Topic: Is English really the hardest language? 'Cause I don't believe it.

[ThePerm]

My friend speaks and writes Mandarin(he lived in china until he was like 5, and since continued his Chinese cultural tradition) He speaks perfect accentless English, and took German in high school. he says Chinese is the hardest language. You have to control your tone while speaking; otherwise that changes the meaning of the word.

I've been taking alot of German, taken Spanish, and organically have learned some Japanese from watching anime. Japanese seems actually pretty simple to learn, German starts off easy and gets difficult(however, I'm almost to the point where i totally get every type of sentence structure but not vocabulary)
French seems like it would be really hard because the massive contractions. I've been told Turkish is the easiest language to learn.

[EasyCure]

Ebonics is the hardest language to learn because words come and go so fast, its hard to keep track of. If you say the wrong phrase you risk looking like a tool

[Dirk Temporo]

Japanese has 3 alphabets and like Chinese you read up and to the left! Completely opposite of the natural direction.

And we wonder why the rest of the world hates America.

Explanation?

You read left-to-right line-wise (lines from top to bottom) or top-to-bottom column-wise (columns from right to left), never bottom to top. The directions are 90° apart.

Ya I understand that, I SAID that, but why does that make everyone hate America?

Because I'd love to see you prove that humans "naturally" read left to right and top to bottom when reading is an entirely taught skill.

[ShyGuy]

People write from left to right because if you write from right to left with your right hand you can smear the ink or smudge the pencil. This is why I, as a left hander, learned in school to tilt my paper to minimize the dragging of my hand across my penmanship.

It's no small leap to think that people would read in the same direction as they write.

Of course now with the domination of typing, it's not really as relevant.

[DAaaMan64]

Japanese has 3 alphabets and like Chinese you read up and to the left! Completely opposite of the natural direction.

And we wonder why the rest of the world hates America.

Explanation?

You read left-to-right line-wise (lines from top to bottom) or top-to-bottom column-wise (columns from right to left), never bottom to top. The directions are 90° apart.

Ya I understand that, I SAID that, but why does that make everyone hate America?

Because I'd love to see you prove that humans "naturally" read left to right and top to bottom when reading is an entirely taught skill.

You certainly could be right, after all, a teacher told me that.

[EasyCure]

Speaking of languages... (I didnt want to start a new thread for this)

My family is planning on taking a vacation to Japan next year, and because its a place i've always wanted to visit, i might just go with them. In the event that i do end up going, i'd like to learn some japanese.

i know there are a few of you here that can read/speak it, so i was wondering if you'd recommend any books or other methods of learning..?

[vudu]

i was wondering if you'd recommend any books or other methods of learning..?

English of the Dead

[EasyCure]

too scary, next suggestion!

[JoeTrumpet]

I learned Spanish and English at practically the same time (Spanish slightly before, but before pre-k I somehow spoke English as well as all the other kids from watching TV). Looking at both languages objectively, I'd say English is considerably more difficult than Spanish. Spanish has fewer sounds, and the alphabet can very accurately represent what the words sound like: it's 100% phonetic. English writing looks rather silly by comparison. English verbs also seem to make less sense than Spanish verbs: irregulars don't seem to be anymore prevalent in Spanish than in English. I'd say English has more irregulars.

The most "difficult language to learn" is all relative to what language you're learning from, anyway. A Chinese person would obviously find another sino language easier than English, whereas a German would find it considerably more difficult. But I would also like to add, for what it's worth, that Spanish-speaking 3 year olds are considerably more eloquent than English-speaking 3 year olds. I'd say that's the best way to objectively measure how all languages compare, regardless of base language.

[mantidor]

Speaking of languages... (I didnt want to start a new thread for this)

My family is planning on taking a vacation to Japan next year, and because its a place i've always wanted to visit, i might just go with them. In the event that i do end up going, i'd like to learn some japanese.

i know there are a few of you here that can read/speak it, so i was wondering if you'd recommend any books or other methods of learning..?

So you want to learn japanese...

[EasyCure]

I'll check the link out after work, thanks...

And if i click it and hear "Hi I'm Troy McLure..." I'll be SO happy

[mantidor]

The link is specifically made to waste time at work, doing it in your own free time is simply not the same. it's a joke site

[EasyCure]

oh in that case i should really got on that, i go home in like 2 hours