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by D-mongreen on August 28th, 2007

D-mongreen

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What is the hardest language to learn? How long would it take for a regular person to learn that language? How hard is the writing?

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Answers. 21 helpful answers below.

  • by Galeanda on March 23rd, 2008

    Galeanda

    Mandarin Chinese

    The language of the Bushmen with all it's clicks and sounds.

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  • by Koz - Passion Perseverance Patience on October 26th, 2011

    Koz - Passion Perseverance Patience

    Don't they say, it's all Greek to me?

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  • by canbfrisky on October 26th, 2011

    canbfrisky

    I've heard from friends who both speak and write in several languages that some dialects of Chinese are the hardest.

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  • by Arajntos on October 26th, 2011

    Arajntos

    isn't mandarin rated as the worlds hardest language or something?

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  • by Symbeline on March 24th, 2008

    Symbeline

    Anything that sounds like you're being yelled at when the person is actually just saying hi to you must be pretty complicated.
    But Japanese seems hard too, as it has like three different alphabets? How about Egyptian? That must be insane. You know like, the older language with the hieroglyphics and all?

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  • by DA BEN DAN yanggui zi on March 24th, 2008

    DA BEN DAN yanggui zi

    for me it has been Mandarin Chinese...I was not brought up with a tonal language and the use of tones is still foreign to my ears..I struggle with it constantly.

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  • by LashTyphoon on March 23rd, 2008

    LashTyphoon

    Well if you dont speak it, English. lol.
    as for me personally, Ancient Hebrew. Why? Today's hebrew has changed drastically since then.

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  • by m1tk44 on March 23rd, 2008

    m1tk44

    Spoken:

    1. Finnish
    2. Czech / Russian / Polish
    3. Chinese

    Written:

    1. Chinese
    2. Japanese

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  • by Da Azian Boi on August 28th, 2007

    Da Azian Boi

    I think the hardest language to learn would be Click language. Just learning all of the sounds and how to click your tongue is hard. You can't write this language, I don't think. I would imagine it would take 5 years or so to learn this language. That is just my estimate.

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  • by Jane on May 23rd, 2008

    Jane

    Arabic and Mandarin

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  • by Jacques on September 14th, 2009

    Jacques

    The hardest language to learn depends on where you are from and under what circumstances you have to learn it. Motivation is another key issue. If like me you already speak French, Spanish and Portuguese, then Galician, Catalan and Italian are a breeze and essentially pointless to learn, but could be done in a month without pushing it.

    German is almost impossible, not because it's difficult, but because all the Germans want to speak English to you first. If you know Danish, then Swedish and Norwegian are easily within reach, but Finnish, Albanian and Basque are out. As for the challenges of other alphabets, cyrillic is the most like ours, arabic is difficult because of invisible vowel system and tooth letters that mutate when joined up. And Chinese, well, you've got to draw the line somewhere. Symbols are very complex, but I wouldn't worry about the tonal system as they dont seem to worry about the pronunciation of our consonants. If you can imitate a Glaswegian, Welsh or Boston accent, Chinese is the go.

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  • by Cong on May 23rd, 2008

    Cong

    the answer depends on the native tongue of the learner. For native English speakers East Asian languages (Korean, Japanese, Chinese) and also Arabic are ranked most difficult. The benchmark is time require to master the language.

    http://www.nvtc.gov/lotw/months/november/learningExpectations.html

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  • by Trisha on March 24th, 2008

    Trisha

    I think German or Korean would be hard

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  • by DrkBlader27 on March 24th, 2008

    DrkBlader27

    French. Learning which things to ignore would be killer...

    Mandarin, i'm struggling with currently, but slowly getting better.

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  • by slothmister on August 28th, 2007

    slothmister

    I would say any of the orient languages would be a hard one to learn, from what I understand they do not have actual letters, just sounds!
    But tbh I doubt I could learn any language where I need to use a diffrent alphabet than the standard roman one (ABCDEF....Z)

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  • by .avallach on August 28th, 2007

    .avallach

    Not sure what "regular person" is. If the hardest language was, say, Cantonese (I don't know if it is or not), it might only be difficult for English speakers. Someone who spoke Korean may have an easier time learning Cantonese than I would.

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  • by Greekgod on March 24th, 2008

    Greekgod

    Factually.
    Polish is the hardest language

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  • by singwell-is off researching a lot on March 24th, 2008

    singwell-is off researching a lot

    It depends on what you want to do. Some languages are not difficult to learn to speak, but are terrible to learn to read and write (eg Japanese, Chinese)
    SOme are tonal, which requires a lot of effort to learn (Chinese, Vietnamese).
    But I agree that English, for a non-English speaker, is a terribly difficult language to learn. Its tenses are numerous and finely tuned, and its spelling is atrocious.
    However, if you are determined, even Sanskrit and Hebrew are possible.

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  • by philosopher-saint on March 24th, 2008

    philosopher-saint

    Any with a new alphabet invoved!

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  • by Anon y mouse on March 24th, 2008

    Anon y mouse

    The Bushman language already mentioned and/or Xhosa, which is also a click language.

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  • by This Daley has a new bundle of joy on May 23rd, 2008

    This Daley has a new bundle of joy

    It depends on what your native tongue is.

    For English speakers, it tends to be any of the following:

    Navajo
    Khalari
    and other tribal languages learned internal to the tribe from birth

    Of active national languages:
    Finnish
    Chinese (depending on the dialect)

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More Questions. Additional questions in this category.

You're reading What is the hardest language to learn? How long would it take for a regular person to learn that language? How hard is the writing? - which can also be phrased in the following ways:

  • Which language do you think would be the hardest to learn?
  • What is the hardest language to learn?
  • which language is most difficult to learn? (include speaking and writing)

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