What is the most difficult language (to learn it) ? (loan, to live in)
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lal, no. Old English maybe. Modern English is super easy. The hard part is pronunciation and spelling since it's not phonetic, but that's the case for all non-phonetic languages...
Yes, English spelling is even more illogical and frustratingly difficult than French (which also has a great many "silent" letters). Did you know that using the illogical rules of English, "GHOTI" spells "FISH" ?
"GH" = "F" sound, as in tough, cough, enough, rough.
"O" = "I" sound, as in "women."
"TI" = "SH" sound, as in nation, ration, haitian, vacation, etc.
Therefore, "GHOTI" = "FISH"
Yeah we learned that in my introduction to teaching English as a second language class. It's pretty funny
The FSI (Foreign Service Institute) classifies languages in three categories, well four technically.
The higher the category, the higher degree of difficulty with 'I' being the relatively easiest.
Category I
These languages are closely related to English. 575-600 class hours are necessary for proficiency.
Romance Languages (French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and Romanian)
Scandinavian Languages (Danish, Norwegian, Swedish)
Dutch, Afrikaans
Category I ½
Though not an official category, it is the logical place to mention German (750 class hours) and Indonesian (900 class hours)
Category II
These languages vary significantly from English, requiring 1100 class hours for proficiency.
Russian
Polish
Hungarian
Turkish
Hebrew
Croatian
Category III
Plan to study at least 2200 hours to learn these difficult languages. The FSI also requires a second year of study in the target culture.
Asian languages (Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese, Korean)
Arabic
Well, I did study some of the romance languages (Spanish, French, Italian) and Japanese; I've retained some of what I was taught in the romance languages, particularly Spanish (just because I use it more often, though I wouldn't say I'm proficient) and I can honestly say I've retained very little of the Japanese I studied. I nearly forgot half the Hiragana and Katakana chart, and I only remember a few Kanji.
Aslo, the U.S. military uses this classification. Though I did speak to someone saying that they had classified Arabic as a Category IV - I cannot really say for sure.
Obviously, for an English speaker, Indo-European languges are the easiest, for several reasons. One, nearly all English words are derived from either Latin or German, which makes all other languages derived from Latin or German somewhat easier, since there are so many similar words that learning the new vocabulary is easier. Then, the grammar follows (usually) similar structures. And they all use the Roman (or similar Greek/Cyrillic) alphabet, so one can start learning quickly by reading to get a head start. Most English speakers, if they see something written in Italian or Dutch, can already make a pretty decent guess about what it says.
I voted Chinese, but that was likely a mistake in a way. As children learn language at pretty much the same age in every culture natural languages are believed to be equally difficult. (Their might be artificially created languages that are unusually difficult, but these could be created to be difficult in some cases)
Some possibilities for difficult though could be isolate languages, particularly ones with unusual features.
Urarina - A language of a Peruvian indigenous people that has the rare Object-Verb-Subject grammar pattern.
Zuni - I don't know if it has any unusual features, but it's isolate and American Indian languages often have rare sounds. That leads too.
Languages with rare sounds or tones.
Cherokee is said to have six tones. For a people quite well-known I've heard it's language is exceedingly difficult for someone raised in an Indo-European language.
The Piraha language has three tones and is said to have a variety of odd features.
Navajo as mentioned.
The Taa language has four tones and possibly 87 consonant sounds. It's a Khoisan or "Bushman" language.
I don't know about Chinese writing. In Japanese every character has at the very least (I'm sure there are exceptions) 2 completely different readings, one derived from chinese pronunciation and one purely japanese reading. So yea you have to memorize up to a dozen different pronunciations for some kanji. I think it's not as bad in Chinese but I believe Chinese people use more characters in daily writing than Japanese...not sure though.
I'm pretty sure Japanese writing system is 99999999999999999 x harder than Chinese one. Well, I am a Japanese who has been living in China for 20+ years
Quote:
Originally Posted by City Data Guy
My vote goes to Chinese because of its complex writing system.
Compared to Japanese, Chinese writing system is a piece of cake
There are three different letters in Japanese, Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji(Chinese characters). And just like liebknecht introduced,
you have to memorize up to a dozen different pronunciations for some kanji.
In Chinese, there are a very limited number of Chinese characters have two or more different pronunciations.
Japanese writing system must be one of the worst writing system, if not the worst
Navajo. I think there is no historical record of any adult ever successfully learning Navajo well enough to carry on a simple conversation.
Glad someone mentioned this. The native american languages are the most "complicated." If you think about the history of native americans and how they came here, that fact makes a lot of sense. The article below shows that there are ten tonal variations on the vowel sounds alone.
Of course, the state department doesn't have trainings in Navajo, so it can't be ranked on a system.
Chinese for me is the most difficult language to learn. I have studied for like 6 years of my life in my school as a second language for my extra credits and never ever get above B. lol. seriously I could do the writing but never been able to master the pronunciation well.
my dad can speak Chinese although not fluent. I can understand Chinese but when it comes to communication, I give up can only bargain, asking price..lol
I would say that Japanese is the hardest for those with limited skills in memorization. While one has to learn several pronunciations for the same Kanji, the grammar is really not that hard compared to other languages. Personally, I find the memorization of vocabulary to be the easiest part of learning a language -- mastering the grammar is what separates the wheat from the chaff.
Finnish and other Finno-Ugric languages, on the other hand, are quite difficult grammatically. Other grammatically complicated languages include some of the Caucasian languages, Quechua, Inuktitut and Athabascan languages like Navajo.
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