# what is the most difficult?



## Oven

what is harder to learn? English or Spanish? would you mind telling me the reason why you thinkone thing or the other?


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## Isis

Oven said:
			
		

> what is harder to learn? English or Spanish? would you mind telling me the reason why you thinkone thing or the other?


 
My mom and dad are very conversant in both English and Spanish and this is the reason why I grew up learning both language at the same time.   

I find Spanish harder to learn because of the "conjugations" that you have to make on the words that you will be using and of course the variations of the words to be used based on the gender of the one whom you are speaking with. And also, the "intonation" and the "accent" can be very frustrating during the first month but at least I learned both language with good grades from my parents!

Mi mama y papá son muy entendidos en inglés y el español y éste es la razón por la que crecí para arriba aprender ambo lengua en el mismo tiempo.  

Encuentro español más difícilmente para aprender debido a las "conjugaciones" que usted tiene que hacer en las palabras que usted utilizará y por supuesto las variaciones de las palabras que se utilizarán basaron en el género de el con quién usted está hablando.  ¡Y también, la "entonación" y el "acento" pueden muy frustrar durante el primer mes pero por lo menos aprendí ambo lengua con los buenos grados de mis padres!

I hope I answered the question in good English and Spanish!


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## Kräuter_Fee

Spanish is one of my native languages so I didn't learn it as a foreign student, so I can't tell if it's heard to learn or not.

English, from my experience, is very easy to learn at first but if you want to have an advanced level it becomes quite hard. It is so flexible that sometimes you just don't know how to say things.

Spanish is more difficult in the beginning but once you have a basic knowledge it becomes easier and easier.

It also depends on what your native language is and what language you learn first... 

I think everyone should learn the languages they find attractive, no matter how hard they are said to be, depending on your skills, tastes, preferences, etc it will be easier or harder


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## DearPrudence

It depends on your native language. Being French, Spanish is supposed to be easier that English: gender is not too difficult and the vocabulary is quite the same so that you can guess what it's written. Yet I find it hard to speak fluently as I don't know any slang. Personally I think that you have more resources in English to learn expressions as there is a lot of songs. But I think that learning a language depends on your motivation and on how attracted you are by a language and the culture it conveys. I must admit that I'm not very attracted to the Spanish language because I'm not very fond of Spanish culture so my Spanish is not very good, even if it's no harder than English.


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## CLEMENTINE

DearPrudence said:
			
		

> It depends on your native language. Being French, Spanish is supposed to be easier that English: gender is not too difficult and the vocabulary is quite the same so that you can guess what it's written. Yet I find it hard to speak fluently as I don't know any slang. Personally I think that you have more resources in English to learn expressions as there is a lot of songs. But I think that learning a language depends on your motivation and on how attracted you are by a language and the culture it conveys. I must admit that I'm not very attracted to the Spanish language because I'm not very fond of Spanish culture so my Spanish is not very good, even if it's no harder than English.


 
Hello
I totally agree. It really depends on your motivation. If you have to learn a language you are not interested in but that you have to learn, you'll find it boring and hard to memorize.
As far as I am concerned, I have learnt both - English and Spanish - and I found them quite easy to understand and learn, but both have their own difficulties. English with its hundreds combinations of IN, OUT, ON, AT, OFF... you never know where and how to use them. Spanish with the verbs (right end, right tense...), a bit like in French, but when you are not a native, you have to think a bit before uttering something right.


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## VenusEnvy

Here are some related threads:
Is English messy?
Spanish vs. English
Funny stories of people learning Spanish and English


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## Oven

thanks to all of you for your opinions. It'll be quite useful info for my essay.


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## ps139

It will be different for everyone, depending on their motivation, background, etc.
Really though, no language is harder to learn than another, if it were, then the age of fluency for children in native languages would be different in different countries. As it is, any child can learn any language as long as his brain works properly and he is exposed to the language. And kids in all languages begin speaking and understanding on a consistent basis across the world.


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## mari.kit

Well, since the place where i came from speak "broken-spanish" (thats what they call it) its less harder for me to learn it. Although i still have some difficulties with the conjugations.. and other words..
the nature of my work requires to speak spanish.. so im still learning it 'til now.
But with english, we already have english subjects since elementary.. and during high school, there's a strict compliance (in my school) to speak english inside school premises. so we get to practise it more often..

Basically, both language are ok.. but to answer the question.. i think, its spanish.


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## tey2

We had english subjects since kindergarten, but up until now I'm not fluent. As what mari.kit said, our dialect chavacano, is a broken spanish. When it comes to comprehension we're ok but I'm really having a hard time with conjugations in Spanish, maybe because it deals with memorization  I'm terrible when it comes to memorizing. But compared to English and Spanish, I would say Spanish is the most difficult for me.

tey2


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## Hakro

For a Finn generally English is easier because of its simpler grammar but Spanish is easier for its simpler pronunciation. 
Fortunately the English-speakers are used to hear bad pronunciation and the Spanish-speakers forgive us our grammar mistakes.


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## opsidol

Creo que los dos idiomas tienes sus propias dificultades. Muchas personas han mencionado los tiempos en español, pero me gustaría saber si no es tan dificil para los hispanoparlantes aprender las varias combinaciones de los tiempos inglesesЮ

I walk, I have walked, I had walked, I will have walked, I will have been walking, I would walk, I would have walked, I had been walking etc


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## natasha2000

I would say that both English and Spanish have their own difficult and easy parts, but I agree with someone here who said that the motivation is VERY important. First language I learnt was English. Then, learning Spanish, it helped me a lot evan though they do not belong to the same group, but as they are both indoeuropean languages, the principle of grammar is the same, for ejample, the use of tenses is basicaly the same. Of course, there are things that don't have anything to do one with another, like subjunctive, which is in Spanish very developed and in use like in all Romanic languages, and in English almost does not exist... 
I would also like to say that I think it is more difficult to learn one similar language, precisely because of similarities in vocabulary which can lead to many mistakes due to so-called "false friends", similar pronunciation, etc... I tried to learn Italian and it was almost impossible for me I constantly mixed the pronunciation with Spanish (I also must admit that i desisted very quickly)... This is how I see it, and it is my personal experience, which does not mean that some other person wouldn't find easier to learn languages which belong to the same group rather than the languages which belong to different groups...


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## opsidol

Estoy de acuerdo con lo de motivación. He aprendido español mucho tiempo pero la mayor parte del tiempo estaba aprendiendo más o menos dos palabras al día. Es que no tenía ningunas ganas de aprenderlo. Al contrario he estado aprendiendo ruso hace poco tiempo y cada día apriendo 20 palabras, porque el idioma me fascina y nunca no quiero dejar de aprender!


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## blancalaw

Hola,
I think the most difficult language to learn would be any language that is most different from one's original language. Being an English speaker it would be easier for me to learn Spanish or German, and more difficult to learn Russian or Chinese. But for a Chinese person it would be easier for them to learn Japanese than English. This is because of the similarities between languages.
Spanish or English...Which one is easier for me? English of course. It is my native language.


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## Hakro

After all, I'm absolutely sure that it's most difficult to learn our own language perfectly. In a couple of years you can learn practically any foreign language enough to get along. But if you want to learn your own language thoroughly it will take fifty years and then you'll find that there's more ahead that you have learned so far. 

I have seen examples on these pages, too.


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## SpiceMan

I'd say spanish is. It has 17 tenses (not all are commonly used, I know), genders, subjuntive mood, 6 (or 7 including vos) verb inflection by tense, there are so many irregular verbs that you can't just have a list like in english. You can't just take a noun and use it as a verb like in english (granted, sometimes you can. but is not that usual), there's ser/estar, all those articles flying around etc.

English has 12 tenses (or 8 depending on your point of view), no gender, verbs have only 3 inflections by tense instead of 6/7, virtually no subjunctive mood (and then again it's just a regular inflection), no changes to denote intransitive verbs, and on top of that you can use most words as anything you want (noun, verb, etc).

Although it can be argued that people master english more often than spanish because of its international language status, I still think that there's more to it: I've never even studied english (In the traditional sense: take lessons, etc.) I just idled irc and watched movies while paying attention.



			
				blancalaw said:
			
		

> But for a Chinese person it would be easier for them to learn Japanese than English.


 However I studied japanese for only 2 years and I'm quite able to speak it. In fact I took the japanese language proficiency test level 2 and passed the exam. You can't get more regular language than Japanese: 3 irregular verbs, no articles, no nothing  There's hardly anything useful in Spanish to learn Japanese besides the word bread: pan in both languages.


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## ps139

blancalaw said:
			
		

> Hola,
> I think the most difficult language to learn would be any language that is most different from one's original language. Being an English speaker it would be easier for me to learn Spanish or German, and more difficult to learn Russian or Chinese. But for a Chinese person it would be easier for them to learn Japanese than English. This is because of the similarities between languages.
> Spanish or English...Which one is easier for me? English of course. It is my native language.


Excellent points!


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## Outsider

I'm not so sure. Since my native language is Portuguese, which is close to Spanish, you might think the answer would be obvious. But I learned English as I was growing up, and now I'm an adult. I think I would have a harder time learning Spanish than I did learning English.


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## panjabigator

It depends on the speaker's native tongue, as others have suggested.  But I also think it is mentality too.  If you approach the language positively, it will be a lot easier to learn...you'll want to learn it.  So many people in India speak English 100% fluently (accent is not a factor in fluency) because they see English as an advanced language...(I think it's some sort of language Darwinism where English is the future).

Now of course since I am an English native, I would point the finger at Spanish.  But this maybe due to our education system here.  I know people who have studied English from scratch in other countries and have retained it much better then people who study Spanish here.

Outsider...you write Spanish fluently...can you speak fluently as well?


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## Fernita

I can't tell which is the most difficult to learn.
In fact, I think there are three points to be taken into account:
1. Age.
2. Motivation.
3. The teacher.
In general, kids (not all of them have inner motivation) learn a second language very quickly but as soon as they are not being motivated by the teacher, they start having problems, getting bored and even end up finding it difficult to learn.
On the other hand, grown-ups are free to choose (inner motivation) the second language they want to learn. Still, I don't think they learn as fast as kids do, no matter how hard they try. Anyway, they have the chance to evaluate whether the teacher they are taking classes with is efficient, lively, etc. or not. If they don't like the teacher, they just look for another one.
To my mind, it's not a question of 'most difficult' but of what I've stated above.
I must admit I find it awesome that we (grown-ups) keep trying to improve our second language!!!! I admire people for being so eager to learn!
Hope I've made my point clearly and that I haven't made too many mistakes so that you can understand me.


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## SJAJ

Hi!
One important thing to keep in mind while having this discussion is that one does not LEARN his/her native language. One ACQUIRES it! 
We all acquire our mother tongue (or to be more exact, the language of our surroundings; one can be born Chinese, for example, but that does not mean one will speak Chinese thanks to that fact alone)! 
ACQUIRING is a spontaneous process starting from the first day of our life. We are not aware of it, whereas LEARNING is a systematic, conscious activity that involves hard work!

Also, the impressions on how difficult a language is are really subjective and depend on so many factors, including whether one is (to put it in simple words) talented for it! I find it easy to learn languages, but when it comes to maths, for example, .... It's all Greek to me!!!  (It's not one of the languages I speak!)


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## MtlTouristFromUSA

Fernita has some great points, about having age, motivation, and the teacher. I will also add a 4th point to take into account: to maintain using and speaking the language you learn.
I am a native English speaker. I started learning Spanish at 12, because my parents said (and they were correct) that a lot of people speak Spanish here in the US, and that I should learn it. I originally wanted to learn French.
I learned Spanish for all my 6 years in junior high and high school, and for 2 semesters in college. I was motivated to learn, and I loved it, and I even did Spanish tutoring in high school. I was also lucky that I held several jobs, and still hold a part-time job, where I still need to speak Spanish, either occasionally or frequently.
When I started visiting Québec, I was motivated to learn French. I enrolled in several adult school classes, and found that knowing Spanish helped me learn French. I still practice my French at home too, so that I can maintain what I know. Because if you do not maintain what you have learned, you can easily forget.

So to summarize, it does not matter what language is the most difficult. 
For me it depends on these factors:
1. How you learn (whether by a teacher, book, CD, etc.). And there is no right way or wrong way to learn.
2. How motivated you are to learn
3. How often you practice 
4. How often you use it!


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