Astrology is a valuable tool for understanding one’s personality, strengths, and opportunities for growth. It involves learning about the zodiac signs, planets, houses, and aspects. The zodiac is divided into 12 zodiac signs, each with their general characteristics.
For beginners, it takes about 4 hours for fundamentals, 40 hours for a strong foundation, and 120 hours for mastering astrology. To start learning astrology, learn the basics of astrology for beginners, learn with others, follow horoscopes, and take an advanced course.
Basic astrology takes into account the planets (including the Sun and Moon), the zodiac signs, the houses, and aspects. It takes two to four years to become proficient in astrology, but it may take months or up to a year to feel comfortable giving an hour-long reading.
To master all of astrology’s concepts, set aside at least 15 minutes daily to study astrology and practice some techniques. It is important to remember that everyone grows and evolves over their lifetime, so understanding your personality is crucial.
In summary, studying astrology offers numerous benefits, including understanding one’s personality, strengths, and opportunities for growth. It takes time and consistent practice to become proficient in astrology. It is essential to set aside at least 15 minutes daily to study astrology and practice techniques, as even after a year of study, challenges may still arise.
📹 How To Beat Astrology – Monk Explains How To Overcome Your Chart
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Is astrologer a good career?
Astrologers, consultants, writers, teachers, and software developers can embark on a celestial career journey if they are fascinated by the cosmos and want to make a meaningful impact on others’ lives. With a wealth of knowledge, passion, and ethical practices, they can guide individuals and organizations towards self-awareness, informed decision-making, and harmonious relationships. As the world embraces the transformative power of astrology, their expertise will help others navigate life’s complexities with celestial wisdom and clarity.
What makes you rich in astrology?
Rahu, a shadowy celestial node in Vedic astrology, is known for its ability to bring sudden wealth through unconventional means. It rewards risk-takers and has a volatile nature, making the riches it bestows potentially fleeting. Rahu holds a mysterious and powerful influence, often regarded as the planet that can flip fortunes in the blink of an eye. However, before dreaming of winning the lottery, it’s important to understand how Rahu operates, as it is associated with illusion, pushes boundaries, breaks traditions, and paves the way for sudden wealth.
What do I need to study astrology?
The practice of astrology encompasses the study of astrological texts, the interpretation of zodiac signs, planets, and constellations, and the pursuit of formal education in this field, with a focus on understanding the interconnections between astrology and the zodiac.
How can I learn astrology fast?
To learn astrology, create flashcards, review basics, practice with charts, work with an astrology teacher, attend astrologers’ group meetings, and follow the astrological calendar. Astrology is a symbolic language that describes the subjective human experience with depth and accuracy. Learning planets, signs, and houses is similar to learning a foreign language, a language of symbols rather than words. Start by learning the words and then the pattern that strings them together, gradually improving your fluency in this new language.
Is it hard to learn astrology?
As posited by Ms. Ackerman, the practice of astrology necessitates a certain degree of patience, an affinity for mathematical and logical reasoning, an appreciation for myth and the intricacies of life, and a willingness to adapt to the ever-changing complexities of existence.
Can I learn astrology on my own?
Tracking the moon’s phases and location is a valuable tool for learning about astrology and your chart. The moon changes signs every two to three days, and tracking it can help you identify planets and topics in your chart. Getting a professional astrology reading with someone who resonates with you is also a great way to connect with your chart and transits. Each astrologer has a unique way of relating to and translating astrological concepts, making it a fun and engaging way to learn about astrology.
Is it easy to become an astrologer?
Astrology, a self-taught career path, has been around for millennia, with ancient civilizations developing complex systems for predicting significant events based on celestial bodies. Today, its popularity is fueled by the growing number of astrology books and apps. The discipline enjoys broad cultural acceptance among people of all ages, with 20 percent of American men and over a third of American women believing in it. Astrologers can help individuals facing uncertainty and seeking guidance in their careers or love lives, as they can provide guidance on the next step in their lives.
What is the salary of a professional astrologer?
The mean annual income for astrologers in the United States is $69, 874, with an average bonus of $2, 416, representing 3. 58% of their total remuneration. The highest annual bonus is reported by five individuals, with the highest salary in San Jose, CA, at $137, 958. This figure is 97 times higher than the US average.
Can astrology really work?
Astrology is a belief system that suggests a connection between astronomical phenomena and human events or personality descriptions. However, it has been criticized by the scientific community for lacking explanatory power and scientific testing has found no evidence to support its premises or effects. The most famous test, led by Shawn Carlson, concluded that natal astrology performed no better than chance. Astrology has not demonstrated its effectiveness in controlled studies and has no scientific validity, making it regarded as pseudoscience.
There is no proposed mechanism by which stars and planets’ positions and motions could affect people and events on Earth in the way astrologers claim, which contradicts well-understood aspects of biology and physics. Modern scientific inquiry into astrology focuses on the correlation between astrological traditions and the influence of seasonal birth in humans.
Does astrology really work?
Astrology is a belief system that suggests a connection between astronomical phenomena and human events or personality descriptions. However, it has been criticized by the scientific community for lacking explanatory power and lack of scientific validity. Scientific testing has found no evidence to support the premises or effects outlined in astrological traditions. The most famous test, led by Shawn Carlson, concluded that natal astrology performed no better than chance.
Astrology has not demonstrated its effectiveness in controlled studies and has no scientific validity, making it regarded as pseudoscience. There is no proposed mechanism by which stars and planets affect people and events on Earth in the way astrologers claim, which contradicts well-understood aspects of biology and physics.
Do astrologers get paid well?
ZipRecruiter reports hourly wages ranging from $61. 78 to $8. 89, while astrology wages in the United States are primarily between $15. 14 and $30. 77.
📹 How Long Does It REALLY Take To Learn a Language?
SUPERCHARGE STORIES WITH SPEAKING PRACTICE Many StoryLearning students have found great success combining …
Don’t forget that these won’t apply to you if your native language isn’t English though! I.e. French and Portuguese are probably Category 4 for me, while Mongolian and Korean are Category 1, as a native Turkish speaker. But it’ll of course be easier to learn German and Dutch after learning English either way, let alone the availability of high quality resources. Take your own language and also the ones you’ve learned so far into account before approaching such lists 🙂 Lastly, don’t get lost in such details, just learn whichever the one that motivates you the most!!
I’m truly a StoryLearning veteran now Olly. I’ve finished French Uncovered till B1, four books (Short Stories Simple, Intermediate, Conversations Simple and Intermediate) and am currently enjoying Subjunctive Made Simple. I also correctly guessed Tagalog and already speak two category IV languages – Hindi and Marathi. My aim is B2 Spanish post B2 French!
As a second language learner of English, I put in my best effort to learn, but I often face challenges and setbacks. Your advice is truly motivating and gives me hope. I’ve heard about an extension called Immersive Translate from some YouTuber’s comments, and it sounds quite intriguing. I’ll give it a try and hope to make significant progress in this area.
What a coincidence I’m learning Tagalog right now (the mystery language)😂😅 I have an advantage knowing a regional Filipino language Bisaya, but Tagalog has more complex conjugations and stricter grammar rules. I’m struggling a little bit but I’m pushing through! Thanks Olly for always coming out with motivational language learning content.
As a Dutchman, born in 1949, the educational system was provided bt the government. All schools were government schools, the books were the same and teachers were certified. We also had to learn 3 foreign languages, starting with French in the 5th. grade and followed by German and English from the 7th. grade. Final exams consisted in having read 3 books in each language and be able to have a fluent conversation about them during an hour. Yes, we really learned those languages because they “weighed” as much as maths.
I knew it was Tagalog because I’m a native speaker. I want to say though that in the Philippines it’s officially known as Filipino, which is the national language based on Tagalog (the biggest ethnic group and situated around Manila, the country’s capital) but which incorporates elements from Spanish,, English, Chinese and other languages. It’s a beautifully expressive language but I agree it can be a challenge for anglophones to learn. (I have C2 English and B2 French, currently learning Spanish).
FSI really doesnt apply properly to normal people. Only thing one should take from it is that which langs are normally easier, and which ones will probably take more time. And if you know a second language, depending on what language that is, FSI chart can become very wrong. Because its designed for only English speakers.
I’m Italian, i already speak both English and German, and this made picking up Dutch pretty easy. I was able to have small conversations with locals without making mistakes (as the locals told me) after 2 weeks of occasional study in the Netherlands. However the 90% of the vocabs that i picked up didn’t come from interactions with natives but from TV series and spongebob.
I am from Ukraine, and I am bilingual in Ukrainian and Russian languages. I also have an intermediate level in Slovak because I studied there. Because of this, I can understand (but speak poorly) Polish and Czech. I have read The Witcher in Polish and had no huge difficulties with it. So if you know some languages from the same language group, you can easily understand them, but probably not speak them fluently. But I have no clue how to understand Germanic or Latin language groups other than words like chocolate, restaurant, cafe, etc 😅
My native language is Swedish and when I was a kid we started to learn English in school at ten and the third language at 13. I was pretty tired of school by then so my choice was German since I was told it was easier than French. I didn’t really want to learn German so I later studied French for a year. During that year we had classes several hours a week and used a studio to practice speaking and listening. So in a year my French surpassed the four years of German I had studied earlier. This was in the 1980s something so I don’t speak either language today. But, I had use of both languages alongside Spanish, Italian and Latin while I was studying classical singing. And I am very grateful for my teachers in German for their persistence in teaching the importance of grammar and usage, which benefited me greatly when I later took English at university level, and when learning to understand and sing in new languages
honestly, don’t be scared off from learning a language that uses the Cyrillic alphabet! I’m learning Ukrainian and I’m dyslexic, and it really only took me an afternoon to get a good grasp of the different letters. once you generally remember them most of the time, start reading asap and soon you’ll be able to read perfectly in no time ☺️
During COVID I picked up Russian and Japanese. Use the “grow” method. Little kids learn by listening all day every day. Then they try speaking small words and adults correct them. Then once they have a handle on speaking, then they learn the alphabet and reading…and writing last. It’s the BEST WAY to learn. It takes a bit longer, but you’ll truly understand the language
There must be a structured 12-year formal schooling in a certain foreign language from preschool up to high school, not just as a language subject, but also as a medium of instruction for science, mathematics, and civic subjects. This preferred foreign language must be used as a medium in businesses, mass media, and civil service to complement compulsory schooling. I hope this approach will be considered by Filipino educators and politicians if they wish to revive Spanish as a spoken language in the Philippines.
En tant que camerounais, nous sommes exposés au français et à l’anglais au quotidien. Ayant fait toutes mes études en français, j’ai décidé d’apprendre l’anglais de moi-même sur internet et avec des livres pour pouvoir regarder les vidéos YouTube et regarder les films américains. En me lançant dans cette voie je me suis dis que ça allait être facile, mais en réalité non! Ça m’a pris un an de travail intensif. J’ai réellement expérimenté à quel point il est difficile d’apprendre une nouvelle langue étant adulte. Si les autres langues sont plus difficiles que l’anglais comme vous le dites, je me contenterai des trois langues que me maîtrise déjà: le français, l’anglais et l’ewondo (ma langue maternelle). Bonne chance à ceux qui, étant adulte, se lancent dans l’apprentissage des langues de la classe IV ou V.
I’m on day 204 of Italian and feel very much like a beginner. I practise between 15 mins to 3 hours a day so probably at least 1 hour everyday on average, it’s not like I’ve not been expose to it either as my mum is Italian. I also listen to Italian at least an hour a day. I do wonder if I’m too dumb to learn a language
Sometimes, the language levels can feel deceiving. In my case, I was a missionary for my church and had to learn Thai, which was challenging for sure, but it seemed a lot easier for me to learn Thai than it currently is for me to learn Portuguese which is arguably much easier. There are just a lot of factors, and putting a time frame on it is just kind of unrealistic. However, it does help to somewhat get an idea of how challenging a language is to pick up. For an English speaker, of course.
I have found a very unique challenge in learning my husband’s tribal language. Ekpeye is a Nigerian language and there are not many resources, so I have made my own. I am constantly trying to find ways to make it a part of my daily life. I would guess that this one is a Category III. Although it’s not that hard grammatically. I just don’t have the same forms of comprehensible input as I do with any of my other languages(Spanish, German, Romanian).
I’m learning Japanese right now and It doesn’t matter what a chart says about its difficulty: the simple fact is, the language is incredibly foreign to someone of indo-european speaking origin, in my case Serbian and English (which are, comparatively, quite similar). Whereas if you’re a speaker of a related language group, the language will be at least grammatically be similar, if not share vocab with your target language. Then again I am having an easier time with Japanese just because I enjoy Japanese media so much more than with Polish, which is a very closely related language.
Telling people learning a language takes a certain number of weeks is really unrealistic, and it will frustrate a lot of people. It took me close to 3 years to be fluent in English even though I lived in an English speaking country. You need a lot of patience, motivation and prepare yourself to make tons of mistakes
Personally my biggest struggle when it comes to learning languages is the access to resources. I am learning Japanese and it’s been rather slow. Most if not all of the accurate and study worthy resources are kind of expensive, and so it makes it hard to access resources. Luckily, I’m graduating soon and will be majoring in Japanese in college, hopefully it goes well😅 I do really want to get story learning for Japanese as well as other languages I want to improve (Spanish in particular)
Hey Olly, I’ve just started to learn Czech, got a couple phrases memorized and the usual like hello, bye, good My girlfriend is Czech and speaks Czech, same as her brother and parents, and I find it hard to sit and study with textbook cause it’s just boring. I enjoy speaking to them in Czech and learning new phrases through them or translate and using them I also haven’t listened to any podcasts or anything as of yet but I’ve heard they are a good way of learning to understand sentances How would you go about learning Czech if you was in my situation?
I got a half point! However, I have to (partly) disagree with the list: I think the categories are note accurate. I can give my personal experience with slavic languages, for instance. Russian is much harder than Serbian/Croatin (longer words, pronunciation is tricky + couple of other things that are counter-intuitive from a French perspective)… which is certainly harder than Bulgarian/Macedonian, which have no cases! Similarly, I assume French is trickier than Spanish or Italian for native English speakers, partly because of the reading part, which is a nightmare, even to French people. Also: I’m pretty sure that a lot of the non-Indo-European (like Finnish and Hungarian, for instance) are much more complex than the Indo-European in the same category, from a French/English perspective. Hungarian and its 18 cases + many syllables + extremely long words seems definitely more challenging than Russian, to me, for instance. Last thing (but that was not as true in the 40’s): some languages are tougher simply due to the lack of material. For instance, Japanese might be much trickier than Breton but you don’t have many resources in the later. However, thank you Olly, insightful content, once again!
You need to be somewhat oblivious to knowledge in general, to see this as any god damn indication of any god damn thing. Romanian IS NOT EASY. FOR ANYONE except natives. Romanians don’t even understand how their language works. It’s not even remotely close to english. Serbian, bosnian, croatian take the same lenght to learn as hungarian? In what world do you live in. I’m part hungarian and part serbian, you litteraly can’t compare them. Serbian/bosnian/croatian is farily easy, I would say it takes about the same time to learn as swedish. Hungarian on the other hand is one of the most complicated languages in the known universe, for a non native.
The easiest way to learn another language is if the teacher FIRST taught the sentence structure written in English. For example, “The coat red is beautiful”. THEN, learn the words. So, in Arabic, for example, the teacher should first teach it this way: (The coat) red (is beautiful). (A coat) red (was beautiful). (Her coat) red (will be beautiful). That’s how to make it easy for people to learn. It becomes self explanatory at the first class that we’re going to learn that the words in parenthesis are going to become one word. In Arabic or Hebrew, there would be no reason to talk about writing it backwards, until the writing instructions come AT THE END of the lesson, since we’re only talking about speaking the language, not writing it. So, if you’re teaching a language to someone, first teach sentence structure SAID IN ENGLISH.
Its PERSIAN in English NOT Farsi. Farsi is an endonym within the Persian language to describe Persian. Much like Deustch is the word for German IN the German Language. You do not say I speak Deustch in ENGLISH! The Academy of Persian Language and Literature, the regulatory body for the Persian language headquartered in Iran, has maintained that the endonym Farsi is to be avoided in foreign languages, and that Persian is the appropriate designation of the language in English, as it has the longer tradition in western languages and better expresses the role of the language as a mark of cultural and national continuity. Many Iranians outside of Iran have a bad habit of calling it Farsi to non-Iranians. And this is 100% incorrect as it is an endonym, albeit an incorrect one (its actually Parsi), that is only necessary within Persian as English already has its name for the language, Persian.
Got curious about the FSI language fluency categorization chart for native English speakers. I asked ChatGPT how it might look if developed in China, Korea, or Japan. Here’s the theoretical scenario: Mandarin Chinese as the Base Language •\tCategory I (Easiest): Cantonese, Japanese, Korean •\tCategory II (Moderately Easy): Vietnamese, Thai, Mongolian •\tCategory III (More Difficult): Russian, Turkish, Indonesian •\tCategory IV (Most Difficult): Arabic, English, French Korean as the Base Language •\tCategory I (Easiest): Japanese, Mongolian •\tCategory II (Moderately Easy): Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai •\tCategory III (More Difficult): Turkish, Russian, Indonesian •\tCategory IV (Most Difficult): Arabic, English, French Japanese as the Base Language •\tCategory I (Easiest): Chinese, Korean •\tCategory II (Moderately Easy): Vietnamese, Mongolian, Thai •\tCategory III (More Difficult): Russian, Turkish, Indonesian •\tCategory IV (Most Difficult): Arabic, English, French Key Differences from English-Based FSI Categories: 1.\tWriting System Importance: Shared writing systems make languages easier. 2.\tTonal Languages: Easier for Mandarin speakers, harder for Japanese/Korean speakers. 3.\tGrammar and Syntax: Similar syntactic patterns ease learning for Korean/Japanese speakers. 4.\tCultural and Historical Ties: Shared vocabulary and concepts simplify learning. And Thank you so much Olly for your never ending passion to provide everyone a wonderful educational and informative language lessons.
I’m on my path of thorns with Chinese and if someone asks me “oh, so you are learning it for pleasure?”, I burst a sorrow laughter… If this is pleasure, I don’t want to know what torture is ;__; … But I keep doing it to myself, despite all the obstacles, in the hope, that some day, in the far, bright future, I will be able to become as talkative in Chinese as I am in English or Polish. But in the meantime I started learning French to assure myself, that I am capable of learning a language, just my first decision with Chinese, which is taking me forever to go somewhere higher, than A(-15) is putting me down 😅… Jokes aside, I am motivated to learn both languages and would love to start learning Russian in some time. In real life, I have one friend, who speaks 4 languages fluently, and he’s my role model when it comes to learning a language. It’s really motivating to see someone you know personally, a friend, just switching between languages like that, in front of your own eyes!
15:12 I understand that the content creator wanted to show how different Russian alphabet is, but its the old Russian alphabet. The writing reform 1708 dumped 15 letters (3of which were later added back and added one extra letter which didn’t exist before) the Soviet government in 1917 dumped 3 more letters and simplified the rules to make them closer to the actual pronunciation. back in the day.
I learned the syrillic alphabet without meaning to me. I was just listening to music in Russian and reading the lyrics in Russian while singing along, I also thought myself the Greek alphabet 1 day, because I wanted to, so I normally write people’s names in the Greek alphabet in my journal, while the journal itself is in a mix of Russian and Mandarin Chinese… so only I can read it
I think the bit that everyone misses about the listing is that its ‘classroom hours’, with the assumption that study is extra. I think the general rule that to get to B2 will take around 3,000 hours, +/- 40% is a good one – with the category 1 languages being the minus 40%, and category 5 being +40% is pretty reasonable. The good news is though that with category 5 languages it gets easier to learn some if you already know one – even though they are not linguistically connected, you do have some advantages, such as knowing kanji/hanzi or the similar syntax of Korean and Japanese.
I agree. Don’t let the categories stop you. I personally am just fascinated by languages and I’m across the board learning German, Russian, Portuguese, and Spanish. In the future I also want to learn Icelandic and Igbo. Unlike most people though, my goal is to have a basic understanding of the language. If fluency comes then great. I just don’t want to look at a language and gloss over it because I have no clue what it says.
Japanese is far easier than Arabic and Mandarin for me. I wish I had more time to learn a lot more languages, especially ones that are underrepresented by the polyglot community. I’m in STEM, but if I were a historian or archeologist, I’d think knowing indigenous languages would be extremely useful to research. (So many answers and perspectives are ignored or looked over due to lack of cultural and linguistic knowledge.)
Someone is taking the piss, putting Dutch in category one, as Dutch is a beast of a language. First, there’s the gutteral ‘g’ – nearly all English speakers have no idea of how to pronounce the sentence ‘het groene gras groeit uit het grond’. I certainly found it a challenge, even though I’m Scots. Then there’s the insane sentence structure, that’s completely different from English. I’ve been studying Dutch for six years, and I’m still somewhere between A1 and A2. Particularly as I have difficulty reading Dutch, I often have to look at a sentence for a minute or two, before I can work out just a general idea of what it means. Though I have to admit that foreign languages aren’t exactly my strong point, and I think other people have more of a natural talent, for learning another language.
I totally understood the mystery language you presented. It’s not my mother tongue (I speak Cebuano), but we did have to learn it in school since it’s the national language. Unfortunately, I can barely speak it now (moved to the States when I was 10), but at least I still could understand it. Good thing English is also the other language we learned in school. I can reply in English. 😅
They think Greek is more difficult than Swahili? I don’t think so. Lots of Greek words are familiar, like φωνη from “telephone” (which is “τηλέφωνο” in Modern Greek), the letters are familiar because they’re used in math and frats, and verb conjugation is similar to lots of other Indo-European languages. I read the NT in Koine Greek, and if anyone else shows up this evening, I’ll have a conversation in Greek.
It depends on your goals. Your goal may be to simply be able to talk to native speakers. Or you goal may be to understand any kind of native media like books, films, music, etc. You can talk to native speakers by using “baby language”, meaning very simple vocabulary and very simple grammar. Most native speakers will be able to understand you, and as long they also use baby language with you, you will be able to understand them. So to become conversational is not that difficult. You can learn simple vocabulary and grammar very quickly, in a few weeks, even a few days. But if you want to understand any kind of media like books, films, etc, then baby language is not enough. Then you have to spend a lot of time reading books, perusal films, etc. Talking to native speakers is not that important or even necessary. People in this category may spend very little time talking to native speakers, so they may be very poor at conversation, sounding robotic, or unnatural. But these are the people who have a much larger vocabulary and grammar knowledge. Acquiring a vocabulary large enough to understand native books can take several years. Even so, I believe 3 years is more or less enough to achieve a reasonable level of fluency.
Would be interesting to see where Welsh fits onto that list. I’d guess one of the first categories as it’s really not that difficult, even though people seem to claim that it is. I’m currently learning Dutch, as the first real attempt at learning a language since leaving school over 30 years ago. I just wish I had the time available to put the effort in as much as I’d like. It’s been about 18 months now and while I can understand a decent amout, I still can’t really form sentences properly yet.
Just to be clear: Imho japanese is quite easy to learn to speak… Very easy pronounciation, Easy grammar, but with some cultural quirks. It has something like tnes, but you can completely ignore it, as it has no impact on the meaning of the sentence. Great… But where are the problems? They totally messed up their writings. But here is the 1st misconception: The problem is not the existence of three writings. Katakana and Hiragana are quite easy to learn and you will be happy for every Katakana and Hiragana you see in the text. TIn one week you can easily read both writings. The problem is only the japanese version of Kanji. Kanji are from China and there they are working perfect. you see a kanji and you know its meaning and its pronounciation. Ok, you have to learn a bulk of them, but it is just a second set of vocabulary… But in japanese the fun really begins. You see a kanji and then you have to guess the reading. At least every kanji has its meaning, what should give you a hint. In some rare cases it can be easy like for 汽。Its only reading is “ki” and it means steam. For example, you can find this kanji in 汽車 (車 stands for car) which is read “kisha (ki + sha)” in this cas and means “steam train”. Quite easy, or? But then we have kanji like 生. Possible readings are “sei”, “shou”, “ha”, “i”, “ki”, “o”, “u”. And we just ignore all readings, which are used only for names… At least the meaning is normally something like life or growing. Have fun, guessing the reading. But it got worse.
Thanks Olly! สวัสดีค่ะ I’m Thai and I feel very well represented here 😊. (Actually the sentence ending for politeness for a guy is “ครับ” with the character above included. I guess the English only keyboard might not be able to handle that.) In terms of language learning experience, you’re so right about German. I was a one academic year exchange student when I was in high school, then college workload got better of me for years. After about 8 years of almost no exposure I just wrapped up some courage to talk to a random German speaking person on public transport 😂😂😂. I was still conversationable to some extent. I’m afraid if I didn’t dare to get some practice that day there might not be another chance for years to come and I might lose my ability altogether.
I’m taking a German class right now that’s 20hrs a week. A1.1 first month, A1.2 next month, A2.1, A2.2, B1.1, etc so B2 fluency would be in about 8 months. It was tough in the beginning trying to get a grasp on the grammar but once that started to click, you do feel like you’re making progress but so much still to learn
Grew up in Miami, Spanish classes were part of the curriculum all throughout elementary, middle, high school and two years in college. Grew up in the culture but everybody is so quick to default to English because everybody speaks English, so I was never able to find anybody to practice with who had the patience for me being in the toddler stage of not speaking well. I should say that I didn’t try extremely hard to find somebody to practice with, but I mean, when 80% of your friends grew up speaking it, And they don’t want to deal with your learning curve, it tends to fall to the wayside lol. What I’ve noticed working is you need to find somebody where there’s enough of a language barrier and the two of you go through the toddler stage together. It comes out of necessity more so than anything else. I would love to hear people’s stories about finding people who are patient enough to work with them in spite of sharing the same language.
Hi Ollie, thanks for another great article. I must say, one of the most fascinating language overlaps I found was when I started learning Russian and discovered so many Afrikaans and German words or very close derivatives thereof. This fascinated me so much that I started making my own Afrikaans/Russian dictionary but then life got in the way and I never got much further with it. I suppose, it would mean quite a big overlap with Dutch too then since it is a ‘sister’ to Afrikaans as you say. I can pick up and understand a lot of words when I hear someone speaking Dutch. Maybe one day I’ll tackle Dutch too but there are too many other choices on the bucketlist which I want to conquer first and it might be a bit like learning Portuguese after you’ve learned Spanish, lol. I might get a lot of words confused, lol.
For us, the average folks, it takes forever, even with immense efort. Save for immersion, it will take years up to a decade, while immersion might speed it up a bit. Maybe not everyone needs to hit C levels in which case, this journey will be shorter, but even to get to a very solid B2 will take you years. Sorry pumpkins, just trying to be real.
i live and work in Japan as a graphic designer. Japanese will be rewarding when I’m fluent but for now it is like knowing something so well but going to work and realizing you know nothing. I can literally understand formatting text and have casual convo. I’m doing a pretty good job working with the text, it helped me with gaining a better grasp of the language by getting thrown in. a huge part of this language is culture based, so answering a question with a yes brings confusion as well as a no. It is hard to stay motivated from time to time. And no i didn’t use a lot of capital letters writing this, i don’t need those things anymore… except for my entire name every time i write it. And my keyboard is Japanese so i spend a lot of time trying to find the correct punctuation or just remembering to change between languages. cuz there are actually FOUR alphabets if you include romaji that I use daily in advertising. the space in English is shorter width than the space in Japanese. that’s all i can muster for now.
You put Georgian and Thai scripts together? Georgian script is a lot easier than Thai. Thai is written in Sanscript (but it looks completely different from the Nagari that Sanskrit is usually written in) adapted to an already tonal language that then (along with Chinese, Hmong, and even the non-tonal Khmer which got diphthongs instead of new tones) underwent a tone split. The result is worse than English. In Spanish you say “be de burro, ve de vaca”; Thais do this with all consonants because they all sound like other letters but induce different tones, or sound alike at the end of a syllable.
Imo it’s very depending what’s your native. My native is Russian and i learned English first (we almost all do at school (even if it’s little weird version, and not so many people actually enjoy it)). And for a long time i though that English is easy – that’s why it used so widely, right? Ehm, no, not right. After that i learned already two else different languages, and now im learning Japanese… And Japanese feels easiest for me, while i slowly understand how weird English was with all this unnecessary articles and necessary for expression other things like keigo and opportunities to write one word by diff kanji expressing nuances. My brain always freezing when learning applications ask me to translate things i understand completely in japanese to “broken” English (well they all have English only). So do not give difficulty ranking too much credit – very important here how your brain was initially teached.
It should be noted that the categories were based on how long it took their students to become proficient, and the idea of “distance” was retroactively added. For example, obviously the category II German is closer to the germantic language english than category I, Romanian is, yet romanian took students less time to learn. Currently in their 2024 chart, the non-indoeuropean, but rather, austronesian language, Indonesian is in the same level as german, giving lie to the whole idea of linguistic distance being the sole arbiter of difficulty! It looks like some languages may inherently take more time for foreign learners than others
I don’t think a different alphabet is a big problem whatsoever. There are 2 languages which i can speak but can’t read or write. Japanese around B1 in speaking, can’t read or write at all. Arabic is around A2 can only read books for children where they write vowels, can’t read without vowels. Unfortunately very few student books use Russian or Latin script for teaching foreign languages with other scripts (heavy focus on speaking without any attention to reading in the languages’ original scripts)
I really think that the difficulty of a learning a new language is determined by people’s mindset, and the capacity of being challenged in our certainty and vision of the world. The time it takes to master a new language will depend on how resilient our minds are to accept these different ways of perceiving the world, our motivation (what for) and personal organisation.
I dont think japanese is that hard it is very consistent and logical as isn´t the case of the Romance Languages, as for me an spanish speaker the pronunciation is very easy and after almost 5 months I started to understand articles with japanese subs. Obviously with hard work listening and doing some different methods every day that I find funny, learning it has been an amazing journey and I enjoy it a lot 😀
I feel like as a young adult saying “6 months from now you could speak another language pretty well” is like saying “hey if you spend an eternity learning this language you speak it a bit ok ish” But as an older person who’s a father of 3 that’s like saying “hey start today and tomorrow you’ll be speaking fluently tomorrow”
I am surprised that Korean is considered Cat 5, while Thai and Khmer are Cat 4, especially with respect to the writing system. Hangul is one of the simplest and consistent writing system as compared with both Thai and Khmer. It’s beauty is that it sounds as it is written. The script was designed so that persons of low education could learn to read it quickly relative to Chinese.
I would love to know how hard are other languages for not english native speakers. I speak czech, polish ans slovak since my birth, in high school I became fluent in english and french and I am learning korean (and study medicine at the same time, whoh :D) and now I doing internship in Paris and I hear a lot of arabic and I am trying to learn some phrases 🙂
These rankings really depend on a lot of factors. Like for a monolingual Macedonian, it will be way easier for them to learn Russian than a monolingual English speaker. There are also plenty of different examples of this. I always felt like language tier on difficulty was always based on a monolingual English speaker.
Some day I want to speak out foreign languages. I never been to visit foreign countries I just watch youtube to experience all over the world I want to understand many languages particularly southeast asian languages and standard arabic But I have no chance to visit southeast asia and arabic speaking countries
Do you offer any help to someone who is looking for someone who can read different languages. I have miniature books I can’t read. If I send you a pic of the book could you tell me what language it is and what it says. It might be possible you have never seen these books in your life or maybe you have seen them and would like to see them again. Thanks you, Tina
No idea what language that is. Malay? Spanish to barely B1 was five months with four hours/day. Matches FSI recommendations for hours. Reading French, understanding spoken Italian + Portuguese isn’t hard after Spanish. Verb conjugations were 70% of my time spent. Tried your story books and the translations were awful.
Cat 4 languages “can we put a star next to the hardest” ping Hungarian…. oh balls. That’s the one I’m learning and it’s really hard lol. I’ve been doing it for 290 days according to duolingo and yeh…..I have started working with a grammar book, a tutor, flashcards etc as I just don’t feel Duolingo is super useful seeing as it doesn’t explain ANYTHING lol. Wish me luck 😅😅
Funny story: I am from Belgium and moved to Bulgaria, I’ve literally been thrown in a bear cave because after 4 and a half years I still don’t speak the language, the alphabet was so easy and just took a few days but not a lot of Bulgarians speak English and not a lot of other foreigners here speak Bulgarian😂