Hardest Language To Learn!?
- Thread starter SpellZ
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Roparadise
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How can Romanian be "easy" when there is not many resources available. I only know of 3 places in the United States that teaches Romanian. 1 is in California,1 in Boston and the other one in Indiana. There is no premium software like Rosetta Stone,only subpar tapes and grammar books.
scriptomania
Junior Member
- Dec 28, 2010
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German wasn't even on the list because youd just be wasting your time...
I've been learning mandarin for 10 years, I could pick up a chinese newspaper and probably get the idea of what an article is about but cant actually read it. I can speak, read, and listen to Hebrew, Russian, French, and Portuguese at a pretty good level. But living in China, I realize that a lot of Chinese don't understand each other. I have trouble speaking in different tones, which changes a word completely in mandarin, I think partly because I have a fucked up voice/accent that simply doesn't work well with speaking Chinese.
madoctopus
Supreme Member
- Apr 4, 2010
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Where's German? German is one of the easiest for a native English speaker. Generally the entire family of Germanic Languages is easier as English is part of the Germanic Languages. Spanish, Romanian, etc. are from the Latin family and are somewhat different.
In my experience you can learn enough of a new language to get along in 1 week. The key is not to study it but just to practice it. Go to a foreign country for a week and in that week you will learn lots of words because you will learn what you need, when you need it and also associate it in your mind using multiple neural paths which is best.
You are hungry, you have to learn how to say "bread" or "stake" in Chinese - the moment somebody tells you how to pronounce it, you instantly learn it. forever. I was in China when I was a kid and wanted to know how to say certain phrases like "how much it costs", "juice", "beer", "embassy", "hello", "this", "that". I still remember them today after 15 years in which I never heard or spoken Chinese.
Learning a language by using it instead of studying it is much much easier and you also learn it better. There are things that get lost in translation really and you can't really learn those from a book.
In my experience you can learn enough of a new language to get along in 1 week. The key is not to study it but just to practice it. Go to a foreign country for a week and in that week you will learn lots of words because you will learn what you need, when you need it and also associate it in your mind using multiple neural paths which is best.
You are hungry, you have to learn how to say "bread" or "stake" in Chinese - the moment somebody tells you how to pronounce it, you instantly learn it. forever. I was in China when I was a kid and wanted to know how to say certain phrases like "how much it costs", "juice", "beer", "embassy", "hello", "this", "that". I still remember them today after 15 years in which I never heard or spoken Chinese.
Learning a language by using it instead of studying it is much much easier and you also learn it better. There are things that get lost in translation really and you can't really learn those from a book.
scriptomania
Junior Member
- Dec 28, 2010
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Oh, was more of a sarcastic comment... Just making fun of people who fear the Deutsch. I'm actually fluent in written and spoken German and it wasnt all that hard to learn, however it was very, very hard to master. Obviously English is a "bastard language" that arose out of a mixture of French and German (syntax wise very similar to German... One would capitalize nouns in the olden days for example, just like one would do in modern day German), so logically there are a ton of similarities between them. However, German is a much less structured language (from my point of view), with a more complicated set of grammatical rules than English, certain things just won't make sense to a native English speaker.
I'll let Mark Twain take over from here:
http://www.crossmyt.com/hc/linghebr/awfgrmlg.html
enjoy
Roparadise
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- May 25, 2011
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Actually modern english is more latin based then german. Its about 60% french and 40% german.
ExCluSiveG
Junior Member
- Mar 26, 2009
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lol... what a bullshit. for most people, Dutch is the toughest language to learn. German is one of the easier languages to learn. But even Germans often have problems with Dutch.
This list seems like complete BS to me. Unfortunate.
This list seems like complete BS to me. Unfortunate.
beest123
Junior Member
- Jul 1, 2011
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Well i'm Dutch. And i must say the English/German/French Grammar is easy peasy compared to Dutch Grammar. Dutch should be between medium and hard.
I even have some problems with dutch grammar, its quite confusing sometimes.
How difficult a language is to learn is subjective and based on your mother tongue. This list is "for English speakers". E.g. Spanish is listed as easy, and it is if you speak English..... but if you only speak Chinese then it's probably really difficult
Also, it's not as black and white as just "easy" or "difficult"... for example, English has A LOT of irregularities and exceptions to the grammatical rules, you have to remember the rules AND all the exceptions (e.g. past tense of "go" is "went" - you have to memorise that, you can't just add "-ed" to the end of the word "go", and "catch" --> "caught", a common mistake for people learning English is to say "catched"). Arabic on the other hand, has no exceptions to the rules at all - all you have to do is remember the rules themselves (and of course the vocabulary) - all words come from their 3 letter root word upon which the rules are applied. Saying that, there's A LOT more rules in Arabic but that's because it's less of an ambiguous language. In English if you say "he went to see his father and he ate dinner", who is the second "he?", the son or the father? Ambiguous.
I like languages heh
Also, it's not as black and white as just "easy" or "difficult"... for example, English has A LOT of irregularities and exceptions to the grammatical rules, you have to remember the rules AND all the exceptions (e.g. past tense of "go" is "went" - you have to memorise that, you can't just add "-ed" to the end of the word "go", and "catch" --> "caught", a common mistake for people learning English is to say "catched"). Arabic on the other hand, has no exceptions to the rules at all - all you have to do is remember the rules themselves (and of course the vocabulary) - all words come from their 3 letter root word upon which the rules are applied. Saying that, there's A LOT more rules in Arabic but that's because it's less of an ambiguous language. In English if you say "he went to see his father and he ate dinner", who is the second "he?", the son or the father? Ambiguous.
I like languages heh
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Roparadise
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Wouldnt English be the easiest to learn due to all the speakers and resources? There is a total of about 1.8 billion speakers of English,which means its the most spoken language in the world. i think Even people in China are being pushed to learn English.
RobBanks
Junior Member
- May 14, 2010
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How difficult a language is to learn is subjective and based on your mother tongue. This list is "for English speakers". E.g. Spanish is listed as easy, and it is if you speak English..... but if you only speak Chinese then it's probably really difficult
i agree, i have been told that english is one of the hardest to learn as well. it all depends on where your from or what you grew up knowing.
RobBanks
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- May 14, 2010
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sad thing is people in US need to be pushed to learn chinese. also just because its a globally accepted language doesn't mean its easy to learn.
albaniax
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- Aug 5, 2008
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I'm Albanian and was born in Germany.
English I can say I have learned it pretty good and it's easy going.
I think, because I know Albanian I can learn very quickly Italian, and Spanish aswell. Some words sound very similar to me, and I can pronounce them good.
English I can say I have learned it pretty good and it's easy going.
I think, because I know Albanian I can learn very quickly Italian, and Spanish aswell. Some words sound very similar to me, and I can pronounce them good.
Randy569
Junior Member
- Feb 3, 2009
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When I was in the Air Force, I was stationed in Iceland, and was told Icelandic was supposed to be one of the hardest languages to learn. It supposedly takes the average English-speaking person about 2 years to just get the basics of the language.
I picked up a bit of Icelandic, but just enough to get by. It was tough just picking up the bit of it that I did.
I picked up a bit of Icelandic, but just enough to get by. It was tough just picking up the bit of it that I did.