what's the most difficult language in the world?

Question

Can someone tell me what seems to be the world's most difficult language ?

Answer 1

According to Linguistics, all languages are approximately equal in difficulty (not counting the reading and writing). How do we arrive at this? If you compare babies all around the world in all the different languages, although they are not equal in their abilities even within the same language, on average a 2-year-old in English, Japanese, Navajo, etc. will be able to say and understand at _approximately_ the same level. _On average_. So we say that all languages are equally difficult if you're a baby acquiring it as your first language.

Now, why does it seem that some languages are harder than others? For example, when I studied Polish, I felt that it was very hard. That's because when you're acquiring a second language, if it's very different from your first language, it will _seem_ hard to you.

A second thing to consider is the writing. Definitely some languages are more difficult to learn to read and write than others. Of these, I would speculate that Chinese, Japanese, and English are among the more difficult in the world.

Answer 2

I would've said Japanese: The pronunciation's are confusing, but the grammar is completely annoying to learn to 99% of humanity, the writing is a a direct regurgitation of Chinese characters (pronounced different ways depending on the situation) AND not one but 2 syllabaries (like alphabets), and then there are so many registers (using different words depending on the social context) that a foreigner will never get it 100% right. Take the first person singular pronoun: in English, just one, "I", changing according to function ("I" as subject, "me" as object etc.). In Japanese, "watashi" for some social situations, maybe "atashi" said by a female, maybe "boku" by a male among friends, maybe "watakushi" said by an employee to his boss, maybe "ore" by a drunk man on a train station platform

But according to linguists from the world who were polled THE world's most difficult word to translate has been identified as "ilunga" from the Tshiluba language spoken in south-eastern DR Congo. It came top of a list drawn up in consultation with 1,000 linguists. Ilunga means "a person who is ready to forgive any abuse for the first time, to tolerate it a second time, but never a third time". It seems straightforward enough, but the 1,000 language experts identified it as the hardest word to translate. In second place was shlimazl which is Yiddish for "a chronically unlucky person". Third was Naa, used in the Kansai area of Japan to emphasise statements or agree with someone.

Answer 3

I've heard that ENGLISH is the hardest language for people to learn. We have SO many rules and exceptions, homonyms, synonyms and other stuff that it takes a long time and lots of work to really get it close.

If you look around this website you'll find PLENTY examples how hard it is for AMERICANS to put on paper. Imagine how it is for someone who's never spoken or written it !

Answer 4

Isn't it Navajo? Didn't they use speakers of this in WWII as a way to transmit codes because the language was so difficult to break (translate) by the enemy?

Answer 5

AraBic! That the most difficult language in the world.....you can translate one world for one meaning,(english i mean)....but arabic are totally diferent!for example: Most Holy Al-Quran

Answer 6

english because in grammar the rules that we set up for ourselves are broken all the time. Japanese is also very difficult.

Answer 7

English. The slang is really rough for most people to get.

Answer 8

Russian or Czech. I cant even say one word properlly.

Answer 9

Chinese Cantonese