Discussion What do you think is the most difficult language to learn?

I am not sure if you're joking or serious, but the reading isn't the hard part , the grammar is

 

My English pronunciation is really really bad and it affect my native language too, sometimes there's that moment when I forgot a word in my native language but I know it in English

 

Mandarin Chinese to speak, Japanese to read and write. That's my view as a primarily English speaker. English is hard bacause its a bastard language, made up of both germanic languages and styles, and Latin styles from Norman French and hence mixes grammar and style between the both. It also lacks a formal structure, and lacks many features other languages take for granted.

 

French or maybe Chinese.

 

Native English speaker, and I think French would be the most difficult one for me to learn since it's the most common language other than English to force on people and I really don't want to learn it. Japanese was really easy to get into for me since I like the language and wanted to learn it. I think difficulty is determined entirely by my perception of the language and how much I would be willing to learn it.

 

R'lyehian

 

There is a criteria that is pretty simple for determine how hard a language is to learn from an English speakers stand point and it's a ranking from 1 to 4. It was crafted by the DLI (Defense Language Institute). It was founded on a few main points though it isn't exhaustive it is a pretty good reference.

One similar root words or usages, how many of the words can be puzzled out without a given context just by the similar roots of syllables like sol and solar. Two connection in sound, do we use the same syllables or kind of rhythm or pronunciation to speak. Three connections over writing systems, do they use a similar writing system that can be connected to these words, whether they use characters or the alphabet. And four is the grammar style the same, do they put pronouns in the same places or do they even use them in the same ways. Each criteria adds a degree of separation from your own language. A level one language would be Spanish for an English Speaker. Level four would be Mandarin Chinese. It's a decent baseline for judging how hard a languag might be for you to learn

A lot of it is subjective to the person who is learning though and some people may pick up things easier then others. I have a hearing impairment so it's easier for me to pick up Japanese then Chinese even though I've heard Chinese spoken to me most of my life. But by a similar connotation it might be easier for someone who speaks Cossack to learn Chinese even though they are worlds apart.

 

My native language is french. It is hard to say which language is the hardest as I didn't try to learn any non-european languages.
So I don't know weither I would have a harder time with Asian, African, Indian or native American tongues. I probably would have it the hardest with a language whose vowels, sounds and pronunciation are too far from my own. As pronunciation is something I always struggle with. So that, rather than a complex alphabet, would be what puts me off. So, as a guess, cantonese is difficult.
The easiest language I know is dutch. Its grammar is straightforward and the verbs only have as many irregulars as in english. The vocabulary is simple. Many words are composed of others fused together, like in german. And it bears many similarities with english. The pronunciation isn't difficult, apart of "sh", "sch" and "g" that can be hard at first.

 

Hmmm... Well i i heard that swedish, finnish (generally nordic languages are hard), japanese, polish and chinese are ones of hardest to learn.
I studied english, spanish, italian and russian, but I find them easy.

 

Lets me tell a story of how I am really suck in learning new language. I learn arabic for 6 years yet I barely got passing grade for them in exam.

Learn Japanese for more than 5 years (4 years by myself + 1 year in uni) and I still suck. Tried to learn spanish and I gave up halfways since I am so bad at them..

Thank god my english are kinda okay hoho

 

I'm not a native English speaker, but it has been ridiculously easy for me to learn it, I never understood why anyone would say it is a hard to learn language.

Like, geez, almost everything I learned was from playing videogames after having some very basic stuff taught to me at school back in elementary.

I'd say most Asian languages are a ton of times harder than English, especially those that use really complex alphabets like Japanese and Chinese.

 

It'll be a bit different for everyone since its easier to learn languages closely related to languages you know already, so what's really hard for someone might be easier for someone else. "Complexity of grammar" isn't really a factor unless you're learning languages the wrong way and reading about the language instead of getting thousands of hours of exposure, in which case all the patterns and exceptions become familiar and automatic. The biggest factor after you take into account how distant a language is from the language you know is how much interesting media there is. Learning Mandarin and Cantonese takes a while for me as a Native English speaker, but immersing myself in interesting content is not too tricky to find, whereas say Frisian is a lot closer to English, but much harder to find stuff to immerse in, but French has both a lot of interesting media and shared vocab with English so its easier.

Languages that use Chinese characters take a bit longer, because its more that you're learning an additional visual language in addition to the spoken language, but the advantage is that once you've learned one, you can recognize some of the meaning in other languages that use Chinese characters even if you don't understand any of the spoken language.

 

Far too many languages.

 

I heard italian is pretty hard to learn.

 

Chinese & Japanese (kanji) should be the ones with the most memorization time required.

Regarding pronunciation, Asian languages are also the most difficult ones according to google.

 

Why are you in Korea? Sounds cool tho ngl. Heard Korea handled covid very well, but media does lie and governments do obfuscate to make themselves look better so i got no idea

FOr a chart?

Those that describe how easy/hard a language is going to be are going to need a base to say, hey this'll be hard. So, ones I would find, as a native english speaker, are going to judge language difficult from the standpoint of english.

Others may judge from the standpoint of eyyy you know arabic right? From arabic, chinese is gonna be frickin hard. it'll be class most difficult to learn! (i cant read arabic so i cant judge what scaling they use but english speakers find it hardest to learn languages like arabic and mandarin, so i assume that arabic speakers learning english then learning mandarin are in for a super hard time jumping from far side of both difficulty sides https://www.atlasandboots.com/foreign-service-institute-language-difficulty/)

Basically you cant have a chart to compare how hard/easy a language is going to be to learn if you dont have a starting language to compare them to. and native english speakers tend to find charts comparing foreign languages to english.

So maybe ask non native english speakers to find charts comparing learning english to learning arabic to learning mandarin from the standpoint of being a native hindi speaker or sumthin

 

Dead language.

 

Māori was my first language but I grew up with English too. Pronounciation of basic Japanese vowels is similar to Māori and we even share words that sound exactly the same but have different meanings. Speaking, I find Japanese the easiest to learn. The hardest for me so far are Basque and Swedish. I like them both though.

 

for speaking imo.... Chinese and it's family.... yup there technical term for that phonetic? poetic? forget the term ~ the vowel or sound produce by combination of mouth shaping, tongue, space, blowing air can sound beautiful or sometimes like whistling~ btw kanji kinda remind me with hieroglyphics, its like one letter symbolic something~

oh btw this cat think english is hard cuz english have many inconsistencies~
basic example is pronounce~

Queue and Q
Eye and I
Bow as weapon or bow as accessory and bow to audience don't forget bow wow da doggie that stare on that ship's bow~ cat on city, chicken on campus those words begin with letter C but read like K, S, and C~
sometimes english just make this cat wanna tear up da creator cuz make this cat drop a tear ya know? it's tearing me~

go read those loud and clear on correct pronounce~

english most of time require memorize thing around so it can grammatically correct perhaps?
on monday night in January, he lost his dog make him feel sad while she lost hers cat make her feel sad~ police need to police thing around perhaps cuz it's what it's~

 

For me
Cantonese, Chinese and English is a piece of cake.
Japanese and Korean is mehh

But with french(I studied for 2 months), German(my aunt teaches me)
My brain is FORKED