What do you think the most difficult language in the world?
By Jenny Wu
@jennylikechallenge (17)
Guangzhou, China
October 23, 2013 1:46am CST
Hey, my lotters! I am a member in the mylot family,do you welcome me?
As is know to all there are so many languages in the world, we have the great ancestor. and Thanks for their wisdom we can enjoy the charming of languages. We are from different countries and learn first languages, second language, even we can learn from newspaper that talented people who can use several languages. I am curious that in your opinion which language is the most difficult ? and why?
3 responses
@owlwings (43910)
• Cambridge, England
23 Oct 13
Assuming that you mean learning a language as a second language, the 'most difficult language' depends on many factors, including how close the language is to your own language, whether it has sounds which don't occur at all in your mother tongue, how old you are when you begin to learn it and the methods you use to learn. It also depends a great deal on one's definition of 'competency'. It is often one thing to be able to read a language fluently; quite another to be able to speak or write it!
English is regarded by many as quite a difficult language to learn fluently because of its spelling and grammar inconsistencies. Chinese, on the other hand, is relatively easy for a Westerner, once they have learned to read the characters, because it has no formal grammar.
Probably the two hardest languages to master (because of the complexities of their grammars) are Basque and Hungarian but any language which uses a different script from one's own mother-tongue presents an added difficulty which increases the time taken to reach a particular level of fluency.
3 people like this
@owlwings (43910)
• Cambridge, England
27 Apr 20
@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 (43910)
• Cambridge, England
28 Apr 20
@MALUSE I think that a few people do have the ability to just soak up languages. Perhaps it comes (or is facilitated, maybe) with learning to speak more than one language before one is six or seven. It seems that such people have separate compartments of the brain for each language. I know that my niece's daughter when aged about 5 or 6 could talk to her Spanish grandmother in Spanish just as well as she could converse with her English grandmother in English but seemed confused when her English grandmother spoke to her in Spanish! Now she is grown up, she speaks both languages (as her father does) like a native and works as a translator. There seems to have been a point, however (not long after the age i mentioned) when she began to be able to link the two 'compartments' and became able to answer an English question in Spanish and vice versa.
@jennylikechallenge (17)
• Guangzhou, China
25 Oct 13
Thanks for your answer, besides, can you explain why?
