What are the hardest languages to learn...

[magomago]

Hi all. Finalsl are over so I'm back =)

My friends are telling me that American English is the absolute HARDEST language to learn...but I'm calling B.S. on this. They are telling me that it is because we have the most exceptions to the rules....yet I doubt that because...I doubt that

Anyways is there an actual measure?

I know this maybe impossible since the language you grow up learning is probably easy for you. However from a perspective from non native speakers, what is the hardest language to learn?

I would still think its going to be Chinese, Arabic, Japanese and some Nordic Language. That doesn't mean English isn't hard - it is...but they are telling me it is the (and I quote) "hardest by far"

 

[SoundTheSurrender]

Icelandic probably.

 

[JM Aggie08]

zulu

 

[Farang]

It can only be measured from a perspective. Arabic is much easier for Israeli people to learn than Chinese people, and Thai is much easier for Chinese people to learn than Israeli people.

 

[sonambulo]

Originally posted by: SoundTheSurrender
Icelandic probably.

All of the Nordic languages are brutal to those not born into it. I hear Russian is a bitch too.

 

[destrekor]

Originally posted by: sonambulo

Originally posted by: SoundTheSurrender
Icelandic probably.

All of the Nordic languages are brutal to those not born into it. I hear Russian is a bitch too.

I just wrapped up Russian 101. I can definitely agree that it is hard.
And as I learn this, I am actually learning some proper english definitions that I have never really learned, and that is proving to me that English, proper and Americanized, is very difficult. I'd reckon that proper English wouldn't be too difficult, but when learning languages, everyone learns the modern style of the language, and while there are differences between Americanized and other localized variations, none are proper (old) English, so proper English really is pointless to learn, thus negating the difference in ability to learn.

...
i didn't re-read that, but i also have no clue what I just said. I am way to tired to discuss something like this. lmao

regardless, the structure of the English language is difficult to learn for those who do not come from Germanic or Romance (or any other Latin-based language). That's why it's easy for most English-speaking people to learn nearly any European language (non-slavic languages, mind you), but difficult to learn pretty much any other group of languages. same goes in the other direction.

 

[Exterous]

Klingon

 

[SoundTheSurrender]

It really matters what you know already. I speak Polish so I can adapt to Russian, Czech, Slovenian, Slovakian, Bulgarian, Croatian, etc... I know that Icelandic is really out there compared to other Nordic languages.

 

[Epic Fail]

C

 

[Vidda]

Originally posted by: Exterous
Klingon

+1

 

[Pepsi90919]

american english is a bastardization (see) and it's very hard to learn

 

[GenHoth]

My guess is that clicking language, because who on earth can make those sounds if they aren't raised there? And do they even have a written language?

 

[Skyclad1uhm1]

It depends on the mother tongue of the person in question, and their knowledge of other foreign languages. A lot of foreigners think Dutch is very hard to learn, but if you Google on it Chinese looks like the hardest, simply because of all the different possible intonations of words, which have totally different meanings for each intonation.

English has far less exceptions to rules than Dutch, which means it is actually easier for a lot of Dutch people to learn English than vice versa.

 

[ForumMaster]

Originally posted by: Farang
It can only be measured from a perspective. Arabic is much easier for Israeli people to learn than Chinese people, and Thai is much easier for Chinese people to learn than Israeli people.

you are right of course but i will say that Arabic and Hebrew are both very logical languages. it is difficult to learn how to pronounce the sounds, but the actual languages are very logical. very few exceptions and so on. what makes Hebrew tough is the the signs that change the way you pronounce words. also you have many instances where two letters make the same sound.

I'd go with the Asian languages as being toughest. lot's and lot's of words. difficult to learn the alphabet and so on.

 

[Sunner]

Originally posted by: SoundTheSurrender
It really matters what you know already. I speak Polish so I can adapt to Russian, Czech, Slovenian, Slovakian, Bulgarian, Croatian, etc... I know that Icelandic is really out there compared to other Nordic languages.

Being a Sweden, I find Icelandic far easier to understand than Danish, I can hardly understand a single word of the latter, whereas Icelandic is more like a very strange dialect(which is to say, not easy by any means, but at least somewhat understandable).
Norwegian being by far easier than both, I have a much easier time understanding Norwegian(well, the Oslo-dialect anyways ) than some Swedish dialects.
For some reason Danes seem to be perfectly able to understand Swedish though, which makes talking to them awkward since us Swedes prefer to keep conversations in English, while the Danes seem to love speaking Danish to us.

That said, I find English relatively easy, though I guess that's partly because movies generally aren't dubbed around here, unless they're aimed at very young children.

The only other languages I've studied are German and Spanish, both seemed fairly straight forward, in the end I suck badly at them though, since I had little interest in learning them back then, and I haven't really had any use for them after school, so my already meager knowledge has deteriorated quite a bit since then

I imagine I'd have a very hard time learning Japanese, Chinese, etc.

 

[AnimeKnight]

Also by learning are you talking about listening, speaking, and WRITING?
Because personally I think it's pretty easy to learn speaking and listening on Chinese. However, if you want to learn Chinese writing I would actually consider it as one of the most difficult languages to learn. Unlike English where you can almost spell it out by listening to the work. Chinese characters you have to practice writing it and memorize it. So good luck memorizing 4000+ characters