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World’s most difficult language

 Language Learning Forum : General discussion Post Reply
Poll Question: Language that takes most time
Poll Choice Votes Poll Statistics
55 [15.07%]
45 [12.33%]
39 [10.68%]
66 [18.08%]
160 [43.84%]
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130 messages over 17 pages: << Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ... 12 ... 16 17 Next >>
deniz2
Groupie
TurkeyRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5155 days ago

53 posts - 62 votes 

 
 Message 89 of 130
25 October 2010 at 1:15pm | IP Logged 
leosmith wrote:
Before voting, please consider that this is the language that will take the most time for a native English speaker to reach advanced fluency in all 4 skills: reading, writing, speaking and listening.

This has been discussed many times before. It's one of my favorite discussions, so I thought it would be nice to have a poll on it. I wish there were more selections; sorry if I didn't include your favorite language.

Feel free to state your reasons, or post links to the many threads on this subject.


You should do this research among the well-known languages like French, German, Italian, and Spanish. Maybe Arabic and/or Russian can also be included. But instead of voting the people must tell how much of the language they have learned and they should compare the ones they learned, not the ones they just guess. The criteria should be having learned all the grammar (if they can’t speak much). They must be able to understand whatever they read at least by using a dictionary if they don’t know much vocabulary. By the way the vocabulary shouldn’t be criteria while evaluating the difficulty of a language. The grammar is the most important, secondly the writing is important. Maybe for the languages likes Chinese the pronunciation is also important and hard.
1 person has voted this message useful



deniz2
Groupie
TurkeyRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5155 days ago

53 posts - 62 votes 

 
 Message 90 of 130
25 October 2010 at 2:38pm | IP Logged 
Hashimi wrote:

[quote=Karakorum]I don't wanna pass a judgment on something so subjective, but I think Arabic is the easiest of all 4 languages.


So why the fluent non-native speakers of Japanese are more than the fluent non-native speakers of Arabic?

Sorry but how did you know that the non-native speakers of Japanese are more fluent? Do you know any Japanese? How do you know that they don’t make any grammar mistakes while speaking Japanese? Do you express yourself as fluent in English? If yes, then why do you make a grammar mistake? You should have said:

So why are the fluent non-native speakers of Japanese more than the fluent non-native speakers of Arabic?

I had some Arab friends. They always told me that Arabic was very difficult (or the most difficult) but they spoke terrible English and didn’t study any other language. The discussion that Arabic grammar is very difficult is never based on any explanation. In my country some people learn Arabic for only religious reasons and sorry but they are not intellectual. I mean they are not interested in grammar or anything else. I can definitely say that the ones who learn Italian, French or say Spanish are much more intellectual, social people.

1 person has voted this message useful



Old Chemist
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 5176 days ago

227 posts - 285 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: German

 
 Message 91 of 130
01 November 2010 at 7:44pm | IP Logged 
I think a language with a complicated grammar, such as Basque, Finnish or (reputedly) Inuit would be the most difficult language to learn. Especially as many such languages are minority, isolate ones meaning that there is little or no vocabulary in common with other languages. Even Japanese has a lot of English borrowings and, I believe, Arabic has a lot of scientific borrowings as I could once half understand a conversation between two Arab students on a scientific subject.
1 person has voted this message useful



Juаn
Senior Member
Colombia
Joined 5348 days ago

727 posts - 1830 votes 
Speaks: Spanish*

 
 Message 92 of 130
01 November 2010 at 9:36pm | IP Logged 
The most difficult language to learn is one devoid of proper learning materials and with scant opportunity to read, write, listen and speak it.

Edited by Juаn on 01 November 2010 at 9:46pm

6 persons have voted this message useful



Didgeridoo
Newbie
United States
Joined 5156 days ago

28 posts - 31 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: Finnish

 
 Message 93 of 130
02 November 2010 at 3:09am | IP Logged 
My friend started learning Japanese a week or two ago and he said that it was damn easy.
1 person has voted this message useful



formiko
Nonaglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6214 days ago

848 posts - 855 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, Esperanto, Indonesian, Yoruba, Cherokee, Russian, German, French
Studies: Mandarin, Ancient Greek

 
 Message 94 of 130
02 November 2010 at 8:38am | IP Logged 
Didgeridoo wrote:
My friend started learning Japanese a week or two ago and he said
that it was damn easy.

The spoken language itself isn't difficult, but the writing system is secret code!
2 persons have voted this message useful



Old Chemist
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 5176 days ago

227 posts - 285 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: German

 
 Message 95 of 130
02 November 2010 at 9:06am | IP Logged 
But a beautiful one, surely? Japanese is on my hitlist, but I've not yet made a serious
attempt to learn it yet, but the writing system does appeal to me, although I accept it is amongst the most difficult known (perhaps topped by Hittite!) but I think you are right, formiko, the spoken language appears to be like standard Italian or Spanish, clear reasonable easy sounds to make for an English speaker.
1 person has voted this message useful



Arekkusu
Hexaglot
Senior Member
Canada
bit.ly/qc_10_lec
Joined 5384 days ago

3971 posts - 7747 votes 
Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto
Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian

 
 Message 96 of 130
02 November 2010 at 3:36pm | IP Logged 
Didgeridoo wrote:
My friend started learning Japanese a week or two ago and he said that it was damn easy.

How much could your friend possibly have learnt in a week or two? No one is in a position to make any comment on the difficulty level of a language after 2 weeks.

Even if one were learning Spanish and claimed it was easy after 2 weeks, they'd still be a loooooong way from fluency.


2 persons have voted this message useful



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