I’ve been told now that im out of school it is harder for me to learn a language as it is easier to when you are younger, or a child. Is this true? Me and my boyfriend are thinking of taking lessons next year as we plan to travel in a few years time and would like to know the language, he thinks French would be more common as alot of countries have French as a basic language (are there multiple french languages though?) whereas only Japan speak Japanese.
Yes, children naturally learn better, but that’s because they’re more adaptable. After fifteen or so the only thing that determines difficulty is your native tongue. Obviously yours is English. Therefore, a Western language that shares origins with English would be easier for you than a language that requires you to learn three new writing systems and has nothing in common with English.
#1 by Belie on July 5th, 2009
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Yes, children naturally learn better, but that’s because they’re more adaptable. After fifteen or so the only thing that determines difficulty is your native tongue. Obviously yours is English. Therefore, a Western language that shares origins with English would be easier for you than a language that requires you to learn three new writing systems and has nothing in common with English.
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#2 by Beau C on July 5th, 2009
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Yes, it’s true it’s easier to learn a language when you are younger. However, it can still be done.
The easier language is probably French, as it is a little more similar to English than Japanese, but really, the easiest is the one you ENJOY the most.
I find Japanese easier than French solely because i love learning Japanese!
Choose the one that’s more enjoyable! It’ll be easier! Japanese is probably used more in business and sttuff, but French would be fantastic for travelling!
Beau
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Study Japanese
#3 by Clock Cleaner on July 5th, 2009
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from my experience..Japanese is fun and easy
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#4 by anunaki7777 on July 5th, 2009
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French definitely.
Both English and French are Indo-European languages that use phoenic alphabets.
Japanese is a whole ‘nother ball game.
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#5 by Joan S on July 5th, 2009
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Learn French! It’s far easier, and it’s a beautiful language!
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#6 by diskzero on July 5th, 2009
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French is going to be easier to learn just because you are already familiar with the Roman alphabet and there are many cognates (similar words) shared between English and French. If you have a real interested in Japan and Japanese culture though, you should let that guide you. It is really all about what you find interesting and how you decide to apply the language that you have learned.
As to your initial question about if it is easier to learn a language as a child, recent studies have not been able to determine if that is the case. What is true is that multi-lingual children are put into an environment where learning the target languages is easier. This is harder to replicate when you are older.
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#7 by Adrien D on July 5th, 2009
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Well I’m 16 I speak French as my native language, English is my third, and as 5th language I am learning Japanese (I’m still far from it)
I’d say that French is much easier to learn because it uses the regular alphabet instead of Kanji, Hiragana, Katakana and sometimes romaji (regular alphabet).
Even thou French is a hard language (I teach to my class mates and I see the difference from when I learned other languages, I see how hard mine is) so even thou it’s hard in French, you don’t need to study all the characters and signs in Japanese and Japanese language is also quite hard because it has nothing similar to other languages.
French, Spanish, English, Portuguese, Italian and languages like those are all a bit similar to each other, so it’s easier to study them if your native language is one of those, but if it’s not, then all languages are as hard to study except for the asian, russian and arabic languages who do not use the regular alphabet.
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#8 by rockon_em01 on July 5th, 2009
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I’m assuming you’re asking which one is easiest to learn for a native English speaker.
Going with that, French would be easier. Compared to English, French has more similarities, many idiomatic words. Also, compared to English, French is a category I language, and Japanese is a category III language. The higher the category, the more difficult it is to learn.
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Language study.
Helpful website:
http://www.nvtc.gov/lotw/months/november/learningExpectations.html
#9 by Max Pwet on July 5th, 2009
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I find that knowing a first language makes it easier to learn a second. As a child, you learn your first language from scratch. But as an adult, your knowledge of your first language helps. For instance, if french is your first language, then spanish, portuguese, italian and other roman languages will be easier to learn because they are similar to french.
Learn the language of a country you like a lot, and want to spend considerable time in. Have you visited france or japan yet? You should visit the country before you endeavor into learning the language. If it turns out you don’t like france and japan, it’s going to be pretty useless.
French is spoken mostly in france, belgium, and in the eastern province of canada. It isn’t particularly useful outside of these three places. However, if you decide to learn french, then from that point it will be easier to learn the other roman languages.
French is my mother tongue. Difficulty-wise, I would estimate french is about 2 or 3 times harder to master than english. Verbs and grammar is pretty complex. You have to be motivated.
Japanese will only work in japan. I wouldn’t say japanese is that hard, but you will learn from scratch because there are no similarities between english and japanese.
But anyway, I actually wouldn’t recommend learning either french or japanese as of now. You need to visit these countries before you decide to jump into learning their language.
Alternatively, do some research about other countries on internet. That way you can see which countries has caracteristics you like.
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#10 by Bee A on July 5th, 2009
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enrich your Japanese vocabulary and kanji in a fun way
http://www.japaneseclass.jp
its fun! earn EXP gain level and get ranked!
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#11 by Stephanie Z on July 5th, 2009
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Do you speak any other languages besides English?
Heres the thing: French will be easier on paper b/c it is closer to english and it uses the same writing system, but the pronunciation is hard. Japanese will be much more difficult b/c the structure is nothing like english, but pronunciation is a snap.
All in all, though, Japanese is not as hard as some people seem to think, and it’s not impossible to get yourself accustomed to the backwards grammar.
As for language learning gettting more difficult with age, your language learning abilities drastically decline after age 6, and after age 12 its impossible to learn any language as efficiently and wholely as your first. Not saying you can’t become super fluent, but you will never speak it like your first.
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Been studying japanese for 5 years
#12 by chy5398p on July 5th, 2009
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References :
(1) Omniglot, http://www.omniglot.com/index.htm
(2) How many languages do you think one should strive to learn?, Yahoo! Answers, http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Ag7qrbHQELNnVsHS6LhZfhzty6IX;_ylv=3?qid=20081013174535AAjvmY1
(3) What is the best way to learn a language?, Yahoo! Answers, http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AnIc85_cwyVjMV_MfFjSe9Lty6IX;_ylv=3?qid=20081016180410AAfZENL
(4) International Phonetic Alphabet, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPA
(5) Some advise please, from someone who learns languages. Do you think this is possible?, Yahoo! Answers, http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AiOvDGORoz9e0w.G9DOMJ6ojzKIX;_ylv=3?qid=20081020105352AAcKTEB
#13 by Martin M. on July 5th, 2009
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Japanese is funnier than French.
hello,
I always recommend this Webpage to learn Japanese faster.
http://consumer-expert.com/learn_japanese_courses_reviews.html
Greetings.
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#14 by ripjiraiya_sama on July 5th, 2009
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if you learn japanese, you would have to learn to write in kanji, katakana, and the other one (forgot what its called but it starts with an H) so the writing in japanese would be harder
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