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arabic seems easier than russian. russian alphabet is too intricate while arabic is a bit simple.
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<p>Each to his own! :)</p>
<p>I thought Cyrillic was relatively easy. I got the hang of it after a few weeks (just recognizing letters, not actual reading).</p>
<p>Arabic letters, on the other hand, I have yet to grasp!</p>
<p>i really wanna take japanese next year, but i'm afraid that it'll be really hard and i wont do too well, especially since i already am pretty good at spanish. but, i'll probably at least try it out.</p>
<p>I agree with fabrizio, the Cyrillic alphabet is relatively easy to memorize. Really fun to spell out people's names with it too! :D</p>
<p>The Arabic alphabet is much more difficult to learn than the Cryillic alphabet. In the Arabic alphabet the shape of the letter changes depending on its location.</p>
<p>However Arabic grammar is much easier than Russian grammar.</p>
<p>Dude, take Japanese. It's fun and much easier than Mandarin, expecially in pronounciation. I took both and I find the Japanese that I learned much easier to remember. Characters aren't as big a problem as you'd think, at least at the earlier levels. Tones are what make Chinese difficult for non-native speakers, but the basics of the language are still more understandable than deciphering some impossible code as some people would lead you to think.</p>
<p>Many people assume Russian is hard because of the alphabet, but as fabrizio pointed out, the Russian alphabet is actually not hard to learn. Many letters correspond to their roman counterparts. All it takes is memorization and practice. The grammar is what makes the language really complicated. (Cases...eww.) The biggest obstacle with Russian too, is that all of the really complicated stuff comes at the very beginning. As I have gotten advanced, the grammatical concepts are much easier.</p>
<p>I heard Finnish has like 15 cases or something. When I compare that to Russian's 6 cases, I shudder to think of how hard Finnish must be.</p>
<p>9 of the 15 cases in Finnish are locative. It's essentially like adding locative prepositions (in, on, at, ect..) to the end of the word. It's not as difficult as it sounds. Finnish only has about 5 million speakers.</p>
<p>Whats the difference between Hindi and Urdu?</p>
<p>They have similar grammar and base vocabulary, however most of the vocabulary is different. Hindi words comes from Sanskrit, and Urdu words come from Arabic and Persian. Two two languages are considered dialects.</p>
<p>
[quote]
9 of the 15 cases in Finnish are locative. It's essentially like adding locative prepositions (in, on, at, ect..) to the end of the word. It's not as difficult as it sounds. Finnish only has about 5 million speakers.
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<p>The problem is that there's a huge difference between the written language and the spoken language. I don't know how true this is of other languages (I'm sure Finnish isn't the only one), but I find it hard to understand people even if they're from a different part of the country than I'm accustomed to hearing, friggin' crazy dialects.
I agree that the written langauge isn't as big a deal as everyone makes it out to be, but speaking it is way, way different than just knowing how to write it down.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Many people assume Russian is hard because of the alphabet, but as fabrizio pointed out, the Russian alphabet is actually not hard to learn. Many letters correspond to their roman counterparts. All it takes is memorization and practice. The grammar is what makes the language really complicated. (Cases...eww.) The biggest obstacle with Russian too, is that all of the really complicated stuff comes at the very beginning. As I have gotten advanced, the grammatical concepts are much easier.
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</p>
<p>To me, the only tricky letters were Pi 1 (upright Pi = P), Pi 2 (italicized Pi = L), P (it's a (R)ho), and C (it's a c(S)i).</p>
<p>The thing is, when I look at Cyrillic, I can at least spot different letters. When I look at Arabic, I can only vaguely differentiate between the letters.</p>
<p>is playing the piano more difficult than learning a foreign language?</p>
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is playing the piano more difficult than learning a foreign language?
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<p>Depends on when you start. Though I am American by birth, my mother tongue is Chinese. I had to learn English by attending pre-school. Due to my age (~3), it was not difficult at all. My parents claim that I was reciting nursery rhymes after one month.</p>
<p>Learning how to play an instrument like the piano at a similar age is likewise much easier than learning how to play in the teenage years.</p>
<p>in terms of the Arabic/Russian debate:</p>
<p>the Arabic alphabet is certainly more difficult than the Russian because, as someone said, some of the characters change based on location, some don't connect, the dots mean different things, etc. They aren't so much letters, like the Latin or Russian alphabet, as they are a series of sounds. </p>
<p>buuuuuuut, as was mentioned by someone else, to each his own.</p>
<p>Does anyone know how those intensive language classes work (i.e. offered during the summer)?</p>
<p>"Whats the difference between Hindi and Urdu?"</p>
<p>Urdu is mostly spoken in Pakistan and Hindi is spoken in Northern India. They are written in different scripts. They have different influences in vocabulary, some syntax, and even sentence structure sometimes. A Hindi speaker can verbally communicate with a Urdu speaker without a problem though. (vice versa of course)</p>
<p>Everywhere I go I run into people complaining about how ''frikin' difficult Finnish is.' When I hear these comments I just feel like studying the language. Maybe if I hear another 200 people complaining about how impossible language is, then I'll study it some. Am I the only one who finds challenging languages to be the most alluring?</p>
<p>Try Hungarian if you're looking for a challenge.</p>
<p>well
im no expert
but i do think that
since chinese, japanese, and korean are classified in the same difficulty,
that i think one plus side with japanese is all the katakana words, cause alot of them are english cognates</p>
<p>like im a super noob to the language (just started taking it),
and im learning hirgana now</p>
<p>but i have heard that many would recomend learning katakana first because with katakana, many words can be understood if u have never even learned the japanese vocab b4.</p>
<p>Correct me if im wrong UCLAri</p>
<p>im jsut sayin what ive read</p>
<p>"Spanish can be pretty easy once you figure out how Spanish sentences are formed."</p>
<p>ummm
i jsut finished honors spanish 4
and will be taking AP spanish next year
and kinda agree
obviously im not fluent
but once u get the grammer, you learn super quickly</p>
<p>its weird though
like if i ever try thinking about how to say something (how to say certain tenses, and remembering what they mean) i cant think of what to say</p>
<p>but if i jsut say it, then its fine</p>
<p>well anyway
vocab can be a pain, but after grammer, stuff becomes way easier</p>