this post was submitted on 07 Aug 2023
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Keep it simple (lemmy.ca)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 
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[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

These are just idioms, all languages have their own.

Learning English has it's snags, but it's not a hard language. That's a good thing btw.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There are no objectively “hard” or “easy” languages. What makes certain languages “hard” is their difference from one’s native language.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Ah, we disagree my friend. I think languages can be easier or harder based on other criteria too, and not only familiarity.

Suppose an alien, the kind from outer space, crashes on earth and now needs to learn a language to communicate with humans.

It's not a stretch to consider that all human languages are so far removed from his own as to be considered equally hard to learn if looking only at familiarity. In this scenario, surely there are features of individual languages that make them harder to learn - stuff like gendered articles as mentioned before, as there's no logic to them and have to memorized.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I understand your point and opinion, but I think that, for us humans, it has more to do with similarity to our native language.