tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5295301889896327609.post7575628662954524009..comments2023-06-05T08:09:50.225-07:00Comments on Erika America Goes Abroad: Divided by Partition, United by Language?Erika Americahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10678359741810637133noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5295301889896327609.post-55568231262997860732009-02-22T16:58:00.000-08:002009-02-22T16:58:00.000-08:00I think language transparency is something that sh...I think language transparency is something that should be studied more often. The first language I every studied (besides English!) was Latin, which was very transparent with my English and Spanish, which I took afterward. But because of deep interest, I took Japanese. That was not related in any way to a language I ever studied. It was a new alphabet, a new grammar structure, new EVERYTHING (much like I imagine Arabic is!). A lot of people think that Japanese is at least a little transparent with Chinese, and urge me to study that afterward Japanese, but the reality is that the only things that are even a tiny bit transparent are the symbols themselves. But even that's not useful. For one, a lot of the time, they have completely different meanings. Secondly, they're not read the same way at all. And third, with the dumb move to simplified Chinese, a bunch of the symbols don't even look the same anymore!!! How dumb!!! But I guess there is a glimmer of hope. While in Japan, I heard that Korean has a very similar grammar structure to Japanese, which gives me lots of hope. Hopefully I'll be able to master that!!! But after Japanese, I'm going straight to Italian, which I think will be a vacation compared to Japanese.....<BR/><BR/>Also, I believe that you'll learn these languages!!! You seem way committed, and won't pull a Julia and make an endless promise to learn such-and-such obscure language. YOU CAN DO IT!!!OrangeXenonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17284861122087677927noreply@blogger.com