In your opinion , what is the toughest language to learn?

[Stehay]

From personal experience

I would say Spanish.

 

[john.margetts]

English. For two reasons. 1) few rules and those rules we do have are not obeyed all the time. 2) we have a lot of words for the same thing. My friend Kampien complains that when she moved here (England) everyone she met used a different greeting while in Thai there is just the one.

 

[480sparky]

Wimmin.

 

[Piccell]

English, by far.

 

[The_Traveler]

for an English speaker, any of the inflected languages, IMO.

• Japanese. According to the Foreign Service Institute, Japanese is the most difficult language for a native English speaker to learn. ...
• Korean. ...
• Arabic. ...
• Polish. ...
• Georgian. ...
• Mandarin. ...
• Hungarian. ...
• Thai.

 

[Piccell]

They can't all be the 'toughest' there has to be only one.
For everyone I know, it was English.

 

[480sparky]

They can't all be the 'toughest' there has to be only one.
For everyone I know, it was English.

For you, maybe. For others, it could easily be something else.

So yes, there can be more than one.

 

[pendennis]

By and large, the "Romance" languages, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian, are the easiest to learn. The tenses, sentence structure, etc., is fairly consistent across all them.

My wife can still speak some Russian, and she thinks it easier than French, because it's a very literal language. She majored in Russian and French in high school and college.

I had three years of French, and when I was on assignment in Mexico in the early 1990's, Spanish came fairly easy, since it was similar to French.

I agree with others; English is by far the toughest. English is an amalgam of Anglo Saxon, German, Latin, and Romance; along with the bewildering number of grammatical rules.

 

[Designer]

Chinese

But your question could be refined thusly: "What is the toughest language in which to become proficient?"

Assuming we all begin from the same point; that of being native English speakers, and from there, learning the inflections and nuances as well as a working vocabulary, of a second language, including, of course, the ability to read it. In that case I would pick Chinese.

 

[Piccell]

They can't all be the 'toughest' there has to be only one.
For everyone I know, it was English.

For you, maybe. For others, it could easily be something else.

So yes, there can be more than one.

The question was "In your opinion what is the toughest language to learn?"...where does that say anything about for others?

There can only be one toughest in an individual's opinion whoever that person is. The "est" on the end indicates there is only of that is the most extreme. Now if it asked what is a tough language there could be more than one per respondent.

 

[Piccell]

Chinese

But your question could be refined thusly: "What is the toughest language in which to become proficient?"

Assuming we all begin from the same point; that of being native English speakers, and from there, learning the inflections and nuances as well as a working vocabulary, of a second language, including, of course, the ability to read it. In that case I would pick Chinese.

Not all Chinese are native English speakers though, so that assumption is incorrect.

 

[480sparky]

They can't all be the 'toughest' there has to be only one.
For everyone I know, it was English.

For you, maybe. For others, it could easily be something else.

So yes, there can be more than one.

The question was "In your opinion what is the toughest language to learn?"...where does that say anything about for others?

There can only be one toughest in an individual's opinion whoever that person is. The "est" on the end indicates there is only of that is the most extreme. Now if it asked what is a tough language there could be more than one per respondent.

The question is not directed solely towards you. It is directed towards anyone who reads it.

Since my opinion may differ from yours, there's at least two answers. But if you want to continue arguing semantics, go right ahead.

Solo.

 

[Designer]

Not all Chinese are native English speakers though, so that assumption is incorrect.

Apparently English is beyond your capabilities.

How on earth could you jump to the conclusion that I assumed we were talking about Chinese people?

 

[Piccell]

We were talking about people, of which some will most definitely be Chinese.

 

[Designer]

We will not tolerate anti-semantics on this forum.