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I've once learnt Spanish and found it the easiest language I've ever seen, easier than English, it took just 2 weeks to learn. Then I've started learning Espera

I've once learnt Spanish and found it the easiest language I've ever seen, easier than English, it took just 2 weeks to learn. Then I've started learning Esperanto (as the idea of engineered languages (or whatever) amazes me, I feel like we should engineer everything) with DuoLingo (I don't happen to know any better Esperanto course) and it felt easy yet it was just a tiny bit easier than Spanish so I was wondering why do we need a new easy language when there already is one spoken by so many people (and it also is very similar to it) but continued learning. Then I've found out Esperanto has grammatical cases and stopped, cases make me panic. I still feel like I would like to learn Esperanto to fluency once as I adore its spirit of technocracy, borderlessness and defiance of nationalism.

amaccuish 8y ago
> it took just 2 weeks to learn How are you measuring having "learnt" a language? Because IMHO that's an incredible feet that almost requires you not to sleep! Or do you just mean learning the grammar?
- qwerty456127 8y ago
  I mean learning it to the point when you can say anything you might want to tell somebody you meet in real life (not in a philosophical discussion club however), looking up some words in a dictionary occasionally: the grammar + basic vocabulary (+ phonetics, orthography etc of course). It is worth mentioning, however, that I've already forgotten almost everything I've learnt of Spanish as practice is vital for remembering and I had absolutely no practice after learning it.
  - drugme 8y ago
    looking up some words in a dictionary occasionally... It is worth mentioning, however, that I've already forgotten almost everything I've learnt of Spanish Well that's the whole point -- you didn't really "learn it", then. You just learned the rough outlines of it.
    - qwerty456127 8y ago
      "looking up some words in a dictionary OCCASIONALLY". There is no single language I can speak/write without looking up some words in a dictionary ever. Is there a definition of having learnt a language or of "the rough outlines"? As for me having learnt a language means being able to communicate in it fluently (not necessarily in a finely literate manner) and for "the rough outlines" - do we ever learn anything but the rough outlines of anything? I can't even say I know anything but the rough outlines of my native language (it had never felt any close to possible for me to write it without mistakes) or of English.
      - drugme 8y ago
        Do we ever learn anything but the rough outlines of anything? Actually, people do -- those who become, if not necessarily world-reknown experts -- at least generally recognized as competent professionals in just about any field. For example, if you've managed to successfully operate a well-regarded restaurant in a major city for a significant length of time (10 years, say) -- it's safe to say that you've moved beyond learning the "rough outlines" of that field - but in fact have mastered the core material. As for learning a language - the metrics would probably be (1) fluency (not needing a dictionary to make yourself understood 99% of the time, in quotidian contexts at least) and (2) durability (not forgetting everything you've learned after a few weeks or months). That is to say - they've mastered the core material. Most language learners are on a spectrum somewhere between these endpoints (and your English is really quite good, BTW). The whole point it, it sounds like your exposure to Spanish was much closer to learning the "rough outlines" of it than having "mastered the core". Which is generally what people mean by saying "I learned X" (as opposed to "I learned a bit of X").
        qwerty456127 8y ago
        Nice point. > not needing a dictionary to make yourself understood 99% of the time, in quotidian contexts at least ... (and your English is really quite good, BTW) But I still had to google the definition of "quotidian" - although my guess of what does it mean given the context was correct I had never met it before. A nice addition to my vocabulary, thanks :-) > The whole point it, it sounds like your exposure to Spanish was much closer to learning the "rough outlines" of it than having "mastered the core". That's why I've said I've learnt it, not mastered it. I doubt I'm going to master any language ever. Perhaps I could master my native language if I were interested enough. It seems people capable of mastering a foreign language are rare and they usually work at intelligence agencies AFAIK. > Which is generally what people mean by saying "I learned X" (as opposed to "I learned a bit of X"). IMHO saying "I learned a bit of X" would mean "I can say 'hello', 'bye', 'my name is' and 'I'd like a cup of coffee' in it", having intuitive understanding of the language grammar and being able to express any quotidian idea in it so you would be comfortable living in the country, would feel no "language barrier" and would be able to read a local newspaper qualifies for having learnt (not "mastered") a language.
- qwerty456127 8y ago
  > almost requires you not to sleep! In fact it requires you to sleep well, eat well, take nootropics, exercise physically outdoors and be motivated by something extremely inspirational like having fallen in love. And the exercise time is not excluded from the study time - listen to good audio courses (like Michel Thomas and/or Pimsleur) during it.
- presidentender 8y ago
  A friend of mine knows Java, Python, Perl, OCaml, Rust, F#, Scala, Clojure, x86 assembly, and Tcl. I asked him to follow a web framework tutorial, toss the result on github, and forward it to me so that I could get him a job. He did not complete the tutorial, but he knows those languages, if you're talking to him. Rest assured that our friend in this thread knows Spanish, so long as we're talking to him. Sorry, he knew Spanish; I see elsewhere in the thread that he has forgotten much of what he learned.
  - qwerty456127 8y ago
    Could you possibly share the tutorial with us? I can hardly imagine a tutorial somebody could have failed.
    - presidentender 8y ago
      My point is not that the tutorial was hard. My point is that to "know" a language in my friend's estimation is different than what it is to "know" a language for my purposes, as I believe is the case with your Spanish. For your edification, though: https://github.com/jamesward/play2torial https://github.com/jamesward/play2torial
kristofferR 8y ago
Yeah, no way you learned Spanish in two weeks. Spanish has 14 verb tenses and also a ton of irregular verbs, Esperanto is waay simpler.
- qwerty456127 8y ago
  Distinguishing every tense as a distinct entity is usually a matter of methodology. It usually is more practical just to understand the logic behind. I.e. I consider the way I was taught English at school (past indefinite is this, future perfect continuous is that etc) rather inefficient, I could explain the whole system to my past self in a much more intuitive way a lot faster. You also don't need such a huge number of tenses for everyday life. And of course I don't claim I've learnt all the irregular verbs, just a humble portion (and I already can't name a single of them now as years have passed - practice is vital, zero practice = you forget 99.9% of what you've learnt).
- narag 8y ago
  More than 14, but half of them are just adding "have" to the mirror form. Still it's not the number of tenses that matters, English has most of them, but the way they're constructed with terminations instead of auxiliary verbs (will, shall, would). Oh, and also: we will understand you quite well even if you talk with badly broken syntax, just try to learn vocabulary. Extranger sports players use to talk very soon in an intelligible way.
  - qwerty456127 8y ago
    > we will understand you quite well even if you talk with badly broken syntax, just try to learn vocabulary BTW is that true that you won't understand if we pronounce a word accenting a wrong letter?
    - narag 8y ago
      I don't think so... in general. It's much more difficult for us because we have five very defined vowels, compared to the dozen or so in English. Until you practice a lot, it's easy to get lost in beer, bear, bird, beard, etc.
Shorel 8y ago
Sure, now write this same comment in Spanish without using Google Translate and then may be someone can start believing you.
- qwerty456127 8y ago
  I absolutely don't need anybody to believe me. If bragging was my intention I wouldn't use a random nickname ;-) In fact I have never really learnt to write, only to read, listen to and to say reasonably simple things (but I don't mean the phrases from a phrasebook). And as I have already mentioned I have already forgotten almost all I've learnt years ago.
throwaway675309 8y ago
Chiming in to say that stating "I learned X language in two weeks" is kind of an ambiguous statement without any real meaning behind it. How are you quantifying "learned a language"? Are you merely stating that you learned the grammatical aspects or are you claiming communicative fluency? I've heard that to be moderately fluent in Spanish you need to have mastered anywhere between 5000 and 10000 words. Even at the low end of fluency, that would mean you're memorizing approximately 350 words every day - not to mention the upkeep necessary to maintain it assuming you're using some kind of SRS. Do you actually know how many words you know? Speaking as someone who first memorized a substantial subset of the vocabulary of a language (in my case Chinese) before learning to communicate in it, I will also state that one needs a lot of time digesting the language from a real-time auditory standpoint. Knowing the vocabulary is a far step from being able to understand the language spoken to you at a native speaker's pace. I'm not trying to be overly harsh, but unless you're some kind equivalent of a synesthesia Tammett, there is simply no way you came even close to fluency in Spanish in two week. Hell even studying 12 hours a day would only net you 168 hours of language study. On the other hand, if by "learned Spanish", you mean that you know the grammar, numbers, asking for directions, food, simple questions, etc then yeah, 2 weeks is ambitious but definitely doable.
- qwerty456127 8y ago
  What I mean under having learnt a language approximately is being able to understand the news (a newspaper or BBC-style TV news) and express yourself in any ordinary tense in quotidian contexts. This means having intuitive understanding of the basic grammar and an active vocabulary of 500-1500 words. AFAIK the vocabulary of an average newspaper is always below 1000 words, also Spanish and English have thousands words in common. > Do you actually know how many words you know? No. > Speaking as someone who first memorized a substantial subset of the vocabulary of a language (in my case Chinese) before learning to communicate in it I adore you, I would never manage such a boring way. I really need a constant sense of a practical achievement (not a metric like "now I know n words" but something I can apply like "now my degree of freedom of expression in the language has grown to the level when I can say this and that and the exact phrases were not in the textbook") as a reward to fuel my effort.

amaccuish 8y ago

> it took just 2 weeks to learn How are you measuring having "learnt" a language? Because IMHO that's an incredible feet that almost requires you not to sleep! Or do you just mean learning the grammar?

qwerty456127 8y ago
I mean learning it to the point when you can say anything you might want to tell somebody you meet in real life (not in a philosophical discussion club however), looking up some words in a dictionary occasionally: the grammar + basic vocabulary (+ phonetics, orthography etc of course). It is worth mentioning, however, that I've already forgotten almost everything I've learnt of Spanish as practice is vital for remembering and I had absolutely no practice after learning it.
- drugme 8y ago
  looking up some words in a dictionary occasionally... It is worth mentioning, however, that I've already forgotten almost everything I've learnt of Spanish Well that's the whole point -- you didn't really "learn it", then. You just learned the rough outlines of it.
  - qwerty456127 8y ago
    "looking up some words in a dictionary OCCASIONALLY". There is no single language I can speak/write without looking up some words in a dictionary ever. Is there a definition of having learnt a language or of "the rough outlines"? As for me having learnt a language means being able to communicate in it fluently (not necessarily in a finely literate manner) and for "the rough outlines" - do we ever learn anything but the rough outlines of anything? I can't even say I know anything but the rough outlines of my native language (it had never felt any close to possible for me to write it without mistakes) or of English.
    - drugme 8y ago
      Do we ever learn anything but the rough outlines of anything? Actually, people do -- those who become, if not necessarily world-reknown experts -- at least generally recognized as competent professionals in just about any field. For example, if you've managed to successfully operate a well-regarded restaurant in a major city for a significant length of time (10 years, say) -- it's safe to say that you've moved beyond learning the "rough outlines" of that field - but in fact have mastered the core material. As for learning a language - the metrics would probably be (1) fluency (not needing a dictionary to make yourself understood 99% of the time, in quotidian contexts at least) and (2) durability (not forgetting everything you've learned after a few weeks or months). That is to say - they've mastered the core material. Most language learners are on a spectrum somewhere between these endpoints (and your English is really quite good, BTW). The whole point it, it sounds like your exposure to Spanish was much closer to learning the "rough outlines" of it than having "mastered the core". Which is generally what people mean by saying "I learned X" (as opposed to "I learned a bit of X").
      - qwerty456127 8y ago
        Nice point. > not needing a dictionary to make yourself understood 99% of the time, in quotidian contexts at least ... (and your English is really quite good, BTW) But I still had to google the definition of "quotidian" - although my guess of what does it mean given the context was correct I had never met it before. A nice addition to my vocabulary, thanks :-) > The whole point it, it sounds like your exposure to Spanish was much closer to learning the "rough outlines" of it than having "mastered the core". That's why I've said I've learnt it, not mastered it. I doubt I'm going to master any language ever. Perhaps I could master my native language if I were interested enough. It seems people capable of mastering a foreign language are rare and they usually work at intelligence agencies AFAIK. > Which is generally what people mean by saying "I learned X" (as opposed to "I learned a bit of X"). IMHO saying "I learned a bit of X" would mean "I can say 'hello', 'bye', 'my name is' and 'I'd like a cup of coffee' in it", having intuitive understanding of the language grammar and being able to express any quotidian idea in it so you would be comfortable living in the country, would feel no "language barrier" and would be able to read a local newspaper qualifies for having learnt (not "mastered") a language.
qwerty456127 8y ago
> almost requires you not to sleep! In fact it requires you to sleep well, eat well, take nootropics, exercise physically outdoors and be motivated by something extremely inspirational like having fallen in love. And the exercise time is not excluded from the study time - listen to good audio courses (like Michel Thomas and/or Pimsleur) during it.
presidentender 8y ago
A friend of mine knows Java, Python, Perl, OCaml, Rust, F#, Scala, Clojure, x86 assembly, and Tcl. I asked him to follow a web framework tutorial, toss the result on github, and forward it to me so that I could get him a job. He did not complete the tutorial, but he knows those languages, if you're talking to him. Rest assured that our friend in this thread knows Spanish, so long as we're talking to him. Sorry, he knew Spanish; I see elsewhere in the thread that he has forgotten much of what he learned.
- qwerty456127 8y ago
  Could you possibly share the tutorial with us? I can hardly imagine a tutorial somebody could have failed.
  - presidentender 8y ago
    My point is not that the tutorial was hard. My point is that to "know" a language in my friend's estimation is different than what it is to "know" a language for my purposes, as I believe is the case with your Spanish. For your edification, though: https://github.com/jamesward/play2torial https://github.com/jamesward/play2torial

kristofferR 8y ago

Yeah, no way you learned Spanish in two weeks. Spanish has 14 verb tenses and also a ton of irregular verbs, Esperanto is waay simpler.

qwerty456127 8y ago
Distinguishing every tense as a distinct entity is usually a matter of methodology. It usually is more practical just to understand the logic behind. I.e. I consider the way I was taught English at school (past indefinite is this, future perfect continuous is that etc) rather inefficient, I could explain the whole system to my past self in a much more intuitive way a lot faster. You also don't need such a huge number of tenses for everyday life. And of course I don't claim I've learnt all the irregular verbs, just a humble portion (and I already can't name a single of them now as years have passed - practice is vital, zero practice = you forget 99.9% of what you've learnt).
narag 8y ago
More than 14, but half of them are just adding "have" to the mirror form. Still it's not the number of tenses that matters, English has most of them, but the way they're constructed with terminations instead of auxiliary verbs (will, shall, would). Oh, and also: we will understand you quite well even if you talk with badly broken syntax, just try to learn vocabulary. Extranger sports players use to talk very soon in an intelligible way.
- qwerty456127 8y ago
  > we will understand you quite well even if you talk with badly broken syntax, just try to learn vocabulary BTW is that true that you won't understand if we pronounce a word accenting a wrong letter?
  - narag 8y ago
    I don't think so... in general. It's much more difficult for us because we have five very defined vowels, compared to the dozen or so in English. Until you practice a lot, it's easy to get lost in beer, bear, bird, beard, etc.

Shorel 8y ago

Sure, now write this same comment in Spanish without using Google Translate and then may be someone can start believing you.

qwerty456127 8y ago
I absolutely don't need anybody to believe me. If bragging was my intention I wouldn't use a random nickname ;-) In fact I have never really learnt to write, only to read, listen to and to say reasonably simple things (but I don't mean the phrases from a phrasebook). And as I have already mentioned I have already forgotten almost all I've learnt years ago.

throwaway675309 8y ago

Chiming in to say that stating "I learned X language in two weeks" is kind of an ambiguous statement without any real meaning behind it. How are you quantifying "learned a language"? Are you merely stating that you learned the grammatical aspects or are you claiming communicative fluency? I've heard that to be moderately fluent in Spanish you need to have mastered anywhere between 5000 and 10000 words. Even at the low end of fluency, that would mean you're memorizing approximately 350 words every day - not to mention the upkeep necessary to maintain it assuming you're using some kind of SRS. Do you actually know how many words you know? Speaking as someone who first memorized a substantial subset of the vocabulary of a language (in my case Chinese) before learning to communicate in it, I will also state that one needs a lot of time digesting the language from a real-time auditory standpoint. Knowing the vocabulary is a far step from being able to understand the language spoken to you at a native speaker's pace. I'm not trying to be overly harsh, but unless you're some kind equivalent of a synesthesia Tammett, there is simply no way you came even close to fluency in Spanish in two week. Hell even studying 12 hours a day would only net you 168 hours of language study. On the other hand, if by "learned Spanish", you mean that you know the grammar, numbers, asking for directions, food, simple questions, etc then yeah, 2 weeks is ambitious but definitely doable.

qwerty456127 8y ago
What I mean under having learnt a language approximately is being able to understand the news (a newspaper or BBC-style TV news) and express yourself in any ordinary tense in quotidian contexts. This means having intuitive understanding of the basic grammar and an active vocabulary of 500-1500 words. AFAIK the vocabulary of an average newspaper is always below 1000 words, also Spanish and English have thousands words in common. > Do you actually know how many words you know? No. > Speaking as someone who first memorized a substantial subset of the vocabulary of a language (in my case Chinese) before learning to communicate in it I adore you, I would never manage such a boring way. I really need a constant sense of a practical achievement (not a metric like "now I know n words" but something I can apply like "now my degree of freedom of expression in the language has grown to the level when I can say this and that and the exact phrases were not in the textbook") as a reward to fuel my effort.