Newsgroups: sci.lang
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!rochester!udel!gatech!howland.reston.ans.net!spool.mu.edu!news.cs.indiana.edu!nstn.ns.ca!dragon.acadiau.ca!dragon.acadiau.ca!alan
From: alan@dragon.acadiau.ca (Alan McKay)
Subject: Re: Hard Languages
Message-ID: <1995Oct5.162208.13185@relay.acadiau.ca>
Sender: news@relay.acadiau.ca
Nntp-Posting-Host: dragon.acadiau.ca
Organization: Acadia University
References: <1742713B40.C1737016@UMSLVMA.UMSL.EDU>
Date: Thu, 5 Oct 1995 16:22:08 GMT
Lines: 22

C1737016@UMSLVMA.UMSL.EDU writes:

>An afterthought: It seems reasonable to assume that it would usually be
>harder to learn a second language if that langauge is from a different
>family than one's first language, than it it would be to learn a second
>language from the same family as one's first language. Therefore, a more
>interesting question results if we replace " 'language X' " ('Y', etc.) in my
>original question with 'language-family X'

I disagree.  I found Russian a lot easier to learn than German simply
because it was so different.  Even the different alphabet helped, because
it pointed out to me at every step that this is not english.  With german
I was always temped to read the words like in english, and was tricked
into thinking it was english.  But russian was so different that it
helped me learn it better.

-Alan

-- 
     If you tied buttered toast to the back of a cat and dropped it
                 from a height, what would happen?
http://www.acadiau.ca/cc/alan/
