which languages,in your opinion, are the most difficult ?

Question

I am native speaker of english and I found chinese difficult.

Answer 1

Romanian is said to be the most difficult, but there is at least one language that is impossible for most people to learn due to the inaccessibility of the island inhabitants that speak it.

I personally have a difficult time with the universal language of mathematics.

Answer 2

Things that make a langauge more difficult are:
1) Lack of cognates - words that sound similar to ones you already know. Non Indo-European languages tend to have fewer cognates to English.
2) Differences and complexity of grammar and sentence construction.
3) Pronunciation differences - range of sounds and if the language is tonal e.g. pitch changes typical of Chinese and Thai.
4) Complexity of written langauge, different alphabet or pictogram writing system (if the language is written at all) - Japanese uses three alphabets.
5) Sophistication of the language - multiple polite modes of addressing people or naming things, multiple declentions and cases.
6) Accessibility of suitable learning material, courses, books, cassettes and teachers.

The difficulty of a langauge also depends on what level you need to learn teh language to, i.e. as a tourist or as a translator with perfect grammar and writing skills.

There is no single answer to this question; it depends on so many factors. However, the British Foreign Office has looked at the languages that diplomats and other embassy staff have to learn and has worked out which they find the most difficult to learn. The second hardest is Japanese, which probably comes as no surprise to many, but the language that they have found to be the most difficult to learn is Hungarian, which has 35 cases (forms of a nouns according to whether it is subject, object, genitive, etc). This does not mean that Hungarian is the hardest language to learn for everybody, but it causes British diplomatic staff, who are used to learning languages, the most difficulty. However, Tabassaran, a Caucasian language has 48 cases, so it would probably cause more difficulty if British diplomats had to learn it.

Different cultures and individuals from those cultures will find different languages more difficult. In the case of Hungarian for British learners, it is not a question of the writing system, which is alphabetic, but the grammatical complexity, though native speakers of related languages may find it easier, while struggling with languages that we find relatively easy. No language is easy to learn well, though languages which are related to our first language will be easier. Learning a completely different writing system is a huge challenge, but that does not necessarily make a language more difficult that another. In the end, it is impossible to say that there is one language that is the most difficult language in the world.

Answer 3

East European languages like Czech. I speak Korean, French and English and I think I'm pretty good at learning new languages. Czech was by far the most difficult I've encountered when I was in the C. Repub.

Answer 4

I don't know. I don't think that there is such a thing as a "difficult" language. There are 3 year-old-kids who can speak any given language. So , it is not about being difficult, rather than being "unusual".
Keep that in mind and you will learn any language in the world. Always say "if a 3 year-old can do it, then I can"

Answer 5

I speak English, Malay and Mandarin (Chinese).
I can understand why you say Chinese is difficult but it depends on what kind of dialect that is. I can speak little Hokkien and Cantonese. Of course there are a lot more dialects in China. Mandarin by far, is the easiest to learn. You just need to be more exposed to it.

I'm also able to speak basic French, Hindi, Tamil and Bahasa Indonesia. But for me the most difficult language to learn is Arab. They even have male and female for objects!

Guess it pays to have an Asian tongue.. It helps a lot in your linguistic skills..

Answer 6

Chinnese/ Japannese/ Arababic

Answer 7

I would have to agree with the others on Chinese. Others that I think might be difficult are Japanese, Lebanese and maybe even German.

Answer 8

Yes without a doubt Chinese! Because they're are so many different tones that can be used with just one word one word can mean 10 different things

Answer 9

Chinese & Russian

Answer 10

I think everyone finds their native language easy & other quite tough to learn so its very tough 2 say which is tougher Or toughest to learn.