2006-09-28 10:48:30 · 13 answers · asked by artzonesigns 2 in Society & Culture ➔ Languages
It depends on what languages you know. But here are some examples that English speakers would have great difficulty with:
Archi (north Caucasus mountains) has 1.5 million different forms for each and every verb in the language (Latin has about 50 forms).
!Xõó (southern Africa) has 126 different consonants, over half of which are click sounds (English has 24 consonants).
Try those on for size. They make Finnish, English, Russian, Latin, Chinese, and Arabic look like child's play.
2006-09-28 17:19:23 · answer #1 · answered by Taivo 7 · 2⤊ 1⤋
It depends. I had no trouble learning French, Spanish, and Italian. However, Polish has been a nightmare. I would guess that Russian would be harder because you also have to learn an entirely new written alphabet. Hebrew, Arabic, and many Asian languages present the same issue. I think that basically, whichever language uses completely different sounds than your native language will be the hardest to learn as a second language.
2006-09-28 17:57:50 · answer #2 · answered by gambia_joy 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
I've been taught all my life that English is the hardest language to learn. It has to do with silent letters, vowel placement, etc. Even our names for a lot of things. You've heard the old saying about "driving on the parkway & parking on the driveway." Also we dress up & dress down. We say "uptown, downtown, to town, around town , in town." These are just a few of the types of things that can make our language difficult to learn as well as the fact that our sentence structure is backwards to that of all the other languages. Yet, I think, more people in the world are able to speak "some English" than any other language in the world.
2006-09-28 18:05:45 · answer #3 · answered by mazell41 5 · 2⤊ 1⤋
I have heard it said that chinese is the hardest to learn as a second language.
2006-09-28 17:51:54 · answer #4 · answered by dragonrider707 6 · 0⤊ 1⤋
The hardest language to learn is Icelandic....
2006-09-28 17:53:22 · answer #5 · answered by Charli 2 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Finnish is the world's hardest language.
2006-09-28 17:51:16 · answer #6 · answered by Captain Tomak 6 · 0⤊ 1⤋
english is the hardest to learn
2006-09-28 17:55:58 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 1⤋
Chinese then Arabic... in that order. This is officially true
2006-09-28 18:01:07 · answer #8 · answered by QuickBrownFox 1 · 0⤊ 1⤋
turkish
so very different from english
2006-09-28 21:43:26 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 1⤋
african...and i mean...real african...where it sounds like there making beats...
2006-09-28 17:56:29 · answer #10 · answered by kali_kid06 2 · 0⤊ 1⤋