which language is more difficult for you to learn as a second language?

Question

for english native speakers only
chinese or arabic?
which would be the easiest? french? spanish? latin?

Answer 1

My British and American friends always tell me that Dutch and Russian are very hard to learn for them. Dutch because of the pronunciation, Russian because of the grammar.

The National Virtual Translation Center says :

"Category I: Languages closely related to English : 23-24 weeks (575-600 class hours) "

"Afrikaans
Danish
Dutch
French
Italian
Norwegian
Portuguese
Romanian
Spanish
Swedish"

...
German 30 weeks (750 class hours)
...

"Category III: Languages which are exceptionally difficult for native English speakers : 88 weeks (second year of study in-country) (2200 class hours)"

"Arabic
Cantonese
Mandarin
Japanese
Korean"

http://www.nvtc.gov/lotw/months/november/learningExpectations.html

Answer 2

I`m A Native American, Muscogee(Creek) Tribe, Even In Our Own Language There Are Words That Sound Simlar, But It Is How You Use It Or Emphasize It , Is How It Is Interpreted. Just Be Glad You Can Speak Your "Own" Language. Don`t worry About How Hard It is To Speak English. Too Many Languages Are Being Lost Because Of English. If You Can Teach Your Children Or Others Their Language So Be It. Be proud Of "Your" Language First. Mudo( Thank You)

Answer 3

For an English speaker, I think Chinese would be harder than Arabic for three main reasons. One, Chinese has a very difficult writing system. There are many, many characters to learn. The website listed below shows that in some places, you need to know 4,000 characters to read a newspaper, and that peasants are required to know 1,500 to be considered literate. In general, you would need to know at the least over a thousand to be literate.

Chinese is also a tonal language, meaning that the same words pronounced at differnet pitches have different meanings. This is very difficult for English speakers to grasp, and requires lots of practice and study.

Finally, Chinese has alot of sounds that just don't exist in English. There are websites online for study that let you listen to the different sounds, and you would be amazed at how many sound just alike! That's because when we're babies and learn to talk, our brains learn to pick up on the sounds that are most commonly heard, and those get recognized. Everything else eventually gets lumped into the categories we already have. So you might hear someone say two different sounds in Chinese, but to you they might sound the same.

In terms of easiest, I've always heard Spanish is one of the simplest for English speakers. It's easier to pronounce than French, and similar to English, with many words having similar roots. I think alot of us are also exposed to Spanish more, even if we've never learned, so that might make it easier, as well.

Answer 4

As a french native speaker i don't know about chinese/arabic, but i can tell you that french is very difficult for english natives. The grammar is much harder that many other ones (including spanish), and the prononciation too.
German would be easier, i guess ...

Answer 5

Besides factors as for example learning skills, you can say that oriental languages as Mandarin, Japanese and Korean are the most difficult languages to learn for an english native speaker, and I would dare to say, not only for them, but for all west languages speakers.

In the following link you will find a table with the most important languages of the world and the difficulty level for english native speakers on a scale from 1 to 5 (1 for the easiest and 5 for the most difficult).

At the botton of the table you would find also a short explanation about it. :

http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/e/languages/index.html

Answer 6

the hardest would definetly be arabic..
ive tried learning japanese and its similar to chinese and it isnt hard..
and the easiest would be spanish or french; theyre about the same..

Answer 7

Hardest - Arabic
Easiest - Spanish

Answer 8

I think Sanskrit like Hindi, Tamil, Telegu, Urdu is the most difficult to learn.

Answer 9

I am suzana my answer for this question is ,
Chinese is more difficult for english native speakers, Spanich is easiest.

Answer 10

Chinese seems more difficult to learn.
Spanish is the easiest.