Which is the toughest language to learn?

2 ANSWERS

1. Saba
   

   i think its Japaneses.. what do you think

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2. GiGi
   

   Chinese, especially Cantonese. Almost all Chinese dialects have tones which means a simple word like 'ma' can be pronounced in 5 different ways (in Mandarin). Mandarin has 4 tones, Cantonese has 9. So once you get past the tones and listening to the language, you have to write it. In order to be considered literate, you need a good working knowledge of 3,000 characters. Most university graduates in China know 5,000+ characters. For non-native speakers, Cantonese would be hardest to learn purely because 99% of speakers are native, it's just too hard for everyone else.
   P.S. Japanese and Korean are hard, but as both have scripts that act like alphabets and aid in pronunciation, this makes it easier for people to learn.
   
   OR
   
   AFAIK Finnish (suomi) is quite impossible: no female/male nouns, one single declination with 14 cases. It means that for each word you have 14 endings which give you a different meaning, and that those endings combined with preposition change it further. This without taking into account languages from other alphabets and cultures (Finns are from the western world, so with a similar culture to ours, and they use a "readable" alphabet).
   
   It all depends from where you do come from: a Spanish will have no problem to learn my language, Italian. An English native speaker will find it harder, I suppose that for a Chinese it would be like h**l. (and the other way round, of course). You can't make a survey, if not by clarifying: "What's the hardest language to learn for (an English native speaker; an Italian native speaker; an--- whatever).

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