Language Difficulties
Whether it’s for business or pleasure, learning the language of the country where you will be travelling is obviously the best way to make it easier to transition into another culture. Before you start learning a new language, it’s worth considering some of the language difficulties that you may face. Not every difficulty is in pronunciation or the memorization of vocabulary. Some language difficulties are a little more subtle.
One of the most popular languages that businesspeople find valuable to learn is Japanese. But there are many language difficulties associated with learning this language. Among the most evident difficulties in learning the Japanese language is the necessity to familiarize oneself with a new writing system. Japanese uses three main scripts: Kanji, Hiragana, and Katakana. Kanji characters usually represent morphemes, which are the parts of a word. For instance, in the word “nonpartisan,” there are two morphemes. The “bound” morpheme is “non-,” whereas the “unbound” morpheme is “partisan.” Hiragana and Katakana are syllabaries, which means that each character approximates a syllable in the spoken language system. Learning these kinds of concepts as you progress through a language learning program is essential to minimizing language difficulty. Lucky for us, the best new language learning software breaks down difficult concepts like the differences between Kanji, Hiragana, and Katakana to greatly reduce the amount of time traditional book-learning courses demanded.
There are other cues, especially in Japanese, that can prompt language difficulties. It’s not always just spoken words that make up communication. For instance, while eye-contact shows comfort and earnestness in a conversation between Americans, it can cause great discomfort and embarrassment for a Japanese businessman. And although it is customary to bring gifts for business associates in Japan, gifts in sets of four are considered an insult because the Japanese word for “four” sounds very similar to the word for “death.” Some newer language software, such as Rocket Languages or Tell Me More take these kinds of language difficulties into account so that you avoid making a serious error that could cost you a relationship abroad.
Another language that is popular for business, academic and political reasons is French. There are many similarities between French and English, but there are also some faux pas that can easily cause language difficulty. One kind of language difficulty that arises as a native English speaker becomes more comfortable with the French language is the “faux ami,” or “false friend.” For instance, “amateur” means unprofessional in English. Although it can simply refer to a level below professional, there is also a denigrating understanding of “amateur” in English (as in “amateurish”). Language difficulty comes into play if an English speaker is not aware that “amateur” means “enthusiast” in French, without the negative connotation. An even more simple example of language difficulty can appear with the word “demand.” In English, “to demand” means to “claim as a right.” In French, “demander” simply means “to ask.” You can imagine the potential difficulties of language that would come to surface if an American businessperson believed that something is being demanded of him or her, instead of just being requested.
Similar false friends, or “falsche freunde,” exist between German and English, causing significant language difficulty. Take for example the humble term “gift.” Everyone loves a gift, right? Not in Germany, where “gift” means “poison.”
And just to touch on another aspect of languages that can cause severe difficulty, consider gendered nouns. Spanish, French, German and many other languages all employ genders for their nouns, which quite literally have the power to change everything: adjectives, verbs, pronouns, etc. In French, the gender of the person who performs an activity can be changed by a simple alteration of a word. In German, a soccer team can be changed into a female elf just by mixing up the gender of the noun. There is no shortage of language difficulty caused by the differences between English and other languages.
This is of course just a small sample of some of the language difficulties that need to be considered when undertaking a language learning program. Fortunately, a lot of language learning software is a step ahead of these potential hiccups. Take a chance to review Rocket Languages for a great and inexpensive way to help ensure that you avoid such language difficulties. For a more in-depth resource, check out Tell Me More.
