Most difficult part of learning another language?

[Globex]

If you have learned a language other than your native tongue or are in the process of learning a foreign language, what is the most challenging part of foreign language acquisition?

If you're not a native English speaker, what is/was the most difficult part of learning English?

If you have learned multiple languages or are studying multiple languages, which language is the most difficult in your opinion?

 

[raketooy]

I've learned English, German and Swedish (my native is Finnish).

For me, German and Swedish are much harder than English because of smaller exposure to the language. German and Swedish somewhat complement each other because of their similarity, but the German grammar is more difficult. I guess that if I didn't use English all the time, it would be really hard because of the weird pronunciation rules. Finnish would probably be much harder still, because our grammar and especially our inflection rules are extremely complex.

I've also learned tourist-level Spanish so that I know a lot of words but my grammar is really basic. It also helps me understand the vocabulary of other romance languages.

 

[Dachs]

I'm native in English, semi-native in German, and am learning Arabic, with lots of smatterings of various versions of Greek here and there. I've always felt that grammar is far easier than vocabulary to remember because it is just a series of rules, as opposed to the endless list that is vocabulary.

 

[Earthling]

I haven't learned a lot of languages (native English speaker-insert ignorant American joke here) - studied Spanish in school and know the basics, probably not very fluent in speech. I'd think the most difficult part of learning a lanuage is speaking, by far, compared to writing or reading. If you're looking for something more on the language's structure, I wouldn't know if grammar or vocabulary is harder- it may depend on the language (ie. Latin grammar vs. Chinese vocabulary...). For Romance languages knowing one of them/general few roots seems to give you a huge leg up on basic vocabulary as would be expected from their history; I'd think learning a language with a different alphabet/linguistic family would obviously be harder.

 

[Huayna Capac357]

Just the overall task of remembering all the words is the hardest. The grammar, in many cases, isn't even the hardest or even that hard.

 

[BARBEERIAN]

Native english speaker, and I speak converstional French (ie: much better than 'tourist' French, but not to the point of being 100% fluently bilingual). It wasn't really that hard since we learn it in school from a fairly young age in Canada, also of course the alphabet is identical which helps.

I don't speak any of it, but I think going from Latin-based languages to Chinese (and vice versa) is extremely difficult because of how they work. IIRC the sounds in Chinese language mean completely different things based on the tone, whereas in English the tone is just there to accentuate some kind of adjective/emotion into the word (like anger, sarcasm, etc).

 

[Lillefix]

The most difficult part is to find enough inspiration and willpower to not give up.

 

[Brighteye]

Learning genders, declensions and suchlike.

 

[Godwynn]

The most difficult part is to find enough inspiration and willpower to not give up.

What he/she said.

 

[uppi]

I think the question cannot be answered in general. The most difficult part of a language not only depends on the language you are trying to learn, but also on the language(s) you're coming from.

One could say the most difficult part of Chinese is learning all the different symbols. Obviously that isn't true of any (Western) European language.

But the languages you already know, also influence the difficulty of different features of a language. If there is a difficult feature of a language which has a direct mapping to your native language (or any other language you know) it will be much easier to get that one right. In the example mentioned above, a Japanese learning Chinese will have an easier time learning the symbols, but might be struggling with something else.

 

[Angst]

The exam.

What, school? Nono. Hooking up with the native.

 

[eastsidebagel]

The hardest thing about learning English are the sometimes seemingly very random spelling rules. But besides that, English was a piece of cake for me.

For our German viewers: Das schwerste am Englischlernen sind die manchmal scheinbar willkürlichen Rechtschreibregeln. Doch das aussenvor war Englisch ein Kinderspiel für mich.

Yup, English has come a long way by now...

 

[Rossiya]

Learning the words is the hardest bit, rather than the grammar etc..

 

[SpiritWolf]

Learning Korean grammar is pretty tough.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

That depends on the language.
I was learning French in school and had always problems with the grammar.
I am currently learning Mandarin and while learning the characters is a lot of work and the pronouncation requires a lot of training, the grammar is absurdly simple from an european point of view

 

[Rub'Rum]

I don't think learning a language is hard if you have a reason to learn it. People will often say English is easier to learn, but in the end, it's so omnipresent that it's hard NOT to learn it if you have a passing interest in anything other than your hometown. I know a lot of people who never managed to learn English properly because they don't have to or have no passion or hobby that brings them to do it.

So yes, the hardest part is probably to have a reason to do it and have a constant exposure to it when the language is not that common where you live. For a North American, it requires "an effort" to submit yourself to the German language, you won't see it on any of your daily routines unless you create a special routine that includes it. It's a bit like taking the initiative to train in a gym three times a week.

As for actual learning of the language, I'm pretty sure people are, at first, stumped by not knowing all the necessary vocabulary.

PS: My first language is French.

 

[Hitti-Litti]

I'm native in Finnish, and I'm good in English, adequately good in Swedish, and I can speak a little French too. I can learn languages quite easily, so English isn't hard at all, though it would be if I wouldn't use the internet or watch English and American series and movies on TV. I just write and speak in a way that sounds right. Swedish is quite easy to learn, and if I heard as much Swedish as I hear English, I think that I would be better in Swedish than in English. French is tougher to learn than English or Swedish, maybe that's because it's pronounced in a different way compared to other languages I can speak.

 

[eastsidebagel]

@Hitti-Litti: Wow, you're smart!

 

[Godwynn]

For our German viewers: Das schwerste am Englischlernen sind die manchmal scheinbar willkürlichen Rechtschreibregeln. Doch das aussenvor war Englisch ein Kinderspiel für mich.

Yup, English has come a long way by now...

I guess my German has too.

I'm going to start using "Kinderspiel" now.

 

[eastsidebagel]

Kinderspiel = Children's game = piece of cake

Just ask me about anything which isn't clear to you, I'm smart.