Esperanto Estas La Plej Facila Lingvo En La Mondo

This about Culture, tagged , , , was written by for , on October 9, 2011 .43 Comments

In the course of my Chinese adventures, all other languages started to seem a lot easier. So needless to say that Esperanto, one of the easiest of them all, looks like just a walk in the park now. In particular, I’m interested in what the glossophiles here think about it, i.e. yalensis and Lazy Glossophiliac. Here […]

More On Learning Chinese

This about Culture, tagged , , was written by for , on August 12, 2011 .21 Comments

So today I finished my intensive Chinese class, which I celebrated by drinking lots of 啤酒 (and silently toasting the heroic oppositionistas struggling against UK bourgeois state tyranny). Here is my third set of observations. 1. Most other languages now look really easy, especially Spanish which I’ve long planned to learn but never really found myself […]

Updates On Learning Chinese

This about Culture, tagged , , was written by for , on July 22, 2011 .32 Comments

It’s been a few weeks since my last post on learning Chinese, so here is new info for anyone interested. 1. In case you missed a late update to the original post: “Because of the simplicity of the grammar, Chinese often feels like slang to speakers used to more formalized languages; i.e. slang such as ebonics. […]

Learning Chinese

This about Culture, tagged , , was written by for , on July 4, 2011 .64 Comments

Seeing as I’m known as a “Sino-triumphalist” anyway why not go the full nine yards and learn the language? That is what I’m doing (c. 300-500 汉字 to date) and here are my thoughts so far. 1. Tones. In stark contrast to every major European language, Chinese pronunciation is based on tones. Four of them: […]

Top 10 Most Useful Languages

This about Culture, tagged , , was written by for on May 1, 2011 .67 Comments

Knowing a second language is a highly desirable trait in today’s world, especially if your work or hobbies have an international focus. But for most people, learning languages is an arduous undertaking, constituting a big investment of intellectual resources. The best advice is to learn something you enjoy or gives you meaning, as by far the biggest […]