Yep, but the language has no congruence with a western language and is has a thing called "me ue" and "me shita" which is a class distinction that must be used and used properly in formal situations. Also, plurals are really odd especially when used with me ue and me shita.
And how about the use of the forms of "to have" and the continual use of such statements as "it is not unbecoming of one to need to go". Oh, and the lack of a word for "that". A sentence like "the house that I saw" in Japanese becomes "the before seen house". Etc.......
PE
If we were to consider "easy" as something that seems/sounds/looks familiar, it would be a sad world. I mean, nothing would be easy.
My native language is Portuguese. Still, I find English much easier. Yes, sometimes I get confused thinking about *how* to express something in English, but that's a purely cultural matter. My difficulty is not in constructing my phrases, but how what I say will sound to a native.
Same thing in Japanese: if you say "doo desu ka" (a salutation, like "how are you?") to an older person or someone you don't know, it's considered rude. This has nothing to do with the language itself, but with culture.
Well, there's also the matter of personal preference. Personally, I find it more difficult to learn a language that sounds familiar (like Spanish or Italian) than a completely different language. It's easy to make wrong assumptions about certain words.
For example: when I went to Chile, a waitress was relieved when I ordered a papaya (I had just read it on the menu). She knew I was Brazilian. In Portuguese, we call that fruit "mamão", which sounds close to the way a Spanish speaker would say the word "mamon". But, curiously, "mamon" is a slang for oral sex in Chile...
Several Brazilians tried to order "mamon" before and didn't understand why the waitresses blushed.
As much as I like where this thread is going, let's get back to Ferrania film.
Cheers,
Flavio
