Nana_Brazil

Hi, guys if you have to rank the 3 most difficult languages which ones would you choose?

MikeL

It would depend on what your mother tongue is. For English speakers, Asian languages tend to be the most difficult, and I expect that would apply to most Europeans. Languages like Chinese which use tones to convey word meanings are very hard for us to learn to speak fluently.
Zhongguohua hen nan!!

But I have heard that Basque is an impossible language (invented by the Devil himself according to one legend...)

The_FD

I pretty agree with MikeL that asian languages might be the most difficult languages to learn for both european and american people. Though I guess chinese (talk about this one because I know it for a bit) is not that tough to speak but is almost impossible to write.

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Nana_Brazil

Maybe I was not clear when I asked that question in this post. The reason for it was, to discuss and let everyone here knows about languages. I am sure all of us can learn things if a friend of other part of the globe says ... " hey.. easy, easy this is hard to understand " or "wow your language is not so strange like I thought. " Even some hints could be given here like... In my language, one of the bareers to speak is a spelling sign named TIL (~ ) in which you must make a nasal sound, like in "PÃO" which means ," bread". In English TH sound is also another bareeer for many speakers, like H in Arabic. I remember when I spoke the name AHMED my Arab friends laughed a lot, lol
I agree with you both and also agree to what MikeL says about depending on where you are from. But speaking in a general way I asked a rank in 3 numbers (even if you rank your own mother tongue)... It does not matter if you know and speak the language or you simply cannot. For instance, another apect in Portuguese, is ... it is not impossible to learn but difficult when you try to go into its grammar deeply. Even Brazilian people make mistakes in spelling it ( both ways). I do not speak German but I heard is not so easy either, Turkish is a kind of complexed language, Japanese, Chinese, Arabic Russian, omg!!! lol

Hey, MikeL I am a languages lover, I would like to try that "Basque devil`s language" lol.

Nani

I agree with MikeL and FD , i think Asian languages are very hard ... In Arabic we have some letters which are very hard to be said by someone whose mother tongue is not arabic , like the letter ( H .. and it is not h , it is ح , and kh خ .. the ( kh ) sound is like the spanish ( j ) it is also close to Ch in German doch or X in Russian .. also the ( aen ع ) this sounds is very hard because there is no equivalent to it in any other language it is produced in the throat , non arabs would say it like the letter ( O or U ) , but this is not the exact sound.
I don't think any language would be impossible after you practice it or speak it in its enviornemnt .. the problem occures when you learn a language without using it , or hearing it from a native speaker .

Asminha

Aha..Another language lover speaking here..Listen all :D

Well well, you opened a topic that passionates me!!

Arabic first, I agree with Nani, I know that non Arab people have trouble with some letters, especially "3ein". Technically, we all have the same potentiel to speak, but it's pretty hard to make sounds that you have never heard, may be practice will help..
But don't you worry about it, Arabic is such a lovely language!! :D

Asian languages...Hmmm...I have the intention to try Japanese..May be later..But when I tried to listen to the first lesson in a web site (www.japanese-online.com), I couldn't recognize letters in what they said, it seemed to me that they were just making sounds, that was pretty weird for me..You know, with other languages you kinda have to articulate!!

Basque??? Never heard about, but just like Nana, I owuld love to try the impossible..Actually that's what makes me interested in languages like Japanese and Chinese..It's a challenge for me!!

Asminha

Portuguese..Please let's avoid grammarfor a while ..

You know, I gave it a shot, and I went like trying to explore oxitonas, paroxitonas, and preparoxitonas..God!! Isn't that a troture?? It might seem so easy for you, but for me, to be able to know at the same time what accent to put (I don't have your weird accents anyway ), and also how to prunouce them...C'est pas de la tarte!!!

Back to the topic..I personnaly can't say what language is the most difficult to learn..I believe that with time, patience and determination..You can do whatever you want.. :-)