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English - The Most Difficult Language | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| cordelia0507 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5838 days ago 1473 posts - 2176 votes  Speaks: Swedish* Studies: German, Russian | Message 17 of 52 16 May 2009 at 1:12am | IP Logged | ||
Yeah Biscuit, you've got it!!! :-) I can't be the only person from continental Europe who experiences a combination of jealousy and amusement when I hear of anglophones who pick up Finnish or Dutch as their foreign language of choice... There is nothing wrong at all of course with learning these languages, but in terms of practical usefulness they simply can't match the big languages. I for one wouldn't even consider Dutch until I was flawless in German, French, Spanish and Russian (and of course this will nevern happen). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| zerothinking Senior Member Australia Joined 6372 days ago 528 posts - 772 votes Speaks: English* | Message 18 of 52 16 May 2009 at 1:24am | IP Logged | ||
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It started from ignorant up-themselves English speakers who love to toot their horn
and feel special and who don't know the first thing about foreign languages and have never even so much as looked at a foreign language. You know, I find that a lot of people say 'my language is the hardest to learn I hear'. I think a lot of countries have this myth about their own languages. I know of 4 where this myth is pretty rampant Japan, Iceland, Finland, & China Edited by zerothinking on 16 May 2009 at 1:30am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| GuardianJY Groupie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5685 days ago 74 posts - 72 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Italian, Swedish, French | Message 19 of 52 16 May 2009 at 1:28am | IP Logged | ||
I think those are somewhat merited. Those languages are pretty difficult at least for me as a native English speaker. Especially Finnish. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| JS-1 Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 5983 days ago 144 posts - 166 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Arabic (Egyptian), German, Japanese, Ancient Egyptian, Arabic (Written) | Message 20 of 52 16 May 2009 at 2:42am | IP Logged | ||
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If you ever Google the "World's most difficult language", you will find many examples
of people "defending the honour" of their own language by saying how difficult it is. For some reason, people want to believe that they speak the most difficult language in the World -but we all know there is no such thing as a difficult native language. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| irrationale Tetraglot Senior Member China Joined 6050 days ago 669 posts - 1023 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Tagalog Studies: Ancient Greek, Japanese | Message 21 of 52 16 May 2009 at 5:57am | IP Logged | ||
Sorry, but Japan and China, at least, have all the right to say so. In my opinion, English seems pretty difficult compared to lots of languages I know of, people just think it is easy at the beginning because it is an analytic language, so they can just throw sentences together without worrying because it has easy conjugation etc. But the thing about analytic languages is the difficultly skyrockets past the basic stage. Add to it, English spelling, pronunciation are wild compared to lots of languages. English speakers mangle words, mumble, shorten and hack words. Tons of phrases, phrasal verbs, homonyms, large vocabulary with synonyms, and many idioms only make life harder for those moving beyond the basics. Still, Chinese, at least, is objectively harder, so English is not the world's most difficult, but I would say it's fairly difficult. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Lizzern Diglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5909 days ago 791 posts - 1053 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 23 of 52 16 May 2009 at 10:19am | IP Logged | ||
Exactly. And whatever language it may be, just cause you learned it just fine as a child doesn't make you smarter than people whose native language is one of the 'easier' ones. Even if we speak the most difficult language in the world - to other people - that really only means we were lucky enough to be handed the natural knowledge of something complex on a silver platter when we were younger. When asked about Norwegian, I tend to consider where they're coming from before I answer - if someone is feeling discouraged about the complexity of it (dialects, cutting random bits out, the schwas, the endless idioms and expressions and national private jokes and cultural references, etc) then I won't be one to point out that it's hard, but I have heard beginner learners trivialise the difficulty of it because the grammar looks easy-peasy so it should be a cakewalk overall - in which case I will point out that it's not quite as straightforward as they think :-) And then wait for them to discover it for themselves. But the world's most difficult? Not really, no. I guess it all depends on difference from L1 though, some L2s take you further from what you know and how you are used to thinking than others, so maybe some of them just require more adjustment to get 'under its skin' and start to think like a native. Liz 1 person has voted this message useful |
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