Hardest language
Encyclopedia
Many languages have been claimed to be the hardest language to learn. Assessments have been used to determine language difficulty based on the ease with which infants learn a particular language as their first language
, and how challenging a language is to learn as a second language
by older children or adults.
". Accents are caused by transfer between the sounds of the first and second languages, for which there are three possibilities:
Totally new sounds do not always pose significant problems for second language learners, unless they are radically outside the classes of sound in the native language. The most difficult phoneme pairs to learn are often allophones of the same phoneme, as in Japanese learning to distinguish between /l/ and /r/.
as adults had a disadvantage on certain grammatical tasks, while they had an advantage in lexical tasks compared to their native German-speaking counterparts learning English
.
, and Korean
. The Foreign Service Institute notes that Japanese is typically more difficult to learn than other languages in this group.
First language
A first language is the language a person has learned from birth or within the critical period, or that a person speaks the best and so is often the basis for sociolinguistic identity...
, and how challenging a language is to learn as a second language
Second language acquisition
Second-language acquisition or second-language learning is the process by which people learn a second language. Second-language acquisition is also the name of the scientific discipline devoted to studying that process...
by older children or adults.
Phonology
According to A. Z. Guirora in the Journal of Language Learning, the hardest part of learning a new language is pronunciation, which can result in a "foreign accentAccent (linguistics)
In linguistics, an accent is a manner of pronunciation peculiar to a particular individual, location, or nation.An accent may identify the locality in which its speakers reside , the socio-economic status of its speakers, their ethnicity, their caste or social class, their first language In...
". Accents are caused by transfer between the sounds of the first and second languages, for which there are three possibilities:
- The second language phonemePhonemeIn a language or dialect, a phoneme is the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances....
s are not found in the native language at all. For example, KoreanKorean languageKorean is the official language of the country Korea, in both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing...
does not have any phonemes corresponding to the English phonemes /f/ or /v/, so they would be completely new to Korean learners of English. - The first language has one of the two contrasting phonemes. For example, JapaneseJapanese languageis a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
has a /p/ sound as in the English paid, but no /f/ sound as in the English fade. Japanese learners of English need to learn a new phoneme. - The second language phonemes both exist in the native language, but as allophoneAllophoneIn phonology, an allophone is one of a set of multiple possible spoken sounds used to pronounce a single phoneme. For example, and are allophones for the phoneme in the English language...
s of the same phoneme. For example, in Japanese, [l] and [r] are allophones so Japanese learnersJapanese speakers learning r and lJapanese possesses one liquid consonant, a flap that varies between lateral and central . English has two: an alveolar lateral approximant and rhotic consonant of varying phonetic properties centered around...
of English need to learn to distinguish these sounds.
Totally new sounds do not always pose significant problems for second language learners, unless they are radically outside the classes of sound in the native language. The most difficult phoneme pairs to learn are often allophones of the same phoneme, as in Japanese learning to distinguish between /l/ and /r/.
Grammar
A study on speech comprehension by German immigrants to the USA and American immigrants to Germany found that native English speakers learning GermanGerman language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
as adults had a disadvantage on certain grammatical tasks, while they had an advantage in lexical tasks compared to their native German-speaking counterparts learning English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
.
Native English speakers
The Foreign Service Institute (FSI) of the US Department of State has compiled approximate learning expectations for a number of languages for their professional staff (native English speakers who generally already know other languages). Of the 63 languages analyzed, the five most difficult languages to reach proficiency in speaking and reading, requiring 88 weeks (2200 class hours), are Arabic, Cantonese, Mandarin, JapaneseJapanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
, and Korean
Korean language
Korean is the official language of the country Korea, in both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing...
. The Foreign Service Institute notes that Japanese is typically more difficult to learn than other languages in this group.
See also
- Critical period hypothesisCritical Period HypothesisThe critical period hypothesis is the subject of a long-standing debate in linguistics and language acquisition over the extent to which the ability to acquire language is biologically linked to age...
- International auxiliary languageInternational auxiliary languageAn international auxiliary language or interlanguage is a language meant for communication between people from different nations who do not share a common native language...
- Language learning aptitudeLanguage learning aptitudeLanguage learning aptitude refers to the “prediction of how well, relative to other individuals, an individual can learn a foreign language in a given amount of time and under given conditions.”...
- Language acquisitionLanguage acquisitionLanguage acquisition is the process by which humans acquire the capacity to perceive, produce and use words to understand and communicate. This capacity involves the picking up of diverse capacities including syntax, phonetics, and an extensive vocabulary. This language might be vocal as with...
- Language complexityLanguage complexityIt is sometimes said that all human languages are equally complex. This is partially an overcorrection of racialist theories that held that "primitive" people spoke "primitive" languages, but also an implication of Chomskian linguistics, which postulates that all human languages are underlyingly...
- Motivation in second language learning