The Hardest Language?

You will often hear the question “What is the hardest language to learn?”  The answers are varied.  In truth, the hardest language to learn depends on what your first language is.  You will be more inclined to pick up on a language with similar sentence structure and writing rules to what you are used to.  For example, I took spanish in High School in the states.  I found the tenses (past, present, future, future-continuing) to be extremely confusing.  (click)  The reading and pronounciation was simple.  I found trouble with sentence structure and even using adjectives. (example: black pen (English), boligrafo un negro (Spanish. Spelling may be off.)

If you take a human with a clean slate, logically Chinese would be the hardest language to learn.  There is one symbol for every word.  Even a basic vocabulary of 1000 words would be testing.  I also read that in Mandarin Chinese a word can be said in 4 tones having 4 meanings.  Cantonese has up to 9.

For those of you who think English is the hardest language to learn.  I will agree and disagree.  English is one of the EASIEST languages to learn to speak badly.  It is middle of the road when it comes to speaking properly.  Writing proper English has to be one of, if not the most difficult.  I’ve been reading, writing, and speaking English for 22 years and still do not write properly all the time.  Don’t even get me started on grammer… or is it grammar?

Which languages have you felt the hardest to learn and in what aspects?  (The following are my PERSONAL experiences with a few languages.)

French - Reading: Moderate.  Pronounciation: Hard.
Spanish - Writing and Reading: Easy.  Pronounciation: Easy.
Arabic - Writing and Reading: Moderate.  Pronounciation: Hardest.
English - Reading and speaking fluent.  Writing will never be 100% as the language constantly changes.  It was my first language but I feel it is difficult to master, easy to mess up, yet also easy for people to understand you.

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