Why is Russian so Complicated?

[jasio]

A significant difficulty though is that you get no help with the vocabulary. I am not sure I ever quite got to grips with the perfective/imperfective thing,

Which approximately doubles the complexity of the verb system. Doubles - because the aspect is NOT a matter of inflection. It's a matter of knowing two separate verbs with the very similar meaning, yet having significantly grammatical function and very specific semantic distinction. For example, you cannot distinguish future tense from present tense if you do not understand the aspect.

If you learn a lot in a short period you lose it if you don't use it.

I learned Russian for ten years, and now, after 30 years I barely speak it. So it really does not depend solely on the pace of learining.

There is also a psychological aspect. If you tell someone something is difficult they will probably find it difficult. Russian is perceived to be difficult because it has a different script.

Try Polish then. It has quite a similar script to English. Or Czech - which uses even simpler orthography than Polish.
But I do not think it would make the difference, as using some training you can get used to the Russian script within a few weeks.

English as a foreign language is typically started young and studied over a long period. Complications are taken one at a time and you get a lot of practice. You may start off saying "I do not must" but you will eventually get it right.

Starting young is an advantage, of course, but I do not agree that it's THE differentiation between Russian (or virtually any other Slavic language) and English.
I started learning Russian at the age of 10 (approximately) and English - at about 15, so I have a comparison. With Russian we based quite a lot on multiple similarities between Polish and Russian, and primarily the differences had to be explained. For example, we when we encountered a perfective verb in a textbook for the first time, it was enough for teacher to explain "this verb is perfectve", and it was clear for us, it did not require any further explanations at this stage. I think, you might have had a similar impression when your Spanish teacher explained you preterite perfecto referring it to the English present perfect tense - as both of them function in a similar way.

So it's quite probable, that a fully idiomatic native-level proficiency in an educated register of the language has similar level of objective complexity regardless of the language. But who speaks a foreign language with a fully idiomatic native proficiency? Not many people, in fact, and most of the learners stop progressing when they reach the level which is sufficient for their purposes. And this changes the game entirely.

Slavic languages are much closer to "you have to know everything to be able to speak anything" extreme than English. In English it's enough to knowing a handful of words to produce grammatically correct phrases. In Slavic langiages - in general you cannot. To produce correctly even the simplest phrase, you must at least know the grammatical persons, because the infinitive forms generally are not used for this purpose. If you want to include objects - you have to understand at least two cases (with all the complications resulting from inflection patterns), and at least elements of the gender/category system. If you want to include adjectives - the grammatical cases (which have different pattarns for adjectives than for nouns) and genders are a must. Etc. And we even have not even reached the compound statements yet, or tenses. So wherever the asymptote is, the learning curve of Slavic languages is much steeper than in case of English, Spanish or Italian.

 

[Hulalessar]

Having different forms for the perfective and imperfective does not double the complexity of the verbal system, it just means you have to know two words instead of one. Whilst not completely on a par, Spanish can be said to have something approaching the same difficulty for learners because for a large number of verbs the first person singular indicative, and accordingly the form of the present subjunctive, is unpredictable from the infinitive. Apart from that, the future or preterite of some forms is not predictable from the infinitive. If you add in that there are far more tenses in Spanish than Russian you have difficulty saying which overall has the more complex verbal system. Whilst I may have had trouble deciding whether to use the perfective or imperfective in Russian, I found learning the forms verbs take to involve less memorising than for any of French, Spanish or Latin. Also, complexity is not just how many forms you need to know but also how many uses each form has.

How well anyone remembers anything depends on the person and circumstances. Both how long you spend learning something and how long it is since you learned it if you do not keep it up are though going to be factors.

I agree that the Russian alphabet is by no means the hurdle some people think it. My point is though that the very fact it is written in a different alphabet leads people to think it is difficult. As for Polish, to the casual observer it looks like it has five consonants for every vowel. That gives the impression that it is unpronounceable and therefore difficult. What happens with certain languages (we can add Hungarian, Finnish and Basque to the list) is that non-native speakers declare them to be difficult or complex. Native speakers not only believe it, but take pride in having a language foreigners have trouble getting to grips with because it has a different game plan which requires a new way of looking at things.

Ancient Roman and Greek grammarians wrote grammars for Latin and Greek which were fine for Latin and Greek. When European grammarians started to write grammars for modern Indo-European languages they used the ancient models. The fit (as for English) was near enough but required banging a few square pegs into round holes. When they turmed to non-Indo-European languages the models were wholly inadequate. Because the languages failed to follow what were considered inviolable or ideal rules they were declared over-complicated or illogical. Grammars were written with numerous tables setting out paradigms because that is what grammars did. However, the tables were wholly artificial because what they did was set out the permutations which agglutinative languages allow. It was like having tables for French which run Je ne le vois pas, tu ne le vois pas etc and Je ne la vois pas, tu ne la vois pas etc. That made the languages look horrendously complicated when in fact the forms could be constructed following rules as straightforward as those required for forming the French examples above.

Every person's knowledge of a language reflects their experience and a native speaker's experience will be signifcantly different from those who have acquired the language even if they have native-like fluency. Native speakers do not of course all have the same experience and some may not be at ease with all its registers . It is not easy to separate out all the elements of language, but, for the purpose of a thread like this where languages are being compared, you have to assume a level involving control of all the elements of the language, but not mastery of all its registers. I suggest that for any language something like 100 hours of instruction from a good teacher and 200 hours of private study should produce the same level of competence. Observation suggests that children achieve significant control at around the same age whatever the language being acquired.

I would rephrase: "You have to know everything to say anything" as: "The learning of some languages is front-end loaded." If a language has conjugations and/or declensions you have to know them to speak correctly. By contrast, a highly analytical isolating language may on first encounter appear straightforward, but as it says in the introduction to my copy of Teach Yourself Malay:: "Malay is an easy language. Bafflingly easy. At the end of ten weeks you may feel that you know all that you need to know. At the end of ten years, you know you never will."

 

[Awwal12]

Whilst not completely on a par, Spanish can be said to have something approaching the same difficulty for learners because for a large number of verbs the first person singular indicative, and accordingly the form of the present subjunctive, is unpredictable from the infinitive.

But in Russian (and in Slavic languages in general) it's a generic feature which exists entirely independently of the aspects. Having different verbal stems for present/imperative and past/infinitive forms is quite common (bra-l - ber-ú, kra-l - krad-ú, spa-l - spl'-ú, vorová-l - vorúy-u, etc.). Sometimes, on the other hand, the stems for imperative and present indicative forms are different (davá-l - day-ú - davá-y). Of course there are certain patterns in that, but the element of unpredictability is considerable.

Having different forms for the perfective and imperfective does not double the complexity of the verbal system, it just means you have to know two words instead of one.

But you also need to learn their usage, as much as you need to learn the usage of the English tenses (not only how they are formed). There are syntax and semantics behind that, it's not just some pieces of morphology. If it were only about learning 2 different forms every time, English speakers would have little problems with the Slavic aspects. In fact, they have a lot, because first they have to grasp the basic idea of perfective and imperfective activities on the semantic plane, and then they get stuck in numerous grammatical nuances which can (and very often do) contextually change the meaning in pretty unpredictable ways. Of course, Russian speakers learning English have their share of similar problems.

 

[jasio]

Having different forms for the perfective and imperfective does not double the complexity of the verbal system, it just means you have to know two words instead of one. Whilst not completely on a par, Spanish can be said to have something approaching the same difficulty for learners because for a large number of verbs the first person singular indicative, and accordingly the form of the present subjunctive, is unpredictable from the infinitive. Apart from that, the future or preterite of some forms is not predictable from the infinitive. If you add in that there are far more tenses in Spanish than Russian you have difficulty saying which overall has the more complex verbal system.

Don't take it personal, but considering your earlier statement:

I am not sure I ever quite got to grips with the perfective/imperfective thing

I have an impression that you may underestimate the issues related to correct usage of the Slavic aspect. Of course, it's possible that you in fact mastered it. But I've had opportunities to talk to foreign Polish learners from the Western countries, and I cannot recall anyone, who would be fully correct in this area - even in quite simple conversations.

In fact, a foreign pronunciation of your mothertongue is something you can cope with very easy, but using wrong words - and this includes wrong aspect - requires you to slow down and rething what the person may really have in mind. Besides, despite irregularities which @Avval12 mentioned, with every single word you're using, you may have to decide whether to use a perfective word or an imperfective word. In some situations it's quite algorythmic (like in the present tense or in case of sequence of tenses and the only difficulty is to bind the aspectual pair correctly), but for example in the future tense you have to decide whether to use a simple future or compound future (which is solely based on the verbal aspect), so messing the aspect stands out a lot. Besides, some prefixes tend to convert the verb and imperfective into perfective, but depending on the specific verb, it either retains the basic meaning of the verb, or it also changes it. And it has to be memorised. For example (in Polish - but if you recall your Russian, it's quite similar) "przeczytać" means exactly the same as "czytać" (to read) except for the aspect, ie. "to complete the reading". But "przepisać" means something quite different than "pisać" (to write) - namely "to rewrite" or "to prescribe" and "przejeść" means something entirely different than "jeść" (to eat), namely "to spend money on current needs, such as food". Besides, is "podjeżdżam" in the same tense as "podsłucham"? Is "podsłuchuję" in the same tense as "podjeżdżam"? And what about "podsłucham"?

What happens with certain languages (we can add Hungarian, Finnish and Basque to the list) is that non-native speakers declare them to be difficult or complex. Native speakers not only believe it, but take pride in having a language foreigners have trouble getting to grips with because it has a different game plan which requires a new way of looking at things.

Why shouldn't we question it? After all, how can you have a clue whether your mothertongue is difficult or not, if you have more exposure to it before you even go to school than an average foreign learner will have during their whole life. (ok... it may not be quite true for English ). And indeed, Polish native speakers typically claim that the most difficult area for the foreign learners would be pronunciation (which is an issue, but normally it doesn't disturb the conversation) and spelling (which is not 100% phonetic, but still it's peanuts compared to English or French), while entirely disregard the problem with irregularities of inflection or verbal aspect. We even recognise cases or aspects in entirely different ways than the foreigners do, because we leverage vast experience and elements of the school education, while they have to use their tables.

However, the tables were wholly artificial because what they did was set out the permutations which agglutinative languages allow.

Exactly!
Some indoeuropean concepts simply do not make sense when agglutination comes into play.

I suggest that for any language something like 100 hours of instruction from a good teacher and 200 hours of private study should produce the same level of competence.

Years ago I read an article of a person who had learnt Japanese in Japan. Tha author stated that after a year his teacher had not praised his progress, but had said 'now I begin to understand, what you're trying to say' instead. And indeed, a friend of mine, bilinguial Polish-Hungarian, recorded that when he started learning Japanese in an international group, he was way ahead of the others because of his agglutination background. So although I cannot judge for lack of personal experience, my gut feeling is that your statement may be overoptymistic. Unless you equal only in-the-class hours, not the home work, which may be different.

Observation suggests that children achieve significant control at around the same age whatever the language being acquired.

Considering a number of hours the children spend on acquiring their mothertongues, I would expect that it's a result of similarities of the human brain development rather than an evidence of inherent similarities of the languages themselves.

I would rephrase: "You have to know everything to say anything" as: "The learning of some languages is front-end loaded." If a language has conjugations and/or declensions you have to know them to speak correctly. By contrast, a highly analytical isolating language may on first encounter appear straightforward, but as it says in the introduction to my copy of Teach Yourself Malay:: "Malay is an easy language. Bafflingly easy. At the end of ten weeks you may feel that you know all that you need to know. At the end of ten years, you know you never will."

There's something in it. After all, after several decades of learning Polish, I still discover new phenomena in the language. Albeit after this time typically they are either new words, which I have never encountered, or new observations based on similarities or differences from the other languages. But still, learning a language - even if it's your mothertongue - it's a never ending story.

 

[Awwal12]

For example (in Polish - but if you recall your Russian, it's quite similar) "przeczytać" means exactly the same as "czytać" (to read) except for the aspect

I wouldn't actually say so. "Читать" is an activity of an inherently prolonged, continuous manner, which you can split into several pieces (hence the possible iterative usage) but cannot precisely pinpoint in time. If we say that someone "читал" (was reading) at 12:00, we merely state that he was reading at that moment - as well as right before that and just afterwards; we narrow the focus of our attention but not the activity itself (which then consumes the focus).

Perfective verbs, on the other hand, essentially denote singular events by default (with some possible semantic extensions, like the perfect usages, but in the nutshell it's so). And you cannot make an event out of the process of reading without adding something to the semantics. So you do: "прочитать" denotes the event when you finish something reading - it's a resultative (unlike the English perfects, it doesn't relate the result to some other particular point in time, but merely states its abstract existence; that is, the very moment of the activity separates the states of not having read and having read something). However, since perfective verbs may denote only singular events and obviously resultatives may be iterative, we need to derive another imperfective verb - "прочитывать", exactly for that case. Here we can truly say that "прочитать" and "прочитывать" are different only because of the aspect.

But, obviously, verbs are different, refer to very different kinds of activities, so the example above cannot describe the multitude of possible relationships.

 

[Awwal12]

...So as I said: one has to learn the usage of Russian aspects just as he learns the usage of English tenses. One may even get the idea of aspects, but how can he deduce what he should use when he wants someone to jump off - "прыгай" or "прыгни"? The logic seemingly requires the second, perfective variant, but in reality it would only mean "make a jump (up into the air, and land back on your feet)" in that context, while a Russian native speaker would say exactly "прыгай", i.e. "be jumping" (literally), and that can only be learned.

P.S.: And the lexical nature of the aspects causes problems even to Slavic speakers when they begin to learn other Slavic languages. So, I used to know a Polish linguist who was very fluent in Russian. Once in the heat of a pretty non-linguistic discussion he tried to say "to give a tumble" in Russian. Ok, "to fuck" in Russian is "ебать" (much like in Polish), which is a typical basic imperfective verb of repetative activity, and he also had heard the verb "ёбнуть", which should make a singular act out of it... Except our friend didn't know that "ёбнуть" unexpectedly has only one meaning: "to hit hard (with something)", and he should have used the prefixed perfective derivate "выебать" (lit. ~"to fuck out") instead. Given his general fluency in Russian, we were caught unprepared by such outspoken propositions of violence towards women from him. It took quite a while to sort it all out.

 

[jasio]

For example (in Polish - but if you recall your Russian, it's quite similar) "przeczytać" means exactly the same as "czytać" (to read) except for the aspect, ie. "to complete the reading".

I wouldn't actually say so. "Читать" is an activity of an inherently prolonged, continuous manner, which you can split into several pieces (hence the possible iterative usage) but cannot precisely pinpoint in time.(...) Perfective verbs, on the other hand, essentially denote singular events by default.

Did I forgot to place a remark "except for the aspect"? This is the only difference between the words which you pointed out.
Besides, apparently, writing a post rather than a novel I was not clear enough, because my objective in that paragraph was to demonstrate that with regards to the aspect, you cannot deduce too much from the composition of the word alone - unlike in case of the inflection. And the same prefix may have entirely different results depending on the word it's attached to.

 

[jasio]

...So as I said: one has to learn the usage of Russian aspects just as he learns the usage of English tenses.

I have an impression that the English tenses function a way more regularly than the aspects.

If you have an infinitive - and in case of irregular verbs you have also memorized the 2nd and the 3rd form of the verb - you can easily re-create the whole table of tenses from scratch. So what's left to learn - is only the usage principles. With the Slavic aspect however, you have to understand which of the numerous similar verbs (if any, because, as you pointed out, the aspect is a lexical feature, not an inflection) make a perfect aspectual pair with the verb in question - and you have to know it for every single verb separately. And though indeed there are grammatical tools which can make an imperfective verb perfective or the other way 'round, you still have to remember which of the multitude of available prefixes and infixes only change the aspect, and which do also change the basic meaning - per verb, again.

Actiually, you may think of it as of phrasal verbs in which the prepositions simultanously serve as auxiliary words to change the tense or mood, on a random basis.

Of course it does not mean that you cannot learn it. If I could do it, and awwal could do it, everybody can do it*). It's only somewhat harder.


*) I'm cheeting here, of course. Almost everybody is capable of learning their mothertongue regardless of its complexity - which is not necessarily the case for L2 learners.Perhaps this is why the crealisation happens in the first case.

 

[Awwal12]

Did I forgot to place a remark "except for the aspect"? This is the only difference between the words which you pointed out.

I don't think so. Resultativeness is not an inherent property of the perfective aspect. What is the fundamental difference between, say, "спеть" (perfective resultative) and "запеть" (perfective inchoative) when they are compared to "петь"?

 

[jasio]

I don't think so. Resultativeness is not an inherent property of the perfective aspect. What is the fundamental difference between, say, "спеть" (perfective resultative) and "запеть" (perfective inchoative) when they are compared to "петь"?

Thanks for the clarification.
Indeed, it seems that in Polish it works a bit different. I must do some more reading about it.

 

[Assiduous student]

In my view, English is harder than many people appreciate. As someone said, English is not frontloaded. You can say "two tall boys" with only the bare knowledge that the plural requires -s. In Russian it is два высоких мальчика. You need to pick the correct numeral to go with a masculine noun. You need to know that after "2" the adjective goes in the genitive plural and the noun in the genitive singular. And bear in mind that if the whole phrase is in an oblique case, then all these words would be in that case instead: рядом с двумя высокими мальчиками.

So you can make a start on basic sentences in English more or less from day one. English is an intensively studied language the world over, and so there are foreigners who speak perfect or very nearly perfective English. They are often Scandinavians or from some other country that has generalised English-language education from an early age. Even so, the number of foreigners who wouldn't stumble over "how long will you have been doing that by then?" is quite low. Use of phrasal verbs can often be wrong. When I worked as a subeditor, I found that even English native speakers were generally hazy on the use of prepositions. And the tendency of foreigners to restrict themselves to phrases that are correct but are chosen by them because they mirror their own languages can produce a kind of "verbal mannerism" in some foreigners.

I lived with some German girls once, and they would often say "it's not so big", "it's not so good", "it's not so long", and after a while it grated. Because I say "it's not that good". Both are correct, but whereas English people might say "not that good" 70% of the time and "not so good" 30% of the time, in the mouth of German learners these proportions become 0% and 100%. So to really master an unmarked use of English takes longer than most learners realise. It's also evident that learners often/usually overestimate their English fluency, and start speaking poorly accented English faster than can be easily understood. Some of them don't know they have an accent or that they are hard to understand.

 

[Ben Jamin]

It wouldn't be complex by itself weren't the very cathegory of definiteness arbitrary enough. I often get the feeling that the native speakers just have made some secret agreement behind our backs about definiteness of every possible kind of noun groups. And as if it wasn't enough, encoding of definiteness in English is very complex by itself (the tripartite system of articles with a long, long list of specific cases and possible border situations again).

Speakers of languages without articles are often ridiculed by English speakers for not using the articles correctly: "How cannot one understand that you just use the definite article about an object that has already been introduced, and an indefinite one for an object that hasn't been introduced". It is nonsense of course, the rules for using articles are very complex in English, in addition they also comprise a "no article" article. Actually there are no two "article" languages that have the same rule. An Italian or a Greek will have the same problems as a Russian or a Pole.
For Slavic speakers the use of imperfective and perfective verbs is simple, and it is relatively simple for a Spaniard.
Actually all languages are equally difficult if you want to obtain a high level of fluency, as more than 50% of the necessary knowledge concerns (the?) idiomatic use of the language, registers, dialects and slangs.

 

[Assiduous student]

Speakers of languages without articles are often ridiculed by English speakers for not using the articles correctly: "How cannot one understand that you just use the definite article about an object that has already been introduced, and an indefinite one for an object that hasn't been introduced". It is nonsense of course, the rules for using articles are very complex in English, in addition they also comprise a "no article" article. Actually there are no two "article" languages that have the same rule. An Italian or a Greek will have the same problems as a Russian or a Pole.
For Slavic speakers the use of imperfective and perfective verbs is simple, and it is relatively simple for a Spaniard.
Actually all languages are equally difficult if you want to obtain a high level of fluency, as more than 50% of the necessary knowledge concerns (the?) idiomatic use of the language, registers, dialects and slangs.

I don't approve of mocking foreigners for making mistakes, but it seems to me that many Russians appear to believe that articles are optional in English and make only a random stab at using them correctly. If someone speaks English really badly, then you wouldn't expect correct article usage. But you often encounter people who speak English apparently fluently, apart from the fact that the articles are all left out. And it is that incongruence that surprises native speakers.

I agree the rules on article use can be complicated. And they also vary between English dialects! When Americans say "grandma is in the hospital", we say "in hospital", genericising the noun. Where we say "in the summer", they say "in summer". [I'm not suggesting 100% of speakers of either dialect have a uniform approach to such things. I'm just illustrating the variation that does exist among native speakers.]

Unfortunately, it is not true - it is laughably untrue - to say that all languages are equally difficult. The degree to which this is so partly depends on what language you're starting from. But Russian is simply very complicated. Chinese is not particularly complicated, but the large number of homophones, the tones and the characters all make it a hard language. Some languages are hard even for native speakers.

By the way, "slangs" is not correct. Slang is uncountable. L2 speakers in America say "slangs", but the Americans on this forum agree that "slangs" is not correct in any form of English. See slang vs. slangs You can say "slang expressions" if you need a plural.

 

[jasio]

Actually there are no two "article" languages that have the same rule. An Italian or a Greek will have the same problems as a Russian or a Pole.

Even though specific rules may differ, the Italians, Greeks - as well as the Spanish, Germans, French, etc. - at least have general concepts of an article and definitiveness internalised. Even though they may make mistakes from time to time, they are probably correct most of the time. For an Italian it's obvious that 'la macchina' most of the time is 'the car'. So is for a German with "das Auto". However the Russians, the Poles, the Czechs, the Slovaks - we simply tend to omit the articles because there's nothing like that aside of 'samochód' or 'машина', and it just stands out like hell. Even for me, an L2 English speaker.

Actually all languages are equally difficult if you want to obtain a high level of fluency, as more than 50% of the necessary knowledge concerns (the?) idiomatic use of the language, registers, dialects and slangs.

Unfortunately, it is not true - it is laughably untrue - to say that all languages are equally difficult.

To me, both statements are equally illogical. You may not say that one thing is equal to another just because you're unable to measure them objectively. For the same reason, you may not say that they are not equal - apart from a mere observation that it's not very likely for thousands of natural languages, etnolects and idiolects to have exactly the same level of complexity. Humans are not fundamentally equal, equally intelligent nor equally knowledgeable, so why should their languages be?

 

[Red Arrow]

However the Russians, the Poles, the Czechs, the Slovaks - we simply tend to omit the articles because there's nothing like that aside of 'samochód' or 'машина', and it just stands out like hell. Even for me, an L2 English speaker.

These posts from 2009 and 2013 might be of interest:

Czech officially doesn't have articles, either, but I keep hearing the demonstratives ten, to, ta everywhere to exhaustion that I think we could (at least tentatively) say that Czech does have articles after all.

As you probably know, except for Bulgarian and Macedonian, no standard Slavic language uses definite article regularly. Lately, however, I have often observed in Czech, that many people, including educated speakers in very formal speech, overuse demonstrative pronouns ("ten, ta, to, ti, ty, ta") in a way very close to the definite article.

E. g.: Všechny ty knihy jsou o tom životě těch lidí za té války.
(All the books are about the life of the people during the war.)

None of these pronouns is used reasonably - all of them are mere articles. I think it was not used before nineties.

What about other Slavic languages? Is there any similar tendency?

Thanks for answers.

 

[jasio]

These posts from 2009 and 2013 might be of interest:

Thank you.

I can't tell about the Czech language, but a similar phenomenon in Polish has an emphatic meaning only, and its development to true definite articles is yet to possibly come. Besides, when I browsed through a few articles in Czech on Wikipedia, I didn't find any traces of this phenomenon. Perhaps as of now it's not as common as described, is limited to a spoken language or to some specific groups within the society. Or still is treated as a slangish novelty, not yet fully grounded in the language.

 

[jazyk]

It is not used in writing, unless it is writing that reflects people's speech.

 

[Hulalessar]

To me, both statements are equally illogical. You may not say that one thing is equal to another just because you're unable to measure them objectively. For the same reason, you may not say that they are not equal - apart from a mere observation that it's not very likely for thousands of natural languages, etnolects and idiolects to have exactly the same level of complexity. Humans are not fundamentally equal, equally intelligent nor equally knowledgeable, so why should their languages be?

Saying that "Actually all languages are equally difficult if you want to obtain a high level of fluency" acknowledges that a native speaker's language reflects his experience. A non-native may have an excellent command of the language, but he may only operate like or nearly like a native in restricted spheres. My Spanish is not excellent, but it is fairly good. I have though never worked with native Spanish speakers or lived with a Spanish speaking family. A lot of what I say may be perfectly good Spanish, but I do not speak the way native Spanish speakers speak when they are relaxed with family or friends. I read books in Spanish on linguistics and philosophy, but have a hard time making sense of comics.

Whether a language is difficult depends on who is learning it. A Spanish speaker is going to find Italian easier going than Russian. However, there is still a lot of learning to do. I have an Italian grammar written in Spanish. At various intervals it says either "like in Spanish..." or "unlike in Spanish" which is helpful. The point is though that a Spanish speaker cannot predict when something is going to be the same - he has to learn what it is. He can understand quite a lot without being told, but that does not mean he could have said what he understood.

No one says that all languages are exactly equal in complexity. So far as most of those with sufficient expertise who have considered the question are concerned it seems likely that they are more or less equal in complexity so as to make no significant difference. Even if linguists agreed on a method of comparison actually comparing all the languages in the world would be a monumental task. Joseph Greenberg did devise a method of comparing morphological complexity. Using the method Basque and Spanish were compared and found to be equally complex, though complex in different areas. The conclusion may surprise some as Basque has the reputation of being highly complex - there is the legend that the Devil tried to learn it and gave up.

It is of course the case that different individuals have different skills and knowledge, but that is not the same thing as saying that any group speaking a given language has less potential than another. Whilst building a nuclear power station is more complex than building a hut the grammar required to explain how to build the former is not more complex than the grammar required to explain how to build the latter. In the same way, the grammar of languages spoken by less technologically advanced societies is just as complex as that of languages spoken by the more technologically advanced societies. Language was fully fledged before the advent of highly organised societies.

Language needs a minimum amount of complexity so that humans can say the things humans want to say. Language also cannot be too complicated for children to learn it at a young age. Accordingly, all languages are pitched at just the right level and the level is going to be the same for every language.

 

[Red Arrow]

Does anyone know anything that's complex in Dutch but simple in German? German plural forms, verb tenses, noun declension and adjective declension are all more complex.

 

[Stoggler]

Does anyone know anything that's complex in Dutch but simple in German? German plural forms, verb tenses, noun declension and adjective declension are all more complex.

Pronunciation. It’s the only thing I would say (having studied both languages) that I would say was (relatively) easier in German than in Dutch. Not that Dutch is particularly difficult to pronounce.

 

[jasio]

Saying that "Actually all languages are equally difficult if you want to obtain a high level of fluency" acknowledges that a native speaker's language reflects his experience.

I must improve my English then, because to me the two phrases have entirely different meanings.
BTW - If I'm a poor immigrant from a peasant country, a chance that I would suddenly start speaking a local legalese just because it's not my mother-tongue is probably close to zero, so an L2 speaker's language also reflects their experience. This makes the latter part of the claim above null and void.

Whether a language is difficult depends on who is learning it. A Spanish speaker is going to find Italian easier going than Russian.

Haven't we been discussing it since the very beginning of this thread?

No one says that all languages are exactly equal in complexity. So far as most of those with sufficient expertise who have considered the question are concerned it seems likely that they are more or less equal in complexity so as to make no significant difference.

That's again something different, but let's stick to it for the sake of the conversation.

Even if linguists agreed on a method of comparison actually comparing all the languages in the world would be a monumental task.

Noone said, it wouldn't. Of course, IF the linguists agreed on the method of comparing complexity of languages. And IF they agreed on what is and what is not a language in the first place. The latter case is also still open as far as I am aware - and without settling it we'll never be sure if we're comparing apples to apples.

It is of course the case that different individuals have different skills and knowledge, but that is not the same thing as saying that any group speaking a given language has less potential than another.

Potential is not the same as capability. There's no reason for a language to reflect a mere potential if it's never going to materialise.

Whilst building a nuclear power station is more complex than building a hut the grammar required to explain how to build the former is not more complex than the grammar required to explain how to build the latter. In the same way, the grammar of languages spoken by less technologically advanced societies is just as complex as that of languages spoken by the more technologically advanced societies.

Someone tried to convince me earlier in this thread that vocabulary contributes to an overall complexity of the language, so the grammar is not the sole source of complexity of the language. Besides, besides, building a nuclear power plant is not just laying bricks. You need to have a language - including the grammar - which is precise enough to clearly describe what your're doing, what for, prepare and sign the contracts, manage people, etc. For that you require not only vocabulary, but also grammar and stylistic structures which will allow you to express yourself precisely enough.

Language was fully fledged before the advent of highly organised societies.

And the hunters-gatherers were speaking legalese? Besides, if a language would include all the features it needs from the very beginning, loan-words and cliches would not be needed, because they would already be there readily available, would they?

Language needs a minimum amount of complexity so that humans can say the things humans want to say. Language also cannot be too complicated for children to learn it at a young age.

Considering a pace the young Chinese and Japanese learn to write, I would call it quite a bold statement.

Accordingly, all languages are pitched at just the right level and the level is going to be the same for every language.

Any evidence for that, apart from a mere faith in an inherent equality of humans?

If we're both tall enough to pick fruit, it does not yet mean that we're equally high. After all, one of us may pick walnuts, while the other - grapes.

 

[Red Arrow]

Pronunciation. It’s the only thing I would say (having studied both languages) that I would say was (relatively) easier in German than in Dutch. Not that Dutch is particularly difficult to pronounce.

But I don't think Dutch is harder to pronounce for Dutch children than German is for German children. I was responding to this:

Language needs a minimum amount of complexity so that humans can say the things humans want to say. Language also cannot be too complicated for children to learn it at a young age. Accordingly, all languages are pitched at just the right level and the level is going to be the same for every language.

The first two sentences are correct, but the third doesn't work for German and Dutch, as far as I can tell.

 

[jasio]

Saying that "Actually all languages are equally difficult if you want to obtain a high level of fluency" acknowledges that a native speaker's language reflects his experience.

I have a second thought that it's even more complex.
If anything reflects your experience it's not your 1st language, but the language of your education and instruction. This is especially true for multinational countries in which your first language - like Nenets or Navajo - not necessarily is the language of your education and command (Russian and English respectively in this a example).

 

[Ben Jamin]

Even though specific rules may differ, the Italians, Greeks - as well as the Spanish, Germans, French, etc. - at least have general concepts of an article and definitiveness internalised. Even though they may make mistakes from time to time, they are probably correct most of the time. For an Italian it's obvious that 'la macchina' most of the time is 'the car'. So is for a German with "das Auto". However the Russians, the Poles, the Czechs, the Slovaks - we simply tend to omit the articles because there's nothing like that aside of 'samochód' or 'машина', and it just stands out like hell. Even for me, an L2 English speaker.

You overestimate the difficulty of understanding the basic concept of definiteness/indefiniteness. It can be understood by an average student of an "articled" language in a few days, and internalized in, at worst, a couple of years. For most advanced students of English this is not a problem, if good teaching techniques are used, and if the student is not a linguistic moron. The problem is the idiomatic use of the articles, which will be equally difficult if your mother tongue has articles or not. I have been living in Norway for decades, and I have experienced that Norwegians also have difficulties with advanced use of articles, even if their own language uses articles.

 

[Ben Jamin]

"To me, both statements are equally illogical. You may not say that one thing is equal to another just because you're unable to measure them objectively. For the same reason, you may not say that they are not equal - apart from a mere observation that it's not very likely for thousands of natural languages, etnolects and idiolects to have exactly the same level of complexity. Humans are not fundamentally equal, equally intelligent nor equally knowledgeable, so why should their languages be?"

You mean perhaps that both statements are equally untrue for you, but "illogical"? What logical deviations did you find?
The claim that all languages are equally difficult if all aspects are considered is not a loose statement. It has been postulated by many linguists.

 

[Ben Jamin]

Saying that "Actually all languages are equally difficult if you want to obtain a high level of fluency" acknowledges that a native speaker's language reflects his experience. A non-native may have an excellent command of the language, but he may only operate like or nearly like a native in restricted spheres. My Spanish is not excellent, but it is fairly good. I have though never worked with native Spanish speakers or lived with a Spanish speaking family. A lot of what I say may be perfectly good Spanish, but I do not speak the way native Spanish speakers speak when they are relaxed with family or friends. I read books in Spanish on linguistics and philosophy, but have a hard time making sense of comics.

Whether a language is difficult depends on who is learning it. A Spanish speaker is going to find Italian easier going than Russian. However, there is still a lot of learning to do. I have an Italian grammar written in Spanish. At various intervals it says either "like in Spanish..." or "unlike in Spanish" which is helpful. The point is though that a Spanish speaker cannot predict when something is going to be the same - he has to learn what it is. He can understand quite a lot without being told, but that does not mean he could have said what he understood.

No one says that all languages are exactly equal in complexity. So far as most of those with sufficient expertise who have considered the question are concerned it seems likely that they are more or less equal in complexity so as to make no significant difference. Even if linguists agreed on a method of comparison actually comparing all the languages in the world would be a monumental task. Joseph Greenberg did devise a method of comparing morphological complexity. Using the method Basque and Spanish were compared and found to be equally complex, though complex in different areas. The conclusion may surprise some as Basque has the reputation of being highly complex - there is the legend that the Devil tried to learn it and gave up.

It is of course the case that different individuals have different skills and knowledge, but that is not the same thing as saying that any group speaking a given language has less potential than another. Whilst building a nuclear power station is more complex than building a hut the grammar required to explain how to build the former is not more complex than the grammar required to explain how to build the latter. In the same way, the grammar of languages spoken by less technologically advanced societies is just as complex as that of languages spoken by the more technologically advanced societies. Language was fully fledged before the advent of highly organised societies.

Language needs a minimum amount of complexity so that humans can say the things humans want to say. Language also cannot be too complicated for children to learn it at a young age. Accordingly, all languages are pitched at just the right level and the level is going to be the same for every language.

You emphasize too much the morphological complexity and underestimate the amount of information you have to internalize if you want to speak and write like a native.