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World’s most difficult language | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| delectric Diglot Senior Member China Joined 6971 days ago 608 posts - 733 votes  Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: German | Message 17 of 130 12 October 2007 at 7:59pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm surprised Arabic is currently considered the hardest language, though it's early days yet (can you vote more than once). Certainly there has been a greater exchange of culture between the Arabic world and the west over the last 1000 years so that I would think would make it easier to tackle. It has a phonetic writing system (a difficult one perhaps but it still has).
Also, I would say that the tone of Arabic just sounds closer to an Indo European language. For sure when a beginner of Arabic learns English the accent sounds closer to the standard than the beginner Chinese/Japanese/Korean learnig English. I just think the rhythm of Arabic is closer to that of a IE language. I really think that people should lay any (possible) bias they have on the table when making comments. I mean it could be that Abibba (sorry I may be wrong) will think Arabic is the hardest language due to it being his mother tongue. Many people take pride in thinking/knowing their language is the hardest. Ahibba, I would think Arabic would have been very easy for you to learn. What about your experiences with Japanese? Ahibba from my experiences there are more native Arabic speakers of English and French than Mandarin, Japanese or Korean. Possible we could say this is because M/J/K are amongst the hardest languages in the worl but I would think it has more to do with history, culture, geographical position and economic trends. Maybe being from Oman you're in a better position to comment on this. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| ChristopherB Triglot Senior Member New Zealand Joined 6106 days ago 851 posts - 1074 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English*, German, French | Message 18 of 130 12 October 2007 at 8:44pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Polysynthetic languages should be considered, too. Though none of us here (or extremely few) probably know enough about them. I can't really discuss much here, but just for interest's sake, here are a few examples:
Western Greenlandic: Aliikusersuillammassuaanerartassagaluarpaalli. aliiku-sersu-i-llammas-sua-a-nerar-ta-ssa-galuar-paal-li entertainment-provide-SEMITRANS-one.good.at-COP-say.that-REP -FUT-sure.but-3.PL.SUBJ/3SG.OBJ-but 'However, they will say that he is a great entertainer, but ...' Usaopuspe aejajkotujmasiramsujpa. usa-opuspe &n bsp; a-e-jaj-ko-tujma-si-ram-suj-pa various-rumors &nbs p; 1-APL-REFL-far-REFL-heart-sway-ITER 'I keep swaying my heart afar and toward myself over various rumors.' (i.e., I wonder about various rumors.) I think for English speakers, these kinds of languages would rank among the hardest. Look at Kalaallisut (Greenlandic) for example. To us, the entire sentence is backwards! 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Karakorum Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6359 days ago 201 posts - 232 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written)* Studies: French, German | Message 19 of 130 12 October 2007 at 8:59pm | IP Logged | |||||
That's a good question, and the answer is, not exactly. It is perhaps misleading that the first thing anybody hears about the Arabic (Hebrew and Syriac) abjad is that it doesn't write vowels. In fact long vowels are marked by adding semivowels, it is only short vowels that are optional (and usually left out). So the sentence you wrote would be something like: K'n yw ryd dhs? Yw k'n ryd wdh'wt vwls? A second factor is that the structure of the language itself is conducive to this. With predictable vowel patterns on a consonant template and helping semi-vowels the system is not only legible but also logical for the language. You can start out using Arabic in its abugida incarnation by marking all the short vowels, which would make it fully phonetic, but as you gain fluency you will deduce what the natives have already deduced and start dropping the vowels. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Karakorum Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6359 days ago 201 posts - 232 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written)* Studies: French, German | Message 20 of 130 12 October 2007 at 9:03pm | IP Logged | |||||
Well, that's an interesting note. First of all I don't know if it's true or not, but here's a few possible reasons: - There is more material for Japanese, and it is of a higher quality. - There is a lot of interest in Japanese generated solely by pop-culture output, particularly in the US. - Define fluency. Many native Arabic speakers hold the opinion that achieving native fluency (more specifically native accent) is impossible. I used to have the same opinion till in one week touring Europe I met a Greek, two Russians, and an Italian who spoke Egyptian Arabic like they were born in Cairo. I think it is obviously harder to achieve fluency in Arabic for an English speaker than say French or German, but you just don't know how hard Korean is until you've given it a shot. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 Jiwon Triglot Moderator Korea, South Joined 6226 days ago 1417 posts - 1500 votes Speaks: EnglishC2, Korean*, GermanC1 Studies: Hindi, Spanish Personal Language Map | Message 21 of 130 12 October 2007 at 9:59pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I voted for "a language not listed here". As I mentioned so many times before, the "big hurdle" for me was learning English, my first foreign language as well as the first IE language. I possibly couldn't vote for Korean when it is my native language, and especially when I'm trying to make the language look more "possible".
However, other than English, there ARE much more difficult languages out there. Just try Papua New Guinea and Brazil for unbelievable linguistic diversity comprising of languages with bizarre grammatical elements such as OSV word order. :-) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| nhk9 Senior Member Canada Joined 6594 days ago 290 posts - 319 votes Speaks: English* | Message 22 of 130 13 October 2007 at 12:39am | IP Logged | |||||
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I have studied all 3 JKM languages for a few years and also about 100 hours of Arabic, so I hope I can share my experiences with you.
Although people say that the grammar in Japanese is harder than Mandarin's, it is by no means really that hard. Yes the SOV pattern maybe confusing at first, but it is no barrier once it has been gotten used to. In fact, Japanese grammar is much easier than many European languages, simply because its grammar is quite structural and without much irregularities. The real difficulties of Japanese beside the kanjis (Chinese characters) lie in the fact that homonyms are common, and also that there are many ways of expressing yourself. While it is easy for any foreigner to pick up the lines that one would need in daily life, learning to read novels and other literary works is a totally different beast. As for Mandarin, while I agree that it is a difficult language, it is by no means any more difficult than other Chinese (dialects/languages) like Minnan or Cantonese. Cantonese has more variations and more tones, not to mention that if you were to learn Cantonese you would have to learn written Mandarin anyway. Because of this Mandarin CANNOT be considered the most difficult. Korean is also difficult, but I think the difficulties can be overcomed if Chinese is learned first. If Korean is tackled without any prior exposure to any other East Asian language, then learning it will become very difficult. Many learners complain that listening to Korean is the most difficult of the 4 activities, since native speakers tend to shorten their sentences and words at will. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6387 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 23 of 130 13 October 2007 at 12:55am | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm surprised so few people voted for Mandarin. For me it would surely harder than Japanese because of the tones.
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6558 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 24 of 130 13 October 2007 at 6:51am | IP Logged | |||||
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I think Ancient Egyptian might deserve a vote here, especially if it were a living language. You have the pronunciation and grammatical challenges of Arabic with a writing system more complicated than Japanese.
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