Polish was chosen the HARDEST LANGUAGE in the world to learn... :D

MarekThreads: 4 Posts: 1,120 Joined: Feb 15, 07 ♂	Apr 15, 09, 17:00 #91
......and it is!!!!

avoice

Apr 16, 09, 00:54 #92

I've given this some thought and Polish is no more complicated than most other Slavic languages, with maybe the exception of Bulgarian. They all share common characteristics of grammar and vocabulary. Standard Russian may be the greatest deviation from the original Slavic tongue because Moscow was pretty much on edge of the Slavic world when the language was developing. Naturally, I can't say which is the most difficult language to master because I have not been exposed to most of the languages, but the one that seems extremely difficult is Arabic. First it is highly declined and conjugated like the Slavic languages, but added to that it is massively idiomatic, so you have to learn all the nuances of their expresssions to speak it fluently. In this it's a little like English, whose grammar is very straightforward but whose idiom is also massive.

avoice	Apr 16, 09, 01:02 #93
Lyzko: The most challenging languages for me to pronounce are Georgian and the Greenlandic variety of Innuit. Georgian and some small Caucasian area relatives seems to be an isolate like Basque is, unrelated to any other large language families. I don't think it's turkic or altaic. I have heard it spoken but only by some Armenians so I can't say whether I have the full flavor of it.

avoice

Apr 16, 09, 01:15 #94

z_darius:

A while ago, in pre-Internet times, I read somewhere the Polish language was used by Israeli pilots during the Six-Day War of 1967, and it also was, what Egyptians thought, an unbreakable military code.

A completely unknown language--except to its speakers--would indeed be an unbreakable code if it was unrelated to any known existing languages from which its structure and vocabulary could be inferred. If you could reconstruct Etruscan, you'd have yourself a perfect code. The Navajo tongue was chosen I think because the Japanese probably didn't have any Navajo speakers or even any linguists who had knowledge of it (I could be wrong about that, though) and there are quite a few Navajo speakers. Even if the Japanese had some linguists who could figure this out, it would be hard to break because Navajo was used on the spot in combat and its messages needed to be understood only in the moment. By the time a linguist got to it and tranlated it and sent it back, it would be too late.

mafketisThreads: 15 Posts: 1,830 Joined: Mar 31, 08 ♂	Edited by: mafketis Apr 16, 09, 02:02 #95
z_darius: Navajo ineed sounds like a linguistic hell for the non native speakers. Oh, did I forget to mention it has tones?

osiolThreads: 59 Posts: 4,714 Joined: Jul 25, 07 ♂	Apr 16, 09, 02:14 #96
I believe some of the Central American languages make a distinction between creaky and non-creaky vocal sounds, rather like the kind of affectation people often make when imitating the very old or like the aaarrgghh that one of the Eric Idle characters in the Holy Grail makes when he's deciphering something written on the wall of a cave.

wildroverThreads: 180 Posts: 8,143 Joined: Jun 7, 07 ♂	Apr 16, 09, 02:18 #97
Lyzko: Polish was chosen the HARDEST LANGUAGE in the world to learn... I hope it wasn,t the Polish that chose this....?

♂

Apr 16, 09, 07:20 #98

osiol:

I believe some of the Central American languages make a distinction between creaky and non-creaky vocal sounds

Can't say I've heard of this in terms of Central American languages. IME creaky voice is more commonly associated with SE Asia. Burmese and Vietnamese especially have tones that are partly distinguished by creaky voice.

There are many native american languages (N, C and S America) that have glottalizaed consonants (usually written p' t' k' s' etc) for these the throat closes while the consonant is pronounced and then opened (the exact timing differs from language to language). It often creates a distinct kind of catch in the voice, in the case of k' or q' it can sound almost like a click.

MarekThreads: 4 Posts: 1,120 Joined: Feb 15, 07 ♂	Apr 17, 09, 14:29 #99
What about the Hottentot languages of South Africa with their almost unmimicable "click sounds"??-:)) LOL Cantonese though probably comes in a close second, at least for me and other Westerners, even those who already spoke some Mandarin!!!!

♀

Apr 18, 09, 15:36 #100

Marek:

Cantonese though probably comes in a close second

I thought Cantonese was relatively easy - I mean there's no past tense or verb endings to worry about. Also the Cantonese for Monday - Saturday translates as Day1, Day2, Day3 etc....... and there are lots of other aspects of the language that are so simple. I know it's a tonal language but I love singing so it's just like learning the tune of the words. 是嗎 ?

MarekThreads: 4 Posts: 1,120 Joined: Feb 15, 07 ♂	Apr 18, 09, 16:07 #101
I guess I was only referring to the pronounciation, not to the grammar-:)))

♂

Apr 18, 09, 20:09 #102

Been looking into learning Albanian of late, as an abundance of our student body have been registering from Albania and many of our our present students hail from that country. Albanian seems even more morphologically complex than either Polish or Russian! Just for starters, it has no infinitives, multi word stems, irregular plural formations and a word stock taken largely from the ancient Illyrian family of long-extinct Balkan languages.

All this apropos of difficulties in order of language-:))))

southernThreads: 116 Posts: 10,900 Joined: May 17, 07 ♂	Apr 18, 09, 21:44 #103
Marek: into learning Albanian Turning into a shriptar?No way.

♂

Apr 18, 09, 23:04 #104

I heard a story.
Some Albanians stole a truck in Greece and they were heading towards Albania. Police pursuit followed. The thieves approached the border. But there was no road there to cross the border. They went into a field but stopped there, got off and ran away to Albania. After some time when the Greek police were trying to get the truck out of the field a tank (Russian made thing obviously) appeared from Albania (don't know if it fired) but it crossed the border definitely making the Greek police take flight. The truck was hauled afterwards into Albanian territory.

I am not sure if this story is really true

but certain things I know make it quite believable - there was once chaos in Albania after some breakdown of financial pyramids - army depots were run over, lots of military equipment stolen (they say everyone now owns a gun in Albania (AK 47 for that maatter)

southernThreads: 116 Posts: 10,900 Joined: May 17, 07 ♂	Edited by: southern Apr 18, 09, 23:29 #105
gumishu: lots of military equipment stolen (they say everyone now owns a gun in Albania (AK 47 for that maatter) I confirm that.When this stealing happened,you could get an AK47 in Greece with 200 euro. Albanian army is now in serious shortage of AK47s.

♂

Apr 19, 09, 00:27 #106

The American Foreign institute calls Hungarian the hardest language to learn for an English speaker and some other British government office called Japanese the hardest language for an English speaker.

Polish is hard, no doubt about it but I'm not sure how claritaslux figured this out, also what really would be the difference between the difficulty of say Russian/Czech to an English speaker? Pronunciation? It's not that crazily different and though we'll always have accents you can get by with the pronunciation.

I'm actually sort of sick of hearing about Polish's difficulty, some people wear it like a badge and tell me how difficult it is as if they were the first to let me in on it.

Kasss	Apr 19, 09, 00:52 #107
Keep poles speaking polish and I'll be happy :-) Polacy nie gęsi, swój język mają ;p Polish is the best because it's very uncommon language and if I went abroad and said sth to the foreigners, they wouldn't understand me and that makes my native language special ;p But personally I don't think that's not the hardest language to learn.

♂

Edited by: PennBoy Apr 19, 09, 01:02 #108

joland:

I did have the opportunity to learn one of the hardest, and supposedly the most grammatically-complex Slavic language, Polish. It is certainly harder than Croatian, which I already knew when I started to learn Polish.

Well if you're Croatian it shouldn't be that had, people say English is harder to learn than Polish, English words are spelled one way and pernounced a different way, it was easy for me cause i went to an American school, if you go to school and ur just a kid you'll learn quickly, it's harder trying to learn it by yourself and when you're older. I'm starting to learn Russian, i like how it sounds, in many ways its similar to Polish many words are the same also, im starting by learning the words themselves and looking and tranliterations, not yet focusing on the cyrilic alphabet.

gumishuThreads: 13 Posts: 3,634 Joined: Apr 6, 09 ♂	Apr 19, 09, 01:04 #109
polska język trudna język :P ona być najtrudniejsza - nie wiedzieć ;)

♂

Edited by: Castanea Apr 19, 09, 20:07 #110

Marek:

Been looking into learning Albanian of late, as an abundance of our student body have been registering from Albania and many of our our present students hail from that country. Albanian seems even more morphologically complex than either Polish or Russian! Just for starters, it has no infinitives, multi word stems, irregular plural formations and a word stock taken largely from the ancient Illyrian family of long-extinct Balkan languages.

All this apropos of difficulties in order of language-:))))

Don't learn the language of those muslim turk shiptars. They sell their own kids and traffic women for sex in Italy.

MarekThreads: 4 Posts: 1,120 Joined: Feb 15, 07 ♂	Apr 20, 09, 15:10 #111
Castanea, We really oughtn't judge other countries by their politics, after all we Americans are basically honest by nature:)))))) LOL "They sell their own kids and traffic women....." Well nobody's perfect! Never met a single youngster you'd wouldn't like to sell, huh???? Now, don't take me the wrong way. Just, let's not be hypocrites here, ok?

♂

Apr 21, 09, 01:52 #112

Marek:

Castanea,

We really oughtn't judge other countries by their politics, after all we Americans are basically honest by nature:)))))) LOL

"They sell their own kids and traffic women....."

Well nobody's perfect! Never met a single youngster you'd wouldn't like to sell, huh???? Now, don't take me the wrong way. Just, let's not be hypocrites here, ok?

Americans with common sense do not have any say in government policy. I'm not a hypocrite. I have never sold a child. You can't judge me a hypocrite by what thoughts you think I may have had.

MarekThreads: 4 Posts: 1,120 Joined: Feb 15, 07 ♂	Apr 21, 09, 16:01 #113
Castanea, is English your first language????! Yo, pal I was only goofin' witcha--:)))) Guess the shtick zoomed right past ya. My "material" needs a little work, I see. LOL

SamenessLoveThreads: 1 Posts: 49 Joined: Apr 24, 09 ♂	Apr 27, 09, 01:17 #114
It's a blessing that the Polish language is difficult.

gumishuThreads: 13 Posts: 3,634 Joined: Apr 6, 09 ♂	Apr 27, 09, 11:15 #115
SamenessLove: It's a blessing that the Polish language is difficult. maybe a blessing in disguise ;)

BabylonThreads: 28 Posts: 335 Joined: Oct 9, 06 ♂	Apr 27, 09, 13:30 #116
Slovaks can learn Polish very easy

gumishuThreads: 13 Posts: 3,634 Joined: Apr 6, 09 ♂	Apr 27, 09, 13:35 #117
and I can understand a lot of Slovak partly because I understand quite a lot of Czech as I have the benefit of Czech TV availability. And very often Slovak sounds as Czech with Polish accents/pronounciation (to Polish ears)

Lyzko	Apr 27, 09, 20:14 #118
I find it's easier for me to go from Polish to Russian than in reverse. But then, I'm not native born to either language--:)))

♂

Apr 27, 09, 20:28 #119

blindside70:

what really would be the difference between the difficulty of say Russian/Czech to an English speaker? Pronunciation? It's not that crazily

The devil is in the detail. If you're English you are pretty unlikely to hear differences among Polish, Czech and Russian. These differences are obvious to the speakers of the 3 languages. Heck, in many cases Poles can tell which part of Poland someone is from by their accent, and that with differences much more subtle than East End and West End of London.

Lyzko	Apr 27, 09, 22:58 #120
I can spot a Pole from Zakopane, frankly, as soon as they say any word with 'ł', since most pronounce it, like in stage/screen diction, as if it were a 'dark' Russian 'l' variety. Also, some Poles say 'taKże', while from others it sounds more to me like 'taGże'. Are these regional differences, or am I mistaken? Marku

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