Will English language domination ever end?

[zed]

speaking as someone with experience in dutch + written mandarin, neither I found are partically difficult.
Though I couldnt say which language is, perhaps finnish is.

had a quick google
http://www.nvtc.gov/lotw/months/november/learningExpectations.html
whilst im no expert but it does seem reasonable, eg german is slightly more difficult than dutch
heres another one
http://languagestudy.suite101.com/blog.cfm/language_difficulty
of course these are from an english speakers perspective,

 

[Simon F]

heres another one
http://languagestudy.suite101.com/blog.cfm/language_difficulty
of course these are from an english speakers perspective,

Hmm. Odd that Turkish is rated "category II". It struck me as a very logical language (and extremely phonetic). I'm useless at languages but when I was taking a course some years back, I didn't think it any more difficult to reach a level of "can order a coffee" than I did when I was trying to learn French and German in school.

 

[KimB]

Hmm. Odd that Turkish is rated "category II". It struck me as a very logical language (and extremely phonetic). I'm useless at languages but when I was taking a course some years back, I didn't think it any more difficult to reach a level of "can order a coffee" than I did when I was trying to learn French and German in school.

Well, "can order coffee," is a far cry from proficiency at the language. Maybe the difficulties are a bit further into the language. Or maybe you're just weird

 

[Davros]

spanish is easy - just stick an "o" on the end of every word

 

[pcchen]

I don't think there's any language inherently harder than other languages. The category things are actually about the differences between English language. In theory, English is similar to German, Dutch, and Scandinavian languages. French, Italian, and Spanish is less similar, and Polish and Russian are even less similar, though these languages are all Indo-European languages. Turkish, Hungarian, and Finnish are not Indo-European languages, so they appear to be quite different from English.

Of course, some language, though not in the same language family, may have some similarity because of their proximity. For example, Japanese language and Korean language have many borrowed words from Chinese language. However, Japanese and Korean are not related to Chinese language. But these borrowed words can make learning a bit easier.

 

[Simon F]

Well, "can order coffee," is a far cry from proficiency at the language. Maybe the difficulties are a bit further into the language. Or maybe you're just weird

or merely being a little facetious.

 

[KimB]

or merely being a little facetious.

Ah, well, that too. But you should know by now that it's always risky to do that in online forums.

 

[vazel]

"considering that it's a relatively simple language to learn"

Is that true? I've always heard English was a particularly hard language to learn for foreigners. I don't remember learning it perse, as I was pretty young (its still my second language) but I do remember going crazy over the grammar.

At least contrasted with say a langauge like Spanish, which is learnable in like a month.

I've heard it can be hard because of how many different meanings a lot of our words have.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

I don't think there's any language inherently harder than other languages. The category things are actually about the differences between English language. In theory, English is similar to German, Dutch, and Scandinavian languages. French, Italian, and Spanish is less similar, and Polish and Russian are even less similar, though these languages are all Indo-European languages. Turkish, Hungarian, and Finnish are not Indo-European languages, so they appear to be quite different from English.

Of course, some language, though not in the same language family, may have some similarity because of their proximity. For example, Japanese language and Korean language have many borrowed words from Chinese language. However, Japanese and Korean are not related to Chinese language. But these borrowed words can make learning a bit easier.

That is probably true. It probably depends more on what your native language is. For example in Japanese you only have 64 ways of pronouncing words (dont know how its called in english grammer, but you have over 600 of them in Dutch and close to 700 for Chinese) and there are almost no exeptions to how you pronounce something. If you'd say banana in japanese you will always pronounce that as banana with the A being pronounced as a A. But in english you will pronounce banana as banena. For Japanese people these sort of things are very hard to understand. OTOH for english/western people, if you forget about Japanese not sounding anything close to what we are used to, is relative easy to learn because pronouncing and grammer is so basic compared to what we have.

 

[Fred]

Latin is still the most beautiful language I've studied. Everything was so logical and straightforward, and you could describe just about everything compactly and efficiently.

 

[Geo]

Spanglish, ftw.

I don't think Chinese will ever "win" as long as India is around.

 

[pcchen]

Ha, I don't think Chinese will ever win, not because of India, but the stupid (sorry, please don't kill me) writing system. XD

 

[KimB]

One thing I am curious about, however, is whether or not with the increase in globalization we'll have a truly global language within, say, half a century to a century. That is to say, I wonder if there will come a time with the lifetime of some here that everybody, except perhaps for the poorest, learns one world language in addition to any native language they may have. The way things are going, English may become that.

 

[Mariner]

We'll all be talking in binary in 20 years time...

More precisely, with the increasing computing power available in ever smaller devices, it seems reasonable to think that there will be increasing amounts of work on (verbal) translation software. Think a Star Trek Universal Translator 'lite' which roughly translates just one language depending on which language pack is installed.

I can vaguely remember reading an article about this concept a few years ago - the possibility of having a device you speak which that then outputs a translation into a foreign language using your own voice from recorded phonemes. Now, that would be cool.

 

[pc0day]

I believe English will not lose it's status.

 

[dizietsma]

There's probably more children learning English in India than Spanish and Mexican children learning Spanish combined, never mind those children in Spain and Mexico that learn English!

India will be the most populous country on Earth also of course,

The dominination of the English language is now unstoppable and it will be the base of the global language of the future.

The real question is, will the single currency be the dollar or the Euro!

 

[KimB]

The dominination of the English language is now unstoppable and it will be the base of the global language of the future.

As long as it's not spoken at home or on the street in most places, though, this will always be subject to change.

 

[_xxx_]

I truly hope English will be the only world language eventually.

 

[Deepak]

There's probably more children learning English in India than Spanish and Mexican children learning Spanish combined, never mind those children in Spain and Mexico that learn English!

They are learning English only because learning it enhances their job prospects and if tomorrow learning a different language becomes beneficial, they'll learn it instead. And also English'll never become their mother tongue, I don't see English making any major inroads in India despite all hype.

 

[dizietsma]

They are learning English only because learning it enhances their job prospects and if tomorrow learning a different language becomes beneficial, they'll learn it instead. And also English'll never become their mother tongue, I don't see English making any major inroads in India despite all hype.

The thing is that there won't be any other language that becomes beneficial