Why do people think English is the hardest language to learn?

[Ghostkai]

Gotta say, I have never ever heard anyone say it was the hardest, quite the opposite in fact.

 

[DarkLordofDevon]

Japanese is actually really easy. All the 'letters' only have a single sound. E.g. Ka is always pronaunced 'kah'. However a in English can be 'ah' as in cat, 'ay' as in cake etc.

The difficult problem with Japanese is the fact that all of the characters each have their own meaning, which when combined in a word can completely change the meaning of the character as opposed to it just remaining separate.

Only the Kanji have their own meaning, and there are over 10,000 so even most Japanese don't know them all. You just need the important ones like 'water'. Hiragana and Katakana are just those straight forward sounds.

 

[megamanenm]

I've only ever heard that Japanese is the hardest language to learn.

This and Russian, but most of the languages in the world are very identical, we just need to start learning them.
There is one language in South America (I think) that doesn't has any vowels. Now THAT'S hard to learn.

How are all languages very identical? And what language are you talking about?

 

[Rawker]

English is a very hard language to learn. Russian from English is even harder. You're going from a phonetic language to one that isn't. It's crazy. It wouldn't be half as hard if one could actually read cyrillic and then speak it.

 

[DarkRyter]

Icelandic is the most difficult language.

 

[Airsoftslayer93]

Yer, unlike many european languages it isnt a phoenetic language (although american english is a far more phoenetic language) which makes it difficult to learn, also the large amount of meanings any particular word can have is astonishing (how many definitions are there for 'set')

Japanese is a sylabelic language i believe, based on sylables mainly, so it is also going to be very difficult to learn.

 

[IanBrazen]

sentences like.

I want to desert my desert in the desert.

if you didnt understand english that would make no since.

it doesnt make much since when i type it either.

 

[Blue Musician]

I've only ever heard that Japanese is the hardest language to learn.

This and Russian, but most of the languages in the world are very identical, we just need to start learning them.
There is one language in South America (I think) that doesn't has any vowels. Now THAT'S hard to learn.

How are all languages very identical? And what language are you talking about?

I mean in difficulty mostly, and if you compare Chinese to Japanese, Spanish to Portuguese, they sound very similar, but obviously not quite.
The language without vowels I cannot remember it's name unfortunately, as I read it in a magazine (which is in Spanish BTW), all what I can remember is that it's a native language in South America.

 

[some1else]

...
Russian, from the very little I know about it though, is a very guttural language ( as in "from the gut" rather than gutter), and hearing someone whisper sweet nothings in Russian sounds like having a fight in English. (Also Gujarati/German)

Correct, knowing Russian grammar adds absolutely nothing to your knowledge of the spoken language.
It has a Catch-22 in it, you need to have a good feeling of the language in order to speak correctly. Though I guess Slavic people won't have too much trouble mastering it, due to some similarities.

 

[Technicka]

English is often given that rep because of how often a single word can be pronounced differently with no visual clue as to which pronouncement to go by (the word beloved, for example). Most other languages have rules for nearly every usage of a word, even the exceptions, so you'll have some way of knowing. Add to that the differences between US English and UK English, and it could be a bit of a shock when a person starts up - especially if they don't have the benefit of youth to give them an edge.

 

[megamanenm]

and "it's bag" - implying the possesion "it" has of the bag.

No, you fool, that would simply mean "It is bag". "Its bag" would imply possession, you dolt.

You have 4110 posts, don't you know better then to go around insulting people?

 

[megamanenm]

...
Russian, from the very little I know about it though, is a very guttural language ( as in "from the gut" rather than gutter), and hearing someone whisper sweet nothings in Russian sounds like having a fight in English. (Also Gujarati/German)

Correct, knowing Russian grammar adds absolutely nothing to your knowledge of the spoken language.
It has a Catch-22 in it, you need to have a good feeling of the language in order to speak correctly. Though I guess Slavic people won't have too much trouble mastering it, due to some similarities.

You do know that phonology and phonetics are included in grammar since the grammar is everything the speaker knows about the language right?

 

[Wicky_42]

Because English is an insane language.

There are two genders instead of three,...

See, that always confused me when I was studying French and German. Why do inanimate objects have genders? Is it really just to fuck around with school kinds, making them remember three or four tables of endings for verbs and all that? Never understood the need, really - that's one layer of complexity English is without, thank God!

 

[Ziggy the wolf]

one thing from what i have heard from the language teachers tell me and it makes sense because we are the only tongue that uses silent letters. i mean i was good at english but still Knife and wrist make no fucking sense that and we have 2 letters get together and make a whole other letter sound

 

[ShaqLevick]

It's pretty simple, English is the most loosely interpreted of all languages. Very easy to learn and yet near impossible to master, and if you don't believe me feel free to quiz my peers and take a look at the results. Hell, even I'm a novice on the subject.