Native English speakers will always be considered stupid!

>>Well maybe, but I think people too often underestimate the intelligence of English speakers. It is actually not that difficult to learn to conjugate verbs or decline nouns. It is actually very easy to learn to do that and many if not all English speakers could learn it if it were necessary<<

I agree, having learnt German. But still at first the concept of noun declension was very alien (I think less so verb conjugation because it's less unfamiliar to English). Initially I was baffled by why, for example, German would change 'der' to 'den', 'dem' and 'des', and even more so by the different adjective endings. But once I understood why, it was not difficult and I made rapid progress, but it does still require a comprehension of something which hardly exists in English. But the point is, a native German speaker learning English does not have to grapple with these basic grammatical concepts in the beginning. As a result they can learn to form a basic sentence much more quickly. On the other hand, native German speakers, while they learn to communicate fairly quickly in English, will often still be misusing the tenses even after years of learning English. It's swings and roundabouts at the end of the day. I am merely talking about gaining a basic grasp of a language, which is really only as far as the majority of English learners get anyway, unless they live in an English speaking country.

>>But if you take someone whose native language is neither English nor Finnish, they will almost certainly find English the easier of the two TO BEGIN WITH even if their native language is closer to Finnish.

However, I think your point is based on the fact that English IS more popular. Does that mean there is absolute difficulty in a language? This leads me into thinking about interesting discussions about this question. But it seems tempting to say one language is more difficult based on certain features rather than the language itself as a whole. That English is morphologically MUCH simpler than most inflecting languages doesn't make it "easier" with its spelling, its verb conjugations and the like. Similarly, that Chinese is hardly inflecting doesn't make it "easier" with its characters, aspects (ah, but without the irregular verbs, with many uncommon ones that I always forget despite years of learning) and the like.

In very shallow discussions (not in antimoon, just as a note), I can see people find it so convenient to discourage themselves or others (for unknown or unconvincing reasons) to blame languages for their difficulty and refuse to learn them, particularly all those Indo-European inflecting languages with cases and some with genders. Again, I think this is groundless. If English were still like what it was several centuries ago, pretty like German today, and if it were as popular as it IS today, people would still think English is for their survival, career, education, and is chic, popular, useful, etc.

I always think that real-world popularity and thus the exposure you can possibly get count much more than the mere "difficulty". If you want to make yourself "work" in a language, how can you miss a part of grammar just because it is difficult? I started to learn German out of pure curiosity, and without any fear of grammar, I started, got stumbled thanks to ineffective methods, but have since figured out much about how it is like to "work" in a language akin to older English. That is to say, since "I think" the whole of grammatical knowledge, at least for the modern language, has to be learnt anyway to make yourself work, I don't think there is absolute difficulty of a language (not a feature of it).

>>But still at first the concept of noun declension was very alien

Supposedly even more alien to me. But shouldn't Chinese be even easier without verb conjugations, the need to invert word order (questions are formed with inflection markers and changing your intonation a bit), articles, etc? There you are, you have to learn tones. You have to learn characters, unless you want to speak perfectly but be illiterate in a Chinese society.

I think difficulty is relative. The real-world difficulty I think that really counts would be the popularity (native speakers, economic strength, learning materials) of your target language and any discounts you can get for knowing a similar language natively. Here's my proof. Even after 10+ years (3 effective years only) of learning, my Mandarin is far stronger than my English, even though 1) I virtually don't speak it and 2) I virtually don't even write (in English, instead). Both are equally popular to the environment I live, but obviously one of them is remarkably similar to what I've been speaking and writing since birth and the other is hardly similar...

Is it true there are no "real" accents in Russian?

I don't get what you're saying by "accent." There is heavy word stress in Russian, which affects the quality of surrounding vowels.

If you are referring to "accent" in the generic sense of the word, then I have to say that just as like in every language, there speakers thereof possess countless accents. Every Russian speaker will have a slightly different accent depending on his location, physical structure of the vocal cords/larynx, foreknowledge of other languages, and upbringing.

There are no large regional accents in native Russian speakers. Slight differences, yes, but nothing near even the differences in regional accents of USA English. Of course, people whose native langauge is not Russian have different accents.

Do you mean accents or dialects?

<<There are no large regional accents in native Russian speakers. >>

Any idea as to why? Why is English so "unstable" and prone to breaking up into widely differing dialects, while Russian is apparently resistant to such changes?

The only thing I can think of here is that English dialects are probably more liable to have more change in their vowel systems as English dialects tend to have very large vowel systems, and larger vowel systems tend to be more unstable overall. This is consistent with how English dialects tend to have the greatest variation with respect to their vowel systems, and often vary little in other respects.

Contrast this with how Russian as a whole has a very simple five-vowel system, and how variation in vowels in Russian dialects is generally only with regard to vowel reduction as opposed to general phonemic contrasts. Also, compare the Russian case with that of Spanish, which has a similar vowel system and which is very stable vowel-wise over its entire range (with some exceptions in dialects which transition into other Romance languages such as Asturo-Leonese).

Interesting that THIS thread did NOT get hit by the spammer/troll. Russian is discussed in this thread.

<<This is consistent with how English dialects tend to have the greatest variation with respect to their vowel systems, and often vary little in other respects.>>

Aren't they in the process of getting rid of the "th" sounds over in the UK, replacing them with "f" and "v"?

>>Aren't they in the process of getting rid of the "th" sounds over in the UK, replacing them with "f" and "v"?<<

This is a different matter, which is that historical /θ/ and /ð/ are not entirely stable in English dialects, and especially dialects with contact with other non-Anglic languages (such as Celtic languages, in the case of Irish English, or non-Anglic Germanic languages, in the case of many Upper Midwestern NAE dialects). What you specifically refer to is not the case for English English as a whole, but rather is limited primarily to Cockney and more Cockney-like variants of Estuary, which definitely does not apply to the whole of such.

"Maybe this is why USA does so well in science and technology."

Really? More than Japan? *Rolls eyes at American arrogance*

<<Really? More than Japan?<<
Soon China will rise from letargy and team up with Japan. *giggles*

<<What you specifically refer to is not the case for English English as a whole, but rather is limited primarily to Cockney and more Cockney-like variants of Estuary, which definitely does not apply to the whole of such. >>

Isn't Estuary spreading in the UK? Won't it eventually replace all the other dialects? Sort of like NCVS spreading out and replacing GAE in North America.