How do people judge the difficulty of a language they’re studying?

[ryanheise]

One simple criterion is how well I remember new words.

I have a theory that recognising words is a bit like recognising faces, so your brain is better at distinguishing between phonemes that your brain was exposed to as a child during development, and it takes longer to learn to distinguish between foreign phonemes as an adult.

When I was learning the Korean language, I had very little difficulty with the writing system (as anyone who's learnt Hangul can attest to), but I had GREAT difficulty trying to remember vocabulary. Eventually, I figured out what the difficulty was. Certain phonemes that are extremely high frequency in Korean such as anything with the "J" sound (ㅈ) are extremely rare in English (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_frequency). So as I was learning new vocabulary as a beginner, what I would do for each word was to think of an English word that sounded similar and then make a visual and auditory mnemonic in my brain to relate the two. And if it didn't sound anything like any English word, and this was typically when a word had a "J" sound and none of the other consonants in the word were high frequency in English, what my brain would do is just remember it as "That's the word that has the J sound". Because I had nothing else easy to anchor it to in my brain, that was my way to distinguish the word from other words: i.e. This word is different because it has a "J"! This worked at first as a beginner when I hadn't yet seen many words, but then as I kept trying to learn more and more words, I got really confused whenever I encountered *another* word with a "J" in it because try as a might, my English brain couldn't find any other distinguishing characteristic in the word to remember it by. Basically, all of the words with "J"s in them "sounded the same". A lot of the time I was saved because some of those words that have "J"s in them also have other consonants in them that I can anchor to English-sounding words and remember them that way, but there were a whole bunch of words without anything to anchor them to that I just couldn't easily remember, and they all just sounded the same. Another factor with Korean is that it has quite a few sounds that just don't occur in English at all.

By comparison, I'm finding Japanese (despite it's much harder writing system) to be much easier to learn because its vocabulary has got lots of T's, S's and other consonants that are also really common in English, it lacks all of the sounds that are infrequent in English, and virtually all of the Japanese phonemes exist in English. When I began learning Japanese vocabulary I was blown away by how easy it was, and interestingly it didn't get any harder as I got up to the more advanced vocabulary.

[Iversen]

Ryanheise's theory is definitely worth considering, and there are cases where the sound systems also have been a problem for me - but mostly where they collided with the spellings. For instance I have problems remembering whether a Slovak word has the absolutely minimal apostrophe that indicates palatalization or not, and if I'm unsure about this in a certain word the result may be that I don't remember the word at all. It would be easier if there was a more striking symbol for palatization, like the soft znak of Russian which I don't tend to forget.

I have also read about about research into the problems involved in learning new sounds - which should be a big problem for adults and piece of cake for small babies. But I don't remember that it was a big problem for me meeting nasal vowels in French for the first time, just to take one clear counterexample. But trying to impose the system of your own language and words from another language will generate insecurity and resistance against the sounds you actually hear, and selfgenerated conflicts of that kind can't be beneficial for the learning process.

My own favorite theory is that I have seen some words many times in the languages I know well, but then forgotten about them. However there may still be some trace left at the bottom of my memory, and then seeing a certain word for the umptieth+1 time might actually activate that old memory trace. With totally new languages there's little chance that I have seen any of my new words beforehand.

[Iversen]

As for people who claim they have learnt a language because they can read aloud (probably with an atrocious pronunciation) ...

Except what was said is that they learned how to read Hebrew in an hour. What you're likely missing is that their definition of reading in this context is likely very narrowly defined and not applicable to just about any other context. So no, they're not being idiots, they're using the word "read" to mean something that you're not used to it meaning.

I did misunderstand it. It didn't occur to me that there might be a tradition that defined 'learning a language' as narrowly as learning to read aloud from a written source without understanding a word of the content, but now that aokoye mentions it I vaguely remember having read something about this special case.

OK, I accept that you can't blame each single person who follows such a tradition, and I'm not going to discuss the reasons for having such a tradition, but in my world the definition of learning a language is somewhat more demanding - even if you just speak about learning the passive side of it. And the true fools are those who quite earnestly believe that you can 'learn' a language by running through 12 short and painless lessons in some kind of textbook system. Or even more those who think you can 'learn' for instance Korean in 49 minutes, but here I think that the irony is so blatant that few will take the claim at face value.

There are also people who believe that learning a language is the same thing as learning the writing system and/or a dozen touristical phrases. Well, it may be possible to do this in a day or so, and the funny thing is that it then isn't much harder to learn a supposedly difficult language than it is to learn the same thing from a supposedly much easier one, but I take this as a sign that you aren't really learning the language in question. I did this with Georgian 18 years ago, and now I have forgotten everything again - but I had NO illusions at the time about what I was doing. I was NOT learning Georgian, but just memorizing its very simple alphabet and a few useful phrases.

[aokoye]

As for people who claim they have learnt a language because they can read aloud (probably with an atrocious pronunciation) ...

Except what was said is that they learned how to read Hebrew in an hour. What you're likely missing is that their definition of reading in this context is likely very narrowly defined and not applicable to just about any other context. So no, they're not being idiots, they're using the word "read" to mean something that you're not used to it meaning.

I did misunderstand it. It didn't occur to me that there might be a tradition that defined 'learning a language' as narrowly as learning to read aloud from a written source without understanding a word of the content, but now that aokoye mentions it I vaguely remember having read something about this special case.

OK, I accept that you can't blame each single person who follows such a tradition, and I'm not going to discuss the reasons for having such a tradition, but in my world the definition of learning a language is somewhat more demanding - even if you just speak about learning the passive side of it. And the true fools are those who quite earnestly believe that you can 'learn' a language by running through 12 short and painless lessons in some kind of textbook system. Or even more those who think you can 'learn' for instance Korean in 49 minutes, but here I think that the irony is so blatant that few will take the claim at face value.

By not asking questions or discussing about a a linguistic tradition, you're not going to come any closer to understanding it. While I realize that I'm talking about a religious linguistic tradition, I think this falls well within this forum's guidelines given that I'm talking about Biblical Hebrew.

I don't think that most people who can read Biblical Hebrew in the context of Judaism in the US would claim that they "know" a language in the same usage of "know" as me saying that I know German. I think you're still misunderstanding the concept though not as much as before. This is really using the word "read" in the same way that you would use the word "decode". It's similar to me saying, "I can sing in Latin". I don't know Latin at all, but I can pronounce it well enough to sing with good diction. I'm not claiming to comprehend what I'm singing, I'm claiming to be able to pronounce it correctly. I would note too, that the idea of being able to read something aloud but not having matching levels of comprehension is a concept that exists outside of this context. There's a reason why the phrase "reading comprehension" exists.

The other thing to keep in mind is that, in a lot of non-orthodox synagogues that pray in Hebrew instead of English, most people are using books that have Hebrew one one side and English on the other. A lot of these texts also have English, Hebrew, and a transliteration of Hebrew. So for instance, both my Tanakh and my chumash (more specifically this one) have Hebrew on the right column and English on the left. Meanwhile, the siddur (praybook) that my old synagogue uses and my copy of the machzor (which is used on the High Holy Days) has English and Hebrew for everything and then most of the prayers that are said out loud by everyone also have a transliteration. While they don't have any examples of the inside of the mahzor that I use, they look very similar to these pages. There's also at least one publisher that publishes an interlinear Hebrew-English siddur, which is on my "to buy" list.

In my experience, most people who go to synagogue on a regular basis aren't just blindly singing prayers during regular Shabbat services. That's true of people who know Hebrew (in the context of our shared usage of the word "know") and people who can only read Hebrew (the the way that I've been using the word "to read" in this context. There are a lot of reasons for this, including that a. there's a translation and there is sometimes some amount of commentary by the person leading services. Nevermind to that people do actually study the texts in other languages. My reading comprehension for this week's Torah portion is extremely limited, but that isn't to say that I didn't study the text, in English intensively.

So again, I get that you might not want to discuss part of what's going on when people are saying that they can read Hebrew but can't understand it. That said, I think not learning about it does everyone a disservice. I should note too that I'm not claiming to be a Jewish scholar. I am, however, a Jew with experience in this arena who has researched this and is learning Biblical Hebrew so that I can read without relying on the English. Note too that this looks very different in some orthodox communities, especially those that typically send their children to orthodox schools.

[eido]

I don't have any hard and fast rules about what makes a language difficult. So I'll give some examples about why I haven't learned some languages or why I'm having difficulty with some I'm trying to learn despite reservations. Note that this reflects my current situation as of this post.

• Mandarin Chinese: The writing system's beautiful, but it's hard to keep track of all the radicals (for me!). I've chosen to learn that way because it makes a lot of sense to me, and because it's relaxing. But the tones are the most difficult, and the rules that follow with them. I'm not used to speaking that way. I might just have a mental block against the language due to people saying it's hard, and that's the biggest obstacle to overcome.
• French: I don't like the sound of this language most of the time, so I can't bring myself to learn it. I see myself speaking most languages, and while sometimes it sounds nice, most times it doesn't, so when people try to get me to learn it, it's like pulling teeth.
• German: I learn this language on and off. I like the sound sometimes. But something about the whole aesthetic throws off my groove It's strange. I can't learn anything else about it because it just doesn't feel right, but it's easier to force myself to learn it than it is for French.
• Italian: Sounds cool, but not cool enough. And I'm not interested in Italy for the most part. Therefore, all the rules turn me off of it.

So I guess it comes down to intrinsic interest/motivation and knowledge about the subject -- the two are interconnected. The more you know, the more motivated you are; and the more motivated you are, the more you'll want to know. People would have to make compelling arguments (different from the norm), to get me on the side of learning most of these languages.

[golyplot]

That's a bit ironic, since French is usually considered the most beautiful sounding language. But everything is subjective, of course.

[sporedandroid]

I was interested in Judaism and Hebrew, but I still found it incredibly hard. There must be something that makes Hebrew super hard. Maybe partially because I didn’t like how it sounded at first. But since I was interested enough in the language I got over that. I prefer how Finnish sounds and I seemed to retain Finnish words better. But ultimately I don’t really have any interest in being fluent in Finnish. If I did I would have been fluent ages ago. You’re not alone in disliking how French sounds. I didn’t like how French sounded as a kid and I also found some of my French teachers annoying. I just found the nasal sounds irritating.

[Iversen]

By not asking questions or discussing about a a linguistic tradition, you're not going to come any closer to understanding it. (...)
I don't think that most people who can read Biblical Hebrew in the context of Judaism in the US would claim that they "know" a language in the same usage of "know" as me saying that I know German. I think you're still misunderstanding the concept though not as much as before. This is really using the word "read" in the same way that you would use the word "decode". It's similar to me saying, "I can sing in Latin".

I'm not going to discuss the religuious significance of the act of reading aloud - it is there, and I respect that people can find it meaningful, but I simply don't understand why. I just wish that the process of learning the reading skill in isolation wasn't confounded with the process where you learn a whole language (even passively). And I find aokoye's comparison with singing in foreign language very apt. You can sing "dies irae" and the whole of the Roman mass without understanding any of it, and then they may have learnt to sing and you may have learnt a specific text by heart - but you haven't learnt Latin just because you can sing Dies Irae.

On the other hand: if - as aokoye writes - the Jewish scholars read aloud from bilingual editions of the Thora, then they are actually doing one of the things that would help them to actually learn Classical Hebrew - in the broad sense of the word. And then they have already proceeded beyond merely learning to read aloud without understanding aught.

[aokoye]

By not asking questions or discussing about a a linguistic tradition, you're not going to come any closer to understanding it. (...)
I don't think that most people who can read Biblical Hebrew in the context of Judaism in the US would claim that they "know" a language in the same usage of "know" as me saying that I know German. I think you're still misunderstanding the concept though not as much as before. This is really using the word "read" in the same way that you would use the word "decode". It's similar to me saying, "I can sing in Latin".

I'm not going to discuss the religuious significance of the act of reading aloud - it is there, and I respect that people can find it meaningful, but I simply don't understand why. I just wish that the process of learning the reading skill in isolation wasn't confounded with the process where you learn a whole language (even passively). And I find aokoye's comparison with singing in foreign language very apt. You can sing "dies irae" and the whole of the Roman mass without understanding any of it, and then they may have learnt to sing and you may have learnt a specific text by heart - but you haven't learnt Latin just because you can sing Dies Irae.

On the other hand: if - as aokoye writes - the Jewish scholars read aloud from bilingual editions of the Thora, then they are actually doing one of the things that would help them to actually learn Classical Hebrew - in the broad sense of the word. And then they have already proceeded beyond merely learning to read aloud without understanding aught.

Trust me I'm not asking you to discuss the religious significance of reading a text aloud in a language one don't understand. Discussing the religious significance is not the same thing as being curious about and/or discussing what is actually going on (though I will concede that they're related discussions). I will say, I would suspect that most Jewish scholars know Biblical Hebrew. As in, can understand what they're reading and can analyze the texts in the original (which would include at least a basic understanding of Aramaic).

[zenmonkey]

I just wish that the process of learning the reading skill in isolation wasn't confounded with the process where you learn a whole language (even passively).

It's even worse. "Learn to read Hebrew in an hour" generally means learn the letters of the aleph-bet and not how to use nikkud (vowel markers) or properly sound out words. Hebrew, with it's absence of vowels, has an additional level of abstraction that means that a reader will need to work on contextual information for correct pronunciation.

"I can read it but don't understand" is probably somewhere on the spectrum of "I think I know the letter but maybe not always" to "I can somehow figure out where we are in a prayer" or "I can repeat what I have learned because the visual clues are sufficient" but not "I can properly pronounce random texts from a newspaper without understanding them".

This weekend was Museumuferfest in Frankfurt - quite nice - and the Jewish Museum had a class for children "Learn Hebrew in an Hour". Guess what that was about...