What Is The Hardest Language You Tried To Learn ?

[Ultim]

Hello,

A random....OMG LOOK THE SKY IS PURPLE---Sorry...thread.

So,What is the OMG THE SKY TURNED GREEN hardest and the most intimidating language you tried to learn ?

For me it's Icelandic.Looked really easy at first but uhh...You know...

OMG THE SKY IS PURPLE AGAIN!!!!

 

[whitesphere]

In terms of human languages:

I tried learning some Japanese in high school and that was difficult because the assumptions in the language are so different.  We didn't try writing in katakana or hiragana (I think those are the names of the 2 types of Japanese script).

In terms of computer languages:

I had the hardest time making the jump from structural programming (C, BASIC, etc) to object-oriented programming (C++, Java, etc).  I remember staring blindly at a C++ introduction (we didn't study it in school).  A few years later, suddenly the entire set of concepts made perfect sense. 

On a related note:  I find most programmers make poor documentation writers --- one simple paragraph in that C++ introduction would have made a huge difference in my comprehending it.   Leading someone through examples does NOT help if they don't have the core assumptions down yet --- and most programmers have those assumptions so ingrained they don't think to state what is blindingly obvious to them ("Oh, the sky is blue today.")

 

[Ultim]

@whitesphere : Japanese is really kind of complicated.The minor level of Kanjis(Japanese Alphabet I think) is 1000.

 

[whitesphere]

@whitesphere : Japanese is really kind of complicated.The minor level of Kanjis(Japanese Alphabet I think) is 1000.

I imagine their version of Wheel of Fortune must take awhile then...

 

[Kes]

Classical Greek i.e. pre-Roman Empire.

 

[Sinathor]

I have studied Japanese for over a year now and I must say that while not being super difficult when compared to something like chinese, it's still quite a challenge.

You need to learn 47 hiraganas, 47 katakanas, and 2200 kanjis (And kanjis are not phonetic, and they have multiple readings, so they're quite the pain). Just to be able to read a newspaper. There are many things that are rather simple in Japanese, like the fact that words are always the same and never change no matter where they are in a sentence. Their meaning is changed by adding grammatical words after them.

Also, I'm a native speaker of Finnish, and that language makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. It is considered as one of the most difficult languages in the world.

 

[TheoAllen]

Japanese and Javanese.

Even I'm native Java people, our language is not easy to learn. Especially the old javanese

Well, basically I'm suck at human language in first place somehow. 

 

[Ultim]

@ksjp : There are still lessons of these two on the web ? o_0

@Sinathor : Wow.That looks really hard lol.And speaking of Finnish,I was dying struggling to prounounce a word properly lol.

@TheoAllen : The script looks very very hard lol

(Pretty much everybody is saying Japanese is difficult.And I agree ^^)

 

[TheoAllen]

Yes, I'm suck at remembering any language script. Forgot to mention arabic as well. I took almost 3-4 years to learn the basic how to read arabic.

Anyway, RGSS3 language script is an exception

 

[Sinathor]

(Pretty much everybody is saying Japanese is difficult.And I agree ^^)

Not so much as difficult, but the reason why most think it's difficult is because it's so intimidating. Seeing 2200 kanji characters at once just makes your head explode. But when you take it slowly, and start thinking how the characters are built, it starts to make a whole lot more sense.

You can learn all characters with some effort in about a year. If you just take them all into your head at once, you'll just end up forgetting them. I know around 100+ kanjis myself at the moment, as well as all both hiraganas and katakanas and I can safely say that going for the next 100 kanjis next

But in the end. Those are just the kanji. While learning kanji never ends (there are around 50000 of them in total. But 2200 is required by law.) the meat of the language is still grammar and vocabulary. For me, pronouncing japanese is really easy because the pronunciation is extremely close to Finnish. It's weird, considering they have nothing else in common. Guess I'm just lucky in that sense.

 

[Napdevil]

As someone who learned Korean first, I thought Japanese was reasonably easy due to the structural similarities between the two languages. Chinese, on the other hand, was almost impossible for me.

I actually lived in Shanghai for a while. I can't even recall how to put together a basic sentence in Chinese.

 

[Ultim]

@TheoAllen : My mother language isn't Arabic,but it's Moroccan dialect.It is very very different from the classic Arabic and can also be written with latin script.Stil not mastering classic Arabic.Taught in schools

@Napdevil : Chinese is the hardest language in the world...IMO.

...And I forgot to mention Polish.Dude...Remembering those accents was....Ughhh

 

[BoluBolu]

Hmm.. For a native Chinese, Japanese is like you studying Ruby after you mastering Java, but still if you don't have the will, then it still hard, I've tried France and give up really fast, same with Spain is also hard. I never tried Korean, so I don't know. My biggest hope is, I can at least mastering 4 languange, Chinese, English, Japanese, and the last is either Spain,but  I want a South East region languange, perhaps Indonesia or Malaysia, because I have some friends there. But the hardest languange I tried is Latin(is this even a languange?).

In terms programming, I haven't found a real hard one yet, maybe assembly(but I never tried it before), or I don't know.

 

[Ultim]

@BoluBolu : Latin ? It's still taught ? Wow.

 

[Ralpf]

Latin is still taught in high schools in the US (generally only big ones). Most big universities too, I would imagine.

I have only tried to learn one language, French. I can fight through reading it, at least enough to get the basic idea (I know a lot of the vocabulary that I learned still, though the grammar never worked for me), but hearing it spoken or trying to speak French...not a chance.

I know some words in Spanish, German, and Russian (literally 3 words in Russian, lol). Spanish I think is fairly easy to read, part of that would just be growing up in the US, I don't know many people that speak Spanish, but I see Spanish signs and labels often enough.

 

[Ultim]

@Ralpf : French is taught in Moroccan schools.I mastered it.And yeah,even if I studied French for approximatly 9 years in school,there are some very hard and complicated Grammar lessons.

 

[Dalph]

The hardest language ever to learn is by far Polish.
Bukarett is Polish, she said that and I totally believe her, I also did some researches for curiosity and I can guarantee that it's extremely hard to learn. It's estimated that an average English guy manages to be fluent in his own language at age 12, a Polish one only to 16.
My language (Italian) is very hard too, we have really a lot of dialects here (A LOT), I can speak fluently a few of them though.

Here's an example to show ya how many dialects there are here:
 

Spoiler

There are also subdialects, a subdivision of dialects with small variants and they aren't even in this map, it's basically impossible to learn them all (even for a native speaker like me).Italian is obviously very hard to master, who claims the opposite is obviously trolling.

If we're talking about speaking an absolutely perfect italian (without dialects) that's even harder, I myself struggle with that.

 

[Ultim]

@Dalph : I agree about Polish.All those accents...And lol I actually feel pretty much comfortable with Italian.

 

[cabfe]

I didn't have much trouble learning japanese, but russian killed me.

Grammar is not my strong point in my own tongue, it gets worse in a foreign language which is grammar-heavy like russian.

 

[Celianna]

I'd say Chinese, simply because they've got a hanzi for every damn word.

Studies in China have shown that functional literacy in written Chinese requires a knowledge of between three and four thousand characters.

You need to know 4000 unique symbols (and tell them apart!), to be able to read a newspaper for example. And a space is not a thing in Chinese. Yeaaahhh, that seems so inefficient. At least the Japanese added hiragana to phonetically spell the words.