hardest language in the world

[Hank W.]

Mr.Pyre*, gather together the whole pyre.
The whole pyre?
The whole pyre!
Ok, I shall gather together the whole pyre.

*or it can be Mr.Eagle

[Ravvy]

At present, I resent, a present, I had to have resent as I got an address from the receiver that the address on the present did not represent the present address.

Good one, well done!:lol:

It is probably only cadence, but personally I would do something slightly different with the comma placement;

At present I resent, a present I had to have resent, as I got an address from the receiver that the address on the present did not represent the present address.

or

At present, I resent a present I had to have resent, as I got an address from the receiver that the address on the present did not represent the present address.

[Hank W.]

...of the receiver.

Or we can then go for the Germans and ask

Graben Grabengräber Gruben?
Graben Grubengräber Gräben?
Nein!
Grabengräber graben Gräben.
Grubengräber graben Gruben.

Ah, poor oitykondo, whose family was subject to a Hottentottenpotentatentantenattentat

[Andrew_S]

The following Finnish sentence is without equal.

Kokko, kokoo koko kokko kokoon! Koko kokkoko? Koko kokko. Ok! Kokoon koko kokon kokoon.

That is truly a work of art. What does it mean?

A slightly shorter version with a translation:

- Kokko, kokoa kokoon koko kokko!
- Koko kokkoko?
- Koko kokko.

- Kokko (surname), put together the whole bonfire!
- The whole bonfire?
- The whole bonfire.

kokko = bonfire (also a surname)
kokoa = collect
kokoon = together
koko = whole

-ko = question enclitic (?)

[Andrew_S]

A new one for me:

"Keksin keksin", keksi keksin keksijä keksiessään keksin.

Hank should "keksin keksijä" be one word?

My all-time favourite is Hank's one about the two ems in the heart. Some of the old Finnish dearies love that one.

[Hank W.]

Hank should "keksin keksijä" be one word?

depends if it is the inventor of the biscuit or a biscuit-inventor

[Andrew_S]

Hank should "keksin keksijä" be one word?

depends if it is the inventor of the biscuit or a biscuit-inventor

Ah, right. Got you (I think).

I leave the honour to you of telling the newbies about the two ems in the heart - a little language lesson in itself.

[enk]

I leave the honour to you of telling the newbies about the two ems in the heart - a little language lesson in itself.

Heh, that one was my .sig on Seta Forum forever and a day
Somehow it just seemed more appropriate there

-enk

[larsonmikael]

As for the hardest language, it seems like Finnish is much easier to learn for Estonians (say) and Swedish for English speakers, and Ukrainian for Russian speakers. Chinese would be somewhat easier for the Japanese since they know how to write Chinese characters (albeit a little different).

But then, in my opinion, it is never suffice to say "you speak some language" until you understand locals 99% and express yourself well enough that they don't have to ask you to "say that again?"

Finnish, when it comes to the "hardness", then, is like any other languages in the world.

[Suomlainen]

I would say the hardest languages are most likely chinese or japanese.
They are full of these signs and drawings which means you must learn a whole new alphabet to talk or write em.

Finnish can be learned like english even tho it probably has a lot more forms and things to be memorized.

I have also heard that not even all the chinese know the marks they have :S

[abraxasss]

Well, it's my first post, so I suppsoe I should say I come from Poland. I also stay in relationship with a Finn.

Apparently we do have our debates on which language is more complicated when we try to learn them. I always tought my language is complicated, but now I know Finish actually is complicated for me, just because of my origins. And vice versa to my boyfriend. I suppose our throats are formed accurately to the sounds we make during our lifetime. So the base on which we laugh is the vowels and consonants.

Suomalainen is based on vowels, and Polish is based on consonants... so it's as complicated to me to say word "Järvenpää" as for him word "Szczecin".
The biggest surprise for me was all teh sound variations on just couple of letters they use... Te teette teetä... sounds weird to me

Tho our main tongue twister would probably cause some fins a headache
"W Szczebrzeszynie chrząszcz brzmi w trzcinie"

Where are all the vowels in Polish? The answer is simple. They migrated to Finland.

[foolish]

i natively speak persian, but i think ancient indian language vedic sanskrit would be the relatively hard to learn. chinese is also hard to learn, but i think vedic sanskrit is much more detailed, and specific, so would be challenging to learn.

संस्कृतं पृथिव्यां प्राचीना समृद्घा वैज्ञानिकी च भाषा मन्यते । विश्ववाङ्‌मयेषु संस्कृतं श्रेष्ठरत्नम् इति न केवलं भारते अपि तु समग्रविश्वे एतद्विषये निर्णयाधिकारिभि: जनै: स्वीकृतम् । महर्षि पाणिनिना विरचिता अष्टाध्यायी इति संस्कृतव्याकरणम्‌ अधुनापि भारते विदेशेषु च भाषाविज्ञानिनां प्रेरणास्‍थानं वर्तते . संस्कृतशब्दा: एव उत्तरं दक्षिणं च भारतं संयोजयन्ति ।

संस्कृते एकस्य धातो: रूपाणि अर्थकालानुसारेण दशसु लकारेशु भवन्ति । प्रत्येक-लकारे प्रथमपुरुष:, मध्यमपुरुष:, उत्तमपुरुष: इति त्रय: पुरुषा: सन्ति ।

[raamv]

i natively speak persian, but i think ancient indian language vedic sanskrit would be the relatively hard to learn. chinese is also hard to learn, but i think vedic sanskrit is much more detailed, and specific, so would be challenging to learn.

Nope!! Sanskrit ( Vedic as well as Normal spoken) is a systematically structured language that it is much easier to learn than any other..Indian Language. the syllables are developed with the natural progression of the sounds coming from the mouth..

[hippuli]

I spent my previous year in Finland and what I noticed was that for those people with German, Latin, Slavic, etc. mother tongue looked much harder to learn Finnish than for me as a Hungarian. It's not because we have similar word, we don't or just very few. One thing, though is the pronunciation, which for me was very easy to learn except the difference between e and ä, Finnish r, and Finnish s which in Hungary would be considered as a logopedic problem.

A Hungarian here ! I want to learn your language some day. Maybe it'll be easier for me because of being a Finn. I really hope so. I'm definitely going to go to Hungary next time I go travelling.

[dobermann]

i have heard that finnish is one of the hardest languages in the world but what is the hardest language? is it finnish? where does finnish rank?

Actually, if it is the hardest language then perhaps i don't want to know...that would definetly be a bit discouraging I don't need any more excuses


The finnish language isn't the easiest one, but I can't agree that it is the hardest one. It depends on what is your native language. For example native english people can find it difficult because there are a lot of cases, long compound words. On the other hand finnish language isn't difficult to pronounce for them comparing with polish or russian for example. I live in Finland, but it would be correct to say, that I don't know finnish language and I don't want to start learning it for personal reasons. My native language is lithuanian and it isn't the easiest language too. There are 7 cases, complex grammar, writing rules, a lot of punctuation in my language . A lot of native lithuanian speaker doesn't know how to correctly write some words or punctuation. So personally for me finnish dosn't look very weird and difficult.

Someone here wrote, that russian would be very difficult to learn, because of non latin alphabet and other reasons. For me it took less than year to learn it almost from zero to such level, when I can communicate freely almost about anything,it was so quick, because of all day communication and living experience with russians. But when I asked russian man about finnish or russian is more difficult to learn, he told me that russian is more difficult:D

And the last thing: the easiest way to understand foreign language is to drink some beer and a big smile