Indeed - Danish is a good example! I had learned Swedish to an ok level before moving to Denmark, and WOW, I had no idea what people were saying at first! 😅
Languages are complex to adults trying to learn them. I have yet to read a study comparing how long it takes, say, Vietnamese or Basque or Hungarian children to learn their language versus English or Russian or Mexican children. Complexity is cognitive, i.e., adults "make sense of" or "overthink" the L2 in question, so sure, some languages are complex, the same way that anything we put our minds to (carpentry, computer programming, raising kids) could be complex to us, but not necessarily to the next person.
Stumbled upon your video and thought I'd get some commenting going. A bit off topic, but I thought "complex" could possibly, maybe, kind of refer to more than grammar, vocabulary and all that. What about generally difficult and mindboggling? Danish sprung to mind. You may already have heard kids in Denmark lag a bit behind their neighbours in early language development. Supposedly this is mainly due to their many vowels bundled not only after but also before and in between words, but I'd hazard a guess and say there may be more to it, considering the many other ways danish come off as mumbling to my swedish ears. I didn't mention their counting system, not shall I.
I would argue that it is much easier to learn and use a strict word order (eg English) than a gender of every single noun (eg German) The result seems the same, but 1st option is much easier Am I missing sth?
You’re absolutely right: from a learning perspective, some languages and forms are easier to learn than others, especially when it comes to irregular forms or very complex morphology etc. The point is that even languages spoken by L1 (native) speakers that appear less complex in one area of grammar have ‘complexity’ in another, such as evidentials, tones, etc. The ‘place’ where complexity appears is different and can change with history and/or contact. Even related languages can be on very different areas of a scale (cf Icelandic and Swedish) in terms of their morphology. But: they are still both expressive - expressing complex thought. They are used for communication in all sorts of settings 😊
Sorry, but I think you missed the point. A native speaker of pretty much any language will say it is complex. For example, 'Please, could you pass me the peas,' does not mean the same thing as 'Could you please pass me the peas,' or 'Could you pass the peas, please.' In the first, please is to get the listener's attention, in second it shows frustration that they have not been passed already, and in the third, it carries no weight and is just politeness. Whether you agree with my analysis or not (since we do speak different dialects of English, to be polite), the fact remains that native speakers pretty much anywhere have many elaborate rules that keep linguists tied in knots for years if not decades. In language learning, which your recent postings suggest is your topic, what complexity actually refers to the initial complexity required to be managed before a student can communicate reasonably in a language, can be said to have succeeded in learning the language. 'Me like,' is poor English but it will communicate the thought and that speaker will say English is very easy. A person who expects to correctly phrase and pronounce, 'That was immensely delightful,' is going to say English is very complex. A better question is how complex does the selected method and goals make the target language. That is the issue your title suggests to me, which made the posting disappointing.
Like all academics, you managed to travel around a load of technical and in depth information, meandering througj and expoation of the topic while completely missing the real world point of the question. Spanish is less complex than english because spelling, grammar and pronounciation rules are far more applicable and with far less irregular words. If you're choosing a language to learn, spanish is easier than English.
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Indeed - Danish is a good example! I had learned Swedish to an ok level before moving to Denmark, and WOW, I had no idea what people were saying at first! 😅
Languages are complex to adults trying to learn them. I have yet to read a study comparing how long it takes, say, Vietnamese or Basque or Hungarian children to learn their language versus English or Russian or Mexican children. Complexity is cognitive, i.e., adults "make sense of" or "overthink" the L2 in question, so sure, some languages are complex, the same way that anything we put our minds to (carpentry, computer programming, raising kids) could be complex to us, but not necessarily to the next person.
Stumbled upon your video and thought I'd get some commenting going.
A bit off topic, but I thought "complex" could possibly, maybe, kind of refer to more than grammar, vocabulary and all that. What about generally difficult and mindboggling?
Danish sprung to mind. You may already have heard kids in Denmark lag a bit behind their neighbours in early language development. Supposedly this is mainly due to their many vowels bundled not only after but also before and in between words, but I'd hazard a guess and say there may be more to it, considering the many other ways danish come off as mumbling to my swedish ears. I didn't mention their counting system, not shall I.
I would argue that it is much easier to learn and use a strict word order (eg English) than a gender of every single noun (eg German)
The result seems the same, but 1st option is much easier
Am I missing sth?
You’re absolutely right: from a learning perspective, some languages and forms are easier to learn than others, especially when it comes to irregular forms or very complex morphology etc. The point is that even languages spoken by L1 (native) speakers that appear less complex in one area of grammar have ‘complexity’ in another, such as evidentials, tones, etc. The ‘place’ where complexity appears is different and can change with history and/or contact. Even related languages can be on very different areas of a scale (cf Icelandic and Swedish) in terms of their morphology. But: they are still both expressive - expressing complex thought. They are used for communication in all sorts of settings 😊
Sorry, but I think you missed the point. A native speaker of pretty much any language will say it is complex. For example, 'Please, could you pass me the peas,' does not mean the same thing as 'Could you please pass me the peas,' or 'Could you pass the peas, please.' In the first, please is to get the listener's attention, in second it shows frustration that they have not been passed already, and in the third, it carries no weight and is just politeness. Whether you agree with my analysis or not (since we do speak different dialects of English, to be polite), the fact remains that native speakers pretty much anywhere have many elaborate rules that keep linguists tied in knots for years if not decades.
In language learning, which your recent postings suggest is your topic, what complexity actually refers to the initial complexity required to be managed before a student can communicate reasonably in a language, can be said to have succeeded in learning the language. 'Me like,' is poor English but it will communicate the thought and that speaker will say English is very easy. A person who expects to correctly phrase and pronounce, 'That was immensely delightful,' is going to say English is very complex.
A better question is how complex does the selected method and goals make the target language. That is the issue your title suggests to me, which made the posting disappointing.
Like all academics, you managed to travel around a load of technical and in depth information, meandering througj and expoation of the topic while completely missing the real world point of the question.
Spanish is less complex than english because spelling, grammar and pronounciation rules are far more applicable and with far less irregular words. If you're choosing a language to learn, spanish is easier than English.
You've confused spelling with language. Spanish also has plenty of irregular words, a plethora of tenses, more moods, gender, and multiple copulas.
Aaaa....what? Icelandic. Icelandic is the answer to "Is there a language harder to learn than others?" The answer...is Icelandic