Which is the hardest language to learn?

Re: Which is the hardest language to learn?

Some humour is also an excellent means to learn and practice a language.

I love this spelling story!
 

I Have a Spelling Checker

Eye halve a spelling chequer.
It came with my pea sea.
It plane lee marks four my revue
Miss steaks aye can knot sea.
Eye ran this poem threw it,
Your sure reel glad two no.
Its vary polished in it's weigh.
My checker tolled me sew.
A checker is a bless sing,
It freeze yew lodes of thyme.
It helps me right awl stiles two reed,
And aides me when I rime.
Each frays come posed up on my screen
eye trussed too bee a joule.
The checker pours o'er every word
To cheque sum spelling rule.
Bee fore a veiling checker's Hour
spelling mite decline,
And if we're lacks oar have a laps,
We wood bee maid too wine.
Butt now bee cause my spelling
Is checked with such grate flair,
Their are no fault's with in my cite,
Of nun eye am a ware.
Now spelling does knot phase me,
It does knot bring a tier.
My pay purrs awl due glad den
With wrapped word's fare as hear.
To rite with care is quite a feet
Of witch won should be proud,
And wee mussed dew the best wee can,
Sew flaw's are knot aloud.
Sow ewe can sea why aye dew prays,
Such soft wear four pea seas,
And why eye brake in two averse
Buy righting too pleas.

Sauce Unknown

Re: Which is the hardest language to learn?

And for some humour:

Mind your English!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RIQcdEswXI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DJ2Xs-eeSg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmbcXQsCk34

The English Lesson (de Funès):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_9X8PVlfBE

Learning English pronunciation is fun
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kB_GSstdsFQ

The top 10 mispronounced words in English made by foreign learners
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZTJXtcOkvU

13 Foods You're Pronouncing Wrong
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hu9AEX0LHXQ

Funny translations - 9 English words
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRryl8YNHx8

Animal sounds in other languages
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-y17F3DEeqI

25 Unbelievable Things You Didn't Know About Language And Linguistics
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceEzrjC6i0Y

25 Things You Probably Never Knew About The English Language
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOVKJlgJYxU

Re: Which is the hardest language to learn?

English must be very hard as well!

Link: Ricky Struggles With English

"You don't write because you want to say something, you write because you have something to say."

    F. Scott Fitzgerald

Re: Which is the hardest language to learn?

It has to be Chinese. They themselves, often, cannot master it.

"You don't write because you want to say something, you write because you have something to say."

    F. Scott Fitzgerald

Re: Which is the hardest language to learn?

Swedish

Re: Which is the hardest language to learn?

I had to write everything again after crashing, forgot a part of the initial text, and a correction did not function; here are some links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Europe
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_languages
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanic_languages
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celtic_languages
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavic_languages
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finno-Ugric_languages

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Asia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_languages_of_the_Americas
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Aboriginal_languages

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Africa

Re: Which is the hardest language to learn?

It is hard to say which language is the most difficult to learn. It depends on the learners' skills, motivation and means (dictionaries, etc.), it depends on the teacher, and it depends on the language to be learned, and if it is quite a different family and writing, it will be all the more a challenge.

In Europe, they say that Russian (language group including Ukrainian, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Serbian, etc.), German and Latin are the most difficult in Grammar (and for the Russian group, the cyrillic alphabet is an additional challenge), but various other languages and groups are very complicated too, if thinking of the Ugro-Finnish group, Polish, Czech, Greek, Basque, Gaelic (whether Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Brittonic, etc.), or Albanian, etc.

In Asia, Chinese has various language groups and writings, India and Sri Lanka are a melting pot of varied cultures and languages, Japan has also several main languages and writings, and South East Asia has a similar variation of languages and cultures.

And on the American side, Native languages and their groups might be a complicated "puzzle" - filled with poetry ...

Re: Which is the hardest language to learn?

Languages are only hard to learn in comparison to the language learner's first language. For English speakers, highly synthetic languages like Russian and Polish present some difficulties as do languages with tones. 

For a Spanish-speaker, Italian is quite easy to learn. For a Chinese speaker, Italian is going to be very hard with its complex inflexional system.  

Re: Which is the hardest language to learn?

Japanese, Chinese, and Arabic seem to be some of the more difficult languages, but "most" depends on the learner.

Re: Which is the hardest language to learn?

Any one of the tonal languages (Cantonese, Korean, Mandarin, etc.) are harder for English speakers I think; mainly because we aren't used to tone being so important that it can completely change what word is being said. 

The hardest to learn if you include writing it has to be Japanese. There are 3 separate alphabets:  hiragana, katakana and kanji. All three are used in sentence structure. There are some 50,000 kanji symbols, tho only 2,000 are commonly used