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English - The Most Difficult Language | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Javi Senior Member Spain Joined 5981 days ago 419 posts - 548 votes  Speaks: Spanish* | Message 25 of 52 16 May 2009 at 12:55pm | IP Logged | ||
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It seems that Spanish is a bit different in this respect. At least here in Spain, I've never met anyone who thinks Spanish is particularly difficult compared to other languages. I've never heard of any language who was considered easier than Spanish either. I think that the ease of Spanish is a myth that a lot of foreigners seem to share, especially English speakers. It isn't extremely difficult of course, but it's not that easy either.
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| TheBiscuit Tetraglot Senior Member Mexico Joined 5923 days ago 532 posts - 619 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Italian Studies: German, Croatian | Message 26 of 52 16 May 2009 at 11:35pm | IP Logged | ||
Mexicans seem to think Spanish is hard to learn but they'll give you bizarre reasons like: it has lots of idioms (what language doesn't?) and it has more than one word for some things (what language doesn't?). This isn't helped by the plethora of foreigners that massacre it on a daily basis (not tourists, those that have lived here long enough to be able to string a sentence together). I cringe and say yes when people ask me if I found it easy to learn. This is usually met with incredulous looks. I think it's an easy language to get into, but a hard one to master. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| GoingGoingGone Newbie United States Joined 5668 days ago 28 posts - 39 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French, Swedish, Mandarin | Message 28 of 52 21 May 2009 at 4:42pm | IP Logged | ||
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Frankly I think "the most difficult language to learn" depends on what your native language is. Obviously, English is going to be more difficult to a native Chinese or Arabic speaker, for example, than a Spanish or Dutch speaker. And for someone whose native language is a Romantic or Germanic language, the languages with a completely different alphabet will be the most difficult.
So I think the whole debate over "the most difficult language" is a mute point and matters only from the perspective of that individual person and what their native language is. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| lynxrunner Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United States crittercryptics.com Joined 5922 days ago 361 posts - 461 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish*, French Studies: Russian, Swedish, Haitian Creole | Message 30 of 52 23 May 2009 at 4:26am | IP Logged | ||
Not necessarily. There might be some language which takes children a longer amount of time to learn. For example, I've read that Korean is the language which takes children the longest amount of time to learn. it don't remember thr specifics, however - it could have been the longest amount of time to learn to speak fluently, to learn to read and write, or whatever. As such, it is possible that there is a native language that takes more time for children to learn. It may not be objectively difficult, but maybe slightly more difficult than another language. I've never heard such a thing for Spanish. English, yeah. I've heard it, but in relation to writing. I guess not enough anglophones were hooked on phonics. :p 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ashiro Groupie United Kingdom learnxlanguage.com/ Joined 5802 days ago 89 posts - 101 votes Studies: Spanish | Message 31 of 52 23 May 2009 at 12:31pm | IP Logged | ||
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Its quite an eye-opener when someone points out the irregularities in your own language as Tombstone has done. Thanks. :)
I think ultimately the hardest is down to the individual. Not even where they're formbut individual learning style. Personally when I dabbled in Japanese I found it easy in comparison to Spanish with its insanely complex verbs and pronouns. I'm a native English speaker so in theory I should find Spanish easier. 'Tis not the case though. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| AlexL Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7084 days ago 197 posts - 277 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Italian | Message 32 of 52 23 May 2009 at 2:07pm | IP Logged | ||
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Perhaps Spanish only has a reputation as an 'easy language' because of its ubiquity. It does have a large number of verb tenses and a number of tricky prepositions that it takes a while to get used to using correctly.
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