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| Language Tree |
What language is the hardest to learn? What language is just the easiest? of a language is difficult or easy to learn depends not only on your native language, but also on other factors. They experience Chinese and Japanese are generally considered very difficult, and Arabic, Hungarian, Finnish and Russian are also some ambitious. English and German are harder than they seem, and for non-native Dutch is very difficult. A challenge that is very feasible, is learning Swedish.
Learning second language
The world has about six thousand languages, of which about one hundred have been mapped. Learning a second language depends on the mother tongue. For that reason, it makes little sense to an inclusive, ranking based on difficulty to make. So it is easier for Germans to learn Dutch than for someone from Japan. Somebody from Spain will learns witch much less effort Portuguese then a Chinese. In general, the closer the second-native language is, the easier it will learn. This includes the relationship between the two vocabularies, sound, syntax, culture and other factors. In America they prepared a list with the average time required for reasonable learning a second language. The result was that for English speaking Arabic (written from right to left), Cantonese, Mandarin, Japanese and Korean languages the most difficult are to learn. These languages require at least almost ninety teaching weeks, longer than other languages.
Mother tongue and flair for languages
For learning a foreign language are many factors that determine its success. Of someone picks up another language quickly, is also linked to motivation and circumstances of the language been learned. When a person for professional reasons have to learn a language he learned it generally faster than when he learns the language only for using it with holidays. Of course intelligence also plays a role, a "feel " for language or even a talent (the gift for languages), memory and listening skills. Practice makes perfect. The mother language is learned naturally, Those who learn another language, will find that the first five years of human life really determines everything turned out. Later in life language learning requires a great effort.
More challenging ...
Many people it seems impossible to learn Chinese, probably by the very different system of writing, and very difficult pronunciation. as was consistently found that Japanese who are already accustomed to a similar script, writing Chinese is easier than for speakers of a language using the Roman alphabet. Yet another is a script language is not necessarily difficult, it's just more challenging for those who try to learn. That’s why we see the Greek and Russian (Cyrillic alphabet) very difficult. But also the Hungarian appears to be very problematic. This is mainly because of the complex grammatical structure, while the Hungarians have the same script as we know!
Sense of language
What languages are difficult for English speakers? Chinese and Japanese are extremely complex, and except for those two also Finnish. Because of the extraordinary Finnish grammar. What is also very difficult are Thai, Polish, Hebrew, Vietnamese, Icelandic, Slavic languages, Czech, Hungarian, Basque and Romance languages like French, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese are seen as average. These languages are known for the same properties, because they are all descended of Latin (the language of the Romans). It is very common for someone who knows one of these languages, without much trouble can continue the learning of other languages.
Why are Japanese and Chinese so hard?
Thousands of symbols
In Chinese, each word representing a symbol, which means you literally have to learn thousands of symbols will you be able to read Chinese. Moreover, the symbols are not phonetic, So you have no idea how they should be pronounced. This in contrast to learning a language that uses our familiar alphabet. Even if you don’t know Spanish, when you read a word you know roughly how it should be pronounced. Look at a Chinese word and you're completely lost. When you don’t know the symbol, you don’t know what it says.
Tone Languages
In Chinese, tones are very important. In the pronunciation of a word, the tone go up or just down. When your pronouncing is wrong you say something completely different. This is very difficult for someone who is not used to a tonal language.
To refer to the same Japanese makes subtle use of different words, depending to who you speak: your brother, a stranger, your boss or the president ...Japanese have a lot pitfalls.
The most difficult languages
The click-clack languages from southern Africa are really beyond our caps. Some of us have heard of Xhosa, but! xoo (the TAA) in Botswana is still a degree worse. This language has five different types of head-clicks, next seventeen several sub-clicks. Much more than lesson 1 most will not come from our region. Which is maybe better, because speakers of these languages have all developed a tumor on their larynx.
Why English is surprisingly difficult
Particularly through the Internet and the influence of the media, it seems as though English has become the world language, English grammar is very extensive and the vocabulary is huge. The vocabulary of English is greater than that of any other language and consists of more than 500,000 words. So happens that for a single Dutch word there are many English, all with a slight difference in meaning. Because this lack of knowledge of nuances a English speaking always hear it’s not your native language.
Learn Arabic
Besides going from right to left writing and the many details, there are many things that makes Arabic difficult. There are male and female verbal forms and sometimes there are no vowels in the alphabet. In addition, characters have a slightly different form depending on the position in the word. In addition, Arabic is written in a flowing line. Individual letters are therefore difficult to distinguish. The Arabic alphabet is seen as more difficult than the Greek or Russian, but less complicated than the Chinese or Japanese. The Arabic grammar differs in many respects from that of most Western languages. The grammar is very extensive and there are many structures and sequences that are a Semitic language characteristics.
