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Language Difficulty Comparisons | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Americano Senior Member Korea, South Joined 6656 days ago 101 posts - 120 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Korean | Message 1 of 17 29 September 2009 at 10:52am | IP Logged | ||
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I am going to supply five languages, and I ask people to rank these languages from 1-5, with 1 being the most difficult, to 5 being the easiest to learn to a level 2 on the FSI scale in reading, writing, listening and speaking. To put it in context, I am a native English speaker, and the only other language I speak is Spanish at a solid intermediate level. Here are the five languages:
Russian, Urdu, Mandarin, Egyptian Arabic, and Farsi. My estimation is that it would probably be in this order: 1)Mandarin (because of the reading/writing portion) 2)Egyptian Arabic 3)Urdu 4)Farsi 5)Russian What do you think? I would particularly like to learn one in conjunction to Russian to the level 2+ as fast as possible. Which would facilitate this the easiest? I have considered Arabic,however if I could learn one of the others, besides Russian, to this level faster, then I would consider that language first. thanks! Edited by Americano on 29 September 2009 at 11:10am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Toufik18 Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Algeria Joined 5554 days ago 188 posts - 202 votes Speaks: Arabic (Written)*, Arabic (classical)*, French, English | Message 2 of 17 29 September 2009 at 3:16pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think Arabic should lead the ranking, it's very hard even for a native to speak it very fluently (classical Arabic) ,Egyptian Arb is also difficult, but it's not considered as a language, so it's a dialect. The reasons why it's famous is because it's the most conservative to the real Arabic, it's SOMEHOW easy to pronounce and the Egyptian cultural influence . Edited by Toufik18 on 29 September 2009 at 3:19pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Hencke Tetraglot Moderator Spain Joined 6704 days ago 2340 posts - 2444 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Finnish, EnglishC2, Spanish Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 17 29 September 2009 at 3:18pm | IP Logged | ||
Don't forget the tonal element which makes it even harder. How much harder is very individual. Some have a special talent and the tones come easy to them, and the rest of us keep struggning till kingdom come. But it is doable, even yours truly is slowly getting better at it. Sorry I don't have any input to help compare between the other ones on the list. But to me, Mandarin certainly feels very correctly placed up there at the top. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| minus273 Triglot Senior Member France Joined 5575 days ago 288 posts - 346 votes Speaks: Mandarin*, EnglishC2, French Studies: Ancient Greek, Tibetan | Message 4 of 17 29 September 2009 at 3:44pm | IP Logged | ||
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Urdu and Farsi aren't exactly two languages, and they all have a simple grammar. Much simpler than Russian, I suppose.
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| Languagelover Heptaglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 7186 days ago 41 posts - 50 votes Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, German, Italian, Spanish, Latin, Ancient Greek Studies: Mandarin | Message 5 of 17 29 September 2009 at 4:16pm | IP Logged | ||
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In my opinion, Farsi is quite easier than Russian. It is also an Indo-European language and the grammar is not particularily complex. For Urdu, I don't know.
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| MäcØSŸ Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5619 days ago 259 posts - 392 votes Speaks: Italian*, EnglishC2 Studies: German | Message 6 of 17 29 September 2009 at 6:01pm | IP Logged | ||
Why do you say that? 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| doviende Diglot Senior Member Canada languagefixatio Joined 5796 days ago 533 posts - 1245 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Hindi, Swedish, Portuguese | Message 7 of 17 29 September 2009 at 6:47pm | IP Logged | ||
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I can't comment on most of these, but i've made some feeble attempts at arabic, and i'm intermediate at mandarin. My problems with arabic have mostly been with lack of materials. I find it pretty easy to find tons of chinese movies and tv shows (although i live in Vancouver, on the pacific coast with tons of chinese immigrants). China is also making quite a big push to get more people around the world to learn mandarin, so there are plenty of great instructional books and vocab supplements, in addition to the wealth of native materials.
Chinese may be one of the more difficult languages for an English speaker, but you won't starve for good learning materials. When i try to find arabic stuff, however, it becomes much harder. The arabic section in every bookstore is tiny, even the ones that have large language-learning sections. It's harder to find web resources too, beyond the basics. Maybe i just didn't look hard enough, but that's my impression. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Mosin Diglot Newbie United States Joined 5373 days ago 9 posts - 19 votes Speaks: Arabic (Written)*, English Studies: Mandarin | Message 8 of 17 29 September 2009 at 7:03pm | IP Logged | ||
I think they can't speak it fluently because they don't practice it, not because the language is difficult. Edited by Mosin on 29 September 2009 at 7:06pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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