KenW Posted September 19, 2012 Share Posted September 19, 2012 OK here's a thread that's eminently ignorable. Never mind. I'm interested in the issue, given that in my village - where quite a few expats reside - very few foreigners speak VNese at any serious level. I started it, so I make the call: I'm not interested in your excellent Spanish, or your first language Scottish (if there is such a thing?) - let's confine it to Asia. Even if you speak not a word, I'd like you to reply, saying so. No negativities implied. I'm simply curious that's all. I'll make the first move (prawn to Ken 4): I speak a few sentences and words of Japanese. I studied it for a semester about a decade ago, but since I have not yet been to Japan and have no daily use for it, it is almost all forgotten. Twenty odd years ago I studied Bahasa Indonesia for 3 terms. Went to that country quite a bit. Spoke with some conversational competence. Now mostly forgotten too, but if/when I re-visit a lot will come flooding back. I speak Vietnamese also at conversational level. I can read and write too, but nothing heavy as my vocab is limited. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kahuna Posted September 19, 2012 Share Posted September 19, 2012 After all my years traveling to Thailand Mr. Watanabe I have learned to say hello and thank you...I am still working diligently on goodbye...That's seems to be the hardest for me to learn... In truth I am horrible with languages including my own...I lack the memory skills and now the hearing skills to attempt to learn any language especially Asian tonal languages and find myself in my own country constantly saying, "Pardon me." 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deepthroat Posted September 19, 2012 Share Posted September 19, 2012 Unless Spanish is recognized as an Asian language, my official tally will remain at 0. Like Kuhn Kahuna I am able to say a few words and phrases, but can just as easily say "that tastes good" when I'm meaning to say "you are very beautiful" and vice versa, leading to all sorts of hilarity at my expense. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pdogg Posted September 19, 2012 Share Posted September 19, 2012 Living in a farang ghetto makes it easy to be lazy, language wise. I can't hold a meaningful conversation in Thai though I can do some basic things such as order food. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KenW Posted September 19, 2012 Author Share Posted September 19, 2012 can just as easily say "that tastes good" when I'm meaning to say "you are very beautiful" and vice versa, leading to all sorts of hilarity at my expense. Hilarity & more. In tonal languages it's quite a risky business. In VNese if you get the tones wrong mother's life becomes horse's cock. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
strocube Posted September 19, 2012 Share Posted September 19, 2012 I can say hello, thank you, and goodbye I Thai, and that's about it. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
4:17 Posted September 19, 2012 Share Posted September 19, 2012 After two and a half years between Thailand and Vietnam (three years in consecutive time, broken up by six months back home in the States) I have nothing more than pidgin Thai and Vietnamese. I can give instructions to a cab driver, order food and drinks and things like that, ask how much, and the basics: hello, good bye -- seems most Vietnamese say "bye bye" anyway -- and a few odds and ends: bus, motorbike taxi, everyday things like that. I know the words for some of the fruits that I buy often at the markets. I have a hell of time remembering the words for numbers for some reason, but have no trouble remembering how to ask "how much?" This inevitably leads to amusing problems (I have the same problem in several Indo-European languages) at markets and stores. I've realized that without rigorous study, I'm not going to learn a language, even though I'm immersed in it. I suppose if I had no choice, as in no one spoke English ever, I would pick up more, but between others' pidgin English and the translation program on my phone, it's easy to get by without it. So next year I've resolved to literally get (language) schooled. I like academic environments anyway, so it should be fun. Excellent topic, by the way. Edit: I took a beginner Japanese course some years back, but since I haven't been back to Japan in a decade, I've forgotten most of what I learned. Same with Mandarin, unfortunately. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lone Ranger Posted September 19, 2012 Share Posted September 19, 2012 Read and write hiragana, katakana and some kanji scripts and can converse in Japanese too. Also Romaji but that is more simple as it is Japanese scripts translated into Western letters. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
azza33 Posted September 19, 2012 Share Posted September 19, 2012 Learnt some Korean for a number of years and comes in handy from time to time. Find Asian languages a little difficult but wish my brain would absorb a little more given the time I spent over there. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deepthroat Posted September 20, 2012 Share Posted September 20, 2012 Learnt some Korean for a number of years and comes in handy from time to time. Find Asian languages a little difficult but wish my brain would absorb a little more given the time I spent over there. Yeah, it definitely is harder than learning a Germanic language (English, French German, Spanish) but I think it's also a function of age. I tried to take a spanish class at the local community college 3 years ago (age 48) but dropped out after 5 weeks as it was too much work and I just wasn't catching on, despite taking 3 years of spanish in High School and spending 4 weeks there every year for about 10 years. Children naturally absorb and pick up new languages if they're exposed to them, but for us older folk it's sometimes a lost cause - unless we're particularly motivated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lone Ranger Posted September 20, 2012 Share Posted September 20, 2012 Yeah, it definitely is harder than learning a Germanic language (English, French German, Spanish) but I think it's Sorry but I disagree. Japanese is an Asian Language and is far more simple to learn than say English. For instance Japanese as 2 tenses past and non past making it much more easier than English to learn with it's12 tenses plus 2 emphatic tenses making 14 in total Simple Present - I walk Simple Past - I walked Simple Future - I will [or shall] walk Present Perfect - I have walked Past Perfect - I had walked Future Perfect - I will have walked Present Progressive - I am walking Past Progressive - I was walking Future Progressive - I will be walking Present Perfect Progressive - I have been walking Past Perfect Progressive - I had been walking Future Perfect Progressive - I will have been walking In addition there are two emphatic tenses: Present emphatic - I do walk. Past emphatic - I did walk. One of the biggest drawback with the English language is we tend to think everyone can speak it, thus making us more lazy to learn an other language.. DT please do not think this reply is a pop at you. Respect to you Dude It is not. It is at the English speaking world in general Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
azza33 Posted September 20, 2012 Share Posted September 20, 2012 I'm going with DT on this one. For a native English speaker it's easier to pick up a European language than an Asian language Learning English would be a pain in the ass for anyone. I find Asian languages difficult due to grammar changes, tonal structure & the complex honorific structures. I personally find Japanese the easiest of them to pick up - easy on the ears and the ladies are easy on the eyes!! And due to my Korean exposure I'm okay with the Japanese grammar structures - I never bothered to continue to learn Japanese as I see no need. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pacman Posted September 20, 2012 Share Posted September 20, 2012 Sorry but I disagree. Japanese is an Asian Language and is far more simple to learn than say English. I personally find Japanese the easiest of them to pick up Thank you gentlemen for clearing something up for me. I always considered Japanese to be a difficult language to learn with its strange pronunciations. So many English speakers struggle to make themselves understood with their accents & poor diction. Many years ago I was in Bali & was in a restaurant with a group of people I met at my hotel. A group of Japanese sat down next to us & were talking loudly in Japanese. A guy at my table started speaking to them in Japanese. He wasn't fluent but he had quite a conversation with them. They all joined in & there were questions being asked & answered. When he finished I asked him how long had he lived in Japan. Or had he been studying the language a long time. He said neither. He visited there once several years earlier for 6 weeks. He had picked up the language during that trip. I was incredulous. He did say to me that he had the ability to remember everything said to him. And though he hadn't heard Japanese since his visit, he said it all came back to him when they started speaking. I wish I had a memory like that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KenW Posted September 20, 2012 Author Share Posted September 20, 2012 I'm going with DT on this one. For a native English speaker it's easier to pick up a European language than an Asian language Learning English would be a pain in the ass for anyone. I find Asian languages difficult due to grammar changes, tonal structure & the complex honorific structures. I think it impossible to generalise. It depends on a whole lot of factors and attributes of the learner (including obvious but oft forgotten things like keenness to learn), more so than the language itself. I cannot see that there are any objective criteria that make any language other than English harder to learn than any other. English has those objective criteria in the very mishmash of its history - all those ugly verb tenses for starters (or is that finishers?). Totally inconsistent pronounciations, and spellings, etc. Yes, English is a pain in the arse, even for many of us native speakers. As pacman says or implies, some people just seem to have a gift for languages. But again, nothing objective there. I have studied 3 Asian languages and luckily they all had the same grammar structures. Much simpler than English or the German I learned at high school back in the Pleistocene. Tones are something else. I personally find them very difficult. As do most learners. They are melodic languages, meaning you almost have to sing the words. But for LBR interests it's really only Thai that's tonal. Chinese languages also. VNese is too, as are many regional minority languages, but nobody here is going to be bothered with them. I don't know what you mean by honorific structures. If you mean terms of address, well that's just pronouns. But other than that possibility, I have no idea what they are. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kahuna Posted September 20, 2012 Share Posted September 20, 2012 Tones are something else. I personally find them very difficult. As do most learners. They are melodic languages, meaning you almost have to sing the words. But for LBR interests it's really only Thai that's tonal. One brief note as an aside to this discussion...As a young university student I was required to take a series of classes in linguistics for my undergrad major...phonetics, morphemics and phonology...as I struggled through those classes I though I knew everything and could go out in the world and learn any language...Of course, I really knew nothing...I know even less now... And what little I do know now is only personal...And I may be way out on a limb here, as I usually am, but I find the Thai language to be horrid to my old ears...In fact it makes my ears hurt...Moreover, when they sing a song in Thai it goes straight to my brain and causes my little brain to hurt...To my ears and brain it is not a very "pretty" language... So one might think that spending up to 6 months at a time in Thailand, I walked around in constant pain...But the truth is I didn't...I just learned very quickly to block it all out...I simply don't hear a word they say...It's just noise...I realize how rude that seems...How rude that really is...But it does stop the pain... I often wonder if our language causes them a similar pain... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
4:17 Posted September 20, 2012 Share Posted September 20, 2012 I would agree with Ken; I think it's difficult to generalize. One often hears that it's easier to pick up Asian languages because of the lack of tenses, but as a native English speaker I actually find this difficult, ostensibly because my native tongue has all those goofy tenses. In terms of grammar, yes, it is easier to learn, certainly, but in terms of using the language and fluency, I find it a challenge; my brain freezes up because it wants to use the present continuous, rather than relying on context, for example. Of course your mileage may vary. And it works both ways. The array of tenses can make English difficult to learn for someone who had no concept of these tenses before they began studying the language. On the other hand, I've met Asian people who are also advanced language students in English, who find the array of tenses quite elegant, in that it gives one "many different ways to express subtle nuances" --- I actually had a Japanese friend who was a masters student in English at the time say that. I've heard many people say many things about English, but "elegant," that was a first. She was quite adamant on this point, though, but then she was a bit of an Anglophile. Well, an Americanophile, if you will. Also agree with Ken on the tones. The difficulty that tonal languages present me far outweighs my stumbles with a lack of tenses. I often wonder if I had been living in a European country for the same amount of time I've spent in SE Asia, if I would have picked up more of the language. I think so; I took French throughout high school, and even now, if I'm around it for even a few days, much of it comes back and I can carry on a basic conversation with few problems. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
azza33 Posted September 20, 2012 Share Posted September 20, 2012 For reference honorific is well beyond pronouns. In Korean there are at least 6 different ways to complete a sentence depending on the relationship of the speaker and listener. Of course pronouns change but verbs and nouns can also change depending on the status of the listener. I would expect Japanese to have this issue given the history of the two countries... but I'm not sure. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
azza33 Posted September 20, 2012 Share Posted September 20, 2012 As for tones... slight pronunciation errors... Managed to tell a guy to get fucked one day at lunch in Korea whilst trying to say the number 18.... slight oops Fortunately his niece was there to clarify the issue and saved my ass :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KenW Posted September 20, 2012 Author Share Posted September 20, 2012 For reference honorific is well beyond pronouns. In Korean there are at least 6 different ways to complete a sentence depending on the relationship of the speaker and listener. Of course pronouns change but verbs and nouns can also change depending on the status of the listener. O OK, thanks for clarifying that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dixon cox Posted September 20, 2012 Share Posted September 20, 2012 I enjoy languages very much and I always try and learn some wherever I am in Asia and use it. But sadly my skills do not match my enthusiasm. I also see many generalisations that Asian languages are tonal, they are not all tonal, such as Khmer. My Asian language skills range from just a few words of Japanese, to several useful sentences in Khmer, to almost basic conversational in Thai, unless they say something I don't understand which stalls things, which is often the case. IMO the locations the majority of us are likely to go are where the locals usually have a basic grasp of English anyway and do not expect us, the visitor, to attempt communication in their language, if we do it catches them by surprise and they're not tuned in ready and do not understand. With specific reference to Thailand, I actually think they do not want us to learn their language and we know the reasons why. To follow on about locals speaking English; I believe the English language is fairly easy to learn in terms of the basics and to be understood by us, far easier than for a westerner with tones and being understood by the Asian locals. They only need to be aware of one tense to communicate with us (present) and to be understood, by me anyway. What I find interesting is that I think it helps to learn a foreign language by listening to them speaking English. Often they create sentences incorrectly, as they would in their own language, but our brains piece it together and get the message, clues then exist to their own sentence structure. Unfortunately it seems to be a one-way street when trying to speak an Asian foreign language as often (in Thai) things must be nigh-on perfect for us to be understood by them over anything more than just the basics, which can be frustrating. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KenW Posted September 20, 2012 Author Share Posted September 20, 2012 I enjoy languages very much and I always try and learn some wherever I am in Asia and use it. But sadly my skills do not match my enthusiasm. IMO the locations the majority of us are likely to go are where the locals usually have a basic grasp of English anyway and do not expect us, the visitor, to attempt communication in their language, if we do it catches them by surprise and they're not tuned in ready and do not understand. With specific reference to Thailand, I actually think they do not want us to learn their language and we know the reasons why. Agree & disagree dixon. I also enjoy being able to speak languages, no matter how clumsily. Someone once told me that to learn to speak a foreign language amid the foreign context you have to be prepared to make a fool of yourself and often. Being the fool I am, I jumped in the deep end. I have never regretted my blunders. Locals are almost always nice about it, and while laughing at my mistakes, admire me for trying. That's the point where I disagree with you. I think locals are really taken by those of us who try their languages. I have not only been complimented 1,000 times, but - and my VNese is good enough to hear this - been talked about among them in most complimentary terms. Simply because one is not the arrogant colonialist demanding they bend to us. To be seen to be bending to them, with whatever folly and ga-gaas, is a big plus, respected and appreciated. You're right, they don't expect us, and they are surprised. But what a nice surprise it almost always is. I add a final plus: it opens doors that are otherwise so often closed, whether that be on the erotic front or otherwise. Example: while I have only been with about 15 LBs in VN, not one of them spoke more than 2 sentences in English. No VNese, no access. Simple as that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SiamSam Posted September 20, 2012 Share Posted September 20, 2012 Example: while I have only been with about 15 LBs in VN, not one of them spoke more than 2 sentences in English. No VNese, no access. Simple as that. Good point Mr. Ken. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
azza33 Posted September 20, 2012 Share Posted September 20, 2012 Dixon, agree on your point regarding Thai pronunciation being spot on. Drives me insane how they seem not to be able to get slightly off Thai & quite frankly it becomes demoralizing. I ordered larb mu from phuket once and had to say it 5 times before someone else took my order. I mean ffs in a restaurant how many other dishes sound exactly like that. I don't know if they are just taking the piss or stupid! Another thing I don't like about the Thai is that they will change language to talk behind your back. I've been udon tanhI and seen the locals switch from english to thai to issan to laos just so other people couldnt understand them. On the flip side I've been treated very well and even given gifts in Korea because I made the effort to speak the language - they really appreciate it. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KenW Posted September 20, 2012 Author Share Posted September 20, 2012 Another thing I don't like about the Thai is that they will change language to talk behind your back. I've been udon tanhI and seen the locals switch from english to thai to issan to laos just so other people couldnt understand them. I've done that, ha! It's quite fun being able to talk with locals about some foreign jerk who's making a toss of himself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KenW Posted September 28, 2012 Author Share Posted September 28, 2012 White man speak with fork tongue. Forked it might be, as in the case of 2 languages. But it is interesting to see just how far you can get in an Asian language with one of sorts, that is, loan words. In this case English loan words. (For those who don't know the term loan word describes the words borrowed from one language - in this case I'll stick to English - into the host language - in this case Vietnamese.) Here's a brief list that springs to mind: boom boom - a ubiquitous word in many Asian languages tivi - TV as in television oto - auto alo -- hello (used only on answering the phone) maximum - maximum shaut - shorts (of the boxer short variety) bia - beer kem - cream or ice cream buy oop - seven up, the lemonade drink; buy being 7 in VNese Honda - motorcycle (aha, a Japanese loan word also taken into English) dola - dollar Kampoochia - Cambodia, as in our Campuchea Tai Lan - Thailand bit tek - beef steak xalat - salad (esp. lettuce) sup - soup cong ty - company phi - fee It goes on & on. You can almost build a conversation with such words, or at least in hearing them you can get the gen for what's being talked about. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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