NationStates Jolt Archive

Which is the worst western european language to learn as a foreign language, and why that one.

I am excluding anything that means learning a completely new alphabet or set of ideograms etc. What I am interested in here is the problems that different languages present.

Does Latin count? Because Latin can be a pain in the ass.

The English are trying to bring back Cornish, Rydhsys rag kernow lemmyn!!!

Latin would be other or Italian I think. Your choice.

Which is the worst western european language to learn as a foreign language, and why that one.

I am excluding anything that means learning a completely new alphabet or set of ideograms etc. What I am interested in here is the problems that different languages present.

What counts as western europe?

The English are trying to bring back Cornish, Rydhsys rag kernow lemmyn!!!

Surely only the Cornish are trying to bring back Cornish, not English people in general?

Latin would be other or Italian I think. Your choice.

Heh. As I've learned both Italian and Latin, I can assure you that Latin is definately NOT Italian.

Basque?

Heh. As I've learned both Italian and Latin, I can assure you that Latin is definately NOT Italian.

I said "I think", and now I apologize. I only ever studied Latin, never Italian. If they are that different then Latin is other.

I voted for the Scandinavian languages - not because I think that they are necessarily more difficult, it is just that everybody in Scandinavia appears to speak English (I heard even university classes are in English), so I guess they are the hardest to learn - due to lack of real motivation

I said "I think", and now I apologize. I only ever studied Latin, never Italian. If they are that different then Latin is other.

Well, if you know Latin, then Italian would be no problem. It's watered down Latin.

And I'm not angry, or anything. I'm just saying. No need to apologize.

What counts as western europe?

I was not clear enough. Any language that uses the roman alphabet. QWERTY stuff. Not Greek, not Russian, but it does include Czech, Polish, Hungarian etc.
These are not on the poll as there is a 10 item limit and I had to eliminate some options.

Can't say for sure - I haven't studied them all..

I reckon English muct be one of the hardest because it has such a horrible and irregular grammatical structure. Germanic & the romance languages at least have a uniform structure and rules defining them, where English is all exceptions. Then again, English is a flexible language and there's alot of example material out there thanks to Hollywood...

Personally I can't stand all the languages with the masculine and feminine words. That's why I'm happy to be a native english speaker. A good gender-neutral language. Though I know it can be hard due to all of our multiple meaning and same word different spelling words.

Well, if you know Latin, then Italian would be no problem. It's watered down Latin.

And I'm not angry, or anything. I'm just saying. No need to apologize.

I'm not angry, just sitting opposite Matriarchiveness ;)

Surely only the Cornish are trying to bring back Cornish, not English people in general?
Correct. If I just said Cornwall, probably only the people in the UK would have any idea where that was.

Icelandic is a bitch to learn. It's Scandinavian language, right?

About Latin, I found it easier to learn than any other language I've tried to. But maybe I'm just crazy.

But maybe I'm just crazy.

Maybe :)

Correct. If I just said Cornwall, probably only the people in the UK would have any idea where that was.

That's probably true. Except perhaps France. Apparently, they have their own name for it.

Basque?
id vote for basque, one of those weird languages some people pulled out of their ass not related to anything or is that catalonian, i get the areas mixed up

Why not Finnish? I would have thought that would be one of the most difficult to learn. There's also an ancient East Indian language called Devanagari which is widely held to be one of the most difficult languages in the world to learn: http://www.ancientscripts.com/devanagari.html

Why not Finnish? I would have thought that would be one of the most difficult to learn. There's also an ancient East Indian language called Devanagari which is widely held to be one of the most difficult languages in the world to learn: http://www.ancientscripts.com/devanagari.html

I excluded Finnish from Scandinavian as it is a completely different language group. It connects only with Hungarian in Europe, which is alittle bit puzzling, to say the least, wheras Danish, Swedis and Norwegian are all part of the same group. (I am not sure if Icelandic is part of this group or part of the Anglo Saxon group.)

I'm taking Spanish and German right now in school, and German is far more difficult because of all the cases and genders.

But from what I've been told, Finnish is amazingly hard. I bitch about having four cases in German? Finnish has, like, 20 something as I've heard.

I excluded Finnish from Scandinavian as it is a completely different language group. It connects only with Hungarian in Europe, which is alittle bit puzzling, to say the least, wheras Danish, Swedis and Norwegian are all part of the same group. (I am not sure if Icelandic is part of this group or part of the Anglo Saxon group.)

I heard there's a connection with Estonian too.

I think Danish, Swedish, Norwegian and Icelandic are all Germanic languages. Icelandic is said to be very similar to Old English (which is germanic).

There's also an ancient East Indian language called Devanagari which is widely held to be one of the most difficult languages in the world to learn: http://www.ancientscripts.com/devanagari.html

I was only concerned with roman script languages, and my interest is in how people perceive the languages. Devanagari may well be one of the most difficult, but almost no-one posting here will ever have heard of it before. This includes me. :)

I excluded Finnish from Scandinavian as it is a completely different language group. It connects only with Hungarian in Europe, which is alittle bit puzzling

I was under the impression that these two languages were only "connected" in the sense that neither had any relation to any other language. A Hungarian friend of mine suggests that it would be one of the most difficult languages to learn for that reason alone.

So, Hungarian or Finnish gets my vote.

I was under the impression that these two languages were only "connected" in the sense that neither had any relation to any other language. A Hungarian friend of mine suggests that it would be one of the most difficult languages to learn for that reason alone.

So, Hungarian or Finnish gets my vote.

It may be the case, but they are referred to as the finno-urgic group, so I assumed they were connected. I shall unassume now.

It may be the case, but they are referred to as the finno-urgic group, so I assumed they were connected. I shall unassume now.

I wouldn't do that if I were you - I don't have any real reason for believing that. In fact, an actual name suggests you're correct.

It may be the case, but they are referred to as the finno-urgic group, so I assumed they were connected. I shall unassume now.
An interesting take on this can be found at http://www.finucane.de/origins.htm

english is supposed to be the hardest language to learn. well, that and mandarin i think.

it's because we have so damn many grammatical exceptions to all the rules. i mean, if you think french has a lot of irregular verbs, just look at english.

however, i'm a native english speaker so it wasn't hard at all for me. the only other european languages i know are french and a bit of spanish (and like two phrases in italian) and my only real problem is that i get french and spanish mixed in when i try spanish. i've been speaking french since i was 5 and picked up spanish in highschool.

i think i may learn german if i can in summer school.

Right, they're loosely related. A couple of sources:

http://ancienthistory.about.com/cs/language/qt/finnougric.htm
http://virtual.finland.fi/netcomm/news/showarticle.asp?intNWSAID=25827

There was actually much more long-distance travel and trade in pre-history than most would suppose. The Vikings for example, traveled as far South as Arabia and as far East as Siberia. I suspect that this intermingling of tribes and nations goes a long way toward explaining why Finnish, Hungarian and a handfull of other languagues bear some resemblance to ancient Indus languages.

english is supposed to be the hardest language to learn. well, that and mandarin i think.

it's because we have so damn many grammatical exceptions to all the rules. i mean, if you think french has a lot of irregular verbs, just look at english.

however, i'm a native english speaker so it wasn't hard at all for me. the only other european languages i know are french and a bit of spanish (and like two phrases in italian) and my only real problem is that i get french and spanish mixed in when i try spanish. i've been speaking french since i was 5 and picked up spanish in highschool.

i think i may learn german if i can in summer school.
Actually, it would be more accurate to say that gaining a basic vocabulary in English is one of the easiest languages in which to do so, but that learning all the ins and outs of English is usually a long, laborious process. English has drawn vocabulary from more other languages than any modern language, as far as I can tell.

EDIT: at one point in my life, I seriously considered being a linguist ( even going so far as to study semantics ), but decided not to. I often wonder what other directions my life would have taken had I done so.

Actually, it would be more accurate to say that gaining a basic vocabulary in English is one of the easiest languages in which to do so, but that learning all the ins and outs of English is usually a long, laborious process. English has drawn vocabulary from more other languages than any modern language, as far as I can tell.

As an English teacher, amongst other nefarious pastimes, I can confirm that the initial communication stage is reached much more quickly in English than in any other language I know of. Simple structure, no gendered nouns, almost non existant verb conjugation etc. all help this initial phase. On the down side, English is probably the most difficult language to become truly fluent in, as it has virtually no rules, just errors.

English has a vocabulary that is reputed to be some 10 times greater than the vocabulary of any other language. This is because it has drawn from so many sources, due to the UK being the last stop for fleeing people in Europe.

Try teaching a foreigner phrasal verbs (turn up, turn down, turn in, turn off etc.) and you will apreciate just how complex our simple language really is.

There was actually much more long-distance travel and trade in pre-history than most would suppose. The Vikings for example, traveled as far South as Arabia and as far East as Siberia. I suspect that this intermingling of tribes and nations goes a long way toward explaining why Finnish, Hungarian and a handfull of other languagues bear some resemblance to ancient Indus languages.
the vikings also beat columbus to north america.

they navigated using polaris exclusively. based on how high it is in the sky, you can get latitude and well, it always points north.

English is probably the most difficult language to become truly fluent in, as it has virtually no rules, just errors.

English has a vocabulary that is reputed to be some 10 times greater than the vocabulary of any other language. This is because it has drawn from so many sources, due to the UK being the last stop for fleeing people in Europe.

Try teaching a foreigner phrasal verbs (turn up, turn down, turn in, turn off etc.) and you will apreciate just how complex our simple language really is.
LOL! How true! I tried my hand at teaching English ( American English, that is ) both on Okinawa and in Vietnam. The results were often comical. I remember once trying to explain to a young boy who knew a smattering of English ( when I had only a smattering of Vietnamese! ) the various uses of the word "back": come back, way back, out back, go back, etc. He left my "instruction" more confused than when we began! :D

I would have to agree with english being the most difficult language to learn on a secondary basis with fluency. I may be wrong, but I believe that is due to the number of words that have the same meaning. I think this would hold true especially for someone learning enlish that already speaks a latin based language. I'm sure that there are other languages that are more difficult than english out there, but those tend to lean towards obscurity. Thus, by being more obscure the language would be more difficult to learn with fluency.

the vikings also beat columbus to north america.

they navigated using polaris exclusively. based on how high it is in the sky, you can get latitude and well, it always points north.
Yes, and it now appears that others beat poor old Columbus to the "New World" as well: polynesians to the West Coast of SA; Africans to the East Coast of SA; phoenicians to the Carribeian islands; and of course, Asians to NA via the ice age landbridge from Siberia to what is now Alaska.

It's cute to read you discussions about difficult languages.
English must be one of the most difficult languages to speak if it wasn't because of all the movies and music we hear everyday. The way english is written is in many ways different from how it is spelt if we go by normal phonetic standards.

That difficulty to speak english would go for most people of the world except us scandinavians (and the dutch) because our languages are very similar to english and it is easy to learn for us. The old english without the latin and french words is the same language as we spoke in Scandinavia (Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland) and the Netherlands, Frisia and northern Germany at that time (1000 years ago). So the roots to all those languages are very closely related.
man = man
kvinna = woman - compare it with queen, and it is pronounced queena
(women are treated like queens in Sweden, hooray for us girls )

Conclusion, it is easy to learn scandinavian languages for an english-speaking person but as someone wrote you get lazy because 99% understands what you mean when you speak english.

My conclusion is that Basque (Euskera) is probably the most difficult language of Western Europe to learn. Too little known outside of the area, too different from its neighbouring languages. But I still find it interesting and quite fascinating.
Here is an online course of it. http://canales.elcorreodigital.com/euskera/

It's cute to read you discussions about difficult languages.
English must be one of the most difficult languages to speak if it wasn't because of all the movies and music we hear everyday. The way english is written is in many ways different from how it is spelt if we go by normal phonetic standards.

That difficulty to speak english would go for most people of the world except us scandinavians (and the dutch) because our languages are very similar to english and it is easy to learn for us. The old english without the latin and french words is the same language as we spoke in Scandinavia (Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland) and the Netherlands, Frisia and northern Germany at that time (1000 years ago). So the roots to all those languages are very closely related.
man = man
kvinna = woman - compare it with queen, and it is pronounced queena
(women are treated like queens in Sweden, hooray for us girls )

Conclusion, it is easy to learn scandinavian languages for an english-speaking person but as someone wrote you get lazy because 99% understands what you mean when you speak english.

My conclusion is that Basque (Euskera) is probably the most difficult language of Western Europe to learn. Too little known outside of the area, too different from its neighbouring languages. But I still find it interesting and quite fascinating.
Here is an online course of it. http://canales.elcorreodigital.com/euskera/


En till svensk? Hej! ;)

En till svensk? Hej! ;)
Hej. Du jag vet inte var jag ska börja med att rätta till felaktigheter i den här tråden. En av dem skrev att "nu har de kommit på att asiater var före Columbus i Amerika". Ja, det stämmer. De kallas för indianer. *VRÅLGARV* :D

Vilket språk tycker du är svårast?
</swedish>

IMHO Polish, Gaelic and Portuguese are other languages which are difficult to pronounce.

My boyfriend is trying to learn Gaelic...he may have stopped trying. I don't think he was succeeding very well.

Hej. Du jag vet inte var jag ska börja med att rätta till felaktigheter i den här tråden. En av dem skrev att "nu har de kommit på att asiater var före Columbus i Amerika". Ja, det stämmer. De kallas för indianer. *VRÅLGARV* :D

Vilket språk tycker du är svårast?
</swedish>

Haha, det var precis det jag tänkte!

Svårast och svårast, men isländska kan göra mig galen ibland. För att inte nämna serbokroatiska - min mor är ex-jugge och hon får skämmas ordentligt för hur jag slaktar det språket inför hennes släkt när jag hälsar på. :rolleyes:

IMHO Polish, Gaelic and Portuguese are other languages which are difficult to pronounce.

Oh, I don't know. Portuguese is sort of like Spanish in French, and easy to get started with if you know either of them.

Basque...no question...

Basque?

Euskara. Basque are the people who speak it. The weird thing is that it seems completely unrelated to any other language.

My boyfriend is trying to learn Gaelic...he may have stopped trying. I don't think he was succeeding very well.
The only chance to learn it I guess is to visit Ireland and to take a course in it there and to meet the right people who don't want to hear you speak any english. ;)

I have looked at Gaelic myself and it is mindboggling with all those strange combinations of letters.

I think Sláinte means cheers. And it is not pronounced as it is written. :D

How to say cheers in different languages --> http://www.awa.dk/glosary/slainte.htm

For me it was REALLY hard going from Polish to English (I still have some problems with it) I couldn't get a lot of English words down.

Now once I learned English I tried Icelandic and it was really simple for me to go from English to Icelandic. I'm also taking Persian, which isn't seeming very hard.

The hardest language I had to learn was English, silly language :)

Oh, I don't know. Portuguese is sort of like Spanish in French, and easy to get started with if you know either of them.

I know spanish quite well but portuguese is different and a bit difficult to grasp for me. And the starter of this interesting thread is from Brasil and their dialect is even more difficult to understand. :)

I think that for example the word spelt restaurante is pronounced like this: heestoranch

Alien Born, why do you make it so hard to understand you? ;)

@Aerou, I think that the first foreign language is always the most difficult.

Euskara. Basque are the people who speak it. The weird thing is that it seems completely unrelated to any other language.
Hmmm. Something just occured to me: the word "Euskara" sounds much like the word "Eutrusca." Is there any possibility that, when the Romans destroyed their civilization, the Eutruscans ( or Etruscans ) migrated to what is now the Basque area of Spain???

I find this sort of thing fascinating! :)

I have to say English, not because I want to think my first language is harder... but because I have alot of friends who came from other countries, who had to learn English as a second language.

English hardly has any rules that are 100%, think about it, "ough" can be pronounced different ways- like in dough, enough, ought, thorough, bough... and there are many other letter grouping that also have different sounds for the same letters.

It's what happens when you have a language that's made up of so many others, from dead languages from Latin and Anchient Greek- to modern languages like German. They're just moshed together with attempts of rules strung between them.

I voted English because it is a bitch to learn. (It is my first language, but it's so iregular that it's quite hard to learn.) There are languages which are hard to pronounce (Polish, Czech, etc.) but that's overcome with practice.

But from what I've been told, Finnish is amazingly hard. I bitch about having four cases in German? Finnish has, like, 20 something as I've heard.

Conlang by Joshua Boniface: 23 noun cases, 4 genders (male, female, neuter, unknown/general), etc. Basically a complex as hell grammer. Puts English to shame, and yet it's regular! :eek:

I know spanish quite well but portuguese is different and a bit difficult to grasp for me. And the starter of this interesting thread is from Brasil and their dialect is even more difficult to understand. :)

Maybe it's just me and my penchant for portuguese music, but I understand it pretty well even though I've never taken classes in it.

Le Francais, ca sert à quelque chose, quand même! ;)

Hmmm. Something just occured to me: the word "Euskara" sounds much like the word "Eutrusca." Is there any possibility that, when the Romans destroyed their civilization, the Eutruscans ( or Etruscans ) migrated to what is now the Basque area of Spain???

I find this sort of thing fascinating! :)
Me too :) but I am sorry it seems like they are not even close.

Euskera explained --> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basque_language
Etruscan explained --> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etruscan_language

Etruscan glossary --> http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/EtruscanGlossary.htm
btw The word for Etruscan in actual Etruscan seems to be "rasenna"

List of english words thought to have been borrowed from the etruscans (through Latin)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_of_Etruscan_origin
antenna, april, arena, autumn, letter, people + a few more

I was born in Germany, so German was my first language, but after moving to America, English is now my native tongue, and I'm only semi-fluent in German, due to never having any real exposure to it beyond reading (my parents have stopped speaking it entirely). I'm quite competent in French and Spanish; I can wade through Classical Greek (though not modern -- well, I've never tried), and I'm currently picking up Arabic.

The romance languages have been surprisingly easy, though verb irregularity is slightly annoying. Arabic has (nearly) entirely regular verbs, which helps, but a mind-boggling number of broken plurals. The difference between what I'm learning (Standard Arabic) and the dialects is also astonishing. Classical Greek has been difficult due to vowel-combination and, of course, never being able to speak it.

I would say that English is by far the most difficult Western European language to learn, not because it's difficult to speak (that came quite easily), but because of the lack of phonetic regularity. This makes reading/writing extremely painful for a number of years. The ability to place the prepositions linked to verbs in nearly any position in a sentence is also very confusing, at least after having originally spoken German, in which it either stays with the verb (up-put the dishes) or comes at the end of the phrase (put the dishes up) -- and the choice between these two is always fixed. It doesn't seem that difficult now, but "put up the dishes" gave me problems for a long time.

Hungarian and English.

Spanish is the easiest; if only people could teach it properly.
Latin is also quite easy.

Oh, I don't know. Portuguese is sort of like Spanish in French, and easy to get started with if you know either of them.

Huh?? Spanish and Portuguese are siamese twin languages, joined at the written word. Mutually intelligable in their written forms. Spoken, however is another matter.
French just confuses the matter. To many gender differences, and homonyms with widely differing meanings. I used to speak French, but it has been almost completely overwritten by Portuguese. The two seem to be mutually exclusive inside my head.

Alien Born, why do you make it so hard to understand you? ;)

Lots of practice, I have a degree in computing and philosophy, two groups of people who try very hard to make absolutely nothing clear. :cool:

Me too :) but I am sorry it seems like they are not even close.

Euskera explained --> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basque_language
Etruscan explained --> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etruscan_language

Etruscan glossary --> http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/EtruscanGlossary.htm
btw The word for Etruscan in actual Etruscan seems to be "rasenna"

List of english words thought to have been borrowed from the etruscans (through Latin)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_of_Etruscan_origin
antenna, april, arena, autumn, letter, people + a few more
Sigh. Well, it was just a thought. Still fascinating though. :)

Does Latin count? Because Latin can be a pain in the ass.
Latin is a pain in the ass, but it's worth it. Trust me...

Lots of practice, I have a degree in computing and philosophy, two groups of people who try very hard to make absolutely nothing clear. :cool:
Heh! I'm surprised that you're not constantly at war with yourself! :D

English is way too far of being hard, since I learnt it by myself.

Of nowadays alive European languages, the Basque (being used in the Basque country, in Spain and France) is probably the hardest.

But, since it is not there, and because I'd rather vote for a more used language, I'd say that Portuguese is probably the hardest, because it is the latin language with most sounds.

Huh?? Spanish and Portuguese are siamese twin languages, joined at the written word. Mutually intelligable in their written forms. Spoken, however is another matter.
French just confuses the matter. To many gender differences, and homonyms with widely differing meanings. I used to speak French, but it has been almost completely overwritten by Portuguese. The two seem to be mutually exclusive inside my head.

I was talking about how it "sounds" and it does sound like somewhere between French and Spanish. But, then again, I've only really experience of portuguese in Portugal.

Heh! I'm surprised that you're not constantly at war with yourself! :D

Who said I'm not

I did.

No I didn't

STFU

Who me

Yes me. ;)

Correct. If I just said Cornwall, probably only the people in the UK would have any idea where that was.

Isn't it the little leg thingy coming of on the southwest, with Plymouth and stuff?

*Geography-conscious*

Does anyone know Dutch? If so, please e-mail me at jeanjpoirier @ gmail.com...that would be wonderful

Haha

I was talking about how it "sounds" and it does sound like somewhere between French and Spanish. But, then again, I've only really experience of portuguese in Portugal.
Spanish has mostly high pitch sounds. French mainly has low pitch sounds.

So, yes, Portuguese is more or less in the middle. It does have all the sounds you can get.

For a reason, plenty of Japanese words are originated from Portuguese (like Arigato, thank you, it comes from the portuguese obrigado).

Who said I'm not

I did.

No I didn't

STFU

Who me

Yes me. ;)
ROFLMAO!! You, my son, are a true nut! :D

For a reason, plenty of Japanese words are originated from Portuguese (like Arigato, thank you, it comes from the portuguese obrigado).

This may explain the high level of Japanese immigration into Brazil.

Latin.

Being Finnish- American and having a finnish grandfather, I've heard finnish spoken and it really sounds strange. I always had the impression that finnish was related to swedish, as the countries are culturally and otherwise very close to each other. But no.

So, finnish is really the hardest language in Europe. Socio- economically Finland belongs to Western Europe, but geographically it can be counted into Northern Europe, as it usually is, or, Eastern Europe, as I think the russian put it.

Finnish has related languages, hungarian is a distant relative language, but estonian is much closer, to the extent, that the differences are very small.

Finnish people also talk swedish for some reason, the country has a swedish speaking minority, but also all finnish people are subjected to learn the language in schools, which is strange.

Other than that, I have found that french is a bitch to learn. I really tried. Swedish and norwegian sound the same to me pretty much and probably are quite easy.

Hebrew's pretty hard, but I've mastered it.

Hebrew's pretty hard, but I've mastered it.

Ani lomed ivrit. That's as far as I ever learned!

it's dutch, we have no grammar... our entire language is based on how it sounds. the dutch people know how to speak it. but we have people living here for 10 years and still aren't able to speak the language to it's fullest...

Svårast och svårast, men isländska kan göra mig galen ibland. För att inte nämna serbokroatiska - min mor är ex-jugge och hon får skämmas ordentligt för hur jag slaktar det språket inför hennes släkt när jag hälsar på. :rolleyes:



Haha, inget att skämmas för! :) Serbokratiska har sitt speciella uttal som kan vara svårt att "hitta" när man använder språket. Med tanke på att båda mina föräldrar är Sydslaver (dock född och uppväxt här) ^^. Kul iaf med fler svenskar här. När jag började med NS fanns det knappt några här.

Men aja. Ha det bra ^^.
[/swedish]

Anyways. I wouldn´t know if serbian counts but when you are speaking it it can be hard to find the right "tone", if you may. As it is spoken in a special way. Now, in school german wasn´t hard at all, seeing as I was born and bred in Sweden but I didn´t find it very interesting so I have probably forgotten most of the "rules" for the language.

Finnish or Basque. The language are structured in a different way to all others in Europe, thus would be harder to learn a different structure as well as the words, grammar etc.

Out of the list i've only studied French, and that's not too bad (lots of cognates with English). I imagine Slavic languages would be a pain though.

After looking at a bit of... Err, I think it's called Euskara, I have come to a conclusion.

I am officially confused.

You heard it first, folks!
:D

Out of the list i've only studied French, and that's not too bad (lots of cognates with English). I imagine Slavic languages would be a pain though.

Well, it depends. Seeing as I speak two different languages from two different groups I can tell you that many words actually sound and are the same. In serbian there are alot of words that you pronounce just a little bit differently but mean the exaclty same thing in swedish. Yet, if you don´t know both you would had never guessed it.
Now I am not the one to talk to if you want to know the "rules" of serbian since I didn´t really pay much attention when I was taught. Instead I just listened to how everyone else talked and learned that way. :)

Well, it depends. Seeing as I speak two different languages from two different groups I can tell you that many words actually sound and are the same. In serbian there are alot of words that you pronounce just a little bit differently but mean the exaclty same thing in swedish. Yet, if you don´t know both you would had never guessed it.
Now I am not the one to talk to if you want to know the "rules" of serbian since I didn´t really pay much attention when I was taught. Instead I just listened to how everyone else talked and learned that way. :)

That's interesting. I'm hoping to pick up a little Russian or Polish this year...but I wasn't confident enough of doing well to actually take a class :)

That's interesting. I'm hoping to pick up a little Russian or Polish this year...but I wasn't confident enough of doing well to actually take a class :)

Ha, I was more or less "forced" to take the classes, and AFTER school! That sucked big time. :( They were all like "You must know the language of your foredudes! They didn´t fight the Ottomans for their freedom for you to forget their language bla bla bla bla bla". So... but after a few years I just kinda dropped it, since by that time I could speak it fluently, as well as Swedish (my first language) and English (compulsory).

-Danish, Swedish, Norwegian and Icelandic are all Germanic languages and they are all very closely related. If you speak Danish you understand Swedish and Norwegian almost without any problems. You would have easy access to Icelandic, German, English and Dutch.

I think it would be quite easy to learn any Skandinavian language, if you spoke English or German. Most words are almost also the same. The Gramma also very much alike.

Try hungarian if you like a challenge. :D

Harry "the Bastard" (English is not my native language)

Can't say for sure - I haven't studied them all..

I reckon English muct be one of the hardest because it has such a horrible and irregular grammatical structure. Germanic & the romance languages at least have a uniform structure and rules defining them, where English is all exceptions. Then again, English is a flexible language and there's alot of example material out there thanks to Hollywood...
English is a Germanic language.

English is a Germanic language.
Albeit a messed-up one.
I'm glad I learned it as my first, instead of having to struggle with it later.

Having read Shakespeare in English I can say that it is pretty similar to German (or was at that time), I think by the time I read it, I found it easier to understand than what we learned at school.

I'd say out of this list I'd have to pick other, as I also think Finnish and Hungarian are the hardest languages to grasp.
Of course there are some confusing things in English, like words that are written the same and have multiple meanings, differently pronounced they are past tense, or words that are pronounced the same but mean completely different things.

English is a Germanic language.

English is a horrible mixed up bastard of a language. It has its Germanic parts, some vocabulary, and the basic grammatical structure, but it also has a large Romance influence, unlike the other languages in the Germanic group.

I think the linguists made a mistake when they classified English as Germanic, it really does not fit that well with any of the purer languages.

Being a native English speaker, I am only guessing, but I believe that English is easier to learn if your first language is Germanic. Speakers of the romance languages have to learn a different way of thinking about grammar.

Vocabulary, which is the big problem in English, is about equally divided, and native speakers of each group tend to use different subsets.

There was actually much more long-distance travel and trade in pre-history than most would suppose. The Vikings for example, traveled as far South as Arabia and as far East as Siberia. I suspect that this intermingling of tribes and nations goes a long way toward explaining why Finnish, Hungarian and a handfull of other languagues bear some resemblance to ancient Indus languages.

but thats not the reason for the similarities. Most of europe, what was once the soviet union, the middle east and norther india, speak languages that are related. That's why their indo-european.

English is uber easy.. mostly short words, that have a limited range of frequencies.

Try to hear a basque speaking, or a dutch, and you will know what is hard.

And by the way, Portuguese is the hardest language to be learned :p

Não acreditam? Então digam rapidamente: O rato roeu a rolha da garrafa de rum do rei da russia.. ou se preferirem, repitam: Um trigre, dois tigres, três tigres muitas vezes.. 0:)

English is uber easy.. mostly short words, that have a limited range of frequencies.

Try to hear a basque speaking, or a dutch, and you will know what is hard.

And by the way, Portuguese is the hardest language to be learned :p

Não acreditam? Então digam rapidamente: O rato roeu a rolha da garrafa de rum do rei da russia.. ou se preferirem, repitam: Um trigre, dois tigres, três tigres muitas vezes..

But what does that rat/mouse gnawing on the cork of the Russian king's rum bottle have to do with learning the language.

Tongue twisters exist in every language I have ever heard of, with English having some of the most difficult.
The sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick :cool:

English is a horrible mixed up bastard of a language. It has its Germanic parts, some vocabulary, and the basic grammatical structure, but it also has a large Romance influence, unlike the other languages in the Germanic group.
Yeah right. *laughs*
From Dutch:
Cadeau - Gift/present
Bureau - Desk
Paraplu - Umbrella
To just name a few.

Yeah right. *laughs*
From Dutch:
Cadeau - Gift/present
Bureau - Desk
Paraplu - Umbrella
To just name a few.

It would help if you understood English: I said large Romance influence, not some few words imported from Romance. Nearly half the vocabulary in English comes directly from Latin, or indirectly via French, Spanish etc.

No modern language is pure, despite the desires of some radical French speakers, so Dutch, German, Swedish, etc. will all have some input from the romance language. However, as they were never actually invaded by speakers of these languages, the influence is relatively small.

English can be spoken without using much romance origin vocabulary, rather like logic can be done using only material implication, possible but unnecessarily difficult. :)

For the closer to latin subgroup of languages it is interesting, even though not extremely difficult the Sardinian.
You may think about it as a mix between latin, spanish and italian, there are very few foreigners able to speak it.

It would help if you understood English: I said large Romance influence, not some few words imported from Romance. Nearly half the vocabulary in English comes directly from Latin, or indirectly via French, Spanish etc.
No need to become arrogant. Me understooding English just big.
Like I said just to name a few. Those 3 are the most common French words used I could come up with.

No need to become arrogant. Me understooding English just big.
Like I said just to name a few. Those 3 are the most common French words used I could come up with.

Sorry if I was being arrogant. I do get irritated when I write one thing and people read something else. :)

Dutch : 1 vote (1.16%)

Only 1 vote??

Dat vind ik nu eens straf zeg. Ge zou't nochtans niet zeggen. Het moet zijn dat nederlands toch nog gemakkelijker verstaanbaar is dan ik dacht. Nu, mijn stelling zal waarschijnlijk toch binnen de 2 seconden ontkracht worden, als de eerste de beste amerikaander vraagt: wat aar joe seejing, ai downt understaand zjerman


PS:try Babelfish! ;)

What are you saying? I don't understand you, man.

BTW: Belgian Dutch (Flemish) has more roman influences than English.

Hej. Du jag vet inte var jag ska börja med att rätta till felaktigheter i den här tråden. En av dem skrev att "nu har de kommit på att asiater var före Columbus i Amerika". Ja, det stämmer. De kallas för indianer. *VRÅLGARV* :D

Vilket språk tycker du är svårast?
</swedish>

IMHO Polish, Gaelic and Portuguese are other languages which are difficult to pronounce.
Haha, det var precis det jag tänkte!

Svårast och svårast, men isländska kan göra mig galen ibland. För att inte nämna serbokroatiska - min mor är ex-jugge och hon får skämmas ordentligt för hur jag slaktar det språket inför hennes släkt när jag hälsar på.

I know you're talking about me. Someone make them stop

After looking at a bit of... Err, I think it's called Euskara, I have come to a conclusion.

I am officially confused.

You heard it first, folks!
:D

YOU? Confused?? OMG! The world is definitely coming to an end! Run away! :D

Finnish is the hardest...by far

but thats not the reason for the similarities. Most of europe, what was once the soviet union, the middle east and norther india, speak languages that are related. That's why they're indo-european.

Yes, I realize this. I was referring to some of the sub-groups. It was, after all, rather wild speculation on my part, since linguistics is more of a hobby for me than a calling. :)

Sorry if I was being arrogant. I do get irritated when I write one thing and people read something else. :)

Which is obviously entirely their problem, yes? :D

Finnish is the hardest...by far
Nah. Just different. It seems difficult cos it:
- has no articles
- has no gender (the same word denotes both 'he' and 'she')
- has shiteloads of grammatical cases (15 for nouns - latin has 6)
- suffixes express possession
- has postpositions too
- > these lead to long words
example: the sentence "in my computer too?" would be construed like this in finnish:
tietokone/e/ssa/ni/kin/ko?
so it's just one word 'tietokoneessanikinko?

other minor oddities:
- no verb 'have' really
- we practically don't have a future tense (i think this must be because this used to be so shitty place to live in in the past)
- consonant gradation (one sometimes drops depending on the usage of the word)
- word order in sentences is relatively free

You'd learn finnish easily...




...if you were born here...

Why not Finnish? I would have thought that would be one of the most difficult to learn. There's also an ancient East Indian language called Devanagari which is widely held to be one of the most difficult languages in the world to learn: http://www.ancientscripts.com/devanagari.html
Devanagari is an alphabet, as far as I know it is not a language. Hindi, Sanskrit, and many other East Indian languages use the Devanagari alphabet.

There was actually much more long-distance travel and trade in pre-history than most would suppose. The Vikings for example, traveled as far South as Arabia and as far East as Siberia. I suspect that this intermingling of tribes and nations goes a long way toward explaining why Finnish, Hungarian and a handfull of other languagues bear some resemblance to ancient Indus languages.
I don't know how similar are Finnish and Hungarian to languages of the ancient Indus, but Finnish and Hungarian are related to Turkish, Mongolian, and Korean, due to the invasions of Europe by the Magyars in Hungary and other Asiatic tribes.

You'd learn finnish easily...

...if you were born here...

From the description that precedes this, I am not sure that I would.

Which is obviously entirely their problem, yes? :D

Yes, I am being perfectly obscure, am I not. ;)

I don't know how similar are Finnish and Hungarian to languages of the ancient Indus, but Finnish and Hungarian are related to Turkish, Mongolian, and Korean, due to the invasions of Europe by the Magyars in Hungary and other Asiatic tribes.
Well, sorry, but that is rubbish. The theory of Ural-Altaian language relation has been debunked. Finnish has no relation to Turkish. And in any case, Magyar invasion was much too recent an event to explain why Hungarian and Finnish have similarities.

Well, sorry, but that is rubbish. The theory of Ural-Altaian language relation has been debunked. Finnish has no relation to Turkish. And in any case, Magyar invasion was much too recent an event to explain why Hungarian and Finnish have similarities.
Interesting, I'll have to look more into that.

Yeah right. *laughs*
From Dutch:
Cadeau - Gift/present
Bureau - Desk
Paraplu - Umbrella
To just name a few.

English also uses the word bureau, although it is often used to refer to a clothes dresser and not a desk, at least in current times.

Paraplu...seems rather similar to the word Parasol. Which is an umbrella, albeit one used for shade rather than rain, in the traditional connotation ascribed to it.

Gaelic, cause it has very little practical use anywhere, But I still want to learn it

Interesting, I'll have to look more into that.
It is interesting. I can tell you some more. Most linguists who study the so called Altaic languages (turkish, mongolian and tungusk language groups + perhaps korean) don't even believe all Altaic languages are relatives (which i find funny; they need a new term to define what they are studying). So, the Ural-Altaic relation is even less plausible.

Finnish and Turkish have certain similarities which may have led to the assumption they are relatives. Both have agglutinative morphology (see my example in my 1st post). They also have similar vowel sound. All in all those seem to be just coincidences.

English also uses the word bureau, although it is often used to refer to a clothes dresser and not a desk, at least in current times.

Paraplu...seems rather similar to the word Parasol. Which is an umbrella, albeit one used for shade rather than rain, in the traditional connotation ascribed to it.
A lot of dutch words look like the english ones beceause of globalisation. = Heel veel nederlandse woorden lijken op het engels vanwege de globalisatie.

I don't know how similar are Finnish and Hungarian to languages of the ancient Indus, but Finnish and Hungarian are related to Turkish, Mongolian, and Korean, due to the invasions of Europe by the Magyars in Hungary and other Asiatic tribes.
If I recall correctly, that theory has been debunked several times over and originates from the early 1900s. It was a time when linguistics were a topic of great interest.
Many Western-European scientists travelled to Finland and met a language they simply could not understand nor relate to any language they knew. When they had to class it somewhere they just put it in the category of Mongolian-related languages. :D
The funny thing was that once this error had been made, many scientists travelled to Finland expecting a population with Asian characteristics and were utterly shocked when they realized that the majority of Finns had an apearance that was about as caucasian as it can get. (Blue eyes, blonde hair etc.)
This is not surprizing as the Finnish population is genetically closely related to that of Latvia and the rest of Fennoscandia (Another common error, Scandinavia refers to only Sweden, Denmark and Norway, while Fennoscandia includes Finnish and Iceland) It seems that the ancient Scandinavian and Baltic ancestors of the Finns met people whom originated from around the lower parts of the Volga river, and assimilated into them, eventually taking over the majority position genetically, but completely adopting the Fenno-ugric language.

Fenno-ugric languages are said to have originated from the lower stream of Volga, where there lived people who spoke a language which evolved into e.g. Hungarian, Finnish, Estonian, Saami, Karelian, Hanti, Mansi, Mordva, Udmurti, Vepsä, Komi and Nenetsi.

Finnish is the hardest, believe me.

FIN: Suomi on vaikein, uskokaa minua.

One helluva first post Trikovia. :)

Now let us Finns leave and find another place to propagate the incomprehensible nature of our language and psyche. I think this thread is saturated.

Besides, I don't like the thread title... "...horrible... language...". Something out of whack in that. Luckily it is explained in the poll. :D

russian isnt there but russian is very easy to learn to speak

It depends on where you are... As an Americain, Any language that isnt a Romance language is a pain in the ass for me, as there are zero to none cognates between the languages. However, (i would think to an extent) that the Scandanavian (sp) languages would be somewhat similiar, as well as Balkan. It's a matter of opinion, and geography.


This was proably stated someplace else, however im too lazy to read all the postings ^^;

I speak English as a first language, and am fairly fluent in Polish, Slovak and Czech. I also know some Spanish and German. Hungarian, however, is the lingustic equivalent of a mugging. :D

BTW, my vote for hardest to learn today? Manx.

"Manx Gaelic passed into oblivion as a native spoken language on the 24 December 1974 with the death of Edward (`Ned') Maddrell, the last reputed native speaker of the language. With him an Indo-European language disappeared, the first this century, one branch less on the tree."

http://www.smo.uhi.ac.uk/~stephen/

Although I have to also give Welsh it's due...

Definitely Dutch.
Most languages have very strict grammatical rules. The Dutch language however has so many exceptions to the rule that you begin to wonder if there are any rules. And a lot of words have more then one meaning that's completely unrelated to other meanings of the word.

Which is the worst western european language to learn as a foreign language, and why that one.

I am excluding anything that means learning a completely new alphabet or set of ideograms etc. What I am interested in here is the problems that different languages present.


Try Croatian sometime... see if that doesn't twist an English speaking tongue in knots.

A lot of dutch words look like the english ones beceause of globalisation. = Heel veel nederlandse woorden lijken op het engels vanwege de globalisatie.

I would think the similarities are due to the shared roots of being Germanic languages, moreso than globalization. :)

WELSH.

Welsh makes no sense! Live in Wales, they teach you it FOREVER, and it still makes no sense. Dwi ddim yn hoffi coffi - that's the extent of my welsh knowledge, and it's still wrong. Tsk.

6 cases, a totally different word order, people who speak at twice (at least) as fast as possible to understand: it has to be Turkish! (I am learning it atm)

I heard there's a connection with Estonian too.

I think Danish, Swedish, Norwegian and Icelandic are all Germanic languages. Icelandic is said to be very similar to Old English (which is germanic).


The link between Finnish and Hungarian (both Finno-Ugric languages) is roughly on a par with the link between English and Persian (both Indo-European languages). Estonian is far more closely related to Finnish. Many Estonians can understand Finnish better than the Finns can understand Estonian, as they often listened to the Finnish radio during the Soviet occupation (i.e. a non state censored media).

Icelandic is very similar to Old Norse, modern Icelanders can read the Viking Sagas without any difficulty. Scandinavian languages including Icelandic are all Germanic languages, as is English (and Dutch and a few others).

I would say that Basque is probably one of the hardest to learn, as it's so little related to anything else. Finnish is very hard as well.

As a Swede, I would say Swedish (and Danish and Norwegian) wouldn't be so hard for an English speaker to learn. Our languages aren't so far apart.

I must say Dutch.
The language of the people in the Nederlands (Holland) to me is like noise pollution, it really is. How can you people talk like that? I bet you people must have a record or something for the people that spitt the most when speaking in your native language and it sounds so bad.
I'm sorry but I do not think I have heard a language that is as bad as that. I feel sick when I hear it.

p.s. I am only talking about the language the people are very nice.

The link between Finnish and Hungarian (both Finno-Ugric languages) is roughly on a par with the link between English and Persian (both Indo-European languages).

Do you know if Hungarian's Magyar heritage has anyhing to do with the language link? That's what I first thought of when it was suggested there was a link.

I think either Basque or Romanian.

Basque because it has NO relatives(the only language it is even REMOTELY like is, get this, Finnish), has a funky gramatical system, and funny letters.

Romanian because it is a mix of Latin and ancient Dacian(which doesnt exist anymore). It was virtually un-influenced by other languages until the 1800-1900 hundreds. It also retains all of the strange grammatical things from Latin. If you speak Latin, it prolly isn't that hard. But for the other 95% of us, OUCH!

Do you know if Hungarian's Magyar heritage has anyhing to do with the language link? That's what I first thought of when it was suggested there was a link.

Sorry, I don't I'm afraid.

I do know that the Finns themselves can't agree on where they come from (originally). There are various theories out there, I know that one is that the Finns originally came from somewhere in the far east (present day Siberia, Mongolia etc - maybe they dropped off the Hungarians en route?!?).... but that's quite unpopular, as the Finns have traditionally liked to think of themselves as Scandinavians/Europeans. This point of view is backed up by the fact that in a genetical survey, the genes of the Finnish-speaking Finns and the Swedish-speaking Finns were indistinguishable. Enough of my vagueness - we need a Finn to tell us!!

Sorry, I don't I'm afraid.

I do know that the Finns themselves can't agree on where they come from (originally).
A couple of pretty cood theories in this thread alone. The agreement seems to be we are of western gene pool (and so says the studies... even before looking at our mostly blue eyes accompanied with fair hair). What comes to language... we assimilated with the eastern crowd and only took the language from them... Go figure...

[QUOTE=Trikovia]This is not surprizing as the Finnish population is genetically closely related to that of Latvia and the rest of Fennoscandia (Another common error, Scandinavia refers to only Sweden, Denmark and Norway, while Fennoscandia includes Finnish and Iceland)
QUOTE]

I think that the meaning of Scandinavia is very much open to endless debate. Geographically, you could say it really only refers to the 2 countries on the peninsular of Scandinavia; Norway and Sweden.

A couple of pretty cood theories in this thread alone. The agreement seems to be we are of western gene pool (and so says the studies... even before looking at our mostly blue eyes accompanied with fair hair). What comes to language... we assimilated with the eastern crowd and only took the language from them... Go figure...

Ah-ha thank you.

I have to admit, I made my first post here before reading everything - naughty me... but i've had a look back and you're right, lots!

Scandinavia is really Norway but when talking about Scandinavian countrys people mean Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, Denamrk and some few smaller "nations".

Scandinavia is really Norway but when talking about Scandinavian countrys people mean Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, Denamrk and some few smaller "nations".

That is what I meant when I created the poll. More or less. I was not sure about Iceland.

A couple of pretty cood theories in this thread alone. The agreement seems to be we are of western gene pool (and so says the studies... even before looking at our mostly blue eyes accompanied with fair hair). What comes to language... we assimilated with the eastern crowd and only took the language from them... Go figure...
Was your country ever conqured by another people who forced you to use their language? Perhaps this is lost in prehistory.

A couple of pretty cood theories in this thread alone. The agreement seems to be we are of western gene pool (and so says the studies... even before looking at our mostly blue eyes accompanied with fair hair). What comes to language... we assimilated with the eastern crowd and only took the language from them... Go figure...

Another possibility is that you were a tribal group, of one gene pool, that lived on the edge of the area dominated by that gene pool, next to a people from another, more middle eastern stock, with which there was social interaction, and language transference. Then you were evicted by invaders and forced to move on, ending up in the beautiful, but inhospitable land that is now called Finland (The land would have been harsh for primitive tribesmen)

Probably a load of hornswaggle, but it is fun to speculate.

Was your country ever conqured by another people who forced you to use their language? Perhaps this is lost in prehistory.
Ghehehe. No. We were indeed conquered language-wise by the Swedes... and the Russians tried too... other attempts really are lost in history... but we still have their ears! :)

Regardless of the consensus, the solution is to make Esperanto the official European Language. It is easy and fun. Everyone can learn it.

MI AMAS LA ESPERANTON!!!

I think the premise in this thread was about language hard to learn. Well.. it's not Finnish (cos finnish is easy to learn... if under duress). Our history hardly has naything to do with it. We just love to one it up with the Soviets. It's in the genes.

The English are trying to bring back Cornish, Rydhsys rag kernow lemmyn!!!

ooooooooooj after all that hard work ethnic cleansing all those Celts! ! ! the last native speaker of Cornish DIED AT THE END of the NINETEENTH CENTURY !!!
I guess it just goes to show you don't know what you got til it's gone.
Paved Paradise and put up a parkin lot!
Oh btw, how come not one Slavic language is on the list? Not all Slavic languages use a different alphabet. Polish, Czech, and Croatian use a mildly modified Latin alphabet. Perhaps it's because they really are not difficult languages. Croatian for example is much more phonetic than Spanish. The grammer is a pain, but well so is English grammer, a much worse pain!
Aside from English, I'd have to say Irish is kind of hard. It would be an easy language if one could use the OLD alphabet, because the old alphabet, a modified Latin one, fit the language perfectly. Useing modern English letters led to short words being really long. This forced spelling reform and spelling reform made it harder to know what you were doing. Anyone who already know the Latin alphabet could master the Irish alphabet easily. Now in the day of computers it would make sense to bring back the old alphabet and to have it available on all every computer font menu. If my computer can have a menu with Bengali script why in blazes can't there be Irish letters?
Maybe one of you bright young nerds out there can let me know...

ooooooooooj after all that hard work ethnic cleansing all those Celts! ! ! the last native speaker of Cornish DIED AT THE END of the NINETEENTH CENTURY !!!


A minor correction, the last native speaker of Cornish died during my lifetime, and I am not even retirement age yet. I clearly remember a Nationwide program where they interviewed this old lady, in a cottage in the middle of nowhere in Cornwall. She was a native Cornish speaker. Just a detail.

Regardless of the consensus, the solution is to make Esperanto the official European Language. It is easy and fun. Everyone can learn it.

MI AMAS LA ESPERANTON!!!

For bureaucracy fine, but for declaring eternal love, or for stirring your countrymen forward, etc. it lacks a little in the way of rhetorical power.

Too artificial and cold. :(

After having to sing in Swedish, and having a freind who is fluent, try to get me to pronounce a few danish words correctly, I vote the scandinavian languges, purely on pronunciation.

For bureaucracy fine, but for declaring eternal love, or for stirring your countrymen forward, etc. it lacks a little in the way of rhetorical power.

That is not true in my opinion, but I will let you decide. Here is "La Espera", the most famous piece of Esperanto poetry: (keep in mind x's dont actually make sounds, they express characters that dont usually exist in romance languages. gx is "j", cx is "ch", and jx is "zh". Additionally, j's are "y")

"En la mondon venis nova sento
Tra la mondo iras forta voko
Per flugiloj de facila vento
Nun de loko flugu gxi al loko

Ne al glavo sangon soifanta
Gxi la homan tiras familion
Al la mond' eterne militanta
Gxi promesas sanktan harmonion

Sub la sankta signo de l'espero
Kolektigxas pacaj batalantoj
Kaj rapide kreskas la afero
Per laboro de la esperantoj

Forte staras muroj de miljaroj
Inter la popoloj dividitaj
Sed dissaltos la obstinaj baroj
Per la sankta amo disbatitaj

Sur neuxtrala lingva fundamento
Komprenante unu la alian
La popoloj faros en konsento
Unu grandan rondon familian

Nia diligenta kolegaro
En laboro paca ne lacigxos
Gxis la bela songxo de l'homaro
Por eterna ben' efektivigxos"



"Into the world came a new feeling
Through the world goes a powerful call
By the wings of a gentle wind
It shall now fly from place to place

Not to the sword thirsting for blood
Does it draw the human family
To the world eternally at war
It promises sacred harmony

Under the sacred sign of Hope
Gather the warriors of peace
And this thing quickly grows
By the labors of those who hope

The walls of a thousand years stand firm
Between the divided peoples
But the stubborn barriers will crumble
Knocked down with sacred love

Based on a neutral language
Understanding one another
The people will agree to make
One great family circle

Our diligent colleagues
In peaceful labor will never tire
Until the beautiful dream of humanity
For eternal good is realized"

Esperanto is a nice language, I even wrote songs in it.

Well, reading certain forums makes one think that English is the language hardest to learn....

Aside from English, I'd have to say Irish is kind of hard.
Fuck yeah. I tried learning Irish for a week. Then it died on its ass. Toooooo many letters. Anything that could reduce the number of letters in Irish words would be wonderful.


I also bought a book on esperanto. One of the phrases you had to learn was

"I saw the dying mouse"

Whuh? 11 people said German's the hardest? German's like falling off a log! Even Spanish is more difficult than German, and Spanish is easy! My opinion only, naturally.

Esperanto is a nice language, I even wrote songs in it.

Yeah... pity like Navajo that there are now more speakers of Klingon... :confused:

Whuh? 11 people said German's the hardest? German's like falling off a log! Even Spanish is more difficult than German, and Spanish is easy! My opinion only, naturally.

German has this strange thing of noun declinations, oh and three genders, two not being enough to thoroughly confuse the English speakers.

Magyar and Finish (Finno-ougian languages) try and you'll understand why

Magyar and Finish (Finno-ougian languages) try and you'll understand why
Finnish isn't too bad...
At least it wasn't for me. Then again, I only learned a little bit and probably never got to the complicated stuff.

Regardless of the consensus, the solution is to make Esperanto the official European Language. It is easy and fun. Everyone can learn it.

MI AMAS LA ESPERANTON!!!
For conlangs, I prefer Lojban.

pre-history ...The Vikings.
What have the vikings got to do with prehistory? :rolleyes:

Well anyway, my native language is dutch, and after having mastered dutch, english, german, french and other dutch dialects were a piece of cake. And you english complain about your verbsystem, geez :rolleyes: .
Now i also started to learn Norwegian (simple), Italian (seems easier than Latin) and new Greek (seems a lot easier than ancient Greek).

But i think any language is easy to learn with enough practice and motivation.. still, if i have to make a choice: basque or hungarian, cause i can't see any link with other languages which i find disturbing).

AND NO ESPERANTO!! I think it's a hideous language. :gundge:

I would have to say... basque (or finnish).

I excluded Finnish from Scandinavian as it is a completely different language group. It connects only with Hungarian in Europe, which is alittle bit puzzling, to say the least, wheras Danish, Swedis and Norwegian are all part of the same group. (I am not sure if Icelandic is part of this group or part of the Anglo Saxon group.)

Finnish gets my vote. I spent a year learning it. Pretty much had to as I live in Finland now. There is some misunderstanding about the relationship of Finnish to Hungarian. It is true that there is a technical connection, but they are entirely dissimilar in sound and appearance. In actual fact Finnish and Estonian closely resemble each other, although there are enough differences for speakers of the two languages not to be able to understand each other completely. Unlike for example Swedish (which I also speak), Danish and Norwegian which are very close indeed.

Anyhow, Finnish, as I say, gets my vote. And I have also studied Latin, Classical Greek, Classical Hebrew, Aramaic, French and some Russian, so I think I'm entitled to claim some experience in this field! :)

My $0.02

Andy.

Finnish gets my vote. I spent a year learning it. Pretty much had to as I live in Finland now. There is some misunderstanding about the relationship of Finnish to Hungarian. It is true that there is a technical connection, but they are entirely dissimilar in sound and appearance. In actual fact Finnish and Estonian closely resemble each other, although there are enough differences for speakers of the two languages not to be able to understand each other completely. Unlike for example Swedish (which I also speak), Danish and Norwegian which are very close indeed.

Anyhow, Finnish, as I say, gets my vote. And I have also studied Latin, Classical Greek, Classical Hebrew, Aramaic, French and some Russian, so I think I'm entitled to claim some experience in this field! :)

My $0.02

Andy.
Aww...
Everybody's voting Finnish.
Don't worry, Finland, I still love you!!

Grr, I should learn more Finnish. Puhun vain vähän suomea.

Well as a Swed that know swedish (dah!), English (as you can read!), French, German, Italian and some simple Latin I can say that if Latin would be a real language, it would be the hardest.. Every Latin verbs can be bent in 104+ ways, try to learn 104 different words that all is the same :headbang:

But as for the fact that no-one speaks or write latin more then in animal/medical/latin-studies, Latin is sure to be ruled out.. And by the way.. Italian is NOT much like latin as someone said.. Italian may be close to frensh, but its not close to latin more then that they share some words and sounds a bit like..

A quick studie tells you that Frensh, Spanich, Italian and Portogise is originaly mutations of the Latin, yes, but they are not close to each other.. Germany, the scandinavian language (Swedish, Danish and Norweigen) is from the old Goth languages that is mostly dead now.. English has some roots in both the Latin and old Goth, but are mostly an new language with its own grammar... Still, english has many words that it has taken from other languages.. Like Barn, Barn was first used in scottland after vikings had been heard calling for "Barn" that in Swedish means "Children".. :D

Sorry.. just noticed that I have typed way more then what I aimed for.. I Guess I should go and get some sleep soon... :rolleyes:

Don't ask me why, but when I hear spoken Korean, it sounds vaguely like Finnish to me.

Well as a Swed that know swedish (dah!), English (as you can read!), French, German, Italian and some simple Latin I can say that if Latin would be a real language, it would be the hardest.. Every Latin verbs can be bent in 104+ ways, try to learn 104 different words that all is the same :headbang:

Portuguese has 14 tenses with 6 conjugations in each for nearly all the verbs, Its only 84 variations per verb, but it is still horrific.

But as for the fact that no-one speaks or write latin more then in animal/medical/latin-studies, Latin is sure to be ruled out.. And by the way.. Italian is NOT much like latin as someone said.. Italian may be close to frensh, but its not close to latin more then that they share some words and sounds a bit like..

True, but a knowledge of Latin certainly makes learning Italian much easier, as someone else already pointed out.

A quick studie tells you that Frensh, Spanich, Italian and Portogise is originaly mutations of the Latin, yes, but they are not close to each other..

Spanish and Portuguese are very close to each other, at least as close as German and Dutch, probably more so. Any educated person who can read one of Spanish or Portuguese can, withfew problems, read the other. (Some false friends to worry about, but very very few.) French is a different matter, and my Italian is too limited to comment.

Germany, the scandinavian language (Swedish, Danish and Norweigen) is from the old Goth languages that is mostly dead now.. English has some roots in both the Latin and old Goth, but are mostly an new language with its own grammar... Still, english has many words that it has taken from other languages.. Like Barn, Barn was first used in scottland after vikings had been heard calling for "Barn" that in Swedish means "Children".. :D

Sorry.. just noticed that I have typed way more then what I aimed for.. I Guess I should go and get some sleep soon... :rolleyes:

Yeah, English is not proud, we take words from anywhere and use them how we want to. The example Barn is a good one, as we have the word Barn, meaning a farm outbuilding, but the scots still use the word Bairn, which means child. ;)

Hi!

As someone trying to learn Turkish from my international friends at school, I would say that is is rather difficult. It uses the Roman Alphabet with a few modifications from English- They have an 'i' without a dot that sounds a bit like a German 'y' and also a soft 'g' that is a pain (It has no sound on its own, but it affects the sounds of the preceding vowel). Anyway, Turkish does have the advantage of being totally gender-free (Unlike English, French, or German) and therefore rather politically correct. Not to mention the fact that Turkish music is really cool (Yay Mustafa Sandal and Tarkan!).

I speak English as a native language, German, and a bit of French (I am a good Canadian, after all). Italian seems ridiculously easy when one knows other Romance languages, such as French and Spanish. In the end, I would say that Turkish (Which is part of the Ural-Altaic language family, and is therefore related to Hungarian and perhaps even Japanese) is a difficult language to learn for an English-speaker.

Breathe Deep, Seek Peace, God Bless,
Kie Turtlecrest
mjmleftie at hotmail.com
http://pciweb.tripod.com/
http://spaces.msn.com/members/kies/

PS: Anyone wanting to learn Gaelic should definitely go to Nova Scotia, Canada and especially Cape Breton Island (Which is part of NS). It is actually one of the largest pockets of Gaelic speakers in the world!

I lived in Finland for 2 years a while back and i must say that Finnish is quite a frustrating language to learn for a native english speaker. I took introductory finnish language classes and the only people who seemed to catch on fast were the japanese people. The thing about it that i found most difficult (besides the grammar, yes its very different) was the pronunciation...they make you pronounce every letter which means if there is a double t or a double n you have to hold it longer. Like for example the finnish words tuuli and tulli. If you miss pronouncing a letter then the meaning of the word changes! Not to mention trying to learn how to roll my r's, that was a frickin nightmare!

Anyways, during my 2 years there i only ever learned enough to get me through daily life. Holding conversations was near impossible but i was quite good at understanding others. Thank God all the younger people spoke english..but most of them i found to be very shy!

What a great country! :D

Lallans would be pretty horrible to learn. There's some debate as to whether it's an actual language, but it's basically a corruption of English with some Gaelic mixed in. So it has all the problems of English, but with more words added on top:

Example from "A Shot At The Baw - A Historie o the Gemm o Fitba in Scotland wi Dictionar o Terms" by Dauvit Horsbroch

Fitba haes a lang historie in Scotland tho it wesna aye the gemm that aw bodie kens the day, played bi the ae rules, an for the ae reasons. Ordnar accoonts o the gemm tak tent o its historie fae the 1860s but daena say muckle o the centuries aforehaun. In medieval tymes, the gemm wes cryed doun as a distraction fae aircherie; a skeil o airms Scotland’s kings wantit tae uise agin onding bi Ingland. Whan the Refurmaition cam alang the playin o fitba wes regairdit bi the new kirk as a relic o Catholic fests an disrespectfae o the sabbath. In modren days fitba haes affen oxtered wi distrublances an fechtin. For aw that, maist fowk wad caw it a bonnie gemm fou o skeil an pass, rare tae watch, an gien tae rearin up characters.