In your opinion, which language is the most difficult in the world?

@Free_Elo_ATM said ^

I think it's my native language, Chinese.

In my opinion, it’s Danish, too many vowels...

@TitusPlaysChess123 said ^

I think it's my native language, Chinese.

In my opinion, it’s Danish, too many vowels...

Danish is not that hard since it's still Germanic. The hardest must be in Semitic, or Sino-Tibetan.

Gender in language -- except to address something with an actual gender, like a man, woman, horse or cow, is an over-complicating appendage derived from ancient language when men were a bit more primitive than today.

Every language has its own foibles.

Spanish spelling is lovely and logical and consistent. And spoken Spanish is a delight, almost on the same level as French.

But Spanish has illogical double-negatives (that should horrify any mathematician) and it has the need to remember if, say, a table is masculine or feminine, which is silly.

English does EVERYTHING right, except for what it does wrong: English spelling, since it comes from the MANY different languages that have influenced English, is idiotic.

Neighbor? What a stupid spelling, for example.

But both Spanish and English are pretty easy languages to learn, and despite their flaws -- there's a lot to love.

If you want a HARD language -- don't forget to try Hungarian. Now THERE'S a real challenge.

As for Russian? As long as I can say yes, no, thank you, draw?, checkmate, great! and vodka, please .... (and I can) that's all the Russian one needs to enjoy life.

@RemRus said ^

I am ready to answer any question about the Russian language :-)

звонИт или звОнит? )

@Noflaps said ^

Gender in language -- except to address something with an actual gender, like a man, woman, horse or cow, is an over-complicating appendage derived from ancient language when men were a bit more primitive than today.

Maybe, but so many languages use some form of gender or noun class system it kinda makes English the odd one out!

A lot of languages use double negatives, too: "Я некому ничего не сказал" is like "I to-nobody nothing didn't say".. which kinda makes sense, from a certain perspective. Even in English you can sometimes hear "I didn't say nothing".

I don't know if it's 100% true, but I read somewhere that the reason for English's awful spelling is like this:
French got the printing press, which crystallized the spelling, then had a BIG sound change. So things are spelled really strangely, but consistently.
English got the printing press in the MIDDLE of a big sound change, so SOME words got respelled, some got overcorrected, some changed how they were pronounced right afterward, and some didn't get touched, leaving a huge mess.

I agree that English is sort of the exception, rather than the rule, as to gender permeating language, @MrLizardWizard .

But double-negatives are not "logical." And if you hear somebody saying "I didn't say nothing" when they mean to say they DID say "nothing," they are not at all following English grammar -- either unknowingly or because they are trying, I suppose, to affect a casual "street" nonchalance that usually makes an impression opposite to that which was intended.

Don't get me wrong, though -- in all other respects, Spanish is a wonderful language. It is the real language of love, although French is obviously pretty useful and beautiful, too!

@Noflaps
I think it's just a matter of perspective! They like to align all their negatives and we don't. I remember a Russian friend of mine knew that you shouldn't say "I didn't say nothing", but could not for the life of him understand why he couldn't say "I didn't say something".

It's very interesting to me to see what non-natives think is easy and what's hard, and I'm usually very surprised. Like often I think of where native speakers trip up: spelling like "loose" vs "lose", grammar points like"who" vs "whom" (though whom is hardly used anymore honestly), its vs it's and so on... the kind of stuff that gets drilled into us in school. But a lot of the times, it's the weird irregularities that they learn first, and have no issues with!
I was once speaking with a Japanese man who was learning English and he used the word "philosophist" and when I corrected him "philosopher" he then asked me if there was a general rule to know when to use "-ist" and when to use "-er". The question dumbfounded me. I had never even once considered that there even COULD have been a rule, and had to think about it for quite some time.

Well, one's ability to hear a double-negative and not cringe IS, I suppose, a matter of perspective.

But, inevitably -- as inevitably as Euclid's fifth postulate leads to the Pythagorean Theorem -- "not nothing" = something.

So double-negatives truly are illogical unless one MEANS to say "something" by saying "not nothing." And that's a rarely sought meaning when those words are used.

"Whom" is still used a lot, by those who write for a living and know when it should be used. But I agree that in casual speech it's fallen off a bit as education standards have seemingly declined.

"Whom" is not at all superfluous in its purpose, though -- as I'm sure you know, since you seem to write well.

I know French isn't hard but God darn it

French: cry at the start, baguetting at the end

@Noflaps
I do know how to use 'whom' correctly now, but I didn't learn it as a child, or even in school. I basically knew it was "like 'who', but has some kind of weird grammar rules so it can't be used everywhere". But I wouldn't blame it on any decline of education standards, though I do agree that there IS a decline for sure, especially here in the USA unfortunately. I think the death of 'whom' is more about a shift in the colloquial register. Just like we rarely use 'whence' anymore and pretty much never use 'whither' or 'thence'. They sound a bit too archaic and stiff for an everyday conversation; people would probably think that I'm trying to play a Shakespearean joke on them. I think that this is the eventual fate of 'whom', and as a professional whom-enjoyer, it makes me a bit sad.