Comparative Issues When People Understand Spanish
English speakers, like Chinese speakers, have difficulties when it comes to learning another language. This is because they have a language which is adequate for all their needs, and are surrounded by people who speak the same language as they do. As a general rule Chinese and English speakers tend to speak their own language louder when they are not understood. However, if a person knows Chinese and English he may decide to spanish for fun too. He will then know the three most used languages in the world.
Spanish is one of a family of languages that are descended from Latin and known as romance languages. French, Italian and Portuguese are also romance languages. English has also been heavily influenced by Latin but belongs to the Germanic family. But both are inflected languages. By using a languages course it could be quite easy to learn a new language that is relatively close to your own.
Inflection means that words change their meaning with the addition of small bits like s’ or ‘ed’. These morphemes have grammatical and semantic significance. Although they are not complete words themselves they do change the meaning of the word that they are fixed to. The English learner should have an easier time than the Chinese learner who does not come from a background of inflections.
Whereas the English learner would bring some understanding of inflection to the task, the Chinese learner would be in less familiar territory. Chinese is a tonal language and the meaning of words is determined by up, down, neutral, flat or tones. The absence of these tones might seem strange to a Chinese learner as would be the presence of the Latinate inflections.
There are many words derived from Latin in all romance languages. The English speaker will recognize many of these because there also many words in English that are derived from Latin. However, The Chinese speaker will not have this advantage.
Moreover, the Chinese speaker will have been making sounds that are quite foreign to any European language since infancy. Pronunciation of some sounds will be difficult for him. The speed at which speakers use their fast flowing target language will throw up a few difficulties for both learners
The verb ‘to be’ is used in both English and Spanish, but in the latter there are actually two forms of this verb. The verb ‘estar’ is used for more temporary states and ‘ser’ tends to be used for more permanent things. This will be something that might confuse the English learner. To the Chinese learner the whole problem of the verb ‘be’ will be seen in a different light. He will not be inclined to inflect any verbs but will tend to use them in a static way. In English he will tend to say: ‘I go shop’ and not ‘I’m going shopping’.
Writing in Spanish and English uses the same alphabet and basic techniques. Once a certain number of words have been learnt and knowledge has been gained about how to use accents, the English learner should find it quite easy to write in Spanish. However, the Chinese learner will have to start from scratch learning a whole new alphabet that is very different to his native system of characters.
The comparison between the challenges facing English and Chinese people who set out to spanish language class throw into relief the advantages enjoyed by the English learner. His mother tongue has so much in common with Spanish that it should be relatively easy with the help of grammar lessons. However, considering what all Chinese people go through in learning how to read and write their own language, there is no telling how well they may do.
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