The hardest language to learn?

[x0xLucyMx0x]

No language is impossible to learn. Some languages are easier to learn and others aren't so easy. So I have a couple of questions for you here.

What do you think is the hardest language for you to learn? What would be the hardest challenge for you?

Do you consider your native language hard to learn? What would be the hardest part about your native tongue?

I think the hardest language to learn for me would be Chinese, Japanese or Arabic. I think the different alphabet and not hearing those languages around everyday would make it too hard for me to learn. 

And yes, I do consider my native tongue hard to learn. Estonian has 14 cases, which makes it hard to learn for people whose native tongue has only few cases. I've also read a few articles by foreign people who are studying Estonian, saying that native speakers wont let them even practice the language and tend to speak English with them. 

 

[Lingua Franca]

I think that the hardest language to learn would be a language that is the most distant from any language that you might know. So for instance if you spoke Khoisan, you would find it very difficult to learn Aleut. Not only that but what plays a very important role in learning a language is our environment, so if it is completely different it would add to the learn curve. 

[lingvo]

After giving some thoughts about it, I realized that the hardest languages to learn are the most obscure ones, that also are quite faraway of your native tongue's grammar and alphabet structure. And with obscure I meant languages with very scarce learning sources and where only a few people actually are fluent on it. 

[AntonioCalcano]

I think the hardest language to learn will vary according to your own language. So for example if the alphabet is very similar it's gonna be easier in general, and if it's different then the language is going to be harder. So depending on your language you might find a language that is very difficult for you but for others it will be easier. There is no clear hardest language to learn.

[Victor Leigh]

For me, the hardest language to learn is Arabic. There are two reasons for this. One, the script is written from right to left. That's the opposite direction of all the languages I already know. Two, the letters are not written the same way in every word. The same letter can change shape, depending on its position in the word. This is really confusing for me because this doesn't happen in English or in Chinese or in Malay or in Thai. In the languages I already know, all the letters keep the same form wherever they are used in a word.

[LeesaJohnson]

For me its Chinese because of its alphabets. 

[宇崎ちゃん]

The hardest language is the language you like to learn the least.
I believe you can only learn a language if you have a genuine interest in it, if you don't have any, you'll have a hard time learning it.
No matter if it's Spanish, Chinese, Arabic, Swahili, etc., the difficulty of a language really depends on your own mindset.

[poftim]

Hungarian must be up there. I was in Budapest for a few hours yesterday and on most of the signs there was just nothing to go on. Hungarian has several dozen noun cases I think. I'm currently in Timișoara in Romania and today I met an American who has lived in Budapest for ten years but only knows a few words of Hungarian. Totally believable.

[AntonioCalcano]

The hardest language will vary from person to person and will depend entirely on your own alphabet, so the hardest one for you won't be the hardest one for other person; but in this case the hardest language for someone is that one that has the most differences between them, the most different alphabet. 

[Baburra]

For me it's french since I'm asian so most other asian languages at least have a bit of familiarity to me whether it is in writing or with regards to accents. French is very appealing to me but sadly the accent is very hard to nail down as I have already trained my tongue to speak in a certain way which lends itself best to speaking most other asian languages but french definitely is very far from my own native speaking. I just hope I get close to an accurate pronunciation someday. 

[111kg]

On 10/8/2016 at 9:40 PM, poftim said:

Hungarian must be up there. I was in Budapest for a few hours yesterday and on most of the signs there was just nothing to go on. Hungarian has several dozen noun cases I think. I'm currently in Timișoara in Romania and today I met an American who has lived in Budapest for ten years but only knows a few words of Hungarian. Totally believable.

Not really. Once you get accustomed with the basic vocabulary, it's not that hard. Most of the young Hungarian people do speak English, therefore it's easy to ask for directions, not to say that there are dozens of speaking guides that show you the basic phrases.

As for Romanian, feel free to send me a PM whenever you want.

[sidney]

I think that way too. I won't bother learning a language that has some foreign characters because it's like interpreting a symbol, it would entail more effort in studying. I know German has some weird fonts, but nothing major, just some weird lines on top of the letters.

[Tripeo]

1 hour ago, sidney said:

I think that way too. I won't bother learning a language that has some foreign characters because it's like interpreting a symbol, it would entail more effort in studying. I know German has some weird fonts, but nothing major, just some weird lines on top of the letters.

I really wouldn't consider learning a language as something you would study because studying means boring, annoying and whatnot, for real, you should call it somehow else

[宇崎ちゃん]

It actually depends on how you're learning, @Tripeo.

If you're someone who wants to learn a language through books and boring exercises (which is very common among new language learners), or if you learn a language through some school programme, then it can be considered studying.
If you're someone who learns through the way you should learn (more practise-based), then you can consider it learning.

[abr]

I would say the hardest language to learn will be the one with the smallest amount of different content. The more books, films, videos and other resources there are, the more time you could dedicate to a language and not get bored. If I have only one textbook, a dictionary and a bible movie from thegoodbookcompany.com, I wouldn't even start.

[teeekilicious18]

On 2016/9/20 at 11:23 PM, x0xLucyMx0x said:

No language is impossible to learn. Some languages are easier to learn and others aren't so easy. So I have a couple of questions for you here.

What do you think is the hardest language for you to learn? What would be the hardest challenge for you?

Do you consider your native language hard to learn? What would be the hardest part about your native tongue?

I think the hardest language to learn for me would be Chinese, Japanese or Arabic. I think the different alphabet and not hearing those languages around everyday would make it too hard for me to learn.

HAHAHAHAHA same for me : Arabic, Chinese and Japanese are flipping tough! All those in Arabic, "Tajweed, Makhraj, Heavy & Light" took me ages.... AGES.... But congratulations to me, I've finally mastered them, time for me to learn Arabic grammar. But writing for those three are easy, its just the grammar I find tough. I don't find my native language hard though just because they are alphabetical. 

Anyways, as a local arabian, my advise to some of you to those that want to learn arabic, you can go to http://www.bayyinah.tv/ and sign up for classes for basic learners asalamualikumwaramatullahiwabarakatuh! 

Edited December 21, 2016 by Blaveloper
Fixed quoting.