How Long do you think it takes??

[Tsuwabuki]

In many ways, once memorised, I tend to think Japanese/Chinese is actually faster to read. You also know that in Japanese there are only so many permutations of sounds, whereas in English, we have as many phonic rules as we do words in the accepted vocabulary. Once kanji is memorised, ideographic recognition kicks in and reading speed improves over a roman alphabet represented language, especially one that has been so... mixed is perhaps a polite term.

Honestly, I think English is quite complex when written, because even native level speakers, even people like me, English teachers, with degrees in teaching English, still are not automatically sure how to pronounce a word when we encounter it for the first time. Sometimes we can make educated guesses, but we're still not positive until we look at a pronunciation key. In Japanese, that's never an issue.

[Kayci]

Originally Posted by kirakira

You are getting confused between perceived relative language conplexity and absolute language complexity. To say English's writing system is on the same level of complexity as Chinese/Japanese would be foolish, the reverse is true in terms of grammar.

I was trying for absolute language complexity. English is not the same type of complexity, but in the end, they're all equal if we were to match everyones views on which languages would be difficult to learn.

[chryuop]

Originally Posted by Tsuwabuki

Honestly, I think English is quite complex when written, because even native level speakers, even people like me, English teachers, with degrees in teaching English, still are not automatically sure how to pronounce a word when we encounter it for the first time. Sometimes we can make educated guesses, but we're still not positive until we look at a pronunciation key. In Japanese, that's never an issue.

In fact as I said writing/reading system in English is one of the hard parts of the language along with the immediate understanding of phrasal verbs (I think typical of English language, not common to any other language I know).

But I gave some examples why in my opinion English is one of the easiest language to learn. I don't see major grammar difficulties compare to other languages I mentioned...nor no one has presented any to me excpet telling me that I was wrong. I studied several languages (even tho I am no professor in any of those), thus I think I can have some level of expertise to compare them. Plus I live in an English speaking countries where in schools is taught a latin language and I can easily see the difficulties faced (I got 3 kids in my household). I have a 4 year old daughter and I talk to her only using Italian, while my wife speaks to her only in English. Her level of Italian is not even close to be compared to her level of English. The difficulties she faces with position of words, pronouns, conjugation is clear to see, while I can easily say that her English is pretty close to my level grammatically speaking (always keep in mind she is 4, so don't take me too literally).

[andylaurel]

I am studying JLPT 2 texts, which are primarily written in Japanese. There is usually only one example sentence in English to help explain the grammar pattern. I do think, however that an English explanation of the grammar patterns would really help my understanding.

I've been studying for years, and I wouldn't have a snowballs chance in hell of using a Japanese-Japanese dictionary.