What’s the Hardest Language to Learn

[ElegantAura]

For native English speakers, which languages are the hardest to learn?

I understand that difficulty can vary depending on someone’s first language, so I’m specifically focusing on English speakers, as most people here in the forum are.

 

[passenger]

Not that I have really learned any; but, I would think Icelandic or some of the Arabic languages.

 

[MamaFrankie]

Anything not written in Western script.

 

[ElegantAura]

Writing can definitely be harder and take more time in any language, but if we focus only on speaking, would that change which languages are harder to learn?

 

[passenger]

Writing can definitely be harder and take more time in any language, but if we focus only on speaking, would that change which languages are harder to learn?

Probably

 

[PsychoticThoughts]

I'm not a native English speaker, but I'd say that French and German are almost impossible for me to master... they are both full of "traps" (try using "after" in German) and really hostile rules that my brain cannot make sense of.

Conversely, I found Polish and Finnish to be a breeze to learn. I have no answers.

 

[ElegantAura]

I'm not a native English speaker, but I'd say that French and German are almost impossible for me to master... they are both full of "traps" (try using "after" in German) and really hostile rules that my brain cannot make sense of.

Conversely, I found Polish and Finnish to be a breeze to learn. I have no answers.

I’m not a native English speaker either, so my perspective on what’s easy or difficult might be a bit different also . I don’t find German hard I can read and understand a lot, which I think has to do with the similarities to English.
I can speak a bit of French and read it, though I’ve forgotten a lot since I learned it in school. French wasn’t too hard to pick up, though.

For me, the easiest language is Spanish. I never studied it, but I know a lot of words and can read it almost perfectly. With a bit of practice, I think I could sound almost native in just a few weeks for speaking.. Writing usually takes longer, as it does with any language. Japanese, on the other hand, isn’t that hard for me to say a few words. I don’t think the pronunciation is that bad compared to many others, but the writing will be a real challenge.

 

[a fairy]

In my op , theres not just one hard langauge all of them are pretty hard and you have to grind alot. One easy one for me would be spanish.

 

[MamaFrankie]

I speak a little German but it's not fluent. The der, die and das is confusing as it is not always obvious which is the correct form to use.

I'm currently learning Swedish due to my liking for Tomas Ledin. It has similarities to both English and German and isn't too difficult.

 

[ElegantAura]

I speak a little German but it's not fluent. The der, die and das is confusing as it is not always obvious which is the correct form to use.

I totally get that The articles in German can be tricky at first, especially since they depend on the gender and case of the noun. I can relate because my own language has that also, so I understand how confusing it can be

I'm currently learning Swedish due to my liking for Tomas Ledin. It has similarities to both English and German and isn't too difficult.

Yeah, that's what I heard that not hard.
But because it’s a language I hardly listen to, except for a few songs. I find it a little hard to make the words clear, as it’s not something my ear is used to.
But I guess that’s the reason. By the way, what language that you know a little do you like best?

 

[MamaFrankie]

Gaelic.

 

[a fairy]

Gaelic.

interesting .

 

[EllieCat]

Chinese. People think I know it because I was born in China. But I don’t know it at all.

 

[Black Angel]

American English.. seriously. We have words that aren't even natively ours and yet, Black people have such a command of the language that we have made our own subsets based on the region of the country we live in. And this isn't even counting AAVE either..

My maternal GGF was Geechee.. and if you were to pick me up and drop me off in their ancestral homeland, I can guarantee you that I wouldn't know wtf they were saying and neither would they. And that is just one dialect.. I saw some Jive written in a book somewhere and I couldnt make sense of it, but I appreciated the fact that as a people we have carved out our own language for the regions we've lived.

Hell people up here look at me funny because I still speak fast.. as if I am still in NYC and my Brooklyn accent is thick as fuck up here.. lol

On top of this, we have idioms in our language that don't seem to exist anywhere else.. we can say stuff like "a hit dog will bark" and the people who live here will understand it perfectly, but someone else coming here and then learning it, will also be confused because they don't have sayings like that in their native language. So you would have to explain the original metaphor to the person before you even translated it..

It's pretty interesting when you think about it.

 

[passenger]

American English.. seriously. We have words that aren't even natively ours and yet,

All true!
And not only black peoples' influence. Lots of Texas "English" speaking - towns & speaking - is influenced by German as well as Mexican mixed in with the 'Y'all stuff' language & customs. Minnesota, the Dakotas & Wisconsin people talk pretty weird. Quite a bit of Native American language(s) are incorporated here in the north-western states.
By the way, I have watched a few videos with GeeChee-speaking people.....fascinating, but kind of like stepping off onto another planet.

 

[Black Angel]

All true!
And not only black peoples' influence. Lots of Texas "English" speaking - towns & speaking - is influenced by German as well as Mexican mixed in with the 'Y'all stuff' language & customs. Minnesota, the Dakotas & Wisconsin people talk pretty weird. Quite a bit of Native American language(s) are incorporated here in the north-western states.
By the way, I have watched a few videos with GeeChee-speaking people.....fascinating, but kind of like stepping off onto another planet.

I still havent dug into the tribes in my family.. on both sides no less.. and my ancestors were scattered all throughout this country.. LOL

I know that I would have some trouble though.. when driving down to NYC with my in-laws we got off too early on I-81S and ended up on the reservation and the signs were in their language.. we had to use Maps to get back on I-81.. it was very interesting..

 

[Black Angel]

Please delete.. accidental post..

 

[Black Angel]

Case in point, this is off I-81 and is not my pic but where we were the sign was written like the bottom line..

 

[Kyng]

I've heard that Navajo is extremely difficult, since its grammar is so complicated (and unrelated to English, or any other widely-spoken language). On top of that, its phonology (i.e. the sounds included in the language) is very difficult to master.

Though, I've never tried to learn it myself!

 

[a fairy]

American English.. seriously. We have words that aren't even natively ours and yet, Black people have such a command of the language that we have made our own subsets based on the region of the country we live in. And this isn't even counting AAVE either..

My maternal GGF was Geechee.. and if you were to pick me up and drop me off in their ancestral homeland, I can guarantee you that I wouldn't know wtf they were saying and neither would they. And that is just one dialect.. I saw some Jive written in a book somewhere and I couldnt make sense of it, but I appreciated the fact that as a people we have carved out our own language for the regions we've lived.

Hell people up here look at me funny because I still speak fast.. as if I am still in NYC and my Brooklyn accent is thick as fuck up here.. lol

On top of this, we have idioms in our language that don't seem to exist anywhere else.. we can say stuff like "a hit dog will bark" and the people who live here will understand it perfectly, but someone else coming here and then learning it, will also be confused because they don't have sayings like that in their native language. So you would have to explain the original metaphor to the person before you even translated it..

It's pretty interesting when you think about it.

This is so real💀

 

[Shawn Gossman]

I've been trying to learn four different languages for fun.

Spanish (I'm doing better with it than any of the others)

German

Russian

Polish

I'd love to learn Hebrew and Arabic one day, too, but those seem like they would take a lifetime to learn!

Russian so far is the hardest. It's the writing part that's alien to me.

 

[ElegantAura]

I've been trying to learn four different languages for fun.

Spanish (I'm doing better with it than any of the others)

German

Russian

Polish

I'd love to learn Hebrew and Arabic one day, too, but those seem like they would take a lifetime to learn!

Russian so far is the hardest. It's the writing part that's alien to me.

It's interesting to see what everyone thinks, it’s hard to learn because everyone’s different.

Like I mentioned before, it really depends on what language your mother tongue is. Anyway, from everything you listed here, I would have placed Polish as harder. I’m a little surprised you included Russian as harder, but I understand your point about the writing.

It’s great to see everyone’s thoughts on this

 

[Shawn Gossman]

It's interesting to see what everyone thinks, it’s hard to learn because everyone’s different.

Like I mentioned before, it really depends on what language your mother tongue is. Anyway, from everything you listed here, I would have placed Polish as harder. I’m a little surprised you included Russian as harder, but I understand your point about the writing.

It’s great to see everyone’s thoughts on this

And maybe Polish will be harder. I've not got too deep into that one yet. I've done Russian a bit more.

 

[ElegantAura]

And maybe Polish will be harder. I've not got too deep into that one yet. I've done Russian a bit more.

So, what made you want to learn Russian?
Most people usually choose languages like German , French or Spanish and a lot of younger people go for Japanese now also .