A reader writes:
I read an article that stated learning a second language in middle life is really good for the mind. I was thinking of trying either German (I work with a few from time to time) or Japanese (as I really like that place and their food). Any idea which would be easier? Also do you have a suggestion on something I could buy for my PC or listen to in the car that would help me learn more quickly? I am not really interested in being able to read or write the language at this point.
Any help is GREATLY appreciated!
I think I can be of help. I’ve had some experience studying both languages, so I can give you some info that might help you figure out which would be easier for you.
The main advantage of studying German is that it belongs to the same language family as English (English is a Germanic language), which means lots of common vocabulary words. Often, you’ll feel like you’re just saying a familiar English word with a funny accent. German word order is also similar to English word order (at least compared to some languages).
The disadvantage to German is that it has way more inflection in it than English does. Inflection is when words change their forms to encode grammatical information. English is a very low-inflecting language (even Spanish has more inflection than English does). There are only a few suffixes in English that encode grammatical information (e.g., -s, -‘s, -ing, -ed).
German has way more than English does. In fact, the noun system in German has cases, like Latin and Greek do. This means that every noun in every sentence will be changing form depending on the function it is playing in the sentence (e.g., is it the subject, the object, a possessive). Cases make learning the noun system of a language more difficult since we don’t have cases in English (except for our pronouns, which do change form based on case).
Now for Japanese:
The disadvantage to learning Japanese is that it is not from the same language family as English. (It’s a Japonic language, you may be stunned to learn.) This means that it will have very little vocabulary in common with English. Except for loanwords that we’ve swapped between the two languages, none of the roots will be the same.
What’s more, Japanese word order is very different from English. This is often thought to be the hardest thing to learn about the language (though I don’t think it’s that bad, myself, at least from what I’ve studied thus far). Here’s a concrete illustration of how the word order is different: They don’t have prepositions. They have postpositions.
Prepositions are tiny function particles that we put in front of words that show how they relate to each other. If I say "the king of Gondor," then the preposition "of," which follows "king" shows how the king is related to Gondor. We call them prepositions because we put them in front (pre-) of words.
Japanese, like some other languages, doesn’t put its function-executing particles in front of words. It puts them after (post-) them, so they’re called postpositions. For example, in the Japanese sentence "Nihongo ga wakarimas ka," the word "ga" is a postposition that, more or less, tells you that "Nihongo" (the word for "Japanese") is the subject of the sentence, which means (or can mean) "Do you understand Japanese?"
The advantage to learning Japanese is a big one: It’s got almost no inflection in it. This means very few word endings to memorize. Most words keep their form all the time, like in English, only moreso.
In some ways, Japanese grammar is even easier than English because it doesn’t encode all the information that English does in a sentence. It relies more on context to tell you things that you’d have to say expressly in English. For example, you often don’t have to do anything to a sentence to indicate what its subject is (e.g., are you talking about yourself or someone else). Context fills that in.
Overall, which language is easier? Hard to say. There are advantages and disadvantages to both. It depends on what you’re up for. Personally, I like learning languages that are as different from English as possible. At times I find the modern European languages a little . . . boring compared to Asian languages (though I plan to keep studying them). They’re not exotic enough for me. But if you make your own decision. Just remember: All your base are belong to us. You get signal?
Now, as to what study method to use, longtime readers already know what I’m going to say: Get Pimsleur. It’s an all-audio method that has no textbook and that gets you to speaking in conversational style immediately. You just drive around in your car and listen to the CDs, talking back to them. It makes learning languages incredibly easy and non-threatening.
The Pimsleur sets can be expensive (though discounts are available), though not compared to taking a course in the language, and they are far easier than typical courses. You might start with one of the tiny, introductory Pimsleur sets to see if you like a language before buying a big set. Some of the small "Quick & Simple" sets are so cheap (like $10-$20) that you can even get one for German and one for Japanese and see which you like better.
GET PIMSLEUR QUICK & SIMPLE GERMAN.
GET PIMSLEUR QUICK & SIMPLE JAPANESE.
Yesterday I posted an Engrish 