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Thread: Two most difficult languages to learn
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[quote=ERENCIUS,247011]I won't say Chinese language is the most difficult language in the world (It is a bit presumtuous to say so and languages are different espacially from one continent to another). First because it just requires memory (visual and auditory), second because the grammar is extremly simple. For Asian people it is easier to learn caracter based language once they know their native language because the conception of the language is merely the same: a symbol = an idea. In Europe it is the same, we have to compound different elements like a puzzle, puzzle which will change form according to the meaning we want to create. I personaly learnt Chinese in one year, my speaking is rather good but my writing is quite bad (this depends on the kind of memory that prevails for each individual, for me it is the auditory one), so of course I ll continue to learn. I'm French so I do speak French, English as you can see, but also Spanish and a bit of Italian, I learnt Latin and ancien Greek. European languages are not based on the same principle, it is an analytic language. The grammar is consequently much more complicated than the Chinese one, and the exceptions to the rules much more numerous. Of course the number of symbols varies from a language to another. But what is in common is that you have to arrange it in a specific way so that the sentence you make is clear and correct. It is easy for any foreigner to be understood, even if the grammar is completly wrong. For example: "I want to eat", if you just learned the words by heart and you don't now a thing about English grammar you can say: "I want eat", this is wrong but everyone will understand (English grammar being rather easy espacially to conjugate verbs). In Chinese it is as simple as this: 我要吃, 我 standing for I, 要 for want, 吃 for eat, but here it is correct because you just put ideas one after the other. For French or Spanish, which grammar is more complicated you'll say in French: Je veux manger but the way to conjugate verbs makes it more difficult. If you say ils veulent manger it means they want to eat. In English or in Chinese the verb will stay the same. In spanish it is the same Quiero comer/Quieren comer (quiero means I want, comer means to eat). I m not even talking about the sequence of tenses and other very interesting grammar subtleties (Latin or German needing to identify the grammatical position of the word to be able to pronounce it in a correct way. We usually talk about cases). The way to think is just different (that's why we don't use the same area of the human brain), and by itself it doesn't make people smarter. The environment (including the language, but it is very far from being the most important) makes you dumb or intelligent. Even if you grow up in another city but in the same country, the result on you can be completly different (the family is also extremely important, so is the social environement, the access to education and also some genes you may have).[/quote]
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