Why do people think their own language is the most difficult

John   Sat Mar 06, 2010 12:30 am GMT
Why so many people think that their native language is the most difficult in the world? Ask any German or Russian or even native English speaker and they will often not hesitate to inform you that *their* language is the most difficult in the world. Why is this?
Imcool   Sat Mar 06, 2010 12:40 am GMT
English is the easiest language of the world.
Baldewin   Sat Mar 06, 2010 12:40 am GMT
Not all people do. Francophones often act as if their language is easy. I also know Turks think their language is easy. I don't know how Spaniards or Italians view their language.
For my native language: Dutch-speaking often are convinced their language is nearly impossible to learn. They are VERY impressed if a non-Dutch-speaker knows a few words and think it be 'unreasonable' to expect others to have learned their language so they directly switch to 'broken' English (or 'broken' French).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWB_ev0dK8o
@^@   Sat Mar 06, 2010 1:09 am GMT
Because they have been there.
blanc   Sat Mar 06, 2010 2:01 am GMT
<<English is the easiest language of the world. >>

How ironic you managed to screw up the only one sentence you wrote. It should be "English is the easiest language *IN* the world"
"/0.0\"*   Sat Mar 06, 2010 5:43 am GMT
《How ironic you managed to screw up the only one sentence you wrote.》

He meant to say: English is the easiest language to screw up in the world.
notso   Sat Mar 06, 2010 11:38 pm GMT
Spanish is the easiest language in the world (according to Spaniards)
South Korean   Sat Mar 06, 2010 11:45 pm GMT
Koreans think that Korean is difficult because there are a lot of idiomatic expressions and cultural codes involved in the language, often missing the point that such traits are shown in every language.
Spaniard   Sat Mar 06, 2010 11:50 pm GMT
English are the most easiest language of the world.
Parade pisser   Sat Mar 06, 2010 11:50 pm GMT
Korean is a piece of piss to learn, grammatical its fairly simple as far as languages go, and you even have a fully phoenetic alphabet - no Chinese characters. Probably the easiest Asian language to be honest.
Baldewin   Sat Mar 06, 2010 11:55 pm GMT
The easiest East Asian language of significance that is. I think the easiest Asian language in general is Bahasa.
Brazilian   Sat Mar 06, 2010 11:57 pm GMT
Our portuguese is the most hardest language of world. It have much complexity. The english is a poor language and much easy.
Parade pisser   Sun Mar 07, 2010 12:01 am GMT
Keep dreamin' wop.
PARISIEN   Sun Mar 07, 2010 10:49 am GMT
<< Ask any German or Russian or even native English speaker and they will often not hesitate to inform you that *their* language is the most difficult in the world. >>

-- J'ai aussi le sentiment que (comparé à la grammaire ultra-simple de l'anglais et à la phonétique prévisible de l'espagnol) le français est une langue impossiblement complexe.

Mais il faut peut-être distinguer langue et culture : maîtriser prononciation, lexique et grammaire sont une chose, connaître tout l'arrière-plan culturel d'une langue en est une autre. Chaque langue possède un système d'allusions, de connotations renvoyant à sa littérature ainsi qu'à sa culture vernaculaire (comptines, chansons populaires, proverbes, plaisanteries, argots, expressions dialectales, jargons spécialisés, rites sociaux, références implicites à l'histoire, aux religions etc.).

Cet arrière-plan n'est pas indispensable pour communiquer, mais essentiel pour réellement acquérir une langue.

A ce point de vue, l'anglais est structurellement simple, mais difficile à pleinement maîtriser vu son très riche contenu en allusions et en références contextuelles.
fantomas   Sun Mar 07, 2010 3:26 pm GMT
that's because people are ignorant. if they knew something more than their native language and English, they would never say such things. Then, I guess it's kind of "cool" to feel that you know such a dificult language.