The easiest and the most difficult languages

Antimooner K. T.   Sat Nov 28, 2009 12:33 am GMT
"Eastern Europe is not one country and doesn't speak one language, in case you didn't know."

I've never known anyone who thought that. Maybe some people think that Russian used to be the Lingua Franca in Eastern Europe.

"I myself speak Slovak, Czech, English, German, some Polish and studied a bit of Spanish, plus have a Master's in linguistics and can tell you that even in such close languages as Slovak and Czech, there is a hell of a difference in grammar and the whole system as such. I'm not saying and don't even think Slovak is the most difficult language in the world, but it is def more complicated than Polish or Croatian etc. ... by far!!! These are completely different systems."

Maybe as a linguist you have a finely tuned sense of what makes a language unique, and thus you are more sensitive to the differences-like someone who knows all the wines of a certain vintner and can tell the vintage year by taste. Perhaps it's obvious to you, now, that some people here are more interested in the prettiest languages; so which is your prettiest language? Just kidding. That "prettiest" language thread cracks me up (to use an old expression).

Even though I joke around, I do think about what people write, and notice what's important to them.

My aunt who is pretty smart, nevertheless went around telling people in her class that I am fluent in Chinese. I'm not. I speak Japanese. Chinese and Japanese are further apart than Czech and Slovak, lol. I just have to laugh politely, and correct gently.
Adam   Sun Dec 06, 2009 8:03 pm GMT
Whether or not a language is difficult or easy depends or your native language.

Finnish speakers would find Estonian easier to learn than English speakers. Swedes would find Norwegian easier to learn than Italians.
Thegreatseph   Mon Dec 07, 2009 3:05 am GMT
I wouldn't say Japanese is difficult per se. It has simple, straightforward pronunciation, very few totally irregular verbs, et cetera.

Now, it is very different from English in terms of vocabulary, but even if you have a point of reference (i.e. learning a Romantic or Germanic language) you still need to learn each word. I don't pronounce "house" and "Hause" the same, so it is really not that big of a jump to go to vocabulary with no real relation.

Difficulty ought not to be measured in difference but, in feature. Toki Pona is a very easy language, it has a simple grammar, and a sub 200 word vocabulary. It doesn't get any easier to learn than this, though it does get easier to communicate than this.

One might ask 'if difficulty is not measured in difference then what pray tell is it measured by?'. The answer my friends, is features. If a language has ten noun cases, and 4 different tenses of verbs then it becomes more difficult, than one that does not. If it has 20 words that mean the exact same thing then it is difficult, if it has words that mean the opposite of themselves then it is difficult.

Japanese has a byzantine set of rules for politeness, and a system of honorifics by this definition of what is difficult, certainly it shouldn't be on the top ten hardest to learn.

Granted Japanese has a tough orthography, but that ISN'T language, there are millions of illiterate people in this world, they don't know orthography, but they do known their language. I think that this aspect scares many people away from learning it, which is a shame as it really has an interesting culture behind it.
poruka   Sat Dec 26, 2009 2:04 pm GMT
oh,please-Croatian is one of the most easiest languages?Are you insane?It's one of the most difficult languages!I'ts probably the 4th on the list,and the first three are Chinese,Japanese and Polish....
Lhhlanguage   Sat Dec 26, 2009 3:03 pm GMT
"Granted Japanese has a tough orthography, but that ISN'T language, there are millions of illiterate people in this world, they don't know orthography, but they do known their language."

I don't agree with that. It doesn't make sense to say that writing isn't "really" language while speaking is. They're both systems of communication and therefore both language. By this logic, am I not really communicating on this board in English? What about a Japanese person who was born deaf and has therefore never heard spoken Japanese but can read and write anything in Japanese? Does that person not really know Japanese?

The only reason writing is often not seen as real language is that most people (even literate people) have always, for obvious reasons, used speech to communicate far more than writing. This has meant that speech gets developed before writing--most languages, in fact, don't even have written forms. But that doesn't mean that writing isn't language.

And I think it's disingenuous to say that a language isn't very difficult "except for the writing system." Most people who learn a new language want to be literate in that language, so writing should be taken into consideration in assessing difficulty.
Lhhlanguage   Sun Dec 27, 2009 2:16 am GMT
Adam wrote:

"Whether or not a language is difficult or easy depends or your native language."

I don't think that's entirely true. While the closeness of a language to one's mother tongue is obviously an important factor in difficulty, there are other things which can be equally important if not more so. These include how much individual aptitude for languages the learner has, their feelings toward the country and culture (or countries and cultures) represented by the particular language they are learning, intensity of motivation, and whether the learner is using study methods that work well for them. Spanish is much closer to English than Hebrew is. But this doesn't necessarily mean that a particular English speaker will find Spanish easier to learn than Hebrew. I think what you can say is that if one English speaker is learning Spanish and another Hebrew, if all of the other factors I mentioned above are equal, then the person studying Spanish will have an easier time. But all things rarely are equal in real life.

Furthermore, I've heard that if two languages are close enough (for example, Spanish and Portuguese), this can actually make it harder for a speaker of one to learn the other, not easier, because it's hard to keep the differences straight in one's mind.
pajaro bobo   Sun Dec 27, 2009 6:27 pm GMT
I don't think that's entirely true. While the closeness of a language to one's mother tongue is obviously an important factor in difficulty, there are other things which can be equally important if not more so. These include how much individual aptitude for languages the learner has, their feelings toward the country and culture (or countries and cultures) represented by the particular language they are learning, intensity of motivation, and whether the learner is using study methods that work well for them. Spanish is much closer to English than Hebrew is. But this doesn't necessarily mean that a particular English speaker will find Spanish easier to learn than Hebrew. I think what you can say is that if one English speaker is learning Spanish and another Hebrew, if all of the other factors I mentioned above are equal, then the person studying Spanish will have an easier time. But all things rarely are equal in real life.

Furthermore, I've heard that if two languages are close enough (for example, Spanish and Portuguese), this can actually make it harder for a speaker of one to learn the other, not easier, because it's hard to keep the differences straight in one's mind.


I totaly agree! All the forumers ought to read this post.
Auckland University Stude   Mon Dec 28, 2009 12:30 pm GMT
Hey there everyone!!
ive been reading these forums for awhile now as well the other debates on the net... anyways
Im in new zealand..yeap al the way at the bottom of the globe!

Im of iraqi descent so I speak arabic fluently as well as english fluently cos ive lived outa iraq for all my life except birth...
I speak just about fluent jap almost as well( doing it at uni btw) with economics/marketting...

Anyways i was about to do chinese/korean as my last part of my Bachelor of Arts(BA) but im sick of asian languages...
-being from arabic descent..any romance lang pronounciation is easy cos arabic is harder then all of them tbh( no i aint boasting about the arabic lang lol)... but yea thats fact..at least for me...

anyways im enrolling for spanish or french or german for business purposes later...
i have 3 more years at Uni as im doing a conjoint degree...
I love spanish guitar ,hip hop etc so thats more learning towrads spanish ..... lol the only song in french i like is tina arenas songs....

so which one should I choose?
like all forums say spanish is easier...

http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/e/languages/spanish/index.html

the above website is the top on the internet in IMO... any comments?


seriously i dont care wat degree u have lol cos if someone dont know the lang or studied it ... then their comments mean jack shit if u get me...

so yea which one? french or spanish?( i thnk germans not that useful?)...

please reply as i gota enrol in 3days!(ive enrolled in french then switchd to spanish as i understood it was easier as i need A grades)...

please help!!!


Cheers a bunch all the way from the bottom of the world!!!!
just me   Mon Dec 28, 2009 1:15 pm GMT
Try to learn Spanish and Portuguese subjunctive mood and then tell me if Arabic is easier......Everyone can learn basic Spanish easily but the more advanced it is the harder.... unlike Slavonic languages for instance...