Grammar of languages when switching to English

[leehljp]

I got this from my daughter who got it from one of our friends still in Japan. It explains a lot why I still have trouble communicating clearly. 39 years of Southern English then 26 years of Japanese messes with the mind! These last 12 years have not been enough to clear my mind as to which phrase goes where in a sentence!

The pict below is not real clear but it gives a clear enough picture of the Syntax difference between English & Vietnamese, English & French, and English & Japanese.
The English Sentence is "I want to try on a suit that I saw in a shop that is across the street from the hotel."


The verbs of Japanese is almost always at the end of a sentence.

We got a laugh out of this.

[glenpugsley]

The Japanese grammar is too different from English. I've learnt Japanese for 2 years.

[leehljp]

It took most of the people in our organization (who were in Japan) 4 years or so to learn basic Japanese. However, we learned the reading and how to write it - simultaneously with grammar. That greatly slows down the learning speed for the short term but increases valuable communication skills for the long run. It messes with the mind! As Francis Xavier once said 500 years ago - "It's the devils tongue!" ;-)

[danielsk]

Started to learn German few months ago and i am not so excited about the whole idea anymore. The grammar is just so complicated! Of course it is not the only case, studying is difficult in general. Few days ago we installed new software at work and i wasn't able to understand most of the things so far. Everything seems to be very complicated but hopefully this plansource customer service wiil be able to help me with that and sort all the issues.