Hi Whizzes!
Soooooo, there is NO RESEARCH to show that one language is "harder" to learn than another, in any way shape or form.
I know, your brain is near explosion at this point💣. You thought, for sure, Finnish was harder, or Japanese, or, if not that, certainly Urdu, right? Truth is hard, nobody likes to hear it, and for most of us, our Mr. Hyde (oh...I JUST realized this is a play on the word HIDE....fabulous...I love my ongoing and never ending linguistic epiphanies) comes out of the closet, revealing our SHADOW🪓 🔪 🗡. This is intolerable for most of us, but for those of us who like to LEARN, here we goooooooo.
🌄 🌠 🎇 🎆
There is no reason why one SOUND should be considered harder than another sound. 🙉🙉🙉
When learning languages the WRONG, NON-RESEARCH BASED WAY, I can imagine that arguments can be made for one language being harder to learn than another.🪰 When operating from a ground basis of how languages are really acquired, all that becomes nonsense. 🐬
For YOU, personally, it might be easier to learn German because you already speak English and you find that you can identify cognates, bootstrap yourself into the speech stream of people, and even acquire the accent pretty easily. 🦖That's you, bruh. That's got nothing to do with German, or English—leave them out of this🐣. For someone who is a born and raised Hindi-speaker that will not be the case, with German at least.
You, again, might find learning Mandarin hard because there are no cognates, the sounds and accenting are super strange to you. Ok, that's you, but what about for a Cantonese speaker/writer? They might find learning Mandarin easy for the same reasons you find learning German easy. And so, my point is that there is nothing inherently easier or harder about any language. Each human has their own native-tongue unique positionality.🦤 🦚🦤 🦚🦤 🦚
And then, when people have finally, begrudgingly accepted this part of it, they come at you with the "written part" argument. SURELY, learning Mandarin is harder, at least learning THE WRITING of it. Surely. Surely. NOPE. Or, SURELY, you GOTTA admit, learning Arabic writing is harder...what is that anyways? Is it an alphabet? Is it characters? (It's a consonant-based alphabet written from right to left). Surely. Surely. NOPE!
Perhaps YOU are so used to the Latin alphabet that learning Mandarin characters is harder than copying a Picasso. But, what if you were born and raised into another language that uses characters as well?🈶 🈚️ 🈸 🈺 🈷
Or, what if we're still talking about you, but you are someone who experiences dyslexia (perhaps severe), and learning the written part of Latin-alphabet languages is the equivalent of Inquisition-style torture to you (like someone pouring hot tar into your throat and then decorating it with feathers)🔱🔱🔱. Perhaps learning Mandarin characters would actually be a balm for you, Mrs. English-speaker/writer/reader with severe dyslexia (in which case you probably are not reading this anyways, but hey...we can imagine). What if you are a pictorial learner🖼🖼🖼? Then maybe learning Mandarin characters would have you dancing Hakuna Matata like you're Pumbaa after a good night's sleep.🦏
So, my sincere hope is that after this most enlightening blog, you will NEVER say that a LANGUAGE itself is harder to learn than another because of something to do with THE LANGUAGE. Just like you try, ever so hard to leave your KIDS out of your ADULT (fake it till you make it!) arguments, leave the LANGUAGES out of this.
Yes, you can say that learning Portuguese is easier for YOU, but not that there is something inherent about Portuguese that makes it easier or harder to learn. And, yes, this goes for All languages present or not present (🦤dead!🦕) on planet Earth right now, INCLUDING THE CLICKING TONGUE ONES AND ANY OTHER ONES that might make your head turn like the girl in the Exorcist🤮🤮🤮. Remember, they are hard for YOU, but not hard inherently. Or easy. Let's end on a light note, why don't we. ⭐️ 🌟 ✨ ⚡
Constanza Ontaneda
your own personal Language Acquisition Witch
