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Is English the hardest language to learn? (1 Viewer)

hayabusaboston

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LEARN XHOSA. THen we can click to each other. Like birds. that would be cool.

And linguistically speaking there have been statistics constructed of the most difficult languages to learn in each area of communication, eg reading, writing, grammar, speaking, syntax.
Grammatically speaking, POlish is known as the worlds most difficult language. As an example, in english you have me, you, him, her, they, them, their etc, while in polish there's over 20 versions iirc. Or something ridiculous lol.
Korean most difficult for speaking or something, cant remember the rest.
 

unforlornedhope

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That doesn't mean it's the hardest language to learn.

And trust me, if u focus u will understand it. If not, read it a couple of times.
English isn't hard to learn at all compare to other languages. There are people who came from Middle eastern countries with barely any English but after attending intensive English centres for 3 months, they can pretty much converse with others in English.
 

nerdasdasd

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Try Chinese , four intonations for every sound .....

Chinese is a much more difficult language to learn (mandarine and Cantonese in particular ).

Google them and you will realise,
 

raggiedoll

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English is relatively easy compared to other languages. Yes of course learners will find some difficulty with it, but it's like that for EVERY language. The only real problem is some of its inconsistency in grammar (exceptions etc.) and probably listening to native speakers (I'm going to = I'm gonna).
 

anomalousdecay

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English is a pretty hard language to learn apparently. I've coined it as a "crazy language" because of the verb confusions, inability to specify male/female nouns (other languages do this easily within the word, where as in English you have to include extra words), multiple meanings of the same word, syllables that don't have a constant rhythm (Most people pronounce a, e, i, o, u as the same sound) and silent letters. But, I would say its a pretty important language worth learning.
 

dktia84

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I think English is one of the easiest languages in the whole world; comparing with mine, almost (Italian).
The only thing really bad is the pronunciation, why you English people should write in a way that it will be read into another one? :smile:
Check my language, for example. It has lots of verbs and words, but we are used to say exactly which we write!
(Take freedom of correcting me, I'm still learning English)
 

strawberrye

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I think Latin is one of the hardest languages to learn since it is in most instances, not a commonly used language for every day communication. English is not the hardest language to learn-since most countries in the world are English-speaking-so most people already have an environmental context in which to practice English within-an essential feature for assisting someone to be fluent in English. I think difficulty of learning languages is ultimately relative, and at the end of the day, if you share a deep passion for the language, then you will find it less difficult, and more enjoyable to learn, and benefit from knowing multiple languages which is increasingly useful in our increasingly globalised world:)
 

rumbleroar

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I think languages like Japanese are hard to learn because they have 4 different scripts and the grammar structures are crazy.
 

Soulful

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I think languages like Japanese are hard to learn because they have 4 different scripts and the grammar structures are crazy.
I think Japanese is more different than difficult. The grammar, though strange at first, is very logical and I swear there are only 4 irregular verbs in the whole language. And it really only has 3 scripts - romaji is more of a useful tool to help western learners. Also, katakana and Hiragana are syllabic and really only take a week or so to master.

Despite that, I agree that Japanese would still be a very difficult language for an English speaker, simply because it's so different and because of its use of Chinese characters. I've been told that people who have done French (or any other European language) continuers are able to read French newspapers while my Japanese teacher has said that even if we do extension Japanese we would struggle greatly to just read the headlines.
 

strawberrye

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I think Japanese is more different than difficult. The grammar, though strange at first, is very logical and I swear there are only 4 irregular verbs in the whole language. And it really only has 3 scripts - romaji is more of a useful tool to help western learners. Also, katakana and Hiragana are syllabic and really only take a week or so to master.

Despite that, I agree that Japanese would still be a very difficult language for an English speaker, simply because it's so different and because of its use of Chinese characters. I've been told that people who have done French (or any other European language) continuers are able to read French newspapers while my Japanese teacher has said that even if we do extension Japanese we would struggle greatly to just read the headlines.
If you persist in your study of Japanese, I am sure one day you could easily read Japanese newspapers:)
 

hayabusaboston

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Guys hardest languages are classified in CATEGORIES shit man, isnt that obvious?


No way in hell anything is going to beat korean in terms of writing difficulty, in terms of speaking iirc finnish has the most ridiculously complicated pronounciations, grammatically speaking by far the most extensive and complex rules of grammar come in slavic languages and mainly polish.
 

obliviousninja

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Anything with characters is the hardest. As you have to memorise them. And characters are not a means as to how you pronounce a word.
 

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No, if you have a good instructor who knows how to teach so that you can learn, instead of just giving lecture like on grammar, vocabulary, presentation...etc.
 

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