Toughest European Language

ossininger   Mon Jan 19, 2009 2:24 am GMT
Any idea what would be the hardest European language, for a complete outsider (someone from China, Japan, Korea, for example) to learn? Gaining native-level mastery of any language (even English) is going to be easier said than done, but what about juat getting even to an intermediate level?

Searching the web gives so many candidates. It seems like there are so many languages with ghastly complexities out there:

- Armenian
- Basque
- Bosnian
- Breton
- Cornish
- Croatian
- Czech
- Estonian
- Etruscan
- Faroese
- Finnish
- Gaelic
- Georgian
- Gothic
- Greek
- Hittite
- Hungarian
- Icelandic
- Lithuanian
- Manx
- Old Church Slavonic
- Polish
- Serbian
- Slovak
- Slovene
- Turkish
- Welsh
yeltsin   Mon Jan 19, 2009 2:39 am GMT
It depends on their native language. Who knows, maybe English would be the hardest?
Polski.   Mon Jan 19, 2009 4:52 am GMT
Even though it sounds nice, I have to say French, everything from the pronunciation to the writting makes it quite dificult.
linguist   Mon Jan 19, 2009 10:00 am GMT
This kind of questions is really stupid. it all depends on your mother tongue! For instance French is quite easy to me. I speak a latin language
tolo   Mon Jan 19, 2009 10:07 am GMT
For a Korean or a Japanese an agglutinative language such as Hungarian, Turkish, Estonian, finnish might be much easier than any other Indo-european language, included English
Euro   Mon Jan 19, 2009 10:17 am GMT
Depends by your mother tongue.
ossininger   Mon Jan 19, 2009 11:13 am GMT
ok, sorry, guys, let's close my stupid topic :(
ossinger   Mon Jan 19, 2009 12:57 pm GMT
bljadj, nu, davai izvenjitje nahuj :DD
Shrey   Mon Jan 19, 2009 5:43 pm GMT
In general, Greek (due it to very irregular verb conjugation patterns and extensive vocabulary), Czech (verb pairs, cases and grammar), Albanian, Armenian, Basque (ridiculous no. of cases and complex grammar and tough vocabulary--not related to other languages) and Polish (same like czech but harder pronunciation) are considered to be quite hard languages.
LL   Mon Jan 19, 2009 6:45 pm GMT
This is three questions, not one.

We already know that Japanese and Chinese people can learn Russian.
Therefore, they can learn other languages like Polish and BHS.

We can guess that many (young) people who want to learn less-spoken languages probably already know English. People who know English will be able to find information on all of these languages.

We can eliminate Greek as the most difficult because it is common, and its pronunciation is not difficult for anyone who already knows English.

I suggest that the most difficult language to be able to learn to intermediate level will be one that is not widely-spoken, and few, if no teachers.

I did not speak much about Koreans. I have met bilingual Koreans and I have met Koreans who may speak two and a half languages, but I have not met a Korean who was fully fluent in four languages. Someone posting as Super Korean here is interested in multiple languages if I recall correctly. I am not sure how many languages Super Korean speaks.

If I met a Korean who spoke Korean, Basque, English, and French. I would be impressed.
baum   Mon Jan 19, 2009 7:12 pm GMT
In general, Greek (due it to very irregular verb conjugation patterns and extensive vocabulary), Czech (verb pairs, cases and grammar), Albanian, Armenian, Basque (ridiculous no. of cases and complex grammar and tough vocabulary--not related to other languages) and Polish (same like czech but harder pronunciation) are considered to be quite hard languages

Guys why are you in a language Forum if you are afraid of cases and stuff like that?? Languages like Basque or Polish are a pleasure to learn, unfortunately It's not that easy to find good materials to study them, at least in my country. I'm particularly interested in grammar and syntax.
ça   Mon Jan 19, 2009 7:57 pm GMT
Do you really think that the proper use of the article The in English is much easier than some cases?? You probably don't know that it is one of the most difficult aspects in the English grammar... so cases are not all in a language
knalbus   Tue Jan 20, 2009 2:24 pm GMT
<<I suggest that the most difficult language to be able to learn to intermediate level will be one that is not widely-spoken, and few, if no teachers.>>

So languages like Gothic, Manx, Hittite, Etruscan, Cornish, and Old Church Slavonic would be the most difficult to find classes in?

Are languages like Faroese, Breton, Basque, Welsh, and Gaelic commonly taught in China?
Jef   Tue Jan 20, 2009 2:28 pm GMT
<<Do you really think that the proper use of the article The in English is much easier than some cases?? You probably don't know that it is one of the most difficult aspects in the English grammar... so cases are not all in a language>>

Your incorrect use of it shows that.
ça   Tue Jan 20, 2009 2:53 pm GMT
Your incorrect use of it shows that.

Please correct my message then