hardest language

[sushi]

what is the hardest language you have studied or learned

its definitely not english, its a fool's language.

please not say its calculus or programming languages, which are metalanguages outside of linguistics or official domain of languages.

we all know calculus is hard.

 

[Drvladivostok]

French is such a Pain in the ass to learn, that the arbitrary internal logic of the language has made me more misanthropic.

 

[Bluehalite]

I find learning any foreign language hard, tried both Mandarin Chinese and French.
English is pretty hard for other people learning it too, I can believe it is, especially
with the different areas of the country that have different words for the same things like pop and soda.

Just one example, here was a Euphemisms and Dysphemisms Chart:

 

[ZenRaiden]

Depends what you mean by studied and learned.
I think it depends HOW you study and HOW you learn.
If you mean in school, it can be any language, just cheap textbooks and bad teachers can make even Esperanto hard.

Really I tried to figure out what makes languages hard, and when it comes to the bottom line it really comes down to three factors.
Your own attitude towards a language. If you dislike a language you will find it hard to learn. Youll find lots of excuses to avoid learning this or that.

Other is sources. Bad textbooks, stupid sources, conflicting information, or rushing the learning process can make anything hard, and especially language learning.
If you don't have the time or patience to learn a language it will never be easy to learn.

Third problem is getting used to peculiar things in language. Every single language on this planet has some peculiar attribute be it odd grammar or pronunciation or word usage. IF you embrace that as interesting attribute of a language as opposed to obstacle to fight through in learning youll find it easier to learn.

 

[kuoka]

The difficulty of language acquisition will depend on your native language. If the language you are learning is completely unrelated to your native tongue it will be a lot more difficult to progress.

For an English speaker several sources claim that Arabic, Cantonese (other Chinese dialects), Mandarin, Japanese, and Korean are the most difficult. Requiring some 2200 class hours and homework to learn. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second-language_acquisition

Imo, out of those Cantonese and rare Chinese dialects like Dungan, Hakka, Wenzhou and Japanese are the most complicated with Korean being the easier of the group due to its simple writing system. This is based on my friend's opinion who has master's degree in Korean studies and lived in Korea for 10 years.

The interesting thing about Chinese and Japanese languages is that they are quite overcomplicated to the point where the native population can't fully use them. It isn't uncommon for Chinese or Japanese people to forget some of the Kanji signs to write or read certain things. There is a degree of illiteracy because people don't get enough time to learn their native language and don't invest time to maintain their skills. In an extreme case I've met Chinese people who culdn't write Kanji/Hanzi on a blackboard in class, but they spoke fluently and they could type kanji on a keyboard where it's much easier to pick the sounds they want to write.

For a native mandarin Chinese speaker I'd guess that synthetic nordic languages or Finnish would be tougher to learn than English. English and Chinese don't use grammatical cases and don't conjugate words which will be unfamiliar once they start learning Finnish. I also read that they struggle with Korean and Japanese because there is practically no overlap between the east asian languages.


I know some Japanese and still learn it from time to time for fun. It definitely requires a lot of time because learning the three writing systems, hiragana, katakana and kanji is just the beginning. Words are compouds of several kanji that change their sounds or pronounciation depending on their reading, different sound readings change meaning, there are many phrases that need to be remembered verbatim, proper nouns have their own unique kanji cominations to remember and don't follow typical rules and so on.

 

[sushi]

Depends what you mean by studied and learned.
I think it depends HOW you study and HOW you learn.
If you mean in school, it can be any language, just cheap textbooks and bad teachers can make even Esperanto hard.

Really I tried to figure out what makes languages hard, and when it comes to the bottom line it really comes down to three factors.
Your own attitude towards a language. If you dislike a language you will find it hard to learn. Youll find lots of excuses to avoid learning this or that.

Other is sources. Bad textbooks, stupid sources, conflicting information, or rushing the learning process can make anything hard, and especially language learning.
If you don't have the time or patience to learn a language it will never be easy to learn.

yea a shit textbook ruins alot of experiences and a waste of money, regardless of what you are learning

 

[threeStepfourStep]

The reason for English speakers having difficulties with Korean or Japanese is that English follows a SVO syntax structure (Subject Verb Object: I eat apple) while Korean or Japanese uses a SOV syntax structure (subject object verb: I apple eat 나는 사과를 먹는다/私はリンゴを食べる). The verb for Korean/Japanese comes last, not right after the subject noun.

If you've intuitively had verbs follow your initial pronouns, it's going to be very difficult to grasp the flow of the language in another tongue. Also, Korean or Japanese is contextual as well, meaning that sometimes the subject isn't actually said sometimes, because it's already being inferred.

Honestly I don't think the language part isn't the hardest aspect, I think it's cultural mannerisms and etiquette and the soft philosophies behind the language or culture that's the hardest part to grasp.

Japanese for example is very nonconfrontational, and a lot of the language seems like it's just muttering factual statements without the input of emotions, but it's inferred from the language in an indirect way what the speaker is trying to convey. Not very direct, but implicit. Korean on the other hand is very developed emotionally in that the cultural format of the language prioritizes emotional standing over factual statements. A lot of the speaking revolves around emotional tenor rather than some kind of back and forth you have in English. In English you can be blunt about things, like for example you can simply say that the movie sucked. The listener can then reply 'oh why do you think so?'. But in Korean, you usually say "I think that the movie wasn't that interesting" or, "For me, the movie wasn't great, that's what I think".

In English a lot of it is roundabout, but once you realize the relationships dynamics in the culture, that's when you realize why they speak the way they do.