
In search of the world’s hardest language - kevinbluer
https://medium.com/the-economist/we-went-in-search-of-the-worlds-hardest-language-95a27c2cff3#.d6iq561d5
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adictator
The article speaks about Latin, but so conveniently leaves out Sanskrit,
ostensibly the mother of languages when you consider structure and logic. I
mean, not even a mention, c'mon!!

By the way Sankrit itself means "perfect language" roughly.

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vacri
> _“Ghoti,” as wordsmiths have noted, could be pronounced “fish”: gh as in
> “cough”, o as in “women” and ti as in “motion”._

Pet issue: 'ghoti' can never be pronounced 'fish' using English rules, because
'g(h)' is never 'f' at the start of a word; only with the preceding vowels
does it sound like this, and even then only as an exception to another rule.

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iokevins
The U.S. Foreign Service Institute's School of Language Studies publishes this
list of languages:

[https://www.state.gov/m/fsi/sls/orgoverview/languages/](https://www.state.gov/m/fsi/sls/orgoverview/languages/)

They break languages (note: that they teach) into four categories:

* Category I: Languages closely related to English.

* Category II: Languages that take a little longer to master than Category I languages.

* Category III: Languages with significant linguistic and/or cultural differences from English.

* Category IV: Languages which are exceptionally difficult for native English speakers.

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Leftium
There is also a Category V, which requires twice the study hours of Category
IV (2200 hours) [1].

Last I heard, Category V was an unofficial level, and Korean was the only
language in the category. It seems they made it official and shifted the
languages around (interestingly, German is only language in Category II, now.
And Japanese is considered more difficult than Korean.)

[1]: [http://www.effectivelanguagelearning.com/language-
guide/lang...](http://www.effectivelanguagelearning.com/language-
guide/language-difficulty)

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samatman
_a_ lie and _the_ truth is pretty easy. Lies are plural, truth is singular.

On the other hand, convincing a foreigner whose native language doesn't have
articles, that articles are necessary... that is challenge.

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JasonSage
You say _a_ lie and _the_ truth is pretty easy, but you're coming from the
position that there is always one truth and there can be many lies.

Our culture expresses truth and falsehood as a dichotomy in which there is
only one truth and many falsehoods. This is not real, though—it's just
something that exists in your mind. You could choose to look at it another
way, and if that was how you were taught and it was idiomatic in your
language, then you would also say it was easy.

Here your intuition is not shaping your understanding of truth and
falsehood—culture and language have shaped your understanding.

So whether you're learning to express truth and falsehood idiomatically in a
language, or whether you're learning how to use articles or not use articles,
it is only easy or hard depending on how your culture has shaped your
perception of things.

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turbohedgehog
Malbolge, right?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malbolge](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malbolge)

