Are some languages fundamentally more difficult than others?
By ThePaintGuru
@ThePaintGuru (541)
United States
November 23, 2008 7:10pm CST
This is a question I've seen discussed many times, and usually people either settle on the conclusion that difficulty increases as the language gets more different from English, or that all languages have unique features that make them equally difficult. The first camp might cite the fact the some people learn Chinese for years and still pronounce the tones wrong, while people all across the country figure out how to deal with Spanish fairly easily. The second might point out that while Spanish has no tones, you can find native speakers who still use the subjunctive wrong, and a great many students who can't figure out when to use ser and when estar, as they are both to be verbs.
So I remain a bit unconvinced by each camp, but I've never had the luxury of having a good long discussion about this, so I invite everyone who thinks they might have an idea about the question to pitch in.
2 people like this
7 responses
@TheCatLady (4691)
• Israel
10 Jan 09
Yes some are much harder.
Some have larger vocabularies than others. Russian has a huge vocabulary, Hebrew is limited.
Some have more complicated grammar. Italian grammar is much harder than Spanish.
What you said about Chinese and the tone can be a problem for non native speakers. My parents went to Viet Nam and the word for bathroom and prison are almost the same just a different tone. They always got it wrong. People quickly realized that they (tourists) were asking were is the bathroom and not were is the prison.
Of course to learn functional spoken language, it's about the same for all. There are from 200-500 basic words necessary to survive in any language. With 200 you can go to the market, bank, post office and get by.
Proper speech and proper grammar is another story. I know native English speakers who murder the grammar or use the wrong word.
1 person likes this
@karen1969 (1779)
•
25 May 10
That's a very interesting comment about how many words you need to know to be able to go shopping, etc. I find I know how to say "I love you" in many languages and I can use gymnastics terminology in several languages, but neither are very useful if I want to ask how much a banana costs!! 
@TheCatLady (4691)
• Israel
27 May 10
Saying I love you would help me get lucky, but won't do much after that.
@headhunter525 (3548)
• India
17 Jan 09
I think all languages are equally difficult. I think so because all of them have their point of difficulty. English has so much grammar attached to it. The sound is not that difficult, but it's the grammar. And if you don't get the grammar you can' say you've got it fully. Hindi is difficult because the gender thing is so complex. I don't think there is specific formulae for that. My mother is difficult is difficult because the pronounciation is very difficult. I have never met anyone who can speak my mother tongue well unless she or he is born into the community. I speak five languages and I find all them difficult at one point.
1 person likes this
@Porcospino (31365)
• Denmark
9 Jan 09
I have studied a couple of different languages and I don't think that some languages are more difficult than others, they are all different. Some are difficult in one way and some are difficult in another way. Whether a language is hard to learn or not often depend on your background and the languages you already speak. When I was studying German, I found it relatively easy, because I was able to recognize many words from Danish. When I was studying Polish, I found it really hard, because the pronunciation is very different from Danish. People who have a different background would have a different experience. Some languages are difficult for some people and other languages are difficult for other people.
@smartie0317 (1610)
• United States
24 Nov 08
No, I don't think some languages are harder than others. I think it just depends on how you learn, what language is your native language, how fast you pick up languages, and how you like that language. I hate people say Spanish is easy to learn. I took three years of it and never learned it. Furthermore, I took four months of Arabic and can hold short converstations in it. I also do so and practice the writing to remember it. So, it's not so general. It's more personal.
@ThePaintGuru (541)
• United States
24 Nov 08
I'd agree with you there. There's a definite personal element to learning a language. Also, sometimes if you have the wrong teacher that can ruin the experience.
@Frederick42 (2043)
• Canada
11 Jan 09
I have heard that Chinese is very difficult to learn, although I feel that for the native people, it might not be so difficult. The chinese script is very difficult. The easiest language to study is English , followed by French although there are people who struggle with both English as well as French.
@karen1969 (1779)
•
25 May 10
I think some languages are harder, but it does depend on what languages we already know. If we speak English, then at least French, Spanish, German, etc, use the same alphabet (with a few changes) but we might find Russian or Chinese very frightening with their different alphabets. I certainly would expect something like Chinese or Hebrew to be very hard for me to learn, as I don't know any of their alphabets so it would all be completely new to me.
