Is English really the hardest language?

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Emjay IV

How do you define hard? It is a very subjective question and impossible to answer in an objective and scientific manner. As someone who has studied linguistics at university level I would have to say that this is an invalid question inasmuch as anyone saying that any language is harder or easier than another finds himself entirely without an academic basis. Italian would be easier for a Spaniard than it would be for a Zulu and yet Zulu would be fairly simple for a Xhosa. Afrikaans is easy for a Dutch speaker and Dutch fairly straightforward for an Afrikaans speaker. Basque, unrelated to any other language would be "difficult" for most. The list could go on forever.

If you were to ask for my "unscientific opinion" I would say that certainly the irregularity of English spelling and the absolute plethora of irregularities and exceptions do not make English an easy language, not even for the so-called native speakers, most of whom speak like abosulute berks these days. English pronunciation, the Queen's English, is notoriously difficult for native and non-native speakers alike. English also has the greatest number of synonyms and alternate vocabulary, adding further to the complication!

There is a quote I once heard, "English is the easiest language to speak badly and the hardest to speak well." I think this is the best way to sum it up.

Regarding the most difficult language in the world, hmm.... I would have to go for a Khoi or Bushman language, pronunciation being nigh on impossible for adult learners.

Tick T

Yes, english has the hardest and weirdest grammar rules.
It is very confusing unless it is your native tongue.

here some of the really weird examples.

1.) The bandage was wound around the wound.
2.) The farm was used to produce produce.
3.) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
4.) We must polish the Polish furniture.
5.) He could lead if he would get the lead out.
6.) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
7.) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.
8.) A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
9.) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
10.) I did not object to the object.
11.) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
12.) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
13.) They were too close to the door to close it.
14.) The buck does funny things when the does are present.
15.) A seam stress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
16.) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
17.) The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
18.) After a number of injections my jaw got number.
19.) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.
20.) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
21.) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

see? and those are just the spelling irregulars.
there are hundreds more grammatical ones.

charmedchick22

its not necessairly the hardest lanugage, but it could be difficult for foreigners to understand.

J. Z.

Apparently all those who answered no are from English speaking countries. Obviously they will say it's the easiest language to learn. But with almost a million words in it's vocabulary, and counting, not to mention it's proper grammatical use, including it's tenses,ex.. teach - taught, say - said, it can be confusing. You also have to deal with pronunciation, which is not simple to master, I have to say that English is moderately hard to learn, especially if your learning it for the first time. Cappice?

Sprinkly

I've heard that Mandarin is the most difficult language to learn. However, I think that even first language speakers struggle with English. Nowhere is that more evident than on Y!A where some of the questions and answers are barely intelligible.

Jamie T

Well it really depends on where you come from and as for me English is one of the languages that I speak fluently.

Hennie

No. It's medium to soft.

But seriously, I have found that Chinese is quite difficult to learn to speak, but to learn to write it, it is mind-bogglingly difficult to say the least.
However, once you have your head around a few Chinese words and persvere a bit, it's entirely doable to have a decent-ish conversation in Chinese - Mandarin Chinese, in my case.

kitkat

Its probably one of the most nonsensical. And for anyone who is into teaching phonetics to schoolchildren it is NOT a phonetic language (but thats an argument for another day!!!!)

Andy

English especially in the US is mostly slang based anyways. So once you have it down its very hard to assimilate to the culture. Chinese on the other hand is hard. So many damn characters.

loves.cookies

can't be...it's one of the most widely spoken

KEEPER1080

not to me the hardset language for me maybe would probably be that clicking language. My teacher is always saying that though oh there he is right now.

sid b

You tryed to learn Dutch ?......damn

Ingy E

yes and no
it's depend on Practices ,more you practice the more it will be easy
i think german the hardest Language:S

psychoticgenius

No, English is easy to learn but can take a lifetime to master, the hardest language to learn is Mandarin Chinese.

TOON ARMY FOR EVER.

And heres me thinking Geordie was the worst.

cakes

According to Richard Brecht, the Deputy Director, National Foreign Language Center

"Japanese is without question the most daunting language for a native English speaker to tackle, according to Brecht. "I would like to learn Japanese but I don't have enough time in my lifetime. That's very depressing," says the linguist, whose center is based at Hopkins's Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). He notes that the State Department allows its students three times as long to learn Japanese as it does languages like Spanish or French.

As Brecht explains it, the challenge with Japanese is threefold. First, there's the fact that the Japanese written code is different from the spoken code. "Therefore, you can't learn to speak the language by learning to read it," and vice versa. What's more, there are three different writing systems to master. The kanji system uses characters borrowed from Chinese. Users need to learn 10,000 to 15,000 of these characters through rote memorization; there are no mnemonic devices to help. Written Japanese also makes use of two syllabary systems: kata-kana for loan words and emphasis, and hira-gana for spelling suffixes and grammatical particles.

Get beyond that and you're faced with a culture that, says Brecht, is "truly foreign for most Americans." With many languages, students start by learning introductions (Comment-allez vous? TrÂs bien, merci, et vous?) "But with Japanese, you can't even begin to do that with lesson one because of the social distinctions involved in making introductions," says Brecht. Age, social status, gender--"all these sociological factors make it so complicated that introductions can't be the first lesson," he notes.

Finally, there's the issue of grammar. In English syntax, grammar is right branching. We set a topic and then comment upon it: "I saw the man who was sitting on the red chair, which was sitting beside the door." Japanese syntax is left branching-- "totally contrary to our approach," says Brecht. Thus, the sentence above becomes something along the lines of: "I saw the red, which was the chair, which was....." You get the idea.

While exceedingly difficult, mastering Japanese is not impossible for English speakers, Brecht concedes. "There are thousands of students in our classes at SAIS who learn to function in Japan. It takes really good students and a lot of devotion."

xoxo_cr4zie4boys_needs_u_xoxo

It's not really about which is the hardest language. It's where you were born from and which language you were raised in that makes it harder to speak the other languages more fluently. Personally, no but that was because I was born in the US and I've been living here so I adapted to English fluently. For some, English is hard but for others Spanish is hard. It's a matter of what language you started out with and what language you were surrounded with.

Gemma T

Apparently chinese and japanese is the only 2 harder languages to learn than english.

Fortnum

Not the hardest, but very nearly. And extremely difficult to become truly fluent.

Renata?Army

No
It is the easiest

rebecca_sprs

I personally think Russian or Chinese is much more difficult! They have their own alphabet remember.

ladyluck

No its not cause where does that leave Danish, Chinese and Greek etc English is easy

shortbreadtin

I'm British so I dunno coz speaking it comes natch

Princess.xx

Yes, because of all of the different tenses and different words for everything. Chinese and Japanese are difficult but once you get the hang of the letters it is easy.

Carolina

Well... I don't really think that English is the hardest language in the world... Since i live in China, i noe Chinese, and there are so many different characters, and different pronunciations to remember... Its is just a lot harder than English, also... for french, it is also harder than English, since it has a different gender even for a thing... so ... i think English is not the hardest language... =)

suga UK

I think its the easiest.

Bryan C

English is the fastest growing language in the world with about a third of the world either speaking or trying to speak English. I have heard that the East European and Arabic languages are very hard to learn too. I believe that the Czech language has 7 tenses.

Amanda Leigh

possibly because other languages have definite sentence structures and other things whereas english is random and all over the place, my english teacher was talking to my class about it the other day. we don't have a definite base because our language was taken from others

lil miss adorable

Well it depends I do not know any other languages besides french so english so far, Chow!

xrhi29

no not at all

Leigha

yep

Is English really the hardest language? pic 1
Is English really the hardest language? pic 2

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