is thai the most difficult to learn to read, write and speak, if not which language is??

Answer 1

Somewhat notoriously, FINNISH has this dubious honour.


It is quite unlike any other language on earth, and completely unintelligible.

Even their word for "telephone" is something outlandish. You will note that Babelfish don't touch Finnish, not with a bargepole.

Answer 2

It depends what language(s) you have already. Thai is not difficult to speakers of tonal languages and the written form reflects the tones in the writing. To a European language speaker, of course it's more difficult.
I heard more than once that many linguists consider the Basque language of Norther Spain/Southern France the hardest to learn from scratch. But again, the question is, who for exactly?

Answer 3

Again, difficulty in learning a language is entirely dependent on what languages you already know. Thai may be difficult for an English speaker to learn, but children growing up in Thailand pick it up with no more trouble than you learned your first language.

From an native English speaker's perspective, I've heard votes for Chinese (tones are pretty foreign to us), Finnish (15ish case system), and languages in the Salish family (truly bizarre sound inventory).

Answer 4

I speak a little Thai as I was on vacation there recently. From what I heard, Chinese is most difficult -so is Arabic - I'm in Dubai right now and can't follow anything in Arabic - of course English is common over here

Answer 5

It may be Navajo (or possibly Arapaho, which is closely related). During the second world war in the Pacific theatre, the US Air Force hit on the idea of using Navajo-speaking air crew to communicate from aircraft to aircraft and from aircraft to base in plain language (i.e. Navajo), as this was much quicker than using encrypted language. They knew that all their messages were being monitored by Japanese listening stations, but that even if they managed to work out what language was being used, it would take the Japanese several years to train any of their staff to understand it, as the language was so complicated. However, it's not so complicated to write, as it is written phonetically.

Answer 6

I think any language which is not your mother tongue can be difficult, I speak greek and that was difficult to learn. I found french easier as we have the same alphabet.

Answer 7

i reckon from experience BTW that japanese is the hardest. i live in japan and I KNOW, they use 3 types of writing. they talk with no accent,,,they use 5000 chinese characters,,,and they have their own 2 ways of writing and one of them is english based,,,like for example you say toast,,,they will say tosuto and they write that in an obscure way its really strange but fascinating. and the mens language differs from the females language, and it depends on WHO you speak to you have to use a polite or less polite fashion of language or else fol will either think your rude or just stupid and uneducated BUT japanese people are friendly and if you make a mistake in language they dont laugh at you,,,,not like the french frogies,,,,who think their it and a bit.

Answer 8

Really depends on your aptitude and attitude towards any language learning. Just like some are good at science and others are good at art.

Answer 9

Thai is dead tricky. You need a good five years to sort out the alphabet

Answer 10

Icelandic