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A comment on Tongue Twisters: In search of the world’s hardest language (2009). Parent comment

Re:Tongue Twisters: In search of the world’s hardest languag... by Clewza313 on Wednesday April 21, 2021 @03:26AM (#26886407)
The US Foreign Service has a scale of how difficult languages are for a native English speaker:

https://www.atlasandboots.com/foreign-service-institute-lang...

Category V, requiring 2200 hours of study, has "languages which are exceptionally difficult for native English speakers" and consists of Arabic, *Japanese, Korean, Cantonese (Chinese) and Mandarin (Chinese), with the asterisk indicating that Japanese is considered the hardest of the lot.

Obvious caveat: the Foreign Service only teaches languages useful for diplomats, meaning that obscure regional languages won't make the cut.

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Re:Tongue Twisters: In search of the world’s hardest languag... by Tor3 on Wednesday April 21, 2021 @03:51AM (#26886552)
The only reason Japanese is on that list must be because of the writing system. I can't imagine it would be on the list if it were only about learning grammar and pronunciation. And when that's said - the writing system isn't actually hard, it's just that it takes time to learn it. There's nothing there that's difficult to wrap your head around.
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