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From: Peter Bromfield <peter>
Subject: Re: Languages: Hard, Harder, Hardest
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T.Gerritsen@inter.nl.net (T.T. Gerritsen) wrote:
>"" <mingbai@ms3.hinet.net> wrote:
>
>>I recall reading "somewhere" that Arabic was considered to be the most 
>>difficult language for a non-native speaker to learn. I seem to recall 
>>there was particular attention paid to pronounciation (as opposed to 
>>structural aspects such as grammar).
>>But, overall Arabic was the most difficult no matter WHERE you lived!
>
>[snip]
>
>>Comments?
>
>If the person who made that statement was an Arab, I strongly suspect
>a rather crude sort of nationalism... :-> Some 15 years ago, during my
>holiday on a Greek island, I got compliments from the hotel manager
>for my Greek, which he claimed was the most difficult language of all.
>My reply was that I found Turkish much harder, but I couldn't convince
>him. My own experience with Arabic is that, of course, most words
>aren't familiar, but the language is very much structured and its
>grammar pretty consistent, which helps a lot.

There is one thing I think most of you are overlooking, 'race'. Biologically
speaking, I think certain races of people have more of an inclination to
pronounce certain letters than others. I'm not saying it is impossible for some
people to learn a certain language because of their race though. About Arabic,
I agree that it's a very logical language. After two years of study and
practice, native speakers have no problem understanding me when when I put
sentances together. On the other hand, i've known Indian and Pakastanki people
who learned how to read Arabic when they were very young, they have a very hard
time pronouncing dh, DH and th properly. The common complaint I get from Arabs
is that I tend to exagerate the ayin sometimes, but they still understand me.
I've never had much of a problem with the other guttorals. Daad and DHaa' took
the most practice. From my experiences, I think from a racial point of view,
black Africans and people of African descent tend to have less of a problem
with the guttoral letters than white people. Most european and north-Asian
people seem to have a very hard time with guttoral letters like ayin, and Haa'.
But Khaa', and ghayn is easy for French and German people. Correct me if I am
wrong, European languages are more dental and nasel than they are guttoral, and
the Afro-Asiatic languages tend to be more guttoral and dental than nasel.
Because cascasian people have narrower nasel canals, I think the nasals sound
more conspicuous with them.  

I think this might shed some insight on which languages are the most difficult.
In my opinion, there is no fast and dry answer, it's relative.

-Peter
 
>

