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What do you consider to be the hardest language to learn, and why?

There is always discussion about what people consider to be the hardest languages to learn, and I'm interested to know what your personal thoughts are on this.

Most people say that the hardest languages to learn are Polish, Hungarian, Russian or Mandarin Chinese, Arabic or Japanese.

I learned Polish fairly rapidly and didn't find it that hard at all, much to my surprise. And I'm currently learning Japanese and I find it easy. I think people look at the complex writing systems of certain languages and automatically assume those languages are difficult. It really isn't the case.

I've also been learning Mandarin Chinese for about a year and a half, and I think this is a difficult language. Sure, the grammar is easy and the tones aren't hard, but the hard part comes in remembering the vocabulary, because it is so different to English, AND you have to remember the correct tone for every word or you won't be understood. Also, superimposing the tones over words while talking at a reasonable pace is tricky (it's easy at slow speed). And then there's the complex writing system (with no alphabet).

So for ME, I'd say Mandarin Chinese is the hardest language of the ones I've been learning so far.

I also think Cantonese must be difficult, because it has more tones than Mandarin (8 tones I think, correct me if I'm wrong).

I'd actually go as far as to say that English is one the hardest languages to learn if you're a non-English native, because our alphabet is not phonetic...i.e. you cannot tell how a word/letter is pronounced just by looking at it. This must make remembering and reading English really hard for foreigners. The alphabets and writing systems for most languages are entirely phonetic....every word is written as it is pronounced, so in actual fact things that SEEM complex such as the Russian alphabet or Japanese writing systems are in fact quite easy to learn.

I don't know about Hungarian to be honest, haven't tried learning it.

In the end, some things are easier and some things are harder in certain languages, I don't think it's possible to truly say what the hardest language is.

What do YOU think are the hardest languages to learn, from your own experience or otherwise, and why?
(edited 13 years ago)

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Original post by Neil_K

Cantonese. More tones than Mandarin :biggrin:
Reply 2
I tried to learn Mandarin for about 15 minutes, and gave up because it had already blown my mind. Feynman says Japanese is most insane, though, and I trust his word on everything. The general theme is that it's probably something asian.
Reply 3
Original post by Bobifier
I tried to learn Mandarin for about 15 minutes, and gave up because it had already blown my mind. Feynman says Japanese is most insane, though, and I trust his word on everything. The general theme is that it's probably something asian.


Get Michel Thomas Method Mandarin....you'll have no problem learning Mandarin with this method. It really does break it down and make it easy to learn the basics...though Mandarin is by no means easy to master.

Also look at http://www.chineseclass101.com/ - undoubtably one the best online resources for learning Mandarin Chinese.

Good luck...don't give up on Mandarin, it's not as hard as you might think in a lot of respects....(though as I said, it's not easy in other respects!).

And Japanese is far easier than Mandarin...the grammar is pretty simple, there are no tones, and the writing systems are phonetic (besides the Kanji, which aren't hard to learn, they just take time).
(edited 13 years ago)
Reply 4
Mandarin Chinese, Japanese.. etc etc.. Simply because they look really complicated and are so different.
In general: Probably an Asiatic language - Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Korean... any of the Isolating Language group (though Japanese is agglutinative...) *nerd-out*

For me, personally: Finnish. So many cases. So very daunting. I literally struggle to remember what case means what when I'm going through things. I'm new to it though, so I get things mixed up very very easily...like I always want to say Puhut suomea instead of Puhun suomea -- yay for the wrong 'person' in my conjugations. (First meaning "You speak Finnish" and the second "I speak Finnish")
Reply 6
Hindi, Hebrew, Klingon
So you actually speak Polish, right? Well done you, i must admit i'm pretty impressed because you don't find many English speakers who are keen on learning Polish. Was there a particular reason you wanted to learn Polish?
I mean, it all depends what your first language is; as I'm Polish myself, I don't find Eastern European languages hard as they all work in a similar way. Also, Spanish didn't actually cause me any trouble either.
I also had a few Mandarin lessons, and although I literally loved it, after a few lessons I quit. It requires so much patience it's unbelievable! A friend also tried to teach me some Nepalese, but again - except a few swear words, I don't remember much.
So basically, from my experience - Asian languages are the hardest!
Reply 8
English is apparently, because we have so many words that have so many different meanings which differ in such a context!
Reply 9
CHING CHONG WOW! HYAA! (chop) /dead

"i am coming to chop your ass! die!"
(edited 13 years ago)
Reply 10
If your question is "what is the hardest language to learn as a second language [for anyone]?" then there is no answer -- Spanish is easier to learn for a Portuguese-speaker than it is for a Japanese-speaker, and Japanese is easier to learn for an Amami-speaker than for a Spanish speaker. If instead of [for anyone] you mean [for an English-speaker], then it's still fairly open-ended, and there are many languages that are candidates, for different reasons. Vietnamese with its many tones, Ubykh with its stupidly high consonant inventory, Cantonese with its complicated script, Hungarian with its 18 cases (or even Tsez which has >64 cases), Japanese with its many registers, Georgian with its hard-to-pronounce consonant clusters, Navajo with its unfamiliar (to an English-speaker) grammar in general, etc...

If you mean "hardest language to learn from birth", then it's almost impossible to know. Almost all languages' speakers are adequately fluent by the age of 5 or 6 to do most things, and definitely by age 10.

So really your question has no answer -- there is no hardest language to learn.

If there's any candidate, Ithkuil could be one! [It's a constructed language, but a very interesting one (much more so than Esperanto).]
Reply 11
Original post by lovepolska
So you actually speak Polish, right? Well done you, i must admit i'm pretty impressed because you don't find many English speakers who are keen on learning Polish. Was there a particular reason you wanted to learn Polish?
I mean, it all depends what your first language is; as I'm Polish myself, I don't find Eastern European languages hard as they all work in a similar way. Also, Spanish didn't actually cause me any trouble either.
I also had a few Mandarin lessons, and although I literally loved it, after a few lessons I quit. It requires so much patience it's unbelievable! A friend also tried to teach me some Nepalese, but again - except a few swear words, I don't remember much.
So basically, from my experience - Asian languages are the hardest!


Cze??! Mi?o Pani? pozna?! Ja uczy si? Polskie, poniewa? Ja podró?owa?em i spotka?em Poliski ludzie, i mam polskie przyjacieli. Ja potrzebuj? uczy? dalszy s?ownik, ale Ja mog? mówi? dobrze. Pisanie jest trudny dla mnie!

Czy moze mi pani powiedziec je?li Ja robi?em b??di? Dziekuje!

Mog? pisa? email dla pani, poniewa? Ja chcia?bym practicowa? mój Polskie pisanie?

The same reply but without Polish characters (if you can still read it)....

Czesc! Milo Pani? poznac! Ja uczy sie Polskie, poniewaz Ja podrozowa?em i spotka?em Poliski ludzie, i mam polskie przyjacieli. Ja potrzebuje uczyc dalszy slownik, ale Ja moge mowic dobrze. Pisanie jest trudny dla mnie!

Czy moze mi pani powiedziec jesli Ja robilem bladi? Dziekuje!

Moge pisac email dla pani, poniewaz Ja chcialbym practicowac moj Polskie pisanie?
(edited 13 years ago)
Reply 12
Oh I hope the Polish letters came out ok....it looks like they are not being displayed properly :-( Sorry!

I started to learn Polish in April this year because I have a few Polish friends who I met when I was traveling. I think Polish people are friendly, and it is an interesting language too, so I decided to learn it! It hasn't been too bad. I see a Polish friend once a week to practice my speaking and reading. But I find the writing quite hard. I know most of the grammar structure, but I need to learn more vocabulary. I hope to visit Poland soon but for now there are a lot of Polish people in the UK to talk to!

I want to email you in Polish, so I can practice the writing!

Do you know how to display Polish characters here? I use http://polish.typeit.org/ for the Polish alphabet!
(edited 13 years ago)
Reply 13
Personally I'd say Cantonese. I've had a go at Japanese and Mandarin (still working on it...) and while they're both extremely hard, I haven't given up on them as of yet. Cantonese made me want to pull my hair out so I'm postponing learning that for now :p:
Reply 14
Taking out all the languages with different letters (apart from Russian), it would have to be Hungarian.
Original post by LaughingBro
Cantonese. More tones than Mandarin :biggrin:


No it's not. They have the same amount of tones. I know how to speak mandarin as well as cantonese.
Original post by Instincts_2012
No it's not. They have the same amount of tones. I know how to speak mandarin as well as cantonese.


No, I speak Mandarin as well as Chinese too, and Mandarin has 4 tones, whereas Cantonese has 6.
Reply 17
Original post by Instincts_2012
No it's not. They have the same amount of tones. I know how to speak mandarin as well as cantonese.


According to this, Cantonese has as many as 10 or 13 tones....http://www.experts123.com/q/how-many-tones-does-cantonese-have.html
Scouse.
Original post by Neil_K

I've also been learning Mandarin Chinese for about a year and a half, and I think this is a difficult language. Sure, the grammar is easy and the tones aren't hard, but the hard part comes in remembering the vocabulary, because it is so different to English, AND you have to remember the correct tone for every word or you won't be understood. Also, superimposing the tones over words while talking at a reasonable pace is tricky (it's easy at slow speed). And then there's the complex writing system (with no alphabet).


Bolded bit is wrong, because you'll be understood, you'll just sound like a peasanty southerner! :tongue:
No offence intended to anyone from southern China.
(edited 13 years ago)

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