What Was The Hardest Language For Me To Learn? My List

Summary

In this video, the speaker reflects on their personal language-learning journey, discussing the challenges they faced with various languages. While acknowledging the subjective nature of language difficulty, they highlight the objective factors such as script complexity and syntax. The speaker shares their experiences learning Italian, English, French, Japanese, Mandarin, and Latin, ranking Latin as the most difficult, followed by Japanese. They stress the importance of practice, especially with native speakers, to overcome language learning challenges. The key takeaway is that language difficulty can be significantly reduced through consistent practice and interpersonal connections.

Takeaways

• 😀 Language difficulty is subjective, and personal interest and exposure to a language can significantly influence how hard or easy it feels to learn.
• 😀 Some aspects of language difficulty are objective, such as the writing system, with languages like Chinese, Japanese, and Korean being more complex than languages using the Latin alphabet.
• 😀 The difficulty of a language can depend on factors like your first language, your personal connections, and whether you have opportunities to practice with native speakers.
• 😀 The speaker was brought up bilingually, with Italian as their first language and Sicilian as a second language, which helped them build synaptic connections early on.
• 😀 The speaker learned English during their late teens, living in the UK and also interacting with French-speaking colleagues and communities to improve their French.
• 😀 The speaker's academic journey focused on languages, studying languages like French, English, Japanese, and Mandarin during high school and university, leading to fluency in Japanese.
• 😀 Classical Latin was the hardest language for the speaker to learn, due to the lack of speaking practice and resources available, despite the language being considered 'dead'.
• 😀 Japanese was the second hardest language for the speaker, mainly because of its complicated conjugation system and the difficulty of learning the kanji script, which is not logical or mnemonic like Mandarin.
• 😀 Mandarin, although still challenging, was easier to learn for the speaker compared to Japanese, partly due to the simpler pronunciation system and the language's logical reading system.
• 😀 French was relatively easy to learn for the speaker, but they have not yet achieved full fluency. Spanish is considered the easiest language to learn for them, especially for conversational fluency.
• 😀 The primary message of the video is that language difficulty is influenced by multiple factors, including personal interest, practice opportunities, and realistic expectations for progress.
• 😀 The speaker emphasizes that having people to practice with, especially native speakers or fluent individuals, can greatly reduce the perceived difficulty of learning a language.

Q & A

What languages did the speaker study throughout their life?

The speaker studied several languages, including Italian, Sicilian, English, French, Japanese, Mandarin, Latin, Modern Greek, and Ancient Greek.

How does the speaker define difficulty in learning a language?

The speaker believes that language difficulty is subjective but acknowledges that some aspects, like the alphabet, writing system, syntax, and lexicon, can be objectively more challenging depending on the language.

Why does the speaker consider Sicilian a language rather than a dialect?

The speaker views Sicilian as a language because, despite its similarities to Italian, its syntactic structures are different enough to be considered a separate system by the brain, even though some might classify it as a dialect.

How did the speaker learn English?

The speaker learned English in their late teens after moving to the UK, where they lived and interacted with a French-speaking roommate and a community of French-speaking Africans.

What did the speaker study in university and why?

The speaker studied languages at university, specifically English and Japanese, and later added Mandarin as a third language. The speaker chose this path because they had a strong interest in languages and wanted to study Japanese, which had always been their dream.

Which language did the speaker find the hardest to learn and why?

The speaker found Classical Latin the hardest to learn, not only because it is challenging but also due to the lack of conversational practice, which made it harder to achieve fluency.

What made Japanese more difficult than Mandarin for the speaker?

The speaker found Japanese harder due to its complicated conjugation system, the challenge of mastering kanji (characters originally designed for Mandarin), and the complexity of pitch accent in pronunciation, which is harder to grasp than Mandarin tones.

How did the speaker describe the relationship between Mandarin and Japanese in terms of writing systems?

The speaker explained that kanji characters were originally designed for Mandarin, which is monosyllabic, but are used in Japanese, which is a polysyllabic language, making the integration of these characters into Japanese complicated.

What is the primary message the speaker conveys about language difficulty?

The speaker emphasizes that language difficulty is influenced by factors like personal interest, native language, and the availability of people to practice with. Having conversation partners, particularly native speakers, can significantly reduce the perceived difficulty of learning a language.

What is the speaker's advice for learning multiple languages at the same time?

The speaker advises against learning several difficult languages simultaneously, especially without practice partners. They recommend starting with one difficult language and considering easier ones as second or third languages, particularly if you are already fluent in a related language.