Is it easy for Swedish people to learn Mandarin because they speak a kind of tonal language?
Thanks to anyone who may know.
Thanks to anyone who may know.
Swedes and Chinese
<<just as easy as it is for Mandarin speakers to learn Swedish. >>
Isn't Swedish a whole heck of a lot easier than Chinese? I assume Swedish is of typical difficulty (5-10 years to learn?), whereas it takes Westerner half a lifetime of complete dedication to learn Chinese.
Isn't Swedish a whole heck of a lot easier than Chinese? I assume Swedish is of typical difficulty (5-10 years to learn?), whereas it takes Westerner half a lifetime of complete dedication to learn Chinese.
Vietnamese is a tonal language and has the same number of tones (or more) than typical Chinese dialects. But this does not make it easier for the Vietnamese to say Chinese correctly. In fact, the tones of many words are hard to remember correctly. So, when you are not sure about the tone of a word, you tend to "neutralize" its tone, Vietnamese or English learners of Chinese alike. In short, knowing a tonal language does not really help to learn another tonal language, be it a Chinese learning Vietnamese, or a Vietnamese learning Chinese.
Some interesting comments. Thanks especially to Little Tadpole for the comment comparing Vietnamese and Chinese. I like to know that kind of thing.
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I don't know how easy Swedish is, but Norwegian seems very easy.
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I don't know how easy Swedish is, but Norwegian seems very easy.
Swedish and Norwegian are so similar that I've had a conversation with a Norwegian before, her speaking in Norwegian and me in Swedish, and we understood each other perfectly^^
It's a different kind of tonal system though - I'd say the Swedish tonal system is more to do with stress on syllables, whereas the Chinese tonal system is, as you know, 4 set tones with each word strictly being in that tone otherwise it will be a different word. I don't think the effect it has on learning Chinese would be noticeable, however that is my opinion.
It's a different kind of tonal system though - I'd say the Swedish tonal system is more to do with stress on syllables, whereas the Chinese tonal system is, as you know, 4 set tones with each word strictly being in that tone otherwise it will be a different word. I don't think the effect it has on learning Chinese would be noticeable, however that is my opinion.
Dutch and Afrikaans can also speak in their own language and understand each other.
Aack! Yes, you're correct, Caspian. The tones in Swedish are related to stress on syllables!
I guess I didn't remember that you spoke Swedish.
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Baldewin,
Professor Arguelles did a video comparing Dutch and Afrikaans on youtube. The written languages seem very similar. _________________________________________________________
I guess I didn't remember that you spoke Swedish.
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Baldewin,
Professor Arguelles did a video comparing Dutch and Afrikaans on youtube. The written languages seem very similar. _________________________________________________________
Well, since East Asians have higher IQ than the Europeans (a proven and obvious fact), it's only logical that East Asians find European languages easy to learn while the Europeans find East Asian languages, such as Chinese, difficult to learn. This also explains why the Europeans are always complaining about how difficult the Chinese language is.
Let's face it, it's an IQ thing and not a matter of languages.
Let's face it, it's an IQ thing and not a matter of languages.
I suspect that Chinese is like Japanese. It requires endurance,maybe endurance more than brains.
<< Let's face it, it's an IQ thing and not a matter of languages. >>
I suspect you're wrong there. For a start, Chinese people certainly don't find English at all easy, by any definition. I learn Chinese, and because of this I know many Chinese people online - and I have not yet found one who speaks with perfect grammar or without an accent - apart from one girl who's lived in England for 5 years anyway.
Chinese is gramatically an easier language than English, or most of the European languages - let's face it. The difficult things about Chinese (tones, hanzi etc) are difficult because we're not used to them. Imagine how Chinese people, who speak a language without tenses, feel when confronted with sentences such as 'I had been going to meet her, but then I thought that by the time I would have arrived, It would have been too late'.
<< I guess I didn't remember that you spoke Swedish. >>
I'm just a beginner^^ but it's a pleasant language to learn, it has so many connections with English which are fasinating to see!
On Skype, I often chat in a group of people who are either Korean, Japanese or Chinese or learning Korean, Japanese or Chinese. I was talking to an Indian chap on there, and he said that although he spoke Hindi, his native language was a little spoken Indian language that was tonal, like Chinese. I can't for the life of me remember what the language was, but I'll ask him next time we talk.
I suspect you're wrong there. For a start, Chinese people certainly don't find English at all easy, by any definition. I learn Chinese, and because of this I know many Chinese people online - and I have not yet found one who speaks with perfect grammar or without an accent - apart from one girl who's lived in England for 5 years anyway.
Chinese is gramatically an easier language than English, or most of the European languages - let's face it. The difficult things about Chinese (tones, hanzi etc) are difficult because we're not used to them. Imagine how Chinese people, who speak a language without tenses, feel when confronted with sentences such as 'I had been going to meet her, but then I thought that by the time I would have arrived, It would have been too late'.
<< I guess I didn't remember that you spoke Swedish. >>
I'm just a beginner^^ but it's a pleasant language to learn, it has so many connections with English which are fasinating to see!
On Skype, I often chat in a group of people who are either Korean, Japanese or Chinese or learning Korean, Japanese or Chinese. I was talking to an Indian chap on there, and he said that although he spoke Hindi, his native language was a little spoken Indian language that was tonal, like Chinese. I can't for the life of me remember what the language was, but I'll ask him next time we talk.
The Swedish tones are just a matter of secondary stressing on certain non-radical syllables.
In Swedish tones aren't as essential a component of words as in Chinese. They allow to disambiguate in some cases, but you can start learning Swedish or Norwegian without paying much attention to them.
Now, think of the different stresses of "[to] record" and "[a] record", and you could as well assume that English is a tonal language!
In Swedish tones aren't as essential a component of words as in Chinese. They allow to disambiguate in some cases, but you can start learning Swedish or Norwegian without paying much attention to them.
Now, think of the different stresses of "[to] record" and "[a] record", and you could as well assume that English is a tonal language!