Thread: Most difficult language to learn?

Japanese, kanji is so hard to get down. same with chinese. I took a year and a half of Japanese in HS and its pretyt tricky. English has got to be up there though

English has just 26 letters.......

Japanese has:-

>26 letters

> 46 hiragana 20 of which change change to have up to 3 reading styles for the one charater + 33 of which can have combined sounds.

> 46 katakana 20 of which change change to have up to 3 reading styles for the one charater + 33 of which can have combined sounds.

> several thousand kanji

English is most definately not the hardest language to learn. Me being a foreiner I know Could be the fact that you get fed with english everywhere (TV, movies etc.) helping as well. German and italian is pretty easy, german is harder to learn though. Um, that's all the languages I know, apart from my native (swedish).
I would agree with Kuso and gr81, japanese and chinese

Originally posted by kuso
English has just 26 letters.......

Japanese has:-

>26 letters

> 46 hiragana 20 of which change change to have up to 3 reading styles for the one charater + 33 of which can have combined sounds.

> 46 katakana 20 of which change change to have up to 3 reading styles for the one charater + 33 of which can have combined sounds.

> several thousand kanji

That's all bullshit mate!!
Hardest language is Aussie!!!
Blimey, crikey charlie!! Onya cobber!!
Avagoodweegend ya mug.......
Fancy a game of airial ping pong, with some amber fluid in the arvo with a few dogs eyes??
Got me clacker hangin out
FIGJAM!!

I just heard it's because English has so many different pronunciations for the same spelled word.

Where are hiragana and katakana from?

English is the hardest language. We have words that are spelled the same bu have different meanings (spell (to spell a word) or Spell - a witches craft) Words spelled the same but sound differently by the tense in which it is used (to read and have read). Another is we have words that sound alike but spelled differently with different meanings.(which; witch). We even have a word that is spelled exactly the same but pronounced differently when capitalized and of course has a different meaning (polish -your nails / Polish - from Poland). And I won't even mention our broad usage of our phat slang terminology.

as for japanese, that is easy, I learned it on a mail order cassette course. hahahaha TORA TORA TORA take that!!!

Originally posted by firestorm
English is the hardest language. We have words that are spelled the same bu have different meanings (spell (to spell a word) or Spell - a witches craft) Words spelled the same but sound differently by the tense in which it is used (to read and have read). Another is we have words that sound alike but spelled differently with different meanings.(which; witch). We even have a word that is spelled exactly the same but pronounced differently when capitalized and of course has a different meaning (polish -your nails / Polish - from Poland). And I won't even mention our broad usage of our phat slang terminology.

Well that goes for most languages! Really, it's the very same in swedish! And German, but I don't know enough italian to have a wide enough opinion on that

What languages do you speak?

Hey, Pig Latin is difficult tot learn too.

Originally posted by Jenny
Well that goes for most languages! Really, it's the very same in swedish! And German, but I don't know enough italian to have a wide enough opinion on that

What languages do you speak?

Italian, little Russian, Spanish, and a little middle eastern tounge.

Originally posted by firestorm
Italian, little Russian, Spanish, and a little middle eastern tounge.

Quite impressive

No not really Jenny, It was job related so I learned enough to get by with the exception of Spanish. I took that through High School and again a refresher course while in the military.

Whatever you do though don't ever ask me to write in any of them. I spell badly enough in english. hahahahaha

Originally posted by TheGreatSatan
I just heard it's because English has so many different pronunciations for the same spelled word.

Also, english has many more words and descriptors while many other languages are more basic. However even to native Japanese speakers, they have trouble with the written stuff.

Out of the 5 ½ languages I speak its gotta be finnish. (finnish also being the half language ) The amount of tempuses (?) and pronomes blows you away... Only thing easy about it is that its got the same word for "he" and "her". But pretty confusing.
Also, german is far more difficult then english.

I'd have to say Mandarin is hard... Japanese is also difficult.

Some people say English is hard, but it doesnt seem so hard that a good portion of the world cant speak it.

As to German, its not so hard, even many Americans learn quite a bit of it. Icelandic is perhaps the most difficult European language. Or certainly up there.

Fire, you speak a lil Farsi?

Why is everyone going on about japanese? Havent you ever seen Shogun? Its like the little asian girl says, its only like 2 words total, and then you pronunce them diffrently. Dosnt sound that hard to me

And there is more people speaking mandarin than any other language so thats out.

JJJ, I agree, finnish really is hard! In most languages you can catch a word or two, but NOT finnish

Är du finlands-svensk?

Ebonics and Jive are pretty complex.

Originally posted by JJJ
Why is everyone going on about japanese? Havent you ever seen Shogun? Its like the little asian girl says, its only like 2 words total, and then you pronunce them diffrently. Dosnt sound that hard to me

Then go give it a try

And there is more people speaking mandarin than any other language so thats out.

A matter of necessity. If you were Chinese you'd speak it too. Just like if you lived in Finland all the time you'd speak it with near perfection... and if you lived in Iceland all the time the same. People speak their own languages, no matter how hard they may appear to foreigners.

As to Finnish being so complex... if someone spoke Swahili would you understand it? Its simply a different language. Does it have different roots than the other Scandinavian countries languages? If not then its just changed alot over the centuries. Still, its hardly one of the worlds hardest languages. After all, all the Finns speak it

Originally posted by Eggs
Then go give it a try



A matter of necessity. If you were Chinese you'd speak it too.

True... Its was sort of a joke.

Just like if you lived in Finland all the time you'd speak it with near perfection...

Wouldnt I speak it perfectly?

and if you lived in Iceland all the time the same. People speak their own languages, no matter how hard they may appear to foreigners.



As to Finnish being so complex... if someone spoke Swahili would you understand it? Its simply a different language.

Im just saying that of the languages i speak finnish is the hardest. (Thats why I only sort of speak it). Do you speak Japanese or mandarin? Otherwise you should probably have some sort of reference saying they are hard languages to learn?

Does it have different roots than the other Scandinavian countries languages?

Actually hard to say since Finland isnt a scandinavic country.
But it is not related to the scandinav languages, its related to Hungarian and those kinds of languages.

If not then its just changed alot over the centuries. Still, its hardly one of the worlds hardest languages. After all, all the Finns speak it

True, they even manage to speak it after ridiculus amounts of Kosken.

Allright, all you Nihongo experts, what does this mean:

Watashi wa oki Nihonjin, Anata wa chisai Americajin. Jozo ni narimashite ne.
And it is written in the alphabet, since this page doesn't have the language capability.

I think Russian and Czech is pretty hard. The wording in Swedish isn't too hard, but for me the Rhythm is. It's like a melody, couldn't get it.

What is the hardest language in the world to learn?


To: 'Ask A Linguist ' <ask-ling@linguistlist.org>

Most likely, there is no such thing as a "hardest language in the world to
learn." Assuming you are asking about second language learners over the age
of 12, the factors that make learning a given language hard to learn are
many and varied: the learner's native language and its relation to the
second language, the learner's motivation, social factors, writing systems,
instructional materials, teacher quality--to name only a few. To learn more
you will need to plunge into the rather extensive literature on second
language learning.

Carl Mills
University of Cincinnati

the complaint most people have with english is 1) all the different spellings for shit, and 2) all of the different regional dialects and slang words that vary from region to region. I do think though, that most languages have this problem. to me, I'd have to guess that some of the asian languages (japanese, chinese) would be most difficult, because they are phoenetical for the most part...most europeans and other westerners have languages based in classic languages (greek, latin, etc) so many words are similar in different languages. however, this is not the case with these asian languages...

Klingon would be up there tooo

Originally posted by JJJ


Actually hard to say since Finland isnt a scandinavic country.
But it is not related to the scandinav languages, its related to Hungarian and those kinds of languages.

Um, JJJ, are you saying Finland isn't a Scandinavic country? My school teachers always said it was

Finland is a Scandinavic Country!

At least that is what I was taught over there.