hard.
Chase Davis
>FSI doesn't teach the terrorist languages of Europe or Africa what did they mean by this?
Juan Cooper
>Chinese is easier than Japanese How?
Nolan Price
Maybe for your first language, but as you study multiple languages they all get easier.
Ryder Fisher
If you've passed the JLPT N1, I have no problem believing that you have a better grasp of Japanese than most of its native speakers. Anyone whose intent is to deeply study a language long enough will end up being better at it than those who rely on intuition.
Levi Thompson
Chinese has simpler grammar, you don't have to worry about conjugation, there are no particles interacting with the kanji, and tones make the language easier once you get past the initial hurdle.
Christopher Phillips
The grammar makes sense and you don't have to change your way of thinking to speak it. Japanese is like klingon in that it's missing so many things that you have to talk around it to discuss even the most mundane topics.
English is a stupidly structured language and is difficult for others to learn, I think it goes both ways. I had a lot of trouble learning Russian because of how much easier parts of it are
Liam Miller
US weebs are secretly diplomats.
Camden Hernandez
I've had non-native professors and while generally pretty helpful, when it came to questions of nuance or "does this sound natural?" they'd almost always just wake up one of the native TAs dozing off in the back and ask them what they thought.
