I know for example, Mandarin (Chinese) has it like from this sentence: 我睡了八個小時 (I slept for 8 hours), the hanzi: 覺 is omitted in this sentence because 睡 is already a word with its own meaning “sleep” which in itself conveys the meaning of the verb. There are “Euro” languages where separable verbs exist such as Dutch or German for example. Is there an equivalent of that in the English language though?

  • cattywampas
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    2 days ago

    I think learning any second language is hard, but German is probably the easiest for native English speakers because it’s the most closely related of any major language. It was as easy or easier for me to learn than Spanish and definitely easier than when I tried learning Polish or Irish.

    • schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de
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      2 days ago

      I think Dutch is even more closely related, and AFAIK has somewhat simpler grammar. To me as someone fluent in German and English, but who’s never learned Dutch, Dutch looks like a mix of German, English, and gibberish.

      • SleeplessCityLights@programming.dev
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        2 days ago

        I believe Norwegian and Swedish are easier. They are de-gendered and have the exact same grammer. It is just word substitution and even that is easy because some come from the same root.

    • Starya67
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      2 days ago

      No. No it’s not. I speak both fluent English and Dutch and German is an absolute bloody nightmare.