German is the most difficult language?

[alphaomega34]

Hi,

I have lived in Canada for a couple of years to study and work. I am in Germany now and having difficulty learning German. English is not my mother tongue but I can say that learning English was much easier than learning German. (Germany is such a beautiful country, though. OTL )

Here is Warmbad in Wolkenstein. If you know a good language school near where I live, please let me know. If you are interested in exchanging languages (English and/or Korean German), I welcome you, as well.

Best Regards to all

[Duckduck (Contributor)]

Hi,

I have lived in Canada for a couple of years to study and work. I am in Germany now and having difficulty learning German. English is not my mother tongue but I can say that learning English was much easier than learning German. (Germany is such a beautiful country, though. OTL )

Here is Warmbad in Wolkenstein. If you know a good language school near where I live, please let me know. If you are interested in exchanging languages (English and/or Korean German), I welcome you, as well.

Best regards to all

Welcome to Germany and the forum alphaomega!

Oh yes, German is quite complicated. Even a lot of Germans have difficulties mastering it... But don't worry, it can be learned. And it doesn't really matter if you get the cases or the plural forms wrong. Most of the time people will understand you all the same.
Well, but you live in a part of the country where people are not that easy to understand even for us Germans. Their dialect is wonderful - but special.

There should be some "German for Foreigners" (= Deutsch für Ausländer) courses in your area. Try deutsch für ausländer zwickau (or chemnitz) in google.

Best of luck
Duckduck

[Tequila82]

I have to pretend the accent which is spoken in Saxony . The accent is not that difficult to understand as for instance in Bavaria.
The community college in Zwickau offers definitely german-courses. Additionaly the University of Applied Science Zwickau offers some courses called extracurricular studies. As far as I remember they are free of charge.

[Duckduck (Contributor)]

Hallo Tequila, ich erlaube mir ein paar kleine Anmerkungen:

I have to pretend??? Was meinst Du hier? the dialect which is spoken in Saxony . It is not as difficult to understand as for instance that in Bavaria.
The community college in Zwickau definitely offers German-courses. Additionally, the University of Applied Sciences Zwickau offers some courses called extracurricular studies. As far as I remember they are free of charge.

Grüße
Duckduck

[Tequila82]

Hi Duckduck,


defend instead of pretend. Sorry about that.

[Duckduck (Contributor)]

No worries, mate!!!

[daa]

No, the russian language is much more difficult.

[Duckduck (Contributor)]

No, the Russian language is much more difficult.

Da Da Da, daa!

Meaning: "I quite agree with you there!"

It's because English and German have much more in common, both being Germanic languages. For us as Germans learning Russian (East Slavonic language) is much more difficult.

Poka! (Can't write the Cyrillic letters...)

Duckduck

[Delfino]

You can write in Russian using a Cyrillic keyboard layout, the clipboard or the character map.

Пока!


DE EN RU translator
http://www.online-translator.com/Default.aspx/Text

[Alex2010]

No, the russian language is much more difficult.

It's because English and German have much more in common, both being Germanic languages. For us as Germans learning Russian (East Slavonic language) is much more difficult.

German is the most difficult language?

Hello,

your mother tonque is a very important factor to answer your question alphaomega34.
But as Duckduck mentioned: native speakers of English seem to learn German rather easily because they have much in common.
Also native speakers of Italien are able to understand Spanish or Portugese more or less. And I suppose Chinese might be able to learn Japanese much faster than Europeans.

Of course, it all depends on individual abilities of each learners, too. Some people might have a natural talent for learning new languages.

Detail on:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most_diffi ... e_to_learn
http://mylanguages.org/difficult_languages.php


From my point of view it does not exist a ranking generally.
However the "British Foreign Office" published a ranking of the most difficult language to learn in due consideration of several points.
From their perspective Hungarian is the most difficult language to learn. The second position holds Chinese.

We could also discuss about the easiest language to learn and I think it might be Dutch for us Germans.

Greetings,
Alex

[tiorthan]

And I suppose Chinese might be able to learn Japanese much faster than Europeans.

Chinese and Japanese are not related, not even distantly. The Japanese recycled old Chinese characters for their own language but that's about the only similarity there is they are different in everything else.

[Alex2010]

And I suppose Chinese might be able to learn Japanese much faster than Europeans.

Chinese and Japanese are not related, not even distantly. The Japanese recycled old Chinese characters for their own language but that's about the only similarity there is they are different in everything else.

Hello tiorthan,

it was an assumption. But thank you for your consideration.

Greetings,
Alex

[Pennsylvanian]

However the "British Foreign Office" published a ranking of the most difficult language to learn in due consideration of several points.
From their perspective Hungarian is the most difficult language to learn. The second position holds Chinese.

Oh jeez. Now I'm half-tempted to run out and grab a "Teach-Yourself Hungarian" book just to see what all the fuss is about.

I reckon it has its quirks, what with not even being Indo-European and all, but harder than Chinese? That IS saying something. I'd venture to say Mandarin was perhaps the hardest language I've encountered to date, although I'd be lying if I said I'm intimately familiar with it.

In terms of complexity, I'd also give an honorable mention to Icelandic.

[Duckduck (Contributor)]

Ha! Pennsylvanian!!!

I knew it! You are a genius! Must be! Don't deny it!

Is there a language you don't know?

Great to have you here!