What do you think the most difficult language in the world?

@owlwings I've just chanced upon this comment of yours. I taught foreign languages (English and Russian for 20 years, then English and Italian for another 20 years) at secondary grammar schools and think I know something about the topic. To be told by people whose native language is English that this is a difficult language to learn doesn't cease to amuse me. Ask someone coming from a different family of languages which language is more difficult to learn - English or German or French - and they will only laugh. Grammar inconsistencies? My foot! In German everything is declined and conjugated, in English hardly anything. The few grammar rules there are can be learnt in no time. What needs some effort is that there are so many idiomatic expressions in English. Why do you say something in this or that way? Because you do! Often there is no explanation. Someone who has a good memory and doesn't have the urge to get an explanation for every pecularity fares quite well with English. After teaching English for forty years I can tell you that pupils accept the oddest spellings without any fuss. They just learn what they see by heart. Spelling mistakes are rare when they write. I had to teach the history of Great Britain at school, too. I always began with the question, "What do you think, why has English become *the* world language?" Never did a pupil mention the British Empire or the Commonwealth. I *always* got the answer, "Because it's easy to learn." The pupils had German, Latin and French with which they could compare the English language. Re: different alphabets: the Russian characters can be learnt in some days. The exotic looking characters are the easiest. The letters we know from the Latin alphabet but which have a different meaning in Russian are a bit tricky.

@MALUSE I have to say that I was very much impressed yesterday, while watching a (BBC) news story from Spain in which they interviewed a family about children being allowed out for an hour's exercise. The father spoke reasonable English and his six year old daughter had a great deal to say in Spanish (which was translated, or at least paraphrased for us). The son, however, who was 12, was very fluent with a good accent and barely any hesitation while he searched for the right words.

@owlwings The younger the children, the more and better they can learn a foreign language. It's no effort for them. Grown-ups rarely reach such a level. Something happens in the brain so that they can't imitate sounds so easily. I had pupils who know five or even six languages. And one girl could have a conversation even in eight languages. Not all on the same level but well enough so that she can perfect them if she wants to. Her family is Aramaean. They speak a modern version of the language Jesus spoke. They lived in Iraq where she went to school and spoke Arabic. Then they came to Germany and she learnt German in no time although she was already twelve years old. Twelve is usually considered as the limit. Her older brothers never became perfect. At school she had to learn English and French. Her boyfriend was an Italian. Add Italian. She earned some pocket money as a waitress in a Greek restaurant. Add the vocabulary needed for that. Then she went to Munich to study and found a room with a Chinese family. Of course, she learnt enough Chinese to be able to chit chat with them. The interesting thing with this girl is that she absorbs languages like a sponge but is not very interested in using them. She is of the quiet kind and says that she prefers listening to talking.

Thanks for your answer, besides, can you explain why?