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What's the most difficult language to lea

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Poll Question: What's the most difficult language to learn?
Poll Choice Votes Poll Statistics
9 [19.15%]
25 [53.19%]
8 [17.02%]
2 [4.26%]
3 [6.38%]
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  Quote Maziar Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: What's the most difficult language to lea
    Posted: 08-Jan-2007 at 15:33
I think it depends on which mother tangue we speak. For me as Iranian is Arabic easier to learn than Chines. For a Chines is Korean easier than Arabic.
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  Quote Ikki Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08-Jan-2007 at 17:17
Originally posted by pinguin

Well, it depends from which mother language one comes from. Mine is Spanish so I can understand most of what is written in Latin. Besides, when I saw "The Passion" of Gibson, and I listened those Romans speaking latin, I could follow them without much effort :)
 
For me, the easiest languages are Portuguese, Italian and French in that order. English is the non-Latin language more easy to learn. All the rest are a lot more difficult but European languages like German and Russian seem relatively accessible for me.
 
Non-European languages are another matter. Korean, Egyptian and Arabic, together with Polynesian and Native American languages, seem to me in a similar level of difficulty, which is to learn a language which has an alphabet, and that is not in anyway related with the Indo-European languages.
 
Worst of all is Chinese, because is a tonal language, it is written with ideograms, and has no point in contact at all with western culture.
 
Pinguin
 
 
 
 


Agree point by point, i can't say it better Thumbs Up
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  Quote pekau Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08-Jan-2007 at 23:11
Originally posted by Ikki


Originally posted by pinguin

Well, it depends from which mother language one comes from. Mine is Spanish so I can understand most of what is written in Latin. Besides, when I saw "The Passion" of Gibson, and I listened those Romans speaking latin, I could follow them without much effort :)

For me,the easiest languages are Portuguese,Italian and French in that order. English is the non-Latin language more easy to learn. All the rest are a lot more difficult but European languages like German and Russian seem relatively accessible for me.


Non-European languages are another matter. Korean, Egyptian and Arabic, together with Polynesian and Native American languages,seem to me in a similar level of difficulty, which is to learn a language which has an alphabet, and that is not in anyway related with the Indo-European languages.


Worst of all is Chinese, because is a tonal language, it is written with ideograms, and has no point in contact at all with western culture.


Pinguin




Agree point by point, i can't say it better

    
Point taken. I guess my question was too general.
     
   
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  Quote Decebal Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09-Jan-2007 at 09:21
From what I've heard (and even my own personal experience), the hardest language to learn is Hungarian. Granted, the alphabet is easy since it's the latin one. But the vocabulary doesn't resemble any other language (even Finnish), the pronounciation is tricky and the grammar is exceedingly complicated.
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  Quote pekau Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18-Jan-2007 at 23:14

One of my friend, the smartest kid I ever seen, is an Hungarian. I didn't quite believe him saying that Hungarian is the hardest language to learn, since he has some obsession with Hungarian pride thingy... but who knows.

     
   
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  Quote Suren Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20-Jan-2007 at 07:19
Chinese is the most difficult language. Egyptians speak arabic. 
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  Quote Paul Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20-Jan-2007 at 09:14
I dont really think there is a most difficult language. It all depends how different the language you are learning from the one you know.
 
I've heard North American Indian Languages can be the very difficult.
 
SE Asia and East Asian languages are tonal, varying from 4-6 tones. These can be very difficult if you are from a non--tonal background. But it's not so difficult to learn a different tonal language if you speak one aready. The 4 tones of Chinese are not so hard to learn if you speak the six tones of Lao.


Edited by Paul - 20-Jan-2007 at 09:19
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  Quote DocStaph Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20-Jan-2007 at 23:09

It would be Pashtoo

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  Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20-Jan-2007 at 23:56
Originally posted by sirius99

Chinese is the most difficult language. Egyptians speak arabic. 
 
Yes, but Coptic schollars speak Coptic, which is Ancient Egyptian.
 
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  Quote Reginmund Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 21-Jan-2007 at 15:17
Like has already been pointed out, it depends entirely upon what your native tongue is. Studying a language related to your own is always easier than studying one that is so remote it doesn't even share the same alphabet or sentence structure.

As a Norwegian I suppose I'm favourably disposed for learning English, though it's been more like a natural process of assimilation than one of teaching. I've also studied Spanish for three years, which while harder than English I also found quite agreeable. French I studied last summer on my own, and I must say it's a fair bit harder than Spanish, since there is far less grammatical consistency and a pronounciation that is awkward for one used to rolling his r's. Latin, which I studied for one semester at university, is much harder than both Spanish and French, in fact it didn't really strike me how easy Spanish was until I tried to do Latin.

One a side note, I heard one linguist say Dutch would be the easiest language for a Norwegian to learn, maybe I'll check up on that.
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  Quote mamikon Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 21-Jan-2007 at 15:53
I have heard its Magyar, followed by Estonian...this is coming from a professor I had who is fluent in 7-8 languages
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  Quote Roberts Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22-Jan-2007 at 15:54
I have heard that the hardest languages to learn from Indo-European are Baltic ones - Latvian and Lithuanian, due to very complex grammar and they both are mutually unintelligible, because of different influences from Finnic, Germanic and Slavic.
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  Quote TheDiplomat Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 23-Jan-2007 at 06:31
Originally posted by axeman

I have heard that the hardest languages to learn from Indo-European are Baltic ones - Latvian and Lithuanian, due to very complex grammar and they both are mutually unintelligible, because of different influences from Finnic, Germanic and Slavic.


For me learning Latvian is much harder than English and German due to verb conjugations, long vowels, and complex cases of nouns. But on the other hand, it seems easier than Russian because of latin alphabet, which is also familiar for a Turkish guy.
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  Quote ataman Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24-Jan-2007 at 12:14
The most difficult language? It is of course foreign one Wink
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  Quote pekau Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24-Jan-2007 at 15:27
Originally posted by ataman

The most difficult language? It is of course foreign one Wink
 
Ah... tricky!Wink
     
   
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  Quote pekau Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24-Jan-2007 at 15:28

Although I think your first language may be the hardest to learn, technically speaking. It's hard to learn a language when you could not speak any other language in the first place. Ah ha, got you there.Big%20smile

     
   
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  Quote ataman Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25-Jan-2007 at 09:00
Originally posted by pekau

Although I think your first language may be the hardest to learn, technically speaking. It's hard to learn a language when you could not speak any other language in the first place. Ah ha, got you there.Big%20smile

 
Well, I've learnt my native language much faster than English one. And I can say that opposite to English language I know my native language perfectly Smile
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  Quote pekau Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25-Jan-2007 at 12:26
Originally posted by ataman

Originally posted by pekau

Although I think your first language may be the hardest to learn, technically speaking. It's hard to learn a language when you could not speak any other language in the first place. Ah ha, got you there.Big%20smile

 
Well, I've learnt my native language much faster than English one. And I can say that opposite to English language I know my native language perfectly Smile
 
How? Ho long did it take for you to learn your first language? It's got to be at least over 7 years... (Assuming that you are exceptionally talented)
     
   
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  Quote T. Ape Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25-Mar-2007 at 22:44
I am taking Japanese, and it has not been too hard for me. In fact, I had a harder time speaking Spanish than I do Japanese even though it has its own lettering system.
 
As such, I do not imagine other language sytems to be hard to learn either.


Edited by T. Ape - 25-Mar-2007 at 22:44
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  Quote Kamikaze 738 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27-Mar-2007 at 15:11
I do believe that the Chinese language is the hardest of all languages but all it takes is just alot of memorization. Though learning english was pretty hard in my opinion but I nearly master the basic of it LOL
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