The hardest language

fable · Post by **fable** » Mon Oct 01, 2001 5:52 am

After reading the Japanese/Chinese is Harder thread, I thought we might want to broaden things a bit. What's the most difficult language to learn that you've encountered?

Everybody of course has their own perspective, based on their first, "hot-wired" language and later exposure. I've not tried Japanese or Chinese, though both seem formidable because of the amount of memorization required for the ideograms (and Japanese has, if I recall correctly, two different written languages). I've heard others call the Slavic tongues difficult because of unusual dipthongs, but I found Russian extremely easy--unfortunately, I had to give up learning it many years ago because of school.

Hungarian (which I've been exposed to for three weeks, on vacation) is damned difficult. Sure, English has a raft of exceptions that mock its rules, but Hungarian seems to flout commonsense most of the time. Those Magyars, enroute to their Promised Land from Siberia 1500 years ago, seem to have picked up the worst aspects of every linguistic system they encountered along their pillaging way. Umlauts are bad enough--but then, they also added the accent grave over the same letters. And then they decided to add double accent graves--well, you get the idea.

And somewhere they decided they liked the Slavic "shch" sound, but couldn't handle the "ch" part; so they created the "sszz" sound. They write "s," and pronounce it as "sh;" they write "sh," and pronounce it as "z." "Z" is pronounced--ah, but you're ahead of me: "s." "G" is pronounced "d." Vowel pronounciations in the first syllable change depending on whether the vowel in the second syllable is hard or soft.

But perhaps the oddest (and most endearing) feature of Hungarian is the way first syllables are usually accented, even if the syllable is "weak." In Romance, proto-Germanic and proto-Slavic languages, weak syllables aren't stressed, and their vowels are frequently short. In Hungarian they're stressed, but the weakness is shown by short vowels and moving over them quicker--as though an eighth-note were followed by a quarter note.

Yeah, I know this doesn't interest you, and I sound like I'm insane. So what's your point?

Mr Sleep · Post by **Mr Sleep** » Mon Oct 01, 2001 6:05 am

The problem is Fable you seemed have covered it all in your topic summary, act more stupid then i can come up with some witty response that makes me look intelligent (there's a first time for everything

)

Erm i had heard that English was the most difficult language to learn, any truth in that?

[ 10-01-2001: Message edited by: Mr Sleep ]

fable · Post by **fable** » Mon Oct 01, 2001 6:09 am

Originally posted by Mr Sleep:
Erm i had heard that English was the most difficult language to learn, any truth in that?

Of course not. Why, I learned it as a child.

Mr Sleep · Post by **Mr Sleep** » Mon Oct 01, 2001 6:18 am

Originally posted by fable:
Of course not. Why, I learned it as a child.

Spammer

Saruman · Post by **Saruman** » Mon Oct 01, 2001 6:21 am

English must be the hardest language in the world to learn, Americans are all taught it as children but they still can't spell certain words correctly

C Elegans · Post by **C Elegans** » Mon Oct 01, 2001 6:31 am

Hm, interesting question.

I think a language can be difficult to learn for several different reasons. On top of my head:

A. The pronouncation (Both Dutch and Arabic have some sounds I just don't know what I have to do with my mouth and throat to produce)

B. The written language (Arabic, Chinese, Farsi, etc)

C. The structure, such as a very complicated grammar (Finnish-Hungarian languages, Latin)

D. The cultural aspects, that can make a proper use of the language difficult. (some languages spoken by for instance Polynesian or Central African native tribes are structurally simple and might not even have a written language. But how do you learn to express what you want to say in a language that does only contain 150 different words, for instance? There are other means of communication than the pure words you have to learn here.)

(Btw, at my Japansese classes I've recently been taught that Japanese uses three alphabets, whereof one consists of words from Chinese.)

I would think the Chinese Mandarin is very difficult to learn, both because of the different pronouncation and the writing system. There are some 10 000 signs you have to learn since a sign represents a word, not a sound as in our German and Latin languages.
(When we westerners say "Chinese" we usually refer to Mandarin, although there are many totally unrelated languages spoken in China. Maybe the other are even more difficult

)

Also Arabic would be difficult, much for the same reasons as Mandarin.

Fable might well be right that Hungarian is very difficult. It belongs to the same family as Finnish and Estonian, and both of those are generally considered very difficult to learn.

Personally, I gave up on Russian grammar

Pronouncation was fine, but the grammar was not.

I will never forget an NZ linguist I once had the pleasure of staying at the same B&B as. She was studying a very old language spoken by a tribe of Canadian natives. Less than 100 persons speak this language today. I asked her what it sounded like, and she gave me a demonstration. To this day, I'm fascinated how human languages can develop so differently. She made series of smacking and clattering noises of different lenght. It sounded more like a dolphin than a human language. Fascinating

C Elegans · Post by **C Elegans** » Mon Oct 01, 2001 6:36 am

Originally posted by Mr Sleep:
The problem is Fable you seemed have covered it all in your topic summary, act more stupid then i can come up with some witty response that makes me look intelligent (there's a first time for everything )

Erm i had heard that English was the most difficult language to learn, any truth in that?

Fable covered it all? Oh no, you are misunderestimating me, to quote George W Bush

I haven't heard English is supposed to be very difficult to learn, but I think it might well be difficult due to the lack of regularity in both pronounciation and grammar. Compare to German, for instance. The grammar is boring and there are millions of rules - but the rules are followed. In English, you have to learn much more special cases one by one.

fable · Post by **fable** » Mon Oct 01, 2001 6:46 am

Originally posted by C Elegans:
I haven't heard English is supposed to be very difficult to learn, but I think it might well be difficult due to the lack of regularity in both pronounciation and grammar. Compare to German, for instance. The grammar is boring and there are millions of rules - but the rules are followed. In English, you have to learn much more special cases one by one.

Exactly so. German is a terror because of all the rules. English has far fewer rules, but so many words and expressions ignore them. English is ostensibly easier to learn, but you sound an idiot if you speak or write it by the book.

Maharlika · Post by **Maharlika** » Mon Oct 01, 2001 7:18 am

Funny, you should ask...

...anyway, as of late, I can only speak 4 languages: Filipino (but of course), English (this is actually my first language as I practically grew up with Sesame Street

, started speaking Filipino when I was six), a less-than-fair-amount of Spanish (have to practice more on that), and Thai (I had to, if I am to survive in my present place of work).

To answer your question, Thai would be it, based on my personal experience. Although grammar and syntax are very basic, straightforward and simple (with no conjugations), it is the pronunciation that is difficult.

There are 44 letters and a few tonal markers in the Thai alphabet (with 22 vowels and another 17 vowel combinations).

Thai, along with Chinese and Vietnamese, is a tonal language. Thai has five tones (mid, low, falling, high and rising) and every word or syllable is pronounced with one of them, plus one of two vowel lengths - long or short. This makes a total of ten possible pronunciations for every "word."

This makes it difficult when you try to write their words using the Roman alphabets. When read in translated form, the "english" form does not capture the tones, vowel combos, and vowel lengths.

One classic example is the word "suay." You have to make the correct pronunciation coz one could mean "beautiful" and the other is "bad luck."

Therefore, there are incidents when male foreigners would tell the local girls that they are beautiful but end up getting a slap on the face instead ...

Yshania · Post by **Yshania** » Mon Oct 01, 2001 7:24 am

Posted by C E -

I haven't heard English is supposed to be very difficult to learn, but I think it might well be difficult due to the lack of regularity in both pronounciation and grammar. Compare to German, for instance. The grammar is boring and there are millions of rules - but the rules are followed. In English, you have to learn much more special cases one by one.

I had heard English is the hardest to learn

We have many words that sound the same, but mean different things and are spelt differently,

eg flour as used to bake bread and flower

we have many words that are spelt the same but have different meanings and different pronunciations,

eg bow as in a tied ribbon, and bow as in bend

We also have a lot of 'silent' letters just to confuse

Rather than use accents as in French, we add an 'e' to change the way another vowel is pronounced, but the 'e' is not pronounced itself.

eg cap becomes cape. The 'a' moves from a flat a to an ay sound.

IIRC the second hardest language to learn is apparently cantonese. Unfortunately I cannot remember why this is

C Elegans · Post by **C Elegans** » Mon Oct 01, 2001 7:51 am

Originally posted by Yshania:
IIRC the second hardest language to learn is apparently cantonese. Unfortunately I cannot remember why this is

I wonder how similar, if at all, Cantonese and Mandarin are? Anyone knows?

Sailor Saturn · Post by **Sailor Saturn** » Mon Oct 01, 2001 8:27 am

Originally posted by C Elegans:
Btw, at my Japansese classes I've recently been taught that Japanese uses three alphabets, whereof one consists of words from Chinese.

That's true, though I'm not really sure the term "alphabet" is the best term for it. Katakana and Hiragana are similar to alphabets, but each symbol is an entire phoneme. Kanji consists of chinese symbols, but their meanings(and even the romanization, IIRC) are different in Japanese than in Chinese and each Kanji represents an entire word/idea, occasionally more than one. IIRC, in each year of school, they Japanese children memorize a few hundred Kanji symbols. They also memorize combinations of Hiragana and Katakana that form words such as "ahiru"(domestic duck). This may seem like a very difficult thing, but it really isn't all that different from what we do learning English. Each year, we learn more and more combinations of our alphabet. We may only have 26 letters, but we have as many or more words as the Japanese language, so we've got more combinations of fewer letters.

Also, saying that Japanese has two written languages is almost as accurate as saying it has three written languages. Hiragana and Katakana are almost the same, merely different in appearance and exact use. IIRC, the Katakana is more angular with few curves, whereas Hiragana has is more fluidic and curved(and more beautiful). Hiragana is used for words that have "always" been in the Japanese language. Katakana is used for 'borrowed' words that have been added to the Japanese language in the past century or two, mostly borrowed from the English language. Katakana and Hiragana are often refered to as just "Kana." Thus, there is Kanji and Kana(which then breaks down into Hiragana and Katakana).

I think the Kana shows the Japanese pride in their written language, which is often used as much as an art as it is for communication, because they specifically set aside 'foriegn/borrowed' words into a seperate 'alphabet.'

Sailor Saturn · Post by **Sailor Saturn** » Mon Oct 01, 2001 8:31 am

Originally posted by Yshania:
I had heard English is the hardest to learn We have many words that sound the same, but mean different things and are spelt differently,

eg flour as used to bake bread and flower

Japanese has that, too. "ai" means "love," and "ai" means "indigo." However, those two words have different Kanji.

IIRC, English is the hardest language to learn as a second language.

Shadow Sandrock · Post by **Shadow Sandrock** » Mon Oct 01, 2001 8:34 am

English is a pain in the butt because of all the different ways a letter can be pronounced, unlike Japanese/Chinese where people have an individual symbol for an individual sound. I mean, look at the letter "a". It can be pronounced like cane and can, but "ey" "eigh" and "aigh" can sometimes have the same sound... It's easy to speak but tough to spell...

From Sandrock: Gee, I wanted to delete my double-post but it wouldn't let me

[ 10-01-2001: Message edited by: Shadow Sandrock ]

Shadow Sandrock · Post by **Shadow Sandrock** » Mon Oct 01, 2001 8:34 am

English is a pain in the butt because of all the different ways a letter can be pronounced, unlike Japanese/Chinese where people have an individual symbol for an individual sound. I mean, look at the letter "a". It can be pronounced like cane and can, but "ey" "eigh" and "aigh" can sometimes have the same sound... It's easy to speak but tough to spell...

C Elegans · Post by **C Elegans** » Mon Oct 01, 2001 8:42 am

Long ago, I saw some kind of index of degree of difficulty to learn a language as 2nd language. Now, if only could remember what that index said...

It must however also be depending on what family of languages your native toungue is. I think it's easier for me as a Scandiavian to learn OK English than to learn OK Farsi or Mandarin.

Off to Japanese class

Sayonara (good bye)

Bloodstalker · Post by **Bloodstalker** » Mon Oct 01, 2001 8:43 am

Personally, I ain't even mastered English yet.

Yshania · Post by **Yshania** » Mon Oct 01, 2001 8:44 am

Posted by C E -

I wonder how similar, if at all, Cantonese and Mandarin are? Anyone knows?

As a teenager I used to work at two different chinese takeaways, one couple were from Hong Kong, the other couple from Peking. I do not know if this will go even part way to answering your question - but they used to talk to each other half in english and half in chinese.

Part of that I know for a fact was because there are some english words that had become part of their vocabulary that there was no chinese alternative. The other reason I could hazard a guess at would be the difference between Cantonese and Mandarin being more of a heavy dialect difference than a complete language difference...maybe like a Geordie talking to a Glaswegian

Shadow Sandrock · Post by **Shadow Sandrock** » Mon Oct 01, 2001 8:45 am

Originally posted by Bloodstalker:
Personally, I ain't even mastered English yet.

1-800-ABCDEFG

It guarantees a full letter grade improvement or my money back... so since I have an A- average in English... >=D

Bloodstalker · Post by **Bloodstalker** » Mon Oct 01, 2001 10:17 am

thanx shadow....but I already have a success story.....

hukt on fonix wirkt fer me!