When someone say that they are ready to learn a new language, one have to be sure that they are ready to face the complexities one never face when learning the previous languages. This is especially true when the new language you choose is used by society whose culture and conceptualization is very different from the previous.

Different Way of Classification

Language is the way people express what they think. So the way a language being used is going to be affected by how the majority of speakers think. When you have lots enough information to store in your brain, anyone from any culture is going to do the same. They are going to start organizing the information by classifying them. While the motivation that result if classification work is roughly the same, different culture do these classification work differently.

For example, while it is true that most biologists in Japan had adopted modern classification system, the trace of their biology classification system could be found in how their kanji are written. For example in the way the kanji was written, frongs and snakes are considered bugs while in modern system they are part of phylum reptile. Abalone(鮑), alligators(鰐) and whales(鯨) are considered as fishes as they are written with fish-radical.

The Chinese however are among the first cultures to start developing chemistry. If you ever seen a Chinese modern periodic table, you would have no problem telling which element are considered metal, non-metal and gases. Metallic elements like iron(铁), strontium(锶), uranium(铀) and germanium(锗) are written with gold-radicals. Non-metal elements such as sulphur(硫), carbon(碳), silicone(硅), phospate(磷) are written with rock-radicals. Chinese chemist have less problem telling whether an element is a metal or non-metal.

Different Sentence Structure

The way words are arranged into sentences are different for each languages. Indonesian for example put adjective after the noun, while English put adjective before the noun. Sometimes this practice continue among Indonesian who simply didn’t have the chance to learn proper English, but manage to learn the languages from observing what tourists say. We have to give kudos for they who learn this way.

Other language like Japanese have two ways to express passive sentences depending on the feeling exchanged by the action. The passive form for sentence with ill feeling like “I have been mugged” is different from the passive form for sentence with good feeling like “I have been taught something by someone”. For sentence with good feeling, words expressing the gratitude of being the receiver of said action have to be included as well.

Different Cultural Factor

While language teachers who tell their students that certain word in one language have the same meaning with other word in other language are right in their own way, we have to realize that each language may be spoken by society with different culture. Different culture have different rule about when certain word should be used and when it should never be mentioned.

The Chinese word “xie-xie (谢谢)” for example is a synonym of “thank you” in English. However, the way Chinese use “xie-xie” is different from the way Westerners use “thank you”. Chinese never use “xie-xie” when receiving something from family member or close friends. Such use could be considered an act distancing themselves or in some cases outright rude.

In Japan, “ohayou gozaimazu” (good morning) is considered more polite than simply “ohayou” and the concept social hierarchy is quite strong in Japanese society. It is considered impolite to say “ohayou” to your teachers or to someone substantially older than the speaker. From my observation, the Japanese keep carrying this practice even  when the learn to speak Indonesian. Almost no Indonesian I know say “Selamat Pagi” (also mean good morning) even to people substantially older than they are. Most Indonesian simply say “pagi” which is considered more concise and less time consuming. I observe that Japaneses working as expatriate in Indonesia often say “Selamat Pagi”, perhaps because they think it is more polite. For Indonesian both “selamat pagi” and “pagi” are considered equally polite.

Teachers

Unless you happen to have teachers who are themselves linguists, you are going to be taught by new teachers. Language teachers teaching different languages are subject to different cultural exposure. You can expect that your teachers are going to have some bias (usually good) toward the culture speaking the language they are going to teach. These biases are natural since no one is going to learn a languages in depth and detail if they never like the culture speaking said language.

Additionally, each cultures have their own unique approach towards education. The way they teach the language to you is going to be affected. Cultural effect aside, if you want to be good at it you have to learn from different teachers whose teaching methods are going to vary anyway. You have to adapt your learning method to match your teacher’s teaching method.

Never ever think that you can speak a new language only by reading a single book or learning from a single teacher. We don’t even do that when we learn our first language. Linguistic skills can only be developed by constant exchange of semantic with natives language speakers.

My other articles :

• Reasons to Learn Foreign Language
• Playing with Google Translate
• Rule of Linguistic in Learning a New Expertise
• Occasions You Can Celebrate with Sushi
• Effective Way to Add Friends in Triond