Comics!

[Blurry_Dreams]

i just read this

 

[Burkhard]

it's one of the easiest if it's your first language, it's one of the hardest if you are learning it as a second language

It would be interesting to get to know which languages are considered easier (or the easiest) by those who claim English is one of the hardest languages to learn. Out of the five foreign languages I've learned thus far, I found English to be the easiest one - maybe with the exception of Norwegian (Bokmål, to be more precise) -, whereas I found Latin (which was my first - though dead - foreign language at school) as well as French and Spanish definitely more difficult to learn than English. Nowadays, I only practice English and Norwegian and I've forgotten most of what I've learned in Latin, French and Spanish. In English, unlike in German, you don't have to bother about different forms of the verb (with the exception of the 3rd person singular present tense) or different endings of nouns, their preceding definite/indefinite articles as well as adjectives depending on their gender and whether it's nominative, genitive, dative or accusative case.

 

[CiG]

What order did you learn those languages in by the way?

 

[Blurry_Dreams]

It would be interesting to get to know which languages are considered easier (or the easiest) by those who claim English is one of the hardest languages to learn. Out of the five foreign languages I've learned thus far, I found English to be the easiest one - maybe with the exception of Norwegian (Bokmål, to be more precise) -, whereas I found Latin (which was my first - though dead - foreign language at school) as well as French and Spanish definitely more difficult to learn than English. Nowadays, I only practice English and Norwegian and I've forgotten most of what I've learned in Latin, French and Spanish. In English, unlike in German, you don't have to bother about different forms of the verb (with the exception of the 3rd person singular present tense) or different endings of nouns, their preceding definite/indefinite articles as well as adjectives depending on their gender and whether it's nominative, genitive, dative or accusative case.

first there's this

sometimes immigrants learn English in preparation for coming to America
sometimes immigrants are bilingual adults that learned English when they were little kids
but the adult immigrants who don't learn English until after they get here usually have extreme difficulty learning English
and here's why 5 Things That Make English Difficult for Foreigners to Learn | Mental Floss

seriously
if i'm looking face-2-face at a person talking to me in English outloud, i can always, always, tell whether or not English was their mother tongue
sometimes i'll surprise someone by blurting out "what's your first language?" when they think that they're speaking exactly like a native English-speaker

second
the list of which languages are easiest/hardest to learn as a second-language is largely dependent on what your mother tongue is

Portuguese is similar to Spanish
Italian is similar to French
Russian is similar to German
the Asian languages are all kinda similar to each other
Nigerian is similar to the other African languages
Farsi is similar to Arabic

 

[Burkhard]

What order did you learn those languages in by the way?

1. Latin (5th until 10th grade)
2. English (7th until 13th grade)
3. French (9th until 13th grade)
4. Spanish (11th until 13th grade)
5. Norwegian (I started learning it "properly" at an adult education centre 7 years ago, though I already translated some Norwegian lyrics with the help of some dictionaries and after reading a Norwegian textbook for beginners to get a grasp of Norwegian grammar way back in 1997)

if i'm looking face-2-face at a person talking to me in English outloud, i can always, always, tell whether or not English was their mother tongue

You mean you ask each and everyone you're talking to what their first language is? If not, how can you tell that your assumption that English was a person's mother tongue is correct?

sometimes i'll surprise someone by blurting out "what's your first language?" when they think that they're speaking exactly like a native English-speaker

How do you know that they think they are speaking exactly like a native English-speaker? Can you read other people's minds?

the list of which languages are easiest/hardest to learn as a second-language is largely dependent on what your mother tongue is

No objection from my part.

Portuguese is similar to Spanish
Italian is similar to French

All of these four are, as you probably know, Romance languages, thus derived from Latin. So it's no surprise they have some things in common.

Russian is similar to German

That's obviously an "alternative fact", i.e. total and utter rubbish. I wonder what source you got that information from.

the Asian languages are all kinda similar to each other

You mean because of the weird signs several of them use? Seriously, in which parallel universe do you live?

Nigerian is similar to the other African languages

A language called "Nigerian" does not exist, though lots of other different languages. Even if you should have had in mind that the official language in Nigeria is English and that this is also the official language in some other African countries, your statement shows that you have absolutely no clue of what you are talking about.

Farsi is similar to Arabic

OK, they share more or less the same alphabet, but that's about it. The same goes for Finnish and English (apart from the fact that the Finnish alphabet has another 3 letters which the English alphabet does not have) - does that make Finnish and English similar?

 

[TechnicalBarbarity]

"farsi is similar to arabic"

 

[Blurry_Dreams]

You mean you ask each and everyone you're talking to what their first language is? If not, how can you tell that your assumption that English was a person's mother tongue is correct?

what i meant was, that if someone is fluent enough in English, i can catch that English is not their mother tongue quicker than other Americans

How do you know that they think they are speaking exactly like a native English-speaker? Can you read other people's minds?

i'm specifically talking about the specific people who are actually trying super-hard to sound like a native-English-speaker, where they are actually surprised when i notice that English is not their mother-tongue

That's obviously an "alternative fact", i.e. total and utter rubbish. I wonder what source you got that information from.

the phrase "Russian is similar to German" was a quote from a website i was looking at

You mean because of the weird signs several of them use? Seriously, in which parallel universe do you live?

the Asian languages being "similar" thing was a reference to a "language-family-chart" thing i was looking at a few months ago

A language called "Nigerian" does not exist, though lots of other different languages. Even if you should have had in mind that the official language in Nigeria is English and that this is also the official language in some other African countries, your statement shows that you have absolutely no clue of what you are talking about.

the official language of Nigeria even becoming English to begin with has to do with the fact that all the people living in Africa were already multi-lingual right before the British came, there is no "official" Nigerian language because the specific Africans that still today can't speak English are people who each speak 4 or 5 different languages

OK, they share more or less the same alphabet, but that's about it. The same goes for Finnish and English (apart from the fact that the Finnish alphabet has another 3 letters which the English alphabet does not have) - does that make Finnish and English similar?

Arabic and Farsi are similar enough that there are a huge amount of 50-year-old people that speak both Arabic and Farsi without learning English

Finnish is prolly close to Swedish if you were looking at a language-family chart, which i'm too lazy to do right now

 

[Burkhard]

what i meant was, that if someone is fluent enough in English, i can catch that English is not their mother tongue quicker than other Americans

1. Why don't you say what you mean in the first place?
2. What do you mean by "other Americans"? Each and every other American? The majority of Americans? You're so vague. And how can you tell that you are quicker than other Americans at finding out that English is not someone's mother tongue?

the phrase "Russian is similar to German" was a quote from a website i was looking at

Which one? "Foreign for advanced ignorants"?

the Asian languages being "similar" thing was a reference to a "language-family-chart" thing i was looking at a few months ago

the official language of Nigeria even becoming English to begin with has to do with the fact that all the people living in Africa were already multi-lingual right before the British came, there is no "official" Nigerian language because the specific Africans that still today can't speak English are people who each speak 4 or 5 different languages

What kind of drugs does one have to take to come up with such a sentence? If you have got this "information" from a website, please do share the link.

Arabic and Farsi are similar enough that there are a huge amount of 50-year-old people that speak both Arabic and Farsi without learning English

This sentence doesn't make any sense at all. What does the number of 50-year-old people who speak two different languages without learning English have to do with the similarity of the two languages in concern? By the way, while it is at least debatable whether "amount of" should be used in connection with "people", "a huge amount" is still singular, therefore it should be "there is a huge amount of...".

Finnish is prolly close to Swedish if you were looking at a language-family chart, which i'm too lazy to do right now

Is this you, Donald? People who assume this also might believe this.

Seriously, I recommend to check out the CD-booklet of Hedningarna's album "Trä" which contains the lyrics printed in Swedish and Finnish, and then explain what makes you assume that Finnish is "prolly close" to Swedish. In this specific case, even just "looking at" the words should cause serious doubts.

 

[Blurry_Dreams]

What do you mean by "other Americans"? Each and every other American? The majority of Americans?

the specific dumb-ass americans that hang out with me

i was in a hurry when i was writing what i meant was Russian is similar to Ukrainian and German is similar to Dutch

What kind of drugs does one have to take to come up with such a sentence? If you have got this "information" from a website, please do share the link.

the thing about Africans being multilingual came from a language documentary about how Africa has way more languages than any other continent

the thing about Arabic and Farsi being similar was based on the alphabet
the thing about multilingual people in the Middle East that can't speak English was't Arabic and Farsi
i'm getting languages mixed up with each other
Farsi-speaking people would only learn Arabic to read the Koran in Muslim countries

Is this you, Donald? People who assume this also might believe this.

Seriously, I recommend to check out the CD-booklet of Hedningarna's album "Trä" which contains the lyrics printed in Swedish and Finnish, and then explain what makes you assume that Finnish is "prolly close" to Swedish. In this specific case, even just "looking at" the words should cause serious doubts.

i meant Swedish is close to Danish
Finnish is close to Estonian
when i said Finnish is close to Swedish, i was getting the language Finnish mixed up with Danish

 

[Burkhard]

Looks like you have finally done a bit of research, but your excuses "I was in a hurry" and "i'm getting languages mixed up with each other" sound as convincing as "The dog ate my homework".

Now to get this topic back on track, I'd like to continue with a few examples of another one of my favourite Norwegian comic series, which I've already mentioned earlier in this thread, namely Nemi. So far, five books have been published in English and it seems that some English strips are also published on the official facebook-page every once in a while. This is also where the following examples are taken from:

 

[CiG]

I decided to back a comic in the making on Indiegogo called Longharbor, a Lovecraftian ocean horror with nods to The Thing and Alien, conceived of and drawn by a guy who was once a diver for a maritime archaeological company and he got into drawing and sketching because in his job he had to draw images of items they couldn't lift out of the ocean while diving. Went with the basic $30 tier.

Looks pretty damn amazing:

 

[Blurry_Dreams]

Any one here reading super hero comics??

 

[Sophii]

Any one here reading super hero comics??

I was into some spare Punisher and Nomad comics.

 

[Krigloch the Furious]

Read Invincible

 

[Blurry_Dreams]

Read Invincible

I was into some spare Punisher and Nomad comics.

i love Spiderman, Peter Parker's spiderman,
spider-gwen is actually really cool too, but miles morales still feels like a weird SJW, pandering to black people, kinda thing and doc ock in spiderman's body should really been just a "part 1 of 8" "part 2 of 8" "part 3 of 8" kinda thing where part 1 doc ock takes over peter's body and part 8 peter gets his body back
making Superior Spiderman way the fuck longer than that just made it weird

 

[CiG]

Isn't the Spider-Gwen stuff where they put Peter Parker in a "this is what a feminist looks like" shirt?

 

[Blurry_Dreams]

Isn't the Spider-Gwen stuff where they put Peter Parker in a "this is what a feminist looks like" shirt?

yeah kinda sorta
but it's still better than the pandering to black people thing that they did with miles morales

 

[CiG]

yeah kinda sorta
but it's still better than the pandering to black people thing that they did with miles morales

I don't mind what I've read of the Miles Morales stuff, I don't mind ethnic pandering which is usually just that the stories come more from the black experience, as opposed to the political pandering in the Gwen Stacy material.

 

[Blurry_Dreams]

ehh
i can see your point i guess
the miles morales stuff just kinda looked weird at first
and, maybe this sounds racist a little, but to me, the whole trying-to-get-black-people-to-read-superheros thing is just more annoying than the getting-girls-to-read-superheros thing

 

[CiG]

The latter is more annoying to me because the writers' ideas for attracting more females to comic books are all political, rather than just writing stories from a bunch of different female experiences they instead write repetitive feminist propaganda and assume this will by default attract all females. It's utterly shallow and also alienating to any person who isn't gung-ho into the feminist ideology.

The black experience by comparison is something that can be both enlightening in detail but also universal broadly speaking.