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The Hardest Language to Learn

MrMacphisto

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I've often wondered this and wished I was multilingual, but what do you think is the hardest language to learn?

My bet's on Chinese -- every dialect. My reasoning for this is that Chinese has an absurd number of characters (sort of like letters); I think it's somewhere around 80,000 in total, although only about 3,500 are used commonly. Another aspect of Chinese that is maddeningly difficult for outsiders is the tonal aspect of the language. Basically, one word can have several different meanings depending on how you pronounce it. To make matters more complicated, some dialects of Chinese have up to 9 different tones (pronounciations) for words.

I guess what makes all of this so ironic is that Chinese is one of the most spoken languages in the world.

Anyway, does anyone else have any candidates for "most difficult language" in the world?
 
When you get around to wondering what's the easiest language to learn, my vote will be for Spanish. Mind you, I'm not saying there's any such thing as a truly easy language to learn, and I'm also only talking about when your first language is English (I can't speak for any other first language). What's nice about Spanish is that there's a simple set of phonetic rules, and they never, never deviate. Everything is pronounced exactly the way it looks. It's an aesthetically pretty language too.
 
Oh, basic Mandarin (the official Chinese language) is not that difficult to learn. The words are not flexed, no plural, no declination, no tenses, no irregular verbs, and only 4 tones. The grammar is one of the easiest of all languages. With about 500-1000 words, you can get along. Only the characters are a bit tricky.

The problem with most other languages is the difficult grammar and the irregularities. Russian has 6 cases, and the endings are different for the 3 genders (singular and plural), plus dividing into "hard" and "soft" endings. The verbs have a "complete" and an "incomplete" aspect.

Even more complicated is Finnish: they have 16 different cases. Or take Arabian: About 70% of the plurals have irregular forms (kitab=book, kutub=books, but both are written ktb), and the dialects vary strongly in vocabulary.

Probably the most difficult languages are the Innuit (Eskimo) dialects. They're called "polysynthetic", which means a different word for each sentence.

But there are also some languages which are extremely difficult to learn for us because of the pronounciation. Hindi differs between aspirated and non-aspirated consonants (e.g. bh/b or dh/d), Arabic has something similar, plus some very throaty sounds like "qaf" or " 'ain" (the latter reminds of retching). The most difficult language to pronounce is probably the Kalahari bushman language with their different "clicks"; for some, you need to breathe in while you speak.

Basic English is probably one of the easiest languages to learn. It only gets difficult with the idioms, and in literature.
 
My father, a teacher with a Masters has a best friend who speaks 10 languages, teaches linguistics and is from the Ukraine says "English" because none of our rules match. If you "eat" it's pronounced "eet" but if you sweat, it's not pronounced "sweet"...For me, my vote goes to Russian...

XOXO
 
I used to live in an area that is heavy on the Finnish. I really don't think it is that complex... my vote still goes for English. We're messed up!
 
It is supposed to be very, very difficult for anybody who didn't grow up speaking the Navajo language to learn it. Hence the use of Navajo native speakers as code talkers in World War II.
 
milagros317 said:
It is supposed to be very, very difficult for anybody who didn't grow up speaking the Navajo language to learn it. Hence the use of Navajo native speakers as code talkers in World War II.
As far as I know, the US Navy chose Navajo code talkers because the Japanese didn't have a single linguist who spoke that language, and there were no books or dictionaries from which the language could be learned. A brilliant idea, if you ask me! :)
 
I've always been told that English is by far the most difficult, but I can't relate, my vote would probably go to Chinese or any kindve Asian language.
 
Chinese, but only because of the writing system.
Arabic
Russian (for western people)
 
I can't say what the hardest one is, but Chinese is a pain to learn. Four different tones, plus you have Mandarin vs. Cantonese (though I believe Cantonese is Predominantly in Hong Kong, and maybe Macau and Tai Wan(?) ) though i've heard it still has a foothold in places in the mainland, and then you have regional dialects. Ie, I spent some time in Shanghai, and apparently Shanghai people speak in a dialect that they call "Shanghainese". and most people (non-natives) learn Chinese with pinyin, which is Chinese but with English letters, but sadly when you get videos with chinese subtitles, it uses Chinese characters, which means you can't learn it this way, like Chinese people can by watching our TV shows with English subtitles (which seems to be a good learning tool for them, from what some have told me).
 
Well, I have learned Chinese and I do not wish that even for my worst enemy lol :p

In all seriousness, it depends on your native language. The French have an easy time learning Spanish or Italian, while Chinese people find Japanese way easier than English.

For the sake of the discussion, let us adopt the point of view of a native English speaker. Chinese is hell, but I believe Hungarian or Finnish would be considered even harder.

How about "woman speak."

I love this answer :laughhard: My wife says even she struggles with it sometimes :D
 
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