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Post by Desophaeus on Sept 23, 2016 23:35:35 GMT
Montenegro, the tiny little country just north of Albania, was formerly independent just before WW1 explodes all over Europe, got bundled together in Yugoslavia, then a part of Serbia (after Tito dies and Yugoslavia falls apart) until... *checks wiki* it declares independence in 2006. |
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Post by Tito on Sept 24, 2016 7:43:51 GMT
Aand Kosovan isnt a laguange
Moderated - by Jean-Luc PicardDiscussing the Situation of Kosovo is politics, so it is unacceptable. |
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Post by Monty :D on Sept 24, 2016 13:34:03 GMT
Desophaeus, yeah, King Nikola I made a serious mistake, He was trying to get close to Serbia to hopefully intergate it. Joined the war against Austria-Hungary. Brave Montenegrins held back the Austro-Hungarians at the battle of Mojkovac so the Serbian army could retreat. When the Serbs fought there way back and liberated Montenegro, they rewarded them with a choice to join Yugoslavia, this choice was made with serbian troops encircling the building where the parliment voted on the choice. Sigh... But yeah, People speaking yugoslav languages can understand each other like bosian-serbian-croat and montenegrin. But Its definitley hard to understand russian. Its like an american trying to understand spanish, yeah you hear some familiar words but in a normal conversation you wouldn't have any idea what they were saying.
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Post by Tito on Sept 24, 2016 13:39:45 GMT
Desophaeus, yeah, King Nikola I made a serious mistake, He was trying to get close to Serbia to hopefully intergate it. Joined the war against Austria-Hungary. Brave Montenegrins held back the Austro-Hungarians at the battle of Mojkovac so the Serbian army could retreat. When the Serbs fought there way back and liberated Montenegro, they rewarded them with a choice to join Yugoslavia, this choice was made with serbian troops encircling the building where the parliment voted on the choice. Sigh... But yeah, People speaking yugoslav languages can understand each other like bosian-serbian-croat and montenegrin. But Its definitley hard to understand russian. Its like an american trying to understand spanish, yeah you hear some familiar words but in a normal conversation you wouldn't have any idea what they were saying. Were you watching The Great War recently  . But I was watching a Russian person on YT but I cannot say his name cause politics but I have understood moslt the atuff he said |
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Post by Monty :D on Sept 24, 2016 13:51:51 GMT
Uh, actually yeah I did a month ago, but I knew this stuff way before that  |
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Post by Ivan Kolev on Sept 24, 2016 14:53:47 GMT
Monty :D , didn't Montenegro also successfully fight against the Ottomans when they tried to conquer it? Anyway, my main language is English as I am American. I am currently in my second year of High School French and Latin, and have experimented with: -German -Italian -Portuguese -Swedish -Romanian
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Post by Monty :D on Sept 24, 2016 15:59:46 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Sept 24, 2016 21:54:44 GMT
I speak Latvian(native), Russian (first foreign), English (2nd foreign), German (third foreign) (I need more practice there),learning French, Lithuanian, Estonian, Spanish and Italian.
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Post by Stonewall Jackson on Sept 24, 2016 21:59:15 GMT
I speak Latvian(native), Russian (first foreign), English (2nd foreign), German (third foreign) (I need more practice there),learning French, Lithuanian, Estonian, Spanish and Italian. That's a lot. Is it hard learning so many at one time? |
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Post by Desophaeus on Sept 24, 2016 22:19:30 GMT
I speak Latvian(native), Russian (first foreign), English (2nd foreign), German (third foreign) (I need more practice there),learning French, Lithuanian, Estonian, Spanish and Italian. That's a lot. Is it hard learning so many at one time? So called "Romance languages" like Spanish is a lower-tier language in terms of learning in comparison to other languages. This language family has a very small vocabulary pool. What's more, if one is already familiar with one of the latin-based languages, the syntax is nearly identical in the others and the root terms tends to be very similar. The biggest difference would be the suffixes and prefixes for furnished for the purposes of verb tenses and for pronouns. So Italian, Spanish and French are very similar in the process of learning those languages. |
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Post by Tito on Sept 24, 2016 22:21:26 GMT
I speak Latvian(native), Russian (first foreign), English (2nd foreign), German (third foreign) (I need more practice there),learning French, Lithuanian, Estonian, Spanish and Italian. Dont the Baltics speak the same laguange, are yiu making an I joke |
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Post by Ivan Kolev on Sept 24, 2016 22:36:15 GMT
That's a lot. Is it hard learning so many at one time? So called "Romance languages" like Spanish is a lower-tier language in terms of learning in comparison to other languages. This language family has a very small vocabulary pool. What's more, if one is already familiar with one of the latin-based languages, the syntax is nearly identical in the others and the root terms tends to be very similar. The biggest difference would be the suffixes and prefixes for furnished for the purposes of verb tenses and for pronouns. So Italian, Spanish and French are very similar in the process of learning those languages. Well, they're easier for native English speakers as more than half of the entire English vocabulary is from Romance languages (~25% is Latin and ~25% is French). However, that doesn't mean that Romance languages are "Lower Tier" to everyone. Before I delve into my inner language nerd, might as well clarify some stuff: Romance Language: -Derives from Latin (Called Romance due to Latin being the Roman language) Languages include: -French -Portuguese -Spanish -Italian -Catalan -Romanian Germanic Languages: -Derives from Proto-Germanic (The original language of barbarian tribes in ancient times) Languages include: -German -Norwegian -Swedish -Dutch -English -Afrikaans -Danish Now, English is technically a Germanic language, but it's more of a frankenstein language, borrowing words, syntax, etc. from all sorts of languages. Linguists have found a multitude of different language vocabulary and grammar in the language, but a few are more important than others, specifically: -German -Latin -French -Greek Now, over half of English vocab is from Romance languages, which obviously leads to a large amount of cognates in these languages. German comprises about 25% of all English vocab, but Germanic words are more used for common speech, while Romance words are more often used for more 'sophisticated' vocab (Of course, if you count pastry shop or teacher as more sophisticated). Obviously, as these languages comprise ~75% of all English vocab/grammar, it makes sense why these would be easier for us than Semitic languages or Turkic languages. Internationally speaking, however, Romance languages are actually fairly difficult I believe, and I definitely know Germanic ones are fairly difficult. Just a message that anything that is deemed easy is only easy for a specific group of people or an individual. |
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Post by Ivan Kolev on Sept 24, 2016 22:37:05 GMT
I speak Latvian(native), Russian (first foreign), English (2nd foreign), German (third foreign) (I need more practice there),learning French, Lithuanian, Estonian, Spanish and Italian. Dont the Baltics speak the same laguange, are yiu making an I joke Similar, I'd assume like how Portuguese and Spanish are very similar but definitely different enough to be considered separate languages. |
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Post by Desophaeus on Sept 24, 2016 22:46:18 GMT
I agree with you in most parts, but it's a proven fact that Latin-based languages have an extremely small vocabulary pool and a very repetitive grammatical structure. It's not meant to be insulting but it's a fact that it's simpler to learn than Manchurian for example. Don't gloss over it.
You're definitely correct that for native English speakers, Latin-based is extremely eaaier to pick up for that population on the other hand.
As for "Romance languages"... Yup, you nailed it, it has nothing to do with romance, just the ancestry of Romans giving the Latin language to those people of southwest Europe. It's an unfortunate anachronism left by the legacy of the Enlightenment period in 17th to 19th century as a gross misunderstanding of modern meaning versus contemporary meaning. You will find some francophiles fawing over French just because it "sounded pretty and romantic" today.
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Post by Stonewall Jackson on Sept 24, 2016 22:46:50 GMT
So called "Romance languages" like Spanish is a lower-tier language in terms of learning in comparison to other languages. This language family has a very small vocabulary pool. What's more, if one is already familiar with one of the latin-based languages, the syntax is nearly identical in the others and the root terms tends to be very similar. The biggest difference would be the suffixes and prefixes for furnished for the purposes of verb tenses and for pronouns. So Italian, Spanish and French are very similar in the process of learning those languages. Well, they're easier for native English speakers as more than half of the entire English vocabulary is from Romance languages (~25% is Latin and ~25% is French). However, that doesn't mean that Romance languages are "Lower Tier" to everyone. Before I delve into my inner language nerd, might as well clarify some stuff: Romance Language: -Derives from Latin (Called Romance due to Latin being the Roman language) Languages include: -French -Portuguese -Spanish -Italian -Catalan -Romanian Germanic Languages: -Derives from Proto-Germanic (The original language of barbarian tribes in ancient times) Languages include: -German -Norwegian -Swedish -Dutch -English -Afrikaans -Danish Now, English is technically a Germanic language, but it's more of a frankenstein language, borrowing words, syntax, etc. from all sorts of languages. Linguists have found a multitude of different language vocabulary and grammar in the language, but a few are more important than others, specifically: -German -Latin -French -Greek Now, over half of English vocab is from Romance languages, which obviously leads to a large amount of cognates in these languages. German comprises about 25% of all English vocab, but Germanic words are more used for common speech, while Romance words are more often used for more 'sophisticated' vocab (Of course, if you count pastry shop or teacher as more sophisticated). Obviously, as these languages comprise ~75% of all English vocab/grammar, it makes sense why these would be easier for us than Semitic languages or Turkic languages. Internationally speaking, however, Romance languages are actually fairly difficult I believe, and I definitely know Germanic ones are fairly difficult. Just a message that anything that is deemed easy is only easy for a specific group of people or an individual. I find German semi-difficult, it could be to the fact that German is my first foreign language i am learning, and that i have heard your first is always the hardest. Is that true? |
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