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Kannada is no harder to learn to learn than any other Dravidian or Indo-european languages. If kannada is difficult to learn, the same can be said of Telugu, w

by FraaJad 17y ago

Kannada is no harder to learn to learn than any other Dravidian or Indo-european languages. If kannada is difficult to learn, the same can be said of Telugu, whose script is close to kannada. And Hindi which also follows the same script rules (forming composites from consonants and vowels using Devanagari script). This is so much true that Sanskrit is often printed in Kannada script in my state without any loss in phonetics and "spelling" Tamil might be harder to learn as it is not phonetic. there is no unambiguous way to write 'ha' and 'ga' for instance. Mohan (a proper noun) is written mokan and called mogan. So says a native kannada speaker who can speak 3 other languages, read 4 and comprehend a couple more.

kragen 17y ago
My experience from learning English, Spanish, Portuguese, some Japanese and French, and a little bit of Chinese is that mostly-phonetic writing systems are not actually difficult at all. I suspect I could learn the Kannada script well enough to read aloud fluently in a day or two, but learning Kannada well enough to speak it in conversation would take me at least three months, probably more like three years. My talent for scripts is very unusual, but I think that any person could probably learn a phonetic script in maybe a few weeks at most.
- djuedemann 17y ago
  "My talent for scripts is very unusual" Your humility is very refreshing Mr Kragen.
  - kragen 17y ago
    Your sarcasm is noted, but misplaced. I came in first in the school spelling bee every year throughout my childhood (until 8th grade, where I came in second), without drilling for it, competing with kids who did drill for it, so my disclaimer is just being realistic. It's not a particularly important talent, since as I said, orthography is far from the most important part of learning a language; if it were, I might feel embarrassed about bringing it up. But in context, it's important to point out that my experience with learning scripts probably doesn't generalize that well, and normal people's experience will be an order of magnitude worse. If you have a way I could have explained that without either sounding conceited (to you) or simply not mentioning my experience at all, I'd like to hear it.

by FraaJad 17y ago

kragen 17y ago

My experience from learning English, Spanish, Portuguese, some Japanese and French, and a little bit of Chinese is that mostly-phonetic writing systems are not actually difficult at all. I suspect I could learn the Kannada script well enough to read aloud fluently in a day or two, but learning Kannada well enough to speak it in conversation would take me at least three months, probably more like three years. My talent for scripts is very unusual, but I think that any person could probably learn a phonetic script in maybe a few weeks at most.

djuedemann 17y ago
"My talent for scripts is very unusual" Your humility is very refreshing Mr Kragen.
- kragen 17y ago
  Your sarcasm is noted, but misplaced. I came in first in the school spelling bee every year throughout my childhood (until 8th grade, where I came in second), without drilling for it, competing with kids who did drill for it, so my disclaimer is just being realistic. It's not a particularly important talent, since as I said, orthography is far from the most important part of learning a language; if it were, I might feel embarrassed about bringing it up. But in context, it's important to point out that my experience with learning scripts probably doesn't generalize that well, and normal people's experience will be an order of magnitude worse. If you have a way I could have explained that without either sounding conceited (to you) or simply not mentioning my experience at all, I'd like to hear it.