Friday, September 11, 2009

What is the most difficult language in the world?

  1. People talk about this topic quite often. We have Arabic, Korean, Chinese, and Japanese. Who speaks the most difficult language?
  2. First of all, no language is difficult as the first language. Every child can master her/his native language no matter what the language she/he speaks. In this sense, it might be meaningless to discuss which language is more or less difficult.
  3. Second of all, each language has a different difficulty in each skill. For example, Korean is fairly easy to write; however, they have a really difficult system of honorific expressions. You have to distinguish many ways of expressions depending upon who you are talking to.
  4. Regarding Chinese, they have tons of characters. In addition, Chinese is a tonal language. This means, depending upon how you tone a word, the meaning differs. I believe there are at least four tones in Chinese (or more). However, their grammar is fairly easy.
  5. I don't know much about Arabic. Arabic writing seems daunting, but it might be so complicated once you learn it. I think the hardest part in Arabic is its variation. Even if you learn the formal Arabic, that is not enough. You need to learn a dialect.
  6. Third of all, if you are learning a language, how difficult a language is depends on your first language. For the Japanese, Korean and Chinese are easier to learn because we share so many features in common. One research showed that the Japanese need only half of time to learn Korean compared to English. However, Korean is often regarded as one of the most difficult languages for English speakers.
  7. Similarly, Spanish and French are fairly easy for English speakers. But they are as difficult as English for Asians. Not only Korean but also Chinese and Japanese are also difficult ones to learn for English speakers.
  8. So the answer to the question: what is the most difficult language in the world can not be single. It depends on how you take a look at a language.
  9. Still, English does not seem to be one of the difficult languages in the world. That may be why lots of people choose to use English for communication, and we end up by learning it.
  10. This is an interesting site to take a look at. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardest_language) Although Wiki is not really trustable, if you believe in this article, Koreans (so, AJ) should be proud to be able to handle the most(?) difficult language in the world!
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21 comments:

  1. stevenhouSeptember 11, 2009 at 6:20 AM

    Which language is most hard to learn is depending on what is your native language.
    Also i agree that Chinese speaking and grammar is very easy. But learning how to write Chinese character is hard.

    ReplyDelete
  2. stevenhouSeptember 11, 2009 at 6:21 AM

    yeah, I get the sofa and second chair.

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  3. SeanSeptember 11, 2009 at 6:21 AM

    I think the most difficult language in the world is Chinese and French.Chinese is difficult for writing and French is difficult for the grammar .But I also believe that if you really love a country then you can learn the language of this country well.There is no trouble of it.

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  4. Yi ZhaoSeptember 11, 2009 at 6:22 AM

    So hope we can handle English well soon.
    And i just thought French might be the hardest language.

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  5. A.J.September 11, 2009 at 6:23 AM

    I think korean is really difficult language.
    many people said Korean is really hard to learn.
    I don't remember that name of magazine.
    They investigate which country has most beautiful language in the world.
    The first choice was Korean.
    I was so happy!:-)

    P.S. I LOVE English,Chinese,Japanese or other countries language too.

    ReplyDelete
  6. KunSeptember 11, 2009 at 6:23 AM

    I also agree with the main idea of the article --- Which language is hardest to learn depends on what is your native language.. so I don't believe that I can learn Arabic well .ha.

    ReplyDelete
  7. JohnSeptember 11, 2009 at 6:24 AM

    There is no most hard language.I agree with them,it depends on whats your first language.Such as "Arabic, Cantonese, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean" are hard,but it depends on your native language.That will decide how difficult is.

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  8. OpheliaSeptember 11, 2009 at 6:25 AM

    I think French is hard, too. Some words I can't pronounce.

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  9. tangSeptember 11, 2009 at 6:28 AM

    The english is appears to be logical and
    coherent language. whearas , chinese , In
    my opinoin , It focus on main idea a little more.

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  10. khalifaSeptember 11, 2009 at 6:28 AM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  11. yuSeptember 11, 2009 at 6:28 AM

    every language has it's difficult place. What we do is just to ride it.

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  12. Siyuan WangSeptember 11, 2009 at 6:29 AM

    I also agree the most language is Chinese because sometimes there are also some different between each region in China

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  13. SherrySeptember 11, 2009 at 6:29 AM

    I think that the environment is really important for a person to learn a new language. Some people such as ABC can learn english well just because they are live in the U.S. Which language is the most different language depends on the environment. No matter which country u are from, i think the most important thing is the environment and how often u use the language

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  14. LEOSeptember 11, 2009 at 6:31 AM

    Language learning is more difficult than Math or Physics. I'll do my best on it. I come I see I conquer.

    ReplyDelete
  15. ChisaSeptember 11, 2009 at 6:32 AM

    I also think the most difficult language is depending on what is your native language.
    I think Japanese is difficult,too.
    Because I cannot speak and write Japanese completely...

    ReplyDelete
  16. crissySeptember 11, 2009 at 6:33 AM

    i don't think language is difficult to learn.whatever which kind of language.For me,It's all the same.And also there are some element of what native language you are.

    ReplyDelete
  17. stevenhouSeptember 11, 2009 at 6:34 AM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

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  18. tonySeptember 11, 2009 at 6:36 AM

    I think English and French are similar language, Chinese and Japanese have a lot of features in common,So maybe learning similar language is easily than learning different language.like English and Chinese.we need get rid of native language and recreate a new way to learning English.So it is more difficulty to us.

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  19. stevenhouSeptember 11, 2009 at 6:38 AM

    I will chose to learn Japanese at next semester. Because i think it is easy for me. But what i know about Japanese is that the grammar is totally different from Chinese. Also i want to learn Japanese because it has really rich cultural. Well I would like to learn as much as i can if i have that talent!

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  20. tangSeptember 11, 2009 at 6:40 AM

    sometime , It is difficult to master a new language because we don't get know the culture and history of a country. And therefore we don't know some of slang or
    vocabulary of a language.

    ReplyDelete
  21. FrankSeptember 11, 2009 at 6:43 AM

    I think the environment is the most important factor for foreigners to learn other country's language..

    ReplyDelete

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