Simpsons, German

[Otto]

Of course you have to differentiate between the native language and
languages you learn later.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Terrance" <lycidas2 at earthlink.net>
Cc: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Friday, November 07, 2003 6:18 PM
Subject: Re: Simpsons, German
>
> >And well, of course... German is without any doubt one of the most
difficult languages.
>

Is it really? I always thought French and Russian are much more complicated
because of the grammar. My French sucks.

> What makes German any more or less difficult than any other language?
>

The casus system, der, die, das -- these are things my Dutch teachers told
me are hard to learn for foreigners, while it's relatively easy the other
way round. Someone from Northern Germany, especially with experience of the
regional dialects ("Plattdeutsch") hasn't got that much problems learning or
at least understanding Dutch.

Again, the http://dict.leo.org/ translation website offers wav-files to
listen to how the German words sound like.

> Depends on lots of things, right?
>

Right.

> For example, German infants learn German at about the same pace as
> French infants learn French. Don't they?
>

Yes.

> And, while English  phonetics are more difficult than Italian
> phonetics,  native speakers manage to learn English phonetics. Some L2
> learners (and age is a factor here too) have great difficulty with
> English phonetics and some don't.
>

I had a very good phonetics teachers from Kenya, the seminars improved my
English a lot. If you are told how the sounds are produced correctly it
helps a lot.

> Complicated stuff, language.
>

Indeed, because it isn't strictly logical.

Otto