Thread 215025835

Why do people act like tonal languages are the hardest to learn when cased languages are way more difficult?

Tones come naturally when you hear the language enough. Case languages like Finnish, Russian, or Hungarian can fuck right off. I'd rather chang chãng cháng chàng chǎng all day than learn a single case.

German doesn't count its baby tier compared to the languages mentioned above.

agglutinative languages you're also shit

bump for language chud

>>215025835 (OP)
Because the cases you can recognize in writing immediately, perhaps checking a grammar manual. You can produce them immediately, but also with difficulty. You don't need teachers, apps or deliberate practice to master them.

Otoh, many learners find themselves unable neither distinguish, nor produce tones at first. Mandarin tones are few and not as bad, but they have hanzi and many homophones, which puts it above Slavic or Finno-Ugric languages in difficulty. Saying that e.g. Cantonese tones come naturally is a stretch.

>>215025884
Agglutination is easy af, but some languages called agglutinative are actually not. Korean verbs for example have a degree of inflection.