The hardest language to learn

[Ersby]

I found German difficult. Not the vocabulary, but the grammar. All those der, die, das, den, dems... Couldn't get my head round it. Japanese is comparatively easy.

I'm about to start teaching my Japanese teacher Italian. It should be interesting to see how she copes with a language where the verbs are conjugated all over the place! She knows English, so she should be okay. I hope so, anyway.

 

[Elind]

Well, it's often used in the CLIL case. Some people fear that the foreign language will interfere with the ability to understand subject matter. Which is not the case.
More than people who failed a language course, i'm afraid the argument is used in an emotional-political context. In multilingual societies where one language has been dominating another one in the past it's not always easy to keep the debate on a scientific level. Simply because the mere idea of raising your children in that other language seems to increase the fear that they will lose their mother tongue again. Whereas in reality, they will keep it, they are even likely to improve it and they will gain another language.

Used to be that when people emigrated, and immigrated, to another country for life, they actually wanted to join that society. One hears stories of the Scandinavians (prominently mentioned here) who forbade their family from speaking anything but English in the US. That was a commitment to a new life.

Too many people these days want it both ways, no commitment, and we, in the US, encourage that by pandering to that type of attitude.

If they don't want to risk losing the mother tongue (which most won't), then they should go back "home", since home is obviously not here.

There, I said it

 

[BPScooter]

I just saw on pp. 25-26 of this month's Scientific American a brief report of some research that has correlated some genetic information with people's propensity for tonal languages. I probably got that wrong but they also mention Diana Deutch's research at UCLA which found a higher incidence of absolute pitch (ability to generate or identify pitch without reference) among speakers of tonal languages. I always interpreted that as a training effect, if you are required to discriminate tones in order to communicate fully, you get better at it. This hint at a genetic link is pretty interesting.

I've never tried to learn a tonal language, but it seems to me that to get good at speaking anything you need to be aware of pitch as well as rhythmic issues of cadence to get the accent. I got pretty good at speaking Spanish and my German and French teachers always complimented me on my pronunciation and I seemed fairly quick at picking it up through listen-and-imitate. I'm also a musician, and Suzuki made the language/music link in his Talent Education program for teaching violin and other instruments after WWII.

This relates a bit to a nature vs. nurture interpretation of things. There are great examples of these amazing linguists, or multi-language speakers I remember running across from time to time. I would be willing to think that "sensitivity to tone or rhythm" or "ability to manipulate the vocal apparatus to accurately produce tones without excessive repetition" are definite traits, that may occur in varying degrees in individuals, as well as across the lifespan.

I am out of my depth here, though--if I had a second choice, I think I would have gone into linguistics.

 

[Vitalstatistix]

Too many people these days want it both ways, no commitment, and we, in the US, encourage that by pandering to that type of attitude.

If they don't want to risk losing the mother tongue (which most won't), then they should go back "home", since home is obviously not here.

There, I said it

See what i mean, you just took the debate to an emotional-political level . Which is your right, of course. But I'm not going there...

I also disagree when you say that the mother tongue shouldn't be included in the curriculum. Pupils seem to pick up the foreign language and to improve their mother tongue best when both languages are included, i.e. teach maths in english and spanish/danish/french whatever.

 

[rjh01]

The link to what BPScooter is talking about is here Speaking in Tones. It is in September 2007 edition of Scientific American. Page 25. To read it in full you need a subscription. However for free you get

Speaking in Tones; September 2007; Scientific American Magazine; by Charles Q. Choi; 2 Page(s)
Just as humans are different genetically, so are they diverse linguistically, speaking at least 6,800 known tongues worldwide. New findings suggest genetics could explain some of the variety seen in language by, at times, leading to preferences for tones. The means by which this link works remains unclear, and some researchers dispute whether it exists.
For the most part, languages are either unambiguously tonal or not. In tone languages, such as Mandarin in China or Yoruba in West Africa, the pitch of a spoken word affects its meaning. For instance, in Mandarin, ma said in a high, level tone means "mother" but in a low, rising tone means "horse." In English, a word's pitch conveys emotion but often does not influence meaning. (Notable exceptions to this dichotomy include Japanese, where words can differ depending on the pitch of syllables--technically, moras--within them.)

Another relevant article is Genetic Basis for Language Tones? You can read that for free. It seems to be an early draft for Speaking in Tones

 

[BPScooter]

Thanks rjh01, that's the exact thing. I think it's correlation, and pretty sketchy for now, but very exciting if we can somehow avoid old-school racial thinking and use genetic markers to define our groups for comparison. Maybe even revise our theories some! Yay for science. What if it turned out that at some key evolutionary branching phase, there were two "brains" that turned out different language preferences, then concocted different language types, then tended to inter-breed and such. This does seem hot to handle especially if there are social-cognitive things on top. I wouldn't want to stake my tenure on it, but it's still of interest, I think.

I'd be really keen on doing some basic work with very young children, with the batteries of perceptual tests that are now accepted pediatrics, and tracking those kids through something like the Seashore tests of music, and then seeing their grades in second-language learning. That's a nearly impossible study. But as Ladd of Edinburgh said in the article we've referred to:

"Even remarkable correlations can arise by coincidence—or, in this case, possibly by prehistoric migration factors that are currently unknown to anthropology and archaeology—so we can't rule that out," Ladd says. "The next step is to attempt to correlate individual genotypes with measurably different behaviors on experimental tasks that are plausibly related to language and speech."

 

[T'ai Chi]

Really? And it won't say "interesting"? (I am funning you in the nicest way, I sincerely promise.) I'll post some pictures tomorrow then! (New thread)

Yup, just let me know.

It might say interesting, ya never know.

 

[Harpoon]

i believe the DOD ranked languages from 1 to 4. Russian was a 3, and Mandarin and Cantonese were 4. i personally found German much harder than Spanish. of course, i am referring to native speakers of English learning something new.

Re: DOD. The method used to teach Russian at the Defense Language Institute (DLI) at Monterey, Calif., had people conversational within nine months (R-9). Those who were in the 12-month program (R-12) had broader vocabulary knowledge. And the top-tier students in R-12 were allowed to stay an additional six months, during which they were student aides who lived with the native-speaking instructors. Their accents were flawless and they could discuss anything from military to politics, the arts, history, religion or pop (what there was of Russian pop during the Cold War) after they graduated.

All instructors were native speakers. English wasn't allowed in the classroom block. Tough pace: students were expected to give a three-minute speech in Russian on the second day .

Role playing from memorized scripts in Russian was a daily drill every morning. Tests were frequent, scored immediately and discussed because that provided positive feedback. Mimicing the profs was encouraged to develop the feel for the language.

Curriculum included food, culture and history (Did you know the Russian Navy saved the Union's bacon during the Civil War?). Profanity was taught, which was at times colorful, but mostly maternal references. The R-18 students became well versed in idioms.

I imagine things were pretty much the same in all the other language departments. Russian was No. 1 in those days ('63-'64) for total enrollment. Parsi was No. 2. I suspect Arabic is No. 1 these days.

Learning a language isn't just about how hard it is. It's your circumstance and environment. If you are able to concentrate all your efforts into learning the language and are surrounded by it and also receiving classroom training in it, you'll learn almost any language quicker than by just being dropped into a country cold Turkey (heard that's not an easy language to learn, either).

Of course the best way to learn any language is to live with a family speaking it. That's got everything, including the motivation to learn it and get out.

 

[Elind]

See what i mean, you just took the debate to an emotional-political level . Which is your right, of course. But I'm not going there...

I also disagree when you say that the mother tongue shouldn't be included in the curriculum. Pupils seem to pick up the foreign language and to improve their mother tongue best when both languages are included, i.e. teach maths in english and spanish/danish/french whatever.

You're not going there! Is that because you are too politically correct to be political?

I hope you were being facetious, otherwise I can only think of something rude to say.

 

[Vitalstatistix]

You're not going there! Is that because you are too politically correct to be political?

I hope you were being facetious, otherwise I can only think of something rude to say.

Not at all, my friend. I'm just saying that the neurological studies of language and bi/multilingualism is a whole different debate than the one about language policies. Both can be interesting, but they shouldn't be confused.

 

[hoemaco]

The hardest thing is to read every post before you reply
No, I can't do that, just read the first third or less.. or the last.

I haven't met with many westerners who learned any eastern asian languages... Though I can believe it's hard for them. To Hungarians, however, I think Japanese is much easier - the word order is different in Hungarian than other European languages and the writing system is phonetic. (And actually we write our names family name - given name style, like japanese/chinese). Chinese would be more difficult for the intonations already mentioned. At least I find it difficult to reproduce a word I hear (Ok, Singapore is quite a mix of languages). Anyway, it seems to me that Hungarians (at the rare moments they are motivated), can learn most languages easily, probably easier than english-speakers. But it's not statistical sample...
Btw there only about 55 or so hiragana and katakana, surely not a big number. And only about 2000 official kanji. In China I don't know, but think they use way more kanji. And there you have the traditional (used in Taiwan and in calligraphies) and the simplified writing (used in mainland China); and in seals (for names) they use a very old type of writing (something from 1..2000 years ago, i'm not sure). The calligraphers and literature ppl know all three...

Many (or most) of the Japanese (and also Chinese) people I met had problems with English. One reason for this can be the different sounds (like there's no distinct r and l there, not English also tend to not pronounce r ). Another reason might be the education system. Reading the blogs of some expat US teachers, they mentioned they were not allowed to teach using their own methods, but the japanese have their own ones, which, as seen, are not efficient (someone from Japan, enlighten me pls if it's true...). I had a similar feeling with Russian people. I've seen them reading English text from paper - it was written down phonetically in cyrillic (btw it's a funny activity, to try and guess at a conference etc whether they do this or not). When my father was learning in Russia looong ago, they taught him such pronunciation as 'zis' for "this" and 'ze' or 'zö' for "the"...

For me presently the hardest language is Singlish. That is, Singaporeans speaking local dialect of English (something like pijin-english). Even if you learn the chinese (all dialects) and malay words in it, the pronunciation (esp of chinese mother-tongued ppl) can be terrible for me (having had american teachers (not from texas,though)). Sometimes I can't recognize they are actually speaking English... And the funniest is when two guys talking, one in Mandarin, and the other in English, and understand each other. (younger generation Chinese here often speak English as mother-tongue, and they usually speak the British one).

 

[Complexity]

DNA.

I win!

I studied some French when I was younger. Learned a bit of Old English. Took a semester of Attic Greek when I was a bad student. Have a book on Welsh (mutation mid-word?!?).

The language I'm slowly learning on is Homeric Greek. I'll be happy if I can read parts of the Iliad in the original. Probably the last thing I'll ever do.

 

[BPScooter]

Hoemaco, welcome to the thread, and in a very sincere way I say "right on, bro" with a little high-five on the side.

Bartok Bela is one of my heroes, as well as Kodaly Zoltan and I did have the chance to visit Budapest once and went to the Bartok museum. If anybody wants to know what we're talking about, listen to Bartok's *Concerto for Orchestra* and read about how it was written and who this guy was. It is one of the most amazing achievements of the human creative spirit. More to say about that in time, but please do check out BARTOK music. I am not Hungarian when I say this, just an appreciator of music that makes you breathless.

 

[plumjam]

Me Japanee. Hingrish brury difficurr

 

[dudalb]

I understand Sindarian Elvish is a real bitch to learn,while Quenya is pretty easy.

 

[BPScooter]

Welsh is one of the hardest I've ever tried to figure out. In order to capture the speech in basic roman alphabet, one needs things like "LL", which represents a sort of fricative sound, tongue is up to the palate. So to the un-Welsh a name like "Llewellyn" really does sound like "Tsclesssh l shshsln" and the English speakers mangle it to something like "Lou-ellen".

Everybody who had a family name mangled through pronunciation difficulies, stand up and be counted! I think the Polish names are Oh so difficult...so many -sclavs and -eenyovzys...

 

[Wildy]

Personally I have found it a bit harder to learn a language now. I can still pick up stuff pretty quickly though.

In my case I think I have managed to screw up my brain.

I am learning German (again technically).

German was the first language that I spoke when I was young and when I learned English a lack of German meant that I couldn't speak it basically at all. Understanding it was a different story. However now that I am trying to learn it again I find that I confuse myself because I want to be grammatically correct but my brain has an argument with itself.

It is a quite well structured language though.

 

[timhau]

Everybody who had a family name mangled through pronunciation difficulies, stand up and be counted! I think the Polish names are Oh so difficult...so many -sclavs and -eenyovzys...

Meet.... The Unpronouncables!

 

[Cainkane1]

Danish, for me. Ok, easy to learn the written language, but speaking it and understanding the spoken word, that's another story.

Whereas Swedish was super easy by comparison.

I've heard that Icelandic was extra hard to learn.

 

[Furi]

I Found Gibberish very Easy to Learn,
and North Wales Welsh quite difficult (even though I spent half my childhood either there or just accross the Dee)