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


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F15guyThreads: 1
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Gender: Male 		  Apr 30, 09, 20:26 / #121
mafketis:
Simplified basic rules on Polish vocative (there may be an exception here or there):

Thank you, Mafketisu. Very helpful.
F15guyThreads: 1
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Gender: Male 		  Apr 30, 09, 20:47 / #122
avoice:
because the Japanese probably didn't have any Navajo speakers or even any linguists who had knowledge of it

The Japanese had captured a couple of Navahoes who were not code talkers. The problem was, the captured people recognized the words, but didn't know what they meant. Navaho for turtle stood for a tank. Literal Navaho "Turkey Rain" sounds a bit like terrain when literally translated so turkey rain was terrain.

See [url=http://www.nativewiki.org/Code_talker][/url] and

[url=http://www.windtalkersthemovie.com/html/index.html][/url]

for good explanations.
CzwartekThreads: 2
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Gender: Male 		  May 17, 09, 04:14 / #123
If Navajo is so difficult and unknown, hot did they train American soldiers in it in time to use it in battle? It would have surely taken years.

I read most of the wiki article on the language, and it looks pretty insane, reminiscent of Greenlandic.

I don't have much useful to contribute to this conversation, except that the level of difficulty of any language is extremely subjective according to who you ask, their native language, their experience with the language in question and their experience with foreign languages in general. When I first started learning Polish a few years ago, I couldn't imagine anything more complicated and harder to remember, but as I became familiar with more words and sentences and how they're formed, it became much easier to learn new words and expressions.

A few months ago I began trying to learn Turkish, just the basics. I'd still like to if I had the time and energy, but alas, peering too deeply into the complex verb conjugation put me off (although the cases system and consonant clusters in Polish had the same effect on me at first too).

My real passioin is Finnish, although sad to say I'm not as actively trying to learn it as I once was. Mutta suomi on maailman kaunein kieli! But it's the world's most beautiful language. Well, I think so. Complicated? Hell yeah, like a candy covered rubik's cube. It's just extremely pleasant to the eyes and ears, and that makes it enjoyable to learn.

Oh, and for those of you saying languages don't need genders, try Finnish and Turkish, no arbitrarily assigning genders to objects, no distinction even between he and she, and (like Polish) no definite or indefinite articles.
shopgirlThreads: 7
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Gender: Female 		  May 17, 09, 05:12 / #124
Czwartek:
If Navajo is so difficult and unknown, hot did they train American soldiers in it in time to use it in battle?

They didn't. They used Navajo men as soldiers who were the code talkers.
Navajo was an attractive choice for code use because few people outside the Navajo themselves had ever learned to speak the language. Virtually no books in Navajo had ever been published. Outside of the language itself, the Navajo spoken code was not very complex by cryptographic standards and would likely have been broken if a native speaker and trained cryptographers worked together effectively.
MichalThreads: -
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Gender: Male 		  May 17, 09, 22:24 / #125
Bratwurst Boy:
German-only four cases and like five exceptions, everything is logical, of course.

German may not use so many cases but the language is harder than Polish all the same. There are officially more cases in Polish but they are not always used in practice though and the Poles, themselves, rarely know the difference!
jojospacemunkyThreads: 4
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Gender: Female 		  May 17, 09, 23:33 / #126
Michal:
German may not use so many cases but the language is harder than Polish all the same

mmmm i would say Estonian is harder more ... as it has 14 cases so that more than Polish!
Lyzko   May 18, 09, 00:02 / #127
Hungarian has almost twenty-(20) odd "working" cases in everyday use. Surely, Hungarians mess them up sometimes as well, yet the sheer amount of inflectional information definitely challenges the foreign learner (myself, for instance!) in ways Polish doesn't.

Returning to Navajo, indeed, its very intricacy and lack of world exposure made it a perfect conduit for the code talkers:-)

German, in my umpteen years experience teaching, writing in and translating it, poses more difficulty in the word order, according to many of my students over the years. Never yet heard from anyone that they became actually "dizzy" following a single sentence as I have when novices tackle their first piece of technical German, for instance, a patent.

)))))))
Marek
CzwartekThreads: 2
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Gender: Male 		  May 18, 09, 00:23 / #128
The number of cases a language has doesn't necessarily indicate its difficulty. Finnish has 15 cases, but about half of them are locative and simply replace prepositions. As long as you can remember '-ssa' means 'in', '-lla' means 'on', etc. Hungarian and Estonian are related to Finnish, and I believe they have a similar system.
osiolThreads: 59
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Gender: Male 		  May 18, 09, 00:44 / #129
Estonian looks very similar to Finnish but with shorter words. It seems that rather than having to learn endings and prepositions, you only have to learn endings. Maybe it's not entirely as straightforward as that, but somewhere in storage I have a load of books left over from some jumble sales a few years ago, and I think there might be a teach yourself Estonian book there. One day, when I've long since given up with Polish and even decided not to bother with Portuguese (I think that's supposed to be my second choice), I shall have a look.
z_dariusThreads: 20
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Gender: Male 		  May 18, 09, 03:56 / #130
Michal:
German may not use so many cases but the language is harder than Polish all the same. There are officially more cases in Polish but they are not always used in practice though and the Poles, themselves, rarely know the difference!

How would you know if you're not proficient in either?
MichalThreads: -
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Gender: Male 		  May 18, 09, 07:51 / #131
z_darius:
How would you know if you're not proficient in either?

I could ask the same about you as you too are not so fantastic in either. Anyway, in answering the question, most slavic languages are similar so Polish would be no harder than Czech or Russian, which are grammatically very similar indeed. What about Chinese/ I would have thought that for a European, that would generally be much more difficult. Many Europeans in Poland can speak excellent Polish in Poland after a year or two.
jakubzurawskiThreads: -
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Gender: Male 		  May 18, 09, 12:25 / #132
17 grammatical forms for the number 2

1. dwa
2. dwie
3. dwoje
4. dwóch (or dwu)
5. dwaj
6. dwiema
7. dwom (or dwóm)
8. dwoma
9. dwojga
10. dwojgu
11. dwojgiem
12. dwójka
13. dwójki
14. dwójkę
15. dwójką
16. dwójce
17. dwójko

You are confusing some things :) you have put various forms of at least 3 different words in this list:
1) "dwa" which is a cardinal number, it is used in a similar way adjectives are (most cardinal numbers are, but "dwa" is an exception...)
2) "dwoje" which is a used only when talking about people (e.g. "dwoje dzieci"), it is used like a noun
3) "dwójka" which is a noun, it is name of the digit "2" - and by the way, you didn;t include the whole set of forms of this word :) (there also also: dwójek, dwójkom, dwójkach, dwójkami ...)

To add even more - "dwójka" is a diminutive for "dwója" - which means something like a "big" digit "2" :)
MarekThreads: 4
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Gender: Male 		  May 18, 09, 23:16 / #133
Probably, learning Polish for an English speaker is tougher than German from the perspective of inflectional changes. But German is possibly more difficult in terms of word order and sentence length, in addition to those pesky separable vs. inseparable prefixes))
CzwartekThreads: 2
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Gender: Male 		  May 19, 09, 00:02 / #134
I think it depends on the learner's mother tongue. An English speaker for example would likely find German, Dutch or Danish easier than a speaker of a Slavic language. And a Polish person would no doubt have an easier time with Czech or Russian.
Cardno85Threads: 30
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Gender: Male 		  May 19, 09, 01:34 / #135
Czwartek:
I think it depends on the learner's mother tongue. An English speaker for example would likely find German, Dutch or Danish easier than a speaker of a Slavic language. And a Polish person would no doubt have an easier time with Czech or Russian.

well said that man, coming from a west coast scottish background (with a bit of gaelic), I am finding Polish much easier than german, french and italian. Which doesn't make sense as my language is based around Latin and Germanic roots. However I also find the language very interesting, so that might have something to do with it.

There is no such thing as a hardest language in the world. My family in shetland could pick up Norwegian easily and that is not an easy language. It all depends on your mother tongue and how keen you are to learn!
z_dariusThreads: 20
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Gender: Male 		  May 19, 09, 02:00 / #136
Michal:
Many Europeans in Poland can speak excellent Polish in Poland after a year or two.

How excellent and how many? 5?
CzwartekThreads: 2
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Gender: Male 		  May 19, 09, 02:52 / #137
Cardno85:
My family in shetland could pick up Norwegian easily and that is not an easy language.

That's interesting. Is Norwegian spoken in the Shetlands? Is there much Scandinavian culture there? I'm teaching myself Norwegian (mainly from online material) and find it quite easy, despite having nearly no exposure to the language where I live. I suppose spoken Norwegian can be difficult since it has quite a different tone to English and a few new vowels sounds, but grammatically it's very similar to English.

I agree completely that it helps if it's a language you're interested in. That's likely why I find Norwegian easy. I have a small passion for Scandinavia as a whole. I tried learning French and couldn't get into it at all, simply because I had no interest in it. Is that why you found Polish easier than German, French and Italian, because you were interested in it?
osiolThreads: 59
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Gender: Male 		  May 19, 09, 03:01 / #138
Shetland was historically a Norse society. The language known as Norn was spoken there, in Orkney and the very far north of Scotland. It was a direct descendent of Old Norse, just as the still-spoken Icelandic and Faeroese languages are. Some kind of deal was done between Norway (or possibly some sort of Norwegian-Danish monarchy) and Shetland was handed over to Scotland and settled by Scottish landlords. I'm not sure whether they spoke Gaelic or Scots (the English language's northern twin). As the English language came to prevail over Scotland generally, so it came to be spoken in these northern Islands too.

It is possible that Gaelic was never spoken here and that the language spoken by Shetlanders shifted from Norn to English with a heavy Norse-influence. I have heard it being spoken and it doesn't sound particularly Scottish. If anything, it resembles the English of the far north of England (where there was also a lot of Norse influence, only this time much further back in history).
Cardno85Threads: 30
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Gender: Male 		  May 19, 09, 03:10 / #139
Right, shetland was a Viking/Norse community for many years after the Vikings left the UK. In the early years of Scotland we had 3 countries in one. In the North East we had Norse people, in the south east we had Pictish and in the west it was Gaels from Ireland that settled there. Eventually the Pictish overthrew the Gaelic king and formed a united Scotland under Clan Rule (still prevalent in modern scottish law). So in shetland they speak a mix of old norse and english, hence why norwegian is easy for them. For me, I have lived abroad and used to speak arabic, mandarin and malay (i learned through speaking as a child but have since forgotten). So I have had no ties to the polish language, but I don't find it that daunting. At first it seemed impossible, but as time has passed it has become easier both with pronunciation and grammar.

In conclusion, I reckon that to say any language is the hardest to learn in the world is just silly.
SalomonThreads: 6
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Gender: Male 		Edited by: Salomon   May 19, 09, 03:22 / #140
As to Vikings and UK.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boleslaw_I_of_Poland

In 1015 Bolesław sent a detachment of Polish horsemen to aid his nephew Canute the Great, son of his sister Swietoslawa, in his conquest of England

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canute_the_Great

Cnut the Great, also known as Canute or Knut (Old Norse: Knútr inn ríki;[1] died 12 November 1035) was a Viking king of England, Denmark and Norway. His successes as a statesman, politically and militarily, prove him to be one of the greatest figures of medieval Europe

canute

Cnut the Great's domains, in red. Vassals are denoted in orange, with other allied states in yellow
SalomonThreads: 6
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Gender: Male 		  May 19, 09, 04:13 / #141
People in UK celebrate this conquest to this day :

York Viking battle re-enactment
osiolThreads: 59
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Gender: Male 		  May 19, 09, 04:37 / #142
Salomon:
People in UK celebrate this conquest to this day :

There are odd people who like dressing up in a wide variety of costumes. Some of them like to quaff mead too. It's easier than learning Polish.
SalomonThreads: 6
Posts: 602
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Gender: Male 		Edited by: Salomon   May 19, 09, 05:05 / #143
osiol:
There are odd people who like dressing up in a wide variety of costumes.

I like it

Here are Polish "Vikings" building fleet:



I prefere later middle ages inscenisations annyway ... I find such learning of history as very interesting.
shopgirlThreads: 7
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Gender: Female 		  May 19, 09, 05:29 / #144
osiol:
Shetland was historically a Norse society. The language known as Norn was spoken there, in Orkney and the very far north of Scotland.

Donkey, why do you know so much about languages? Do you have a degree in linguistics or something. I have seen you comment on language in threads with Crow about the movements of ancient Slavic tribes, and in the DNA thread involving language, and so now I am very curious. Is this a hobby or more than that? :)
DaisyThreads: 6
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Gender: Female 		Edited by: Daisy   May 19, 09, 07:20 / #145
osiol:
The language known as Norn was spoken there

The Lords prayer in Norn

Favor i ir i chimrie, Helleur ir i nam thite,
gilla cosdum thite cumma, veya thine mota vara gort
o yurn sinna gort i chimrie,
ga vus da on da dalight brow vora
Firgive vus sinna vora sin vee Firgive sindara mutha vus,
lyv vus ye i tumtation, min delivera vus fro olt ilt, Amen.

The Lords prayer in Old English, or Englisc
Fæder ure þu þe eart on heofonum,
Si þin nama gehalgod.
to becume þin rice, gewurþe ðin willa,
on eorðan swa swa on heofonum.
urne gedæghwamlican hlaf syle us todæg,
and forgyf us ure gyltas,
z_dariusThreads: 20
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Gender: Male 		  May 19, 09, 14:54 / #146
Cardno85:
In conclusion, I reckon that to say any language is the hardest to learn in the world is just silly.

Not really silly if you know about the psychology of language skills. To start with, any language is easy for a native speaker. Then there are 2nd, 3rd and so on languages. Awareness and skills of languages other than your native language are a huge step in making subsequent languages easier to learn since, to simplify things, your mind has been trained, achieving a degree of mental flexibility, and the flexibility of the organs of speech. You have that experience.

The issue then is not just how hard a language is in isolation, but how hard it would be in comparison to other languages which are not one native ones. The difficulty in "unlearning" the old, rather than learning the new, if you will. Much like driving a car. My first car was a standard. I had quite a ride trying to unlearn that and drive an easier to handle automatic instead.

Still, there are languages with certain complexities not present in one's native language. Often those complexities are not subject to simple translations but are the result of hundreds, or thousands of years of social development, intricacies etc. On the basic level it's not hard to communicate in many languages after just 1 month of intense study. I tried with English. All it really takes is less than 2000 words, some basic grammatical structures and you can get by, defining word you don't know using the words you do know. Try to communicate in Polish using 2000 words and "basic" grammatical structures. No way Jose. I experienced that too. The Polish texts were incomprehensible in writing.

I also heard Polish spoken by "quick learners" (Radio Tirana). It took me about 10 minutes of intense listening to even realize I was listening to a broadcast in, what turned out to be Polish. That wasn't poor Polish, or incorrect Polish. That was simply gibberish.
Cardno85Threads: 30
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Gender: Male 		  May 19, 09, 15:59 / #147
z_darius:
On the basic level it's not hard to communicate in many languages after just 1 month of intense study. I tried with English. All it really takes is less than 2000 words, some basic grammatical structures and you can get by, defining word you don't know using the words you do know. Try to communicate in Polish using 2000 words and "basic" grammatical structures. No way Jose. I experienced that too. The Polish texts were incomprehensible in writing.

Ahhh, this now makes more sense to me. Not so silly after all.

But as for the topic heading, is that the hardest language in the world for English speakers? Or in general. Because surely a Czech person could pick up Polish easier than say, an Italian person? No?
z_dariusThreads: 20
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Gender: Male 		  May 19, 09, 16:34 / #148
Cardno85:
But as for the topic heading, is that the hardest language in the world for English speakers? Or in general. Because surely a Czech person could pick up Polish easier than say, an Italian person? No?

I dunno if Polish is the most difficult of them all. It's not easy for sure.
As for the Czechs picking up Polish, yes, it is that background that'll make it easier for them. Again, that linguistic background.
Cardno85Threads: 30
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Gender: Male 		  May 19, 09, 16:36 / #149
z_darius:
It's not easy for sure.

There's certainly no argument there mate. Although one day I'll get there...
CzwartekThreads: 2
Posts: 14
Joined: May 16, 09
Gender: Male 		  May 19, 09, 18:21 / #150
z_darius:
On the basic level it's not hard to communicate in many languages after just 1 month of intense study. I tried with English. All it really takes is less than 2000 words, some basic grammatical structures and you can get by, defining word you don't know using the words you do know. Try to communicate in Polish using 2000 words and "basic" grammatical structures. No way Jose. I experienced that too. The Polish texts were incomprehensible in writing.

I certainly don't know more than 2000 Polish words, I'd be surprised if I know 1000. My grammar understanding is so-so as well. But I can hold a basic conversation in Polish and make myself understood. My main problem is understanding the other person. Despite having been leaning for a few years, I still sometimes have to say jeszcze raz or proszę mówić powoli if they speak too quickly or use a word I don't know. And even if they only use words I know, sometimes it takes a few seconds to put those words in context and understand the full sentence.

In short, memorising words and grammar rules is only the start. If that was all that's involved in learning a language it would be possible to 'learn' virtually any language in a month with enough material. The difficult part is being able to think in that language and usie it as a reliable communication medium.
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