what is the hardest language to learn?

Question

I want to learn a language but I don't want to pick a really hard one so I want to know what the hardest language to learn is.

• Please note that it is mandatory on this forum to use correct spelling, grammar, and capitalization in your posts. - Issabela Oct 24, 2009

Answer 1

I think it depends what your native language is. Most of the southern European languages are romance languages, and share a very stong base culled from latin and greek, while the northern European languages tend to be more strongly biased towards the germanic language base.

As a native English speaker, you are blessed with a language which has taken influences from both of these, so in any European language you will find many things that you can relate to your own native tongue.

If you go further afield, and learn a language which developed completely seperately from these influences, like Russian or Japanese, it is much harder because there are no immediate points of familiarity.

The best thing would be to choose the language of the country that most interests you, rather than the "easiest" - you will enjoy learning it much more then.

• Great points Sheila - Izanoni1 Oct 24, 2009

Answer 2

It's a tie between the one that you don't want to learn but are forced to anyway or the one that you never try to learn

But really, I think that, for speakers of Western languages, the tougher languages to speak would probably be the tonal languages like Chinese (Mandarin), Vietnamese, Niger-Congo languages, etc because we are largely unused to using tone to define meaning of our words. Fortunately for many of these languages, the actual syntax of the language is usually not quite as challenging.

I think languages that provide a definite challenge in regards to syntax or morphology are often those that exhibit a high number of morphemes per word like Greenlandic Eskimo or Aleut (nearly 4 morphemes per word on average compared with about 1.5 for modern English). That means to say something like: "I didn't understand at all that you wanted to come along," you would only need two words to say the same thing in Greenlandic Eskimo "Paasi-nngil-luinnar-para ilaa-juma-sutit." Getting used to such a dramatic difference in morphology can often be a challenge.

Other languages would be those that are extinct or nearly extinct such as many of the Native American languages and Dialects (Chinook, Iroquoian languages, Lakhota, etc).

Answer 3

I would have to say it's the one you are not interested in. If you have no interest in learning Spanish, but really want to learn Japanese then you will apply yourself to Japanese more. If there is no purpose for learning a new language other than "want to" then go for what you want.

Answer 4

That has to be Chinese without any doubt! Spanish is an excellent language to learn and almost as good as Chinese. If I am not mistaken, Chinese is the number one language in the world, followed by Spanish and English.

Answer 5

I'd guess inuktitut or zulu.

Answer 6

In my opinion, probably the hardest language to learn would be the one that makes sounds that you cannot create with your mouth. (Unless you are a five years old.)

Answer 7

english

Answer 8

You should try sign language. It's very fun and can be fairly useful.

Answer 9

If you are an English speaker then the Scandinavian languages are not so difficult - even though they sound like they may be.

The reason is that the verb system is very much easier than Spanish or even English. Vocabulary and pronunciation are the main problems for an English speaker.

Answer 10

I'll tell you what...the languages that you can't immerse yourself in are the hardest. You know, the ones that don't have a lot of music or TV shows or movies that you can watch, or maybe not a lot of speakers to talk to? My roommate is learning Choctaw as one of her languages. Are there any good zombie movies in Choctaw? Yeah.....nope.