Questions tagged [language-comparison]
For questions that compare one language with one or more other languages.
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Measuring distance between languages, including grammatical differences. Maybe the minimal size of an auto-encoder?
This question is similar to this one; the difference is that I'd like to find out about quantitative measurements that are not based solely on the vocabulary.
Are there any such objective quantitative ...
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Finding direct translations for foreign words in English
Is there any tool or method of searching for the direct translations of foreign words that have made their way into English? Google translate and other translation services will translate the meaning ...
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Does the usefulness of Anki vary between languages?
This question is motivated by this Reddit comment where the author has had success learning Spanish via Anki:
I've been using Anki for about a year (the time it took me to reach C1 in Spanish from ...
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Controversy & Debate in SLA: Can I ever get concrete takeaways?
I learned Mandarin in high school and later in life (now) started becoming interested in how I was able to acquire it, i.e., the study of SLA.
My goal: As of now, I hope to have concrete strategies ...
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Many Chinese students don't continue past the intermediate level (~HSK4); do other Asian languages have this same phenomenon?
If you've studied Chinese, you quickly discover that many students don't follow the HSK beyond HSK4. It seems a lot give up, or at least, find some private method to continue their studies. There ...
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Where to find good Dravidian language sources to translate words like இர்ரேண்டம்? [closed]
I am interested in studying ancient trade between Egypt and India.
I found this word to describe the sea as "burn red"?
The word is இர்ரேண்டம்
Google translate will pronounce it but will ...
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Are some languages inherently easier to learn than others?
It's fairly clear that depending on your native language, some languages are easier and some are harder to learn.
It's also evident that some languages' orthography is easier or more difficult ...
user9600
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Do Arabic and Hebrew use the same gender for corresponding nouns?
Arabic and Hebrew are Central Semitic languages with many similarities in vocabulary and structure. But how similar are the gender of their nouns? I know they both have masculine and feminine nouns, ...
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What would be the best second foreign language to learn for Computer Science and IT?
Which foreign languages would be the most beneficial to learn for future businesses and work in the programming field and why? My native language is English.
Some of the options are;
Spanish
Japanese
...
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What is the optimal order in which to learn languages?
The general principle of this question is "If you could only speak n languages, which languages would those be to maximize the number of people that you could communicate with?" (not ...
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Is Italian best suitable for study as a foreign language for school students?
From this year, school students in Iran could choose Italian as their foreign language. In the past, they only could choose English, French or German, but from this year they also can choose Spanish, ...
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Esperanto: English or Spanish
I'm trying to learn Esperanto. I speak fluent English and Spanish and a A2 of German. I was wondering how it would be easier to learn it. Should I translate it to English or Spanish. I guess my ...
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Which language has what particular advantage [closed]
My English ability reached a certain level so that I appreciate it only starting from this year. It helped me access to tons of knowledge and information placed online. Tons of lecture notes, tons of ...
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Which Portuguese language to be learned when moving to Angola, Luanda
I will be moving to Angola, Luanda very soon. I have heard that the spoken language of Luanda is Portuguese which is different from Portugal-Portuguese. So which language do you suggest to learn ...
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How many people in the world can I speak with if I know three languages?
In order to gather some data that can hopefully give an estimate for the correlation between L1 and L2 languages, please take a moment to take this short 2-question survey.
The title might be a bit ...
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How can I efficiently find lists of chance correspondences?
Where can I find such compilations or lists systematically?
This Japanese-English example is from
John McWhorter PhD Linguistics (Stanford)'s The Power of Babel (2003), pp. 226-227.
I'm aware of r/...
user90
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Is learning Attic Greek a good thing at the same as learning Modern Conversational Greek?
I'm currently reading Plato, Homer, and others in their English translations. I also currently am learning how to speak modern conversational Greek. I also want to learn Attic Greek in order to better ...
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How can I learn reading Telugu texts, if I already know Kannada Scripts?
Is learning Telugu script need any extra effort if I already know reading Kannada script? since both languages are quite similar for reading.
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How to comprehend what we read properly?
I have problems with comprehending sentences. Many times what I understand after reading a sentence or sentences is totally different from what it actually means. I can understand the meaning of each ...
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Which Austronesian language is simplest to pick up?
I am thinking of experimenting and trying to learn an Austronesian language that my school offers. I have the option of:
Hawaiian
Maori
Tahitian
Tongan
Samoan
Ilokano
Chamorro
Which one is the ...
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How different is Bunjevac speech from standard Croatian?
I'm wondering if someone could put the differences between Bunjevac speech and standard Croatian into perspective -- preferably comparing it to differences between various English or Germanic or ...
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How to memorize German vocabulary by connecting it to English?
My background vocabulary is English. Can you help me how to memorize German vocabulary by connecting the words with English?
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Why is Hungarian considered 'hard'?
I've looked it up a few times, just to try to get a better understanding of an agglutinating language, and I really fail to see what's so hard about it. Though I'm kinda desensitized to 'hard'; the ...
user3892
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How and where can I begin learning grammar and syntax in their most abstract form?
I am interested in learning grammar and syntax. I use those words because that's what I learned in middle school, perhaps what I'm really trying to learn is more aptly described by the term '...
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Latin, Italian, or French?
(I hope this is on-topic.)
I am deciding which language to learn next. I am a native Spanish and fluent English speaker. My three options are Latin, Italian, and French. I would like to receive your ...
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Does French Sound Similar to Hebrew? [closed]
We're Hebrew natives and travel frequently.
Quite a few times people approached us, asking us which language we speak because it sounds like French to them but weren't sure. One of them was French!
...
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Cognates between French & Spanish?
I'm a native English speaker who's been learning French for a long time. I now have good vocabulary base and knowledge of grammar in French.
When learning French I found cognitive short-cuts, for ...
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What differences are there in the difficulty of learning Ukrainian and Russian to a very basic level?
I'm considering learning either Russian or Ukrainian to a very basic level. Basically, to be able to read out loud written text (at least that written in print), and learn a few phrases.
I've already ...
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How different are Inuktitut and Greenlandic?
My question is as simple as that. Does anyone (preferably a native speaker) know how different or how mutually intelligible Inuktitut and Greenlandic (Kalaallisut) are? Both are Eskimo–Aleut languages....
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Additional sentences for language deconstruction (CEFR levels A1-A2)?
Tim Ferris' blogpost How to Learn (But Not Master) Any Language in 1 Hour (Plus: A Favor) describes a "language deconstruction technique" to help people find out what a foreign is like before deciding ...
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How to choose an easy language to learn based on the languages that I already speak
We know a lot of great things that can motivate us to start learning a new language, boosting up our career, having a great travel experience, etc. But what would be some techniques that we can use to ...
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What are the most common languages among people who DON'T speak English?
My aim in language learning is to communicate with the most people.
I want to learn a new language and thought to learn Mandarin Chinese, because it's the most common language. But I figured if a lot ...
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Which language is most similar to Esperanto?
I'm just curious about which languages Esperanto is closest to, in order to know for whom it would be easiest to learn this language! For example, could a Spanish speaker learn it more quickly than a ...
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How do I measure the importance of a language? [closed]
At a couple of bookshops with dedicated areas for language learning, some languages get entire aisles, while other languages get just one or two books.
The number of speakers can't be the sole ...
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Why is Icelandic considered harder to learn for English speakers than other North Germanic languages?
Multiple sources, including this website, claim that Icelandic is a particularly difficult language to learn for native English speakers.
Of particular note, this source claims Icelandic is ...
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What factors make a language difficult to learn from the learner's POV?
Are there any studies which address which factors—if there are any—have more influence on the learner to consider a new language as difficult to learn?
Factors could be:
The mother tongue of the ...
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According to scientific research, which languages take the least time to learn for a native Japanese speaker?
Has there been research done about which languages are generally the easiest to learn for an average native Japanese speaker? Do they have an easier time learning Mandarin than learning a Western ...
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