Talk:Difficulty of learning languages

Genetic Disposition

I am intrigued by the "genetic disposition" part: combining the results of Scherag et al. (2004) with Ross and Bever (2004), you might conclude that "right-handed familials" do better in German, and "left-handed familials" do better in English. The natural follow-up question would be, are there, in fact, more left-handed people in (medieval) England than in (medieval) Germany?

• I. McManus, A. Hartigan, Declining left-handedness in Victorian England seen in the films of Mitchell and Kenyon. Current Biology, Volume 17, Issue 18, Pages R793-R794[1]
• Research in the U.K. showed a decline in left-handedness in the older population compared to the younger generation. [2] "the prevalence of left-handedness is 11.2% at age 15, and falls to 4.4% at age 70."
• "Statistiken geben den Anteil der Linkshänder in Deutschland mit rund 15 Prozent an" [3]

if this is true, there are actually more left-handed people in Germany than in the UK. dab (𒁳) 09:18, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

someone claims that korean is hardest and that he saw a chart showing korean above chinese and japnes

The FSL courses grew out of the US army's need to rapidly develop translators for various "exotic" langauges for the first time ever around the period of WWII.... they at some point developed a chart of difficulty of languages based on the number of hours it took for American GI's to master them....At any rate, Korean was listed in the very highest level of difficulty, a notch above both Japanese and Chinese in fact.

Everyone I have ever met who has learned both Korean and Japanese agrees that their grammars are almost as similar as those of any two Romance languages, but that that of Japanese has been streamlined, while Korean remains comparatively much more complex.

I have made good progress in a number of other "difficult" or exotic languages such as Russian and Arabic. Compared to Korean, both of these languages are much easier, i.e., if you apply yourself well, consistently, and intelligently every day for a number of years, after a single handful you will be rather advanced. However, with Korean you will still be in a fog. I have studied scores of languages, and Korean is unquestionably the most difficult one I have ever encountered. Arguelles, Alexander. January 12th, 2005. How to Learn any Language forum (link added in later --Laws dr (talk) 21:37, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Laws dr (talk) 02:53, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

We can't use this, because we can't source it to a reliable source. I really doubt you'd be still in a fog after a couple of years, though. BTW, "streamlined" is meaningless. --Kjoonlee 03:21, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Also, you could make the reverse case that English is even harder, because in Korea it takes more than 6 years of school to get reasonably good at reading English short stories. --Kjoonlee 03:25, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

In addition, Korean written language (hangul) uses an alphabetized system which makes it quite easy to learn and read. After being unable to read at all, I was taught by my grandfather to read Korean in two weeks (albeit without understanding all that was being read).72.80.172.205 (talk) 20:16, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

"Korean is the hardest in the Navy" -- from someone in the navy on about.com

In the Navy of the Defense Language Institute, Korean is seen as the hardest of the Category IV languages, which are Arabic, Chinese, and Korean. A US Military guide of About.com wrote: "Right now only 8 Languages are being taught (for Navy). Cat IV: Arabic, Chinese, Korean. Cat III: Persian-Farsi, Serb-Croatian, Hebrew, Russian. Cat I: Spanish. ...Korean is the hardest language here [Navy], apparently it is 75 weeks long now, and they are trying to make it a Cat V language."

If you don't mind, I think this should go in. There's no reason why somebody writing about US Military at About.com would lie about this.

Laws dr (talk) 04:07, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

This would be more well expressed version:

In the Defense Language Institute of the US Department of Defense (DLI), Korean is seen as the hardest of the Category IV languages, which are Arabic, Chinese, and Korean. Korean is 75-week course, longer than the other Category IV languages, and they are even trying to make it a Category V language all by itself.

Laws dr (talk) 17:43, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

One man's personal recollection of a rumor, posted to a non-reliable website? Absolutely not. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 10:30, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Korean hardest language for toddlers according to Wexler's Study?

Talk:Korean language#Hardest Language to master? --Kjoonlee 19:29, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

all a question of WP:CITE. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a decent source even for the purported British Foreign Office survey. dab (𒁳) 11:26, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, there is a PDF link from the GAO (part of the Department of State of the US) that I've mentioned there. --Kjoonlee 12:31, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I've added a reference to the "Foreign Service Institute (FSI) of the US Department of State", which claims that Korean is one of the 5 most-difficult, but Japanese is even harder. Alas, the reference I've added is second-hand. Does the "Foreign Service Institute" have their own web site we could cite? Please replace that reference to the actual FSI web site, if you can find it.

I wouldn't be surprised if learning to fluently Korean takes longer than Japanese, even if that reference is correct that learning to speak *and* write Japanese takes longer than Korean. --72.198.67.13 (talk) 21:26, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

it is interesting that Korean also pops up as a language that is very difficult to acquire as a first language. So perhaps Korean is, in fact, the most difficult language... dab (𒁳) 20:25, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I can assure you that Korean, as a first language, is just as easy (or just as difficult) as English. :p --Kjoonlee 21:29, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

well, you may say that, but then you are probably older than five years. Native speakers of Korean older than five will be just as proficient as native speakers of English older than five. The differences appear when you start polling three or four year olds. And there, as we state in the article, you will find that Korean toddlers take longer to come to terms with their grammar than English toddlers. dab (𒁳) 11:31, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

You seem to be extrapolating from one data point. --Kjoonlee 12:24, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

true. In the spirit that one point is better than none. I would obviously welcome the addition of more data points, and I certainly don't want to jump to conclusions, least of all in the article text. dab (𒁳) 13:10, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

But it was a single data point in more ways than one. Not to mention logically invalid. --Kjoonlee 22:30, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

we seem to have a misunderstanding here: your edit is unjustified. Nowhere do we claim that "language is just structure". We merely say that long-distance relations take longest to acquire and may in this sense be considered the most difficult part (they take longest to learn). We have two data points: (a) Korean children take exceptionally long to acquire Korean grammar. (b) the US Department of State notes that Korean is exceptionally difficult for English speakers. That's two data points. We cannot conclude from this that "Korean is the hardest language" in any absolute sense, but we certainly can and should mention these points for what they are worth. --dab (𒁳) 11:40, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Grammar, in a wider sense, encompasses more than just syntax. Knowledge of grammar (including semantics, idioms, pragmatics, and so on) is what constitutes fluency. Unrelated criteria cannot be clumped into two data points. You seem to be confused. --Kjoonlee 18:14, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

the non sequitur is all yours. the point is that the long distance relations are acquired last, after all other aspects had been acquired, earlier. the acquisition of syntax thus concludes language acquisition. You are, at this point, edit warring. I will revert your deletion once more and recommend you try Wikipedia:Dispute resolution from here. I do not spend time researching an obscure topic just to see the result blanked on flimsy or no grounds. If you want to add material, you are most welcome to develop this article further. dab (𒁳) 09:05, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

And I'm telling you that syntax is not all there is to grammar. --Kjoonlee 10:30, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Let's say I teach you Korean syntax. Do you think that would let you conclude your acquisition of Korean? Do you think language acquisition stops at 5? --Kjoonlee 10:36, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

the statement concerns L1, not L2. your hypothetical teaching me Korean is a complete non-sequitur. Language acquisition never stops, that's a truism. Yes, L1 acquisition stops at around 5: you cannot acquire L1 once you're past that age. Can we now please be reasonable? You appear to object to the statement for some reason, but you are not willing to let me know why, proffering unrelated comments instead. I don't see why it should disturb you that Korean is labelled "difficult" in the actual references we cite. Your involvement seems to be somehow related to your own proficiency in Korean (according to your user page). It beats me why that should be so. If I was a speaker of Korean, I would be proud of the fact rather than trying to edit-war about it. Also, can you please stop telling me "that syntax is not all there is to grammar"? It's a truism, I obviously agree, I've said so twice already, and it has nothing to do with the statement you keep removing. dab (𒁳) 10:48, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Sources for all your claims, please. --Kjoonlee 12:09, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

what claim do you want me to source? the statement you keep removing without rhyme or reason is completely sourced to an academic study,

K. Wexler, 'On Unparsable Input in Language Acquisition', in: Lyn Frazier, Jill G. De Villiers (eds.), Language Processing and Language Acquisition (1990), ISBN 0792306600. (which you left standing in the "References" section, you just removed all mention of it in the article body)

Since you are obviously not following what I am saying, I do not intend to invest more time talking in your general direction. Well done, we have now run into 3RR. If anyone else is watching this, now would be a good time to comment. Otherwise, unless Kjoon decides to switch on his brain and actually make a coherent statement of what he wants, this'll just be a slow revert war. Not wikilike, not sensible, not even rational. I enjoy debates and intelligent controversy, but this is just dull. dab (𒁳) 12:17, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

[4] - well done. I realize you are just trolling, for reasons best known to yourself. Sorry I took you serioius for a minute there. --dab (𒁳) 12:32, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

dab, I think you should put back that Korean thing in. Laws dr (talk) 23:39, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

---

I'm bilingual in English and Korean. English was second, and I acquired it after I was 5. Now, where does that leave your claims? --Kjoonlee 12:11, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

References that you are genuinely "bilingual" rather than merely fluent in both Korean and English? If you acquired English past the age of 5, you are a native speaker of Korean, and have acquired English as your second language, even if you have near-native fluency. What makes your native language your native language is the acquisition of phonology before the age of 1. There is no way you can make up for this later. You are interested in secondary language acquisition and age? go read the article.

Steven Pinker, in his book The Language Instinct, states that “acquisition of a normal language is guaranteed for children up to the age of six, is steadily compromised from then until shortly after puberty, and is rare thereafter” (Pinker 1994, p. 293).

so, there is room for debate on "L1" for ages 6-12. If you begin to acquire a language after you are 6, or even after you are 1, for that reason, you may still reach near-native fluency, but your acquisition process will diverge significantly from that of your first language. You want references? You want to learn about this (as opposed to idly bickering about it)? Read the article and the references linked. You want to discuss this, intelligently and presenting sources? Go to Talk:Critical Period Hypothesis, but stop pestering this article. --dab (𒁳) 12:29, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm familiar with the topics, and I say you've been very misled. --Kjoonlee 17:08, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a forum. WP:NOT. I don't ask you to become an expert (and of course there's WP:NOR), but I think you need to become more familiar with the linguist's definition of grammar. --Kjoonlee 17:11, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

WP:NOT to you too. The article cites its sources. End of story. I reciprocate your doubts regarding "expertise". We could start comparing our academic degrees (I am a linguist), but that would fall under WP:NOT too. Come back once you've found some source you want to cite. dab (𒁳) 19:04, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

WP:NOT is totally irrelevant and you do not understand WP:NOR either. From your comments here it looks like you don't understand grammar, nor logic. --Kjoonlee 13:03, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

uh-huh. after 100,000 edits on Wikipedia, we find I do not in fact understand basic policy at all. So we are to take your word that you are "familiar with the topic", that I do not in fact understand logic, or grammar. Wikipedia doesn't work just based on bare assertion. Come back once you have something of substance you would like to say. Until then, I recommend you just drop this. dab (𒁳) 17:47, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that's true. This article is so full of OR that I had been hesitant to bring it up, but now the cat's out of the bag. Whether you are Jimmy Wales's grandfather or the world's leading authority on linguistics does not matter, or whether you are familiar with editing Wikipedia. You do nothing to build consensus, ignore valid statements, and offer no hard facts to back up your claims, on critical topics that have been brought up. You *are* unfamiliar with how Wikipedia really works. --Kjoonlee 18:40, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

dab (or should I call you Dbachmann?), if you are a linguist by trade, then you must have access to a lot more journals (or sources) than I do. Do you have sources where people discuss the criteria for deciding what makes a language hard? Do the people tend to agree? --Kjoonlee 18:52, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

WP:NOR says you shouldn't be citing sources just to advance your own conclusions. If you write any statements in articles, they must all be paraphrases from the sources. --Kjoonlee 19:00, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

I am citing a source to state what it states. If you don't like the way I phrased it, suggest a better phrasing. Stop this childish revert warring. Yes, this article could be expanded further. If you send me a cheque of say USD 300, I'll sit down with it for a day, do a literature search and turn out a more comprehensive article. dab (𒁳) 07:43, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Ah, I have suggested a better phrasing: it's off topic and illogical so it should be expanded (and justified) or deleted. You haven't expanded it, so I have deleted it. You keep reverting without good reasons, so I revert it back. --Kjoonlee 08:09, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Also, I'll take your refusal as admittance that you can't find sources. You haven't answered my question about sources for criteria. That's the basic foundation of this article. --Kjoonlee 08:14, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

An unhelpful list?

Should there be a list included in this article? As it's clear that languages from different language families are generally harder to learn the list should include many, in no specific order. ... Some widely known candidates might be (reasons) :

• Polish (genders)
• Portuguese (verb inflection)
• Icelandish (far from other indoeuropeans)
• Hungarian (many cases)
• Turkish (many suffixes)
• Korean (grammar)
• Chinese (writing)
• Japanese (counting system, among other things)
• Cherokee (morphology (linguistics))
• Khoisan (click consonants)
• Welsh (spelling)
• Fula (noun classes) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.156.186.81 (talk) 03:53, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
• Add here (explaining why)

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.153.61.69 (talk) 16:20, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

• Sentinelese language —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.195.46.112 (talk) 09:33, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

• Dong (many tones) -- 12:52, 17 May 2009 85.156.61.141

The Most Difficult 2L

It is my oppinion that the American Native Tribe of the Navajo, is the most difficult second language to learn by anyone, no matter what their primary language might be. Hence, it was the language of choice chosen by the Americans to be used my the now famous Code Talkers durring World War Two. Craig Warn, Gallup NM —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.134.36.140 (talk) 16:18, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

You show profound ignorance of both the specific and the general subject matter. Navajo was chosen simply because it had few speakers, and all of them resided within the United States. The choice had nothing whatsoever to do with any qualities inherent to the Navajo language. --76.71.46.198 (talk) 17:51, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Murge to language learning aptitude

This page is

1. not at this point useful as a disambig article;
2. unexpandable beyond anything more than a start-stub given its coverage and subject matter;
3. duplicating scope from the more broadly balanced and existing article, language learning aptitude; and
4. sporting a cheerfully POV title.

Please merge the useful information, purge this page, and keep the crystalballing to pubs and the Language Desk. Or I can do it. ~ Jafet • business • pleasure • voicemail 09:19, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

a "pov title", yes? As in oldest tree, or oldest city? How is it "OR" to report original research? It's what Wikipedia is about. Except for Mr. Kjoonlee being a little difficult above, this article is fine. That's not a statement against merging, though, if done properly a merge may be perfectly arguable. --dab (𒁳) 09:40, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

"Oldest" is objective, in the sense that we can measure absolute ages of things and they can be compared. "Hardest" is also objective if we're talking about, say, the Mohs scale, but in the context of this page I find it's like using "Smartest people" as the title for an article on IQ. ~ Jafet • business • pleasure • voicemail 06:54, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Japanese harder than Chinese?

This doesn't make any sense to me. Between the frustrating tonal part of the language to the even more complicated writing system, Chinese has always seemed harder than Japanese in every aspect to me. Are there any references to why Japanese would be considered more difficult?--Remurmur (talk) 07:43, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

The Japanese writing system is actually rather more complicated overall than Chinese -- each Chinese character generally has only one reading (or in a few cases two or three readings, usually closely related in sound), while Japanese kanji much more frequently have multiple readings whose pronunciations are completely unrelated (on vs. kun, etc.). Japanese also has its own tonal aspect (the pitch accent system, mastery of which is required for being able to speak with a good Tokyo accent), and whole complicated systems of honorific and polite forms... AnonMoos (talk) 10:22, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

In addition to what AnonMoos said, Japanese grammar is also very complex; it's a verb-final language and uses particles. On the other hand, Chinese grammar is simple and in some ways similar to English. The pitch accent of Japanese is hard to acquire because it can be completely opposite depending on the region, and it's never stressed in courses, textbooks, or dictionaries as something important to learn, whereas Chinese pinyin includes the tonal accents, and one starts learning the tones from day 1. To really master the Japanese pitch accent, you have to be taught meticulously by a native speaker.Emmaskis (talk) 02:58, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Korean grammar is even more complex than Japanese, and its pronunciation is much more varied than both Japanese and Chinese (although it does not have tone). Laws dr (talk) 04:39, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

This article just like its title "hardest language" is subjective along with its contents and reasoning.

This article just like its title "hardest language" is subjective along with its contents and reasoning. This categorization is mainly done according to native english speakers rather than including non-english speakers. Measuring languages is not an exact science like mathematics and will differ according to each person, whatever their native language. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.104.70.109 (talk) 17:24, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

There won't be a 100% "objective" measurment of exact degree of learning difficulty anytime soon, but if prominent sources, such as the U.S. State Department assemble rankings, then we can report on such rankings here (even if they contain an subjective element). AnonMoos (talk) 10:16, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

so? the same goes for pleasure and thousands of other articles. This is irrelevant. The important point is that the opinions given are referenced per WP:CITE. --dab (𒁳) 17:42, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Questionable Paragraph

I feel like the following section is fairly dubious and would like to ask you guys how you feel about removing it.

There may also be a genetic disposition determining which aspects of language a learner will find most difficult. Ross and Bever (2004) propose that right-handed individuals with left-handed family members (left-handed familials, LHFs) and right-handed individuals with only right-handed family members (right-handed familials, RHFs) showed differences in language learning strategy, with RHFs focusing on grammatical relations and LHFs on lexical knowledge."

My concern is that even though a reference is included, the claim doesn't appear to be supported by any kind of scientific study. This proposal by Ross and Beaver seems to suffer from the logical fallacy Correlation does not imply causation. – Novem Lingvae (talk) 08:46, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Incomplete refs

Regardless of whether they are reliable sources or not, they aren't fully cited anywhere -- as far as I can tell there's just "Ross and Bever (2004)" without any further expansion on the title of their book or article, its publication data, etc. Similarly some other sources are only cited by author's last name and date, without title or publisher or anything. --Jim Henry (talk) 02:12, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

I have deleted it from the article (see entry above).

In my opinion it should be deleted even if an acceptable reference can be found. Even if we have the study in hand, we don't know the effect size. How much difference does it make? It's also just one study. -DoctorW 22:40, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Very dubious assertion from questionable source

I've decided to move here the assertion that Hungarian is the hardest language, a claim based on the number of noun cases. This appears on it's face to be sloppy journalism (if it is journalism at all), as anyone familiar with learning the most difficult languages knows that a single feature such as case or tones doesn't by itself make a language harder for English speakers than Japanese or Korean. More importantly from the perspective of Wikipedia guidelines, it blatantly contradicts what appears to be the consensus from all other sources. And there's the question of whether the sourcing is reliable. Even if this can be reliably sourced, we might discuss whether it falls under WP:FRINGE.

According to a survey by the British Foreign Office among its diplomatic staff, the most difficult language to learn for adult English speakers is Hungarian, followed by Japanese. This survey naturally included only languages that are used in diplomatic relations and does not rule out the possibility of other languages that are even more difficult to learn.

A related issue is what is meant by "learning a language". Is reliable communication sufficient, or does "learning" require perfect/near-perfect mastery of pronunciation and grammar? -DoctorW 22:59, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Just because you don't like the results of a study doesn't mean it isnt valid. Opinions are invalid for inclusion in wikipedia. The British FO found that Hungarian was the hardest language to learn based on time taken. The attempted causal explanation for that is of secondary importance. Hungarian is a Uralic language which is entirely unrelated to indo-european languages, which, irrelevantly, is likely to be another explanatory factor. The fact is, based on that study, it was the hardest. Leaving it out is misleading.

There is no 'general consensus' on what is the hardest language for english speakers to learn. Based on the opinions of professors of linguistics, it is not Korean or Japanese and would be either an indigenous american language or an african language.Utopial (talk) 08:28, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

FSI (Foreign Service Institute)'s list is dubious

There is no evidence of the Foreign Office list being true. The "source" provided in this article is not reliable, and actually a bit of googling proves that this list is an internet myth that has been circulating for years, giving slightly modofied versions of the same list. Not a single one carries a link or picture of an original source. Of course, in the official site of the Foreign Office there is nothing to be found. The needs to be removed, it is not up to wikipedia standards. Chinayouren (talk) 12:21, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree. I'm removing it because it's a dubious source. Laws dr (talk) 18:18, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't agree. The source is a .gov website, the same list of languages is given in this document. Chinayouren hasn't provided links to any of these supposedly damning sources he googled. And Laws dr, given your other edits to this article, your eagerness to remove this one looks very much like you're upset that your stuff was removed and now you want to retaliate by removing anything else that doesn't conform to your opinion. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 10:19, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

The only thing that is shown in your new source "this document", is that Spanish is Category I, Russian a Cat 3, and Arabic is Cat IV. It's not the "same list of languages." In the .gov web archived link, the highest Category is given as Category III of which Arabic is one. But you can see from the PDF that there are 4 categories, not 3. Your new source only shows that the purported FSI list is inaccurate. Laws dr (talk) 14:20, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Please read the source again. The PDF I gave mentions Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean at the top of the 2nd column; the FSI source also lists (in the second table), those four languages and Cantonese as the "hardest", which is exactly what the article text says, so it's verified. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 15:31, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

I see. But this source does not say that Japanese is the harder than the other languages in the IV category, (unlike the .gov source) and the .gov archived source has 3 categories instead of 4. By saying "e.g." it only lists examples of the language. Hence it is not complete list. You stated, 'the FSI source also lists (in the second table), those four languages and Cantonese as the "hardest",' but I searched Cantonese in the document, and it is not found.

Laws dr (talk) 16:27, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

I didn't say it's a perfect source, I just said it helps confirm what's already there. If you want a better source, you are welcome to look for one, but that is no reason to remove an acceptable source that's already present. The category issue is irrelevant, as the article doesn't say anything about categories, it just says "the five most difficult", which the .gov source confirms (and the .gov source does list Japanese as being harder).

Like I said below, I don't agree with the conclusions of the FSI here, so I'm not 'protecting' this source because I happen to like it. I'm doing it because I object to your single-minded interest in boasting about Korean and removing anything that doesn't boast about Korean. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 16:34, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

How is the info that shows that Korean is the hardest 'boasting'. I object to your unwarranted accusation and rash judgment. The category issue is relevant because the different categories show that the '.gov' source is outdated. Although the '.gov' source says that Japanese is harder than other languages of its category, this is not confirmed by the PDF source. Hence, until a reliable source from FSI can be found that says that Japanese is harder than other Cat IV languages, the .gov source should be removed Laws dr (talk) 16:46, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Laws dr, you appear to have a serious issue regarding Japanese and Korean language by showing completely contradictory behaviors so far. You have tried to insert completely original research and even blacklisted chatting forum sites to make a WP:Point that Korean is the hardest language. While you deleted the properly cited information on Korean and Japanese. Your latest removal of one link related to an academic magazine from the "two external links" has nothing to do with WP:UNDUE. How come one external link become a undue weight? Please do not disrupt the article as well as other Korean related articles such as Taekwondo and Anti-Korean sentiment (in the latter case, you falsified the information)--Caspian blue 18:04, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm not going to waste my time responding to your rude and exaggerated accusation Laws dr (talk) 18:11, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Per WP:SPADE, pointing out the clear fact is not rude, while your bogus accusations are rude and totally unacceptable. You've shown that you have wasted serious editors' time for your disruptive behaviors here. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia based on reliable sources, not written by your agenda. Please read WP:RS, WP:V, WP:CITE, WP:UNDUE, WP:NOR, WP:NPA.--Caspian blue18:23, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

About the Japanese issue: just because one source doesn't say it's hardest doesn't invalidate all other sources. Different sources have different levels of detail and granularity, so some report more facts than others. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 19:31, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Broken link

This source isn't really valid/working. Just an FYI.

http://www.nvtc.gov/lotw/months/november/learningExpectations.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.156.40.46 (talk) 14:45, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

This is an archived link http://web.archive.org/web/20071014005901/http://www.nvtc.gov/lotw/months/november/learningExpectations.html

Also, Wikibooks has an entry about the research.
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Language_Learning_Difficulty_for_English_Speakers --Caspian blue 12:05, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

User:Laws dr's original research

Laws dr (talk · contribs) has been trying to emphasizing that Korea is the hardest language to learn by removing the cited information from The Foreign Service Institute (FSI) of the US Department of State, but by adding a dubious source from About.com. He did the same thing to Korean language, but which is deleted by other editors working on it. The reliability of About.com has been questioned many times on Reliable source noticeboard, and as I was looking at the page, I believe that Laws dr (talk · contribs)'s making a original research by cherrypicking from the seemingly interview by "one soldier". I think the whole content referenced by the About.com should be removed due to its reliability and credibility of the source.

Language Selection
Right now only 8 Languages are being taught (for Navy). Cat IV: Arabic, Chinese, Korean. Cat III: Persian-Farsi, Serb-Croatian, Hebrew, Russian. Cat I: Spanish. Those are your only "options" and I have not received my language yet, but I did give them my top 3 selections of Korean, Russian, and Arabic. Everybody is telling me this about my selection. Korean I probably won't get because I only have a 103 DLAB. Korean is the hardest language here, apparently it is 75 weeks long now, and they are trying to make it a Cat V language. Russian is hard to get because they don't really need too many Russian linguists anymore. Arabic, a lot of people get Arabic, and since it's in my top three, guess which language I'm probably going to get :). Arabic. But we'll see how it goes. The word on class wait time is Feb-April (4-6 months), however, word is coming down the chain of command that there will be a number of classes opening very soon and that many people will be put into classes within a month, but we'll see how it works out.

— about.com

http://usmilitary.about.com/cs/education/a/dliarticle_5.htm

Caspian blue 12:20, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

After further examination, I found Laws dr (talk · contribs)'s another original research on Korean language.

According to Wexler, the constructions that take children the longest to master are long-distance dependencies. The long-distance dependency of the reflexive pronoun in Korean is not implemented correctly by Korean children until the age of five (Wexler 1990, p. 109), making Korean the most difficult language for toddlers to master, according to Wexler's study.[1]

— edit by Laws dr

I can't find any such conclusion in the book at all, so removed Laws dr (talk · contribs)'s original research and synthesis per WP:No original research and WP:CITE.--Caspian blue 12:42, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

I did not find that info. That was there when I first saw the article. (Edit): This is the first edit that added Wexler's Study: [5] Laws dr (talk) 13:50, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

These diffs are your edits to the article.

Contents from About.com:[6][7][8]

Wexler: [9][10]--Caspian blue 14:01, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Regarding #6 which says "In the Defense Language Institute of the US Department of Defense (DLI), Korean is seen as the hardest of the Category IV languages, which are Arabic, Chinese, and Korean. Korean and Chinese are each 63-week courses.": This was not true according to the writer in About.com; Korean took 75 weeks.

Regarding #7, I did not think it very convincing when I saw it the source, but I would not object to it being put back on.

Regarding #8[11], it was deleted first by someone else, and then I put it back in.

As for # 9 [12], "among the most difficult" doesn't make sense because Korean was the only one mentioned as taking 5 years, so that "among the most difficult" would be a wishy-washy politically correct answer that doesn't follow the implication of the original source. --Laws dr (talk) 14:54, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Do not alter others' writing without permission like this[13]. Your original research and disruptive editing have been pointed out well.--Caspian blue 16:26, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Article very poorly constructed - needs more advanced analysis and sources

This article is a disgrace to the linguistics field. It needs to be completely overhauled by someone who actually has some knowledge of the field. Just to give you an idea of how weak this article is, read this contribution from a yahoo top contributor:

"The world's most complex sound systems are a tie between the Northwest Caucasian language Ubyx (now extinct) and the Khoisan languages of southern Africa.

The world's most complex word building systems are the Caddoan languages of the North American Plains (Pawnee and Arikara especially).

The world's most complex sentence building system is probably English.

The world's most complex meaning building systems are the Australian aboriginal languages.

Every language is equally complex with respect to the total complexity of every other language. It just depends on how you mix and match different levels and different types of complexity. The Caddoan languages, for example, build gigantic words, but only have about 10 different sounds and no sentence structure. English, on the other hand, builds very complex sentences, but has a fairly average sound system, and very simple word-building processes.

And then there is Archi, a Northeast Caucasian language. Archi has a fairly complex sound system and a very complex word-building system. If you count all the possible forms of a Latin verb, you come up with about 150 forms or so. If you count all the possible forms of an Archi verb, you come up with 1.5 MILLION different forms. Now THAT is verb complexity.

The viewpoint of a PhD in Linguistics who teaches at a major US university" Utopial (talk) 08:53, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

"The viewpoint of a PhD in Linguistics who teaches at a major US university" is not good enough. The quoted claims on "the world's most complex sentence building system", "the world's most complex meaning building systems" and "Every language is equally complex with respect to the total complexity of every other language." are pulled from thin air entirely and would need excellent (academic, peer-reviewed sources) attribution.

We are simply reporting on who said what. We do not have the intention of drawing any conclusions regarding "WP:TRUTH". This article did suffer some trolling, bizarrely from Korean patriots among other things, but its approach is perfectly sound. I draw your attention to this revision (a pre-trolling version of mine, March 2008). I strongly recommend reverting to that before continuing to build the article. --dab (𒁳) 15:04, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree - thats y i wasnt calling for it to be used as a source. It was just demonstrating how arrogantly uneducated the approach to this article is.

Reporting on who said what is just one component. The article needs to have some degree of intellectual credibility to it. There are many things said, and for each article wikipedia should be reporting on what is said by experts in that particular field (linguistics here).

Including some of these studies is also OR. Data needs to be interpreted by linguistics experts. There might be other explanations. It's like citing a study that shows blue eyes and car crash frequency is correlated, then implying that there is a causal relationship between blue eyes and car crashes. Data can't just be stated simply. It's implied here that weeks learning (by FSI) means 'hard'. A example of how this claim is unfounded would be saying that painting 1000000 pieces of paper blue is 'harder' than solving an algebraic equation. It takes longer to paint the paper, but anyone can do it.

The solution: only quote linguistics experts and get wiki project linguistics ppl to compose the article so they can account for the complexity and breadth of the field.Utopial (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 15:37, 8 December 2009 (UTC).

Definition of Hardest Language

This article needs to be redone in a way that is objective and rational, and get rid of "sources" that are not at all realiable.

First of all, we need to define the terms. "Harder" can mean many things, and it depends on many factors. The most important of these factors are:

1- the LEVEL desired (some languages are difficult at basic level and some only become had at advanced level), 2- the set of ABILITIES of the student (Some languages are easy if you are good at imitating sounds, others require you to master complex grammars) 3- The linguistic BACKGROUND of the student (obvious)

In most cases, there is not a single answer to "Which is the most difficult language", but it is possible to prove that, for the ADVANCED Level, Chinese is more difficult than any other language. This is true regardless of the Background of the student, with the only possible exception of Korean/Japanese students.

The proof of this is done looking at the different elements needed to master a language, and at the relative importance of vocabulary at a higher level. Complete proof available <a href="http://chinayouren.com/en/2009/11/23/2530">in this article</a> Chinayouren (talk) 12:15, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

um, no, because there is no "objective" account here. All we do is report opinions, and these opinions are referenced to sources. No opinions are endorsed or disendorsed in Wikipedia's voice. There is no such thing as "proof" as you claim, pointing to chinayouren.com (by an astonishing coincidence also your username), there is only opinion, and whether an opinion isincluded here will depend on its respective WP:DUE weight. --dab (𒁳) 15:07, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

see my post in the section above. Utopial (talk) 15:47, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Source from Alexander Arguelles regarding Korean unreliable?

Someone removed this saying that it was from 'unreliable forum' but the user who posted the text in the forum is Professor Arguelles. It doesn't matter where the message was delivered; what matters is the credibility and authority of the person who said it -- a notable language Scholar and polyglot.

When I tried to put it back in, the forum website was on a blacklist, so I had to take it out. Forums in itself aren't reliable. But when there is no question as to the the identity of a certain poster, and that poster is an authority in the field (in this case, languages) the site can be and should be inserted in the reference.

Here's the info:

A polyglot named Alexander Arguelles stated that Korean was the hardest language he has ever encountered, and claimed that he saw a chart of difficulty of languages based on the number of hours it took for the American GI's to master them, and Korean was at the very top, above both Japanese and Chinese. —Laws dr (talk) 14:55, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

It does not matter as to whether how notable the professor is, because your reference is a highly unreliable "chatting forum", so there is no way to confirm that the material is indeed from the professor's study. You misquoted and misused book sources, and even added your own WP:SYNTHESIS, so I had to remove such material per WP:RS, WP:V, WP:NOR. If you want to readd your content, please provide reliable sources. I informed an admin whose expertise is in linguistic study for your repeated disruption.--Caspian blue 15:09, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree that the reference is inappropriate, as even though it can be reasonably assumed that it's from him, it is only his posts to a forum and not a published work. And regardless of the quality of the reference, adding a whole paragraph for him is giving undue weight to one person's opinion.

Beyond that, there are some serious problems with systemic bias and anglocentrism in this article, which I will try to explain in more detail later today (I'm about to leave right now). rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 15:29, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Here's the proof that the user ProfArguelles is indeed him: http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_topics.asp?FID=20 --Laws dr (talk) 16:25, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

I already said it's probably him. Did you not read the rest of my comment? rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 16:49, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes you said it was 'probably' him but I wanted to say that it's 'definitely' him. I did read the rest of the comment and I am unsure, although I lean towards your opinion. --Laws dr (talk) 17:17, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

By the way would you be OK with me putting it back in? Laws dr (talk) 08:11, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

No, I have already explained why it's not worth including, what makes you think anyone would be ok with you putting it back in? Same goes for the Wexler study. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 10:22, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

references

Re: The forum would probably be blacklisted for a reason. I also don't think forums would meet WP:RS. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 23:54, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

it was removed from blacklist after it has been proved that the User ProfArguelles is indeed Prof. Alexander Arguelles --- Laws dr (talk) 16:51, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Anglocentrism in this article

As it's currently written, the article seems to be quite anglocentric (at least, the parts I've read); all the sections that list which languages are 'hard' are only really listing languages that would be hard for an English speaker, and only listing "major" languages (the 'top 20 languages (fig. 4)). This has caused some quite famous 'hard languages' to be ignored: for example, for an article on 'hard languages', I am shocked that there is no mention of Basque, a language whose perceived difficulty has inspired sayings. Another one that's not mentioned is Fula, which John McWhorter calls one of the hardest in his book The Power of Babel (note: book, not forum)—he attributes that to what he calls the "gender" system, by which I assume he's referring to its noun class system. And hey, in the U.S., some popular wisdom believes that English is one of the hardest language because of its exceptions to rules, and that native speakers are lucky they didn't have to struggle through what ESL learners do...not that popular wisdom makes it true, but there has to be a source for this perception somewhere.

Anyway, the point is, by adopting an ethnocentric point of view the writers of this article have missed many obvious things. And the article is only hurt more by nationalistic attempts to "prove" that one's own language is the hardest for some reason another (and why should that be a source of pride, anyway?). Not to mention that, from a linguistic standpoint, it's not possible to "prove" one language as the hardest like User:Chinayouren has been trying to do. Looking at one or two linguistic features (borrowings, writing system) does not prove generalizations about entire languages, and is just the sort of behavior that the field as a whole has been trying to move away from (I just recently got back from a conference in which a long panel discussion centered somewhat around criticizing some studies that looked at phonological /ba, da, ga/ discrimination and tried to assume that that accurately reflected natural language processing). Chinayouren's analysis, while spirited and made in good faith, is like blind men and an elephant. The same can be said for Laws dr's misuse of the Wexler study [14] to try and suggest that the time of acquisition of one feature can tel you how difficult an entire language is. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 16:31, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Undue Weight on "Japanese is without question the hardest"

I believe mentioning of just one linguist saying that Japanese is "without question" the hardest language for English speakers to learn is giving undue weight:

• What is the most difficult language to learn?, Johns Hopkins Magazine (1999)

--Laws dr (talk) 18:06, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Nowhere in the article text is this source mentioned or is the phrase "without question" used. I don't see what you're complaining about. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 18:34, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

edit: I see it's in the external links. That doesn't mean we condone his view, and we certainly haven't copied the language "without question" anywhere. Please end your pointless crusade. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 18:35, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Time to think about moving?

Above I noted several problems with this article. Now I'm going to try to start thinking about some solutions. I don't think there's any point in doing any rewriting yet until we have agreed on what the article should actually be about. I propose that "Hardest language" is not really the best title or topic; the very concept of a single "hardest language" is not taken seriously or investigated anymore in second language acquisition, it's only discussed on random people's blogs; it's not an academically valid topic, as any linguist can tell you there are many ways to measure a language's difficulty. Searching Google for "hardest language", the first two pages come up with numerous blogs, which claim Icelandic, Polish, Hungarian, Japanese, Sanskrit, Russian, and a variety of other languages as the "hardest". This illustrates two things: 1) there are many more languages that claim the title of "hardest" than the nationalist editors here want you to think; and 2) the people discussing this problem are, for the most part, not linguists and have no idea what they're talking about (see some of the laughable claims here and here). If you search Google Scholar for the same term, it becomes clear that "hardest language" is a concept in computational linguistics and is wholly unrelated to the topic being discussed in this article; and it's not a concept in SLA at all.

So the article, most likely, should be about language learning difficulty in general, not about some hopeless quest to find the single 'hardest' language. Unfortunately, a good title for this is hard to find. Google Scholar reveals that "language difficulty" (which is currently a redirect to this page), is actually used synonymously with language impairment in most of the literature (and a secondary use, but still with more hits than our topic, is for measuring the difficulty level of a passage, for example in a standardized test). "Language learning difficulty", likewise, is mostly about language impairment. Any other ideas? rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 16:10, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Also, FWIW, this search turns up a few articles by EK Horwitz, which may be useful in developing this article (and certainly more useful than the misinterpreted studies added in by some of the editors above). rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 16:12, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Agree with the title move if "many" reliable sources can back up for the suggested titles. Are you going to expand the article?--Caspian blue 16:30, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm hoping to expand it, but I need a clearer idea what it should be about. If it's just "hardest language" I wouldn't have much to say other than "the question of which language is 'hardest' is futile...". Something about what makes language easy or difficult to learn (based on both characteristics of the language and characteristics of the learner) would make more sense, and that is actually a topic that is taken seriously in the literature. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 16:33, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I started this article with the full awareness that it is going to report opnions on which languages are considered "hard" (or "hardest"), for whom.

The article has seen an extraordinary amount of trolling and confusion introduced by the well-meaning and clueless. If you do not know what the article is supposed to discuss, and if you do not have any references on the topic, how about just leaving it alone? This article will be based to 100% on quotable references. Our task is just to gather these referenes. If it is "anglocentric", too bad, that's because you didn't provide sufficient references from the Russian or German viewpoint.

Historically, what happened was that I happened to find a couple of references suggesting that Korean is the hardest-to-learn language. These references were suppressed by Kjoonlee (talk · contribs), apparently a Korean expat, for no reason other than WP:IDONTLIKEIT. After some time I became fed up and walked away. Since then, the confusion here on this talkpage has just become worse, with insightful comments such as Utopial's "Including some of these studies is also OR" (wtf?) who took it upon himself to call the artice "uneducated" and "a disgrace to the linguistics field" again for no coherent reason, although he did ramble about "a yahoo top contributor". What is going on here? Why does this topic attract comments of such abysmal qualtity? --dab (𒁳) 20:04, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure whether that's addressed to me or to everyone. I agree that many of the comments above are abysmal, and that is part of why I was trying to start a discussion about improving the article; if my comments are abysmal, too, though, I would appreciate hearing why you think so. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 20:47, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

As for "our task is just to gather those references"...well, as for me, I tend to believe that Wikipedia articles should be more than just collecting/listing/quoting references. There's a lot to be said for exercising judgment and using knowledge of the field (which, based on your well-informed comments, I assume you have) to decide what information is worthy of inclusion and to mold it into a coherent article. If we were just doing nothing but gathering and spitting back references, there would be no way to stop people from filling up this article with whatever garbage they find floating around (and, as you have noticed, the internet is already full of unreliable garbage on this topic). And if the only goal of this article is to report unreliable opinions of bloggers (since that is what almost all the discussion online is--as I explained above, I don't see this topic get serious attention from academics), then how would it be encyclopedic? There are tons of little topics that bloggers spout opinions about, we don't necessarily have articles on all of them. The article ought to be about a topic that actually exists and is taken seriously. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 20:52, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Dab wrote: Historically, what happened was that I happened to find a couple of references suggesting that Korean is the hardest-to-learn language. These references were suppressed by Kjoonlee (talk · contribs), apparently a Korean expat, for no reason other than WP:IDONTLIKEIT.

dab, I think you should explain to people here exactly how the Wexler study that you found shows that Korean is the hardest language for toddlers to learn. And then when they understand it, you could put it back in. Laws dr (talk) 20:06, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

The Wexler study does not show that at all; you are twisting its meaning around, as I explained above. Either you're a POV-pusher or you simply don't understand basic linguistics; either way, you should not re-add the irrelevant study. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 20:19, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

One of the couple of references that Dab said he found was the Wexler study. As you can see from the above quote he still holds that the Wexler study 'does' show that Korean is the hardest for toddlers to learn. Now what beats me is why he doesn't explain in detail how the study shows this. He's a linguist too. Laws dr (talk) 05:14, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, it doesn't show that. It shows that one feature of Korean is acquired later than that feature is in the other languages that Wexler happened to test; that doesn't prove anything about all languages in the world and it doesn't prove anything about Korean as a whole since it is only considering one feature. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 05:39, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

dab, you're not helping at all. And I'm no expat. I still think you're not being very logical here. --Kjoonlee 04:16, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Korean was long ranked the most difficult language for English speakers by the FSI, though it looks as though that place is now taken by Japanese. (Though if you ignore orthography, I can think of several languages more difficult than either.) kwami (talk) 01:21, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Could you give the source for "Korean was long ranked the most difficult language for English speakers by the FSI"?Laws dr (talk) 16:34, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

this is unfair

Who said the arabic is cosidered a hard language? that is bullshit, for me, I would put Arabic in the first catagory as an easy language and put English in the forth catagory instead. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.68.25.174 (talk) 21:45, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately, that is your personal opinion and not from a reliable source. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 22:07, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I'm pretty sure reliable sources would say the same thing. If they were Arabic speakers learning English, that is. I edited the article to give a hint that Arabic is hard for English speakers. --Kjoonlee 19:16, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

We already know English is considered a hard language by many people (I mentioned that somewhere above, as well) but need a reliable source saying so. The personal opinion of a WP editor (whether it's a random IP or you or me) is not really worthy of inclusion in any article--it's useless discussing what languages "should" be hard, all we can do is find reliable sources that address this. Actually, what's needed even more is to redefine the topic and scope of this article, which I've written more about in the section directly above this one. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 23:40, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

OK, here's my personal opinion then. I'm of the camp that all languages have "about the same" (not exactly the same) complexity: they're all extrememly complex. Consequently, it is my opinion that the actual hardness of all languages are all about the same (although not exactly the same). However, human perception of how hard foreign languages are will depend on how similar the foreign languages are to your native tongue. Languages which are very dissimilar will be perceived as difficult, for speakers of both languages. That's my personal experience, and my pet theory. --Kjoonlee 04:09, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Korean speakers do find English difficult and Japanese easy, for example. English speakers find both Japanese and Korean hard. --Kjoonlee 04:10, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Where is your detailed reliable source that says Arabic is very hard and should be placed in the hardest languages catagory while english is easy and it in the first catagory. If that is only for English speakers then why did not u indicate that in the article سلام(Peace) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.68.25.174 (talk) 21:59, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

You might find the answer if you actually read the article. kwami (talk) 22:26, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Nowhere in the article does it say that English is "easy and in the first category". rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 01:55, 4 January 2010 (UTC)