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most difficult language - Coggle Diagram
most difficult language
What are the most difficult languages to learn to learn?
Japanese is difficult because it has three independent writing systems, so there are thousands of characters to learn, but its still easier than Mandarin.
Hungarian is hard because Hungarian has no Indo-European language root, instead it has a Finno-Ugric root so it is completely different to how English is structured in terms of words and sentences
Icelandic is difficult because it hasn't changed since the 9th and 10th century, but continues to add new meanings to old words. Also, the population is so small its hard to learn
Korean is difficult to learn because it is an isolate language and is not linked to any other language family root. It also has seven different speech levels depending on formality.
Mandarin is so difficult because it has a different alphabet and it is a tonal language, so a word can have a different meaning by changing your tone. It also has thousands of characters.
https://www.jumpspeak.com/blog/hardest-languages-to-learn
How difficult is English for others to learn?
The English language is widely regarded as one of the most difficult to master. Because of its unpredictable spelling and challenging to learn grammar, it is challenging for both learners and native speakers.
It is a Germanic language so it is similar to German and Dutch, but makes it difficult for people who don't speak the Romance or Germanic languages
Some words in English are nonsensical and sometimes nouns become verbs
English is also difficult because there are so many exception rules in terns of grammar and spellings
English is also difficult because of our complex punctuation rules, and 'I' always being written as a capital
English also has a specific word order to make things sound fluent.
English is also difficult due to the mixed vocabulary as it is 26 percent Germanic, 30 percent French and 30 percent Latin origin.
The spelling is also perplexing as pronunciation differs from spelling.
English also uses a lot of idioms which can be quite confusing to non-natives
https://thelanguagedoctors.org/is-english-hard-to-learn/
What makes languages easier to learn than others?
Writing system: Does the language use the same writing system? Is the script organized differently (i.e. right to left)? Does the script build or require heavy memorization?
Cultural distance: Is the language culturally distant from the native language? Are there significant differences in cultural concepts visible within the language
Sounds and tones: Does the language use the same sounds? Are there new or unique sounds? Does the language use tones (i.e. different inflections of the same sound for different meaning)?
Language resources: Are language resources readily available? Are primary materials (songs, movies, books, newspapers) easily found? Are they high-quality?
Language family: Does the language belong to the same family? Are there cognates and/or loan words? Are vocabulary words easily identifiable?
https://verbalicity.com/easiest-hardest-language-to-learn/
Grammatical concepts: Does the language have similar grammar to the native language? Are there new concepts such as gender? Or differences in word order, number of verb tenses or other topics?
What are the easiest languages to learn to learn?
Spanish may be the #1 easiest language to learn. Not only does Spanish share the same alphabet – with the sole addition of ñ – but it’s also phonetic. That makes figuring out new vocabulary easy, since the spelling tells you how to pronounce it, and it has overlap with english.
Dutch is in the Germanic language family, which includes German and English. That means there’s plenty of linguistic overlap! Plus, Dutch colonists were a major influence on American English when they arrived in the 1600s.
English and German overlap quite a bit, especially in nouns. In fact, one linguistic study found that 40% of German words sound similar to their English equivalent. German also has consistent verb tenses and only one present and past verb, which is a big help.
Italian has different grammar than English, but it’s consistent and often simpler to create sentences. Given its Latin roots, Italian also shares lots of cognates. Some linguists also say that the rhythm of Italian makes it easy to learn in conversation, as intonations make meaning clear.
For an English native speaker, Afrikaans is fairly straightforward and one of the easiest languages. Another benefit is that Afrikaan verbs don’t conjugate by person, so there are fewer endings and noun genders to learn compared to Dutch. Finally, spelling is super intuitive, with many words written halfway between Dutch and English.
https://verbalicity.com/easiest-hardest-language-to-learn/