Тёмный

5 REALLY Hard Languages for English Speakers 

Olly Richards
Подписаться 459 тыс.
Просмотров 1,8 млн
50% 1

💪🏼 No foreign language is impossible to learn. If you put in enough time and effort, you can definitely get fluent in ANY language you want. But... I must admit that SOME languages are hard. Really, REALLY hard. 😰 In this video, I share 5 of the most difficult languages for native speakers of English, including one that I have learned myself (which you will hear me speak later in the video).
😬 WE GOOFED!
In this video, we claim that Navajo is the most widely spoken North American indigenous language. Nahuatl, rather, has more than 1.5 million speakers, mostly living in Mexico!
⬇️ GET MY FREE STORYLEARNING® KIT:
Discover how to learn any foreign language faster through the power of story with my free StoryLearning® Kit 👉🏼 bit.ly/freeslkit_hardlanguages
📖 LEARN A LANGUAGE THROUGH THE POWER OF STORY
Stories are the best way I have found to learn ANY language (even the difficult ones). Forget the boring textbooks and time-wasting apps and learn a language the natural, effective way with one of my story-based courses.
👉🏼bit.ly/storylearningcourses
📺 WATCH NEXT:
Top 5 Easiest Languages To Learn For English Speakers
👉🏼 • Top 5 Easiest Language...
How Navajo Code Talkers Helped Win WWII (The Unbreakable Code)
👉🏼 • This Secret Language H...
📚 RESOURCES MENTIONED:
Even the toughest languages can be cracked through the power of story. Learn how with my free StoryLearning® Kit! 👉🏼 iwillteachyoualanguage.com/kit
✍🏼 BLOG VERSION:
Want to read about even more difficult languages? Click here:
👉🏼 bit.ly/11hardestlanguages
⏱ TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 - Intro
0:18 - Hard Language #5
4:57 - Hard Language #4
9:12 - Hard Language #3
11:43 - Hard Language #2
15:45 - Hard Language #1
📜 SOURCES & FEATURED CLIPS:
WIKITONGUES: Ioanna speaking Greek
• Video
The trick to pronouncing Gamma (Γ,γ) & Chi (Χ,χ) | Easy Greek 9
• The trick to pronounci...
WIKITONGUES: Lolly speaking Zulu
• WIKITONGUES: Lolly spe...
How to pronounce Zulu Clicks with Sakhile from Safari and Surf - Wilderness Adventures
• How to pronounce Zulu ...
WIKITONGUES: Orsolya speaking Hungarian
• WIKITONGUES: Orsolya s...
Navajo President speaks
• Navajo President speaks
Navajo Consonants
• Video
HOW TO SPEAK NAVAJO
• HOW TO SPEAK NAVAJO 1_...
WIKITONGUES: Joyce speaking Cantonese
• WIKITONGUES: Joyce spe...

Опубликовано:

 

18 май 2024

Поделиться:

Ссылка:

Скачать:

Готовим ссылку...

Добавить в:

Мой плейлист
Посмотреть позже
Комментарии : 6 тыс.   
@storylearning
@storylearning 2 года назад
Even the toughest languages can be cracked through the power of story. Learn how with my free StoryLearning Kit! 👉🏼 bit.ly/freestorylearningkit
@salah777
@salah777 2 года назад
Arabic has more sounds than Greek and the Arabic grammar is much difficult
@ulical
@ulical 2 года назад
Where did you get the data proving that these languages are the hardest for English speakers to learn? I can tell you that, in the US military, languages are placed into categories (Category 1, Category 2, etc...) with the hardest being placed in Category 4. Those languages are Arabic, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese Mandarin. Of these four languages, Arabic has by far the lowest graduation rate, primarily because of the grammar and the difficulty for English speakers to pronounce Arabic sounds properly.
@salah777
@salah777 2 года назад
@@ulical yes for example the sound ض do not exist in any other language and there are other hard sounds like ق ص ط خ ع ظ which are difficult for western people to pronouce
@nightslasher9384
@nightslasher9384 2 года назад
Could have warned me about spiders… I accidentally tosses my phone on the wall because of that. >^
@ulical
@ulical 2 года назад
@@salah777 Yes, that's completely correct. I speak Arabic myself and the sounds of those letters are what usually get people.
@Pakanahymni
@Pakanahymni 2 года назад
The true "hardest" languages are probably unstudied minority languages in Africa, Americas and Asia, where you'd have to be a trained field linguist to even begin documenting the language in order to learn it.
@cheersfor6323
@cheersfor6323 2 года назад
Nailed it
@lisanarramore222
@lisanarramore222 2 года назад
I'm sure one day Olly will make a video about the hardest languages on earth. 🙂
@karlmakhwa4182
@karlmakhwa4182 2 года назад
Great point! I'm kind of at the in-between stage, having become interested in the indigenous languages of Russia and the Caucasus, and I'm learning one primarily with the help of native speakers because of the obvious dearth of resources.
@SaeSaeyoungyoung
@SaeSaeyoungyoung 2 года назад
In Guatemala we have the Kaqchikel language as an obligatory class. Nobody in my class speaks kaqchikel, like, for real. So, kaqchikel is obligatory because the goverment added it to avoid losing the language. BUT, most of our schools don't really care about teaching it. Our teachers aren't really people who speak the language, they're mostly *ladinos* without any training in the language, they just show what is on their books. Kaqchikel is not the only language in Guatemala, we have A LOT, and a lot of them are just losing speakers because in our country, instead of trying to acknoledge and love them, racism wins. Kinda sad, i would really like to understand kaqchikel :(.
@laur-unstagenameactuallyca1587
@laur-unstagenameactuallyca1587 2 года назад
yes very true. i wonder where the Hadza tribe's language would fit on the list for English speakers
@pinecone_88
@pinecone_88 2 года назад
for those who don’t have time: #1 cantonese #2 navajo #3 hungarian #4 zulu #5 greek
@carendosagomi6440
@carendosagomi6440 2 года назад
*Laughs in Polish*
@sara.o_c
@sara.o_c 2 года назад
*laughs in Arabic*
@HawaiiYou88
@HawaiiYou88 2 года назад
Laughs in Vietnamese
@lucinka1306
@lucinka1306 2 года назад
Laughs in Czech
@ValDarArts
@ValDarArts 2 года назад
Laughs in URDU lmao
@AVANGuAR
@AVANGuAR Год назад
Depends on the origin of English speakers. For Americans the most difficult language is Geography
@dutchessdreamer4543
@dutchessdreamer4543 Год назад
I took World Geography classes in high school (we learned about the culture as well). I am American.
@praneethmashetty591
@praneethmashetty591 10 месяцев назад
@@dutchessdreamer4543 it's a joke bro chill(i'm american too btw before you say anything)
@WilhelmFreidrich
@WilhelmFreidrich 10 месяцев назад
Weak joke.
@saulhinojozagalvan3227
@saulhinojozagalvan3227 8 месяцев назад
Facts
@indetif839
@indetif839 8 месяцев назад
Sometimes it seems like English is the most difficult language for Americans.
@edim108
@edim108 Год назад
As a Slavic language speaker, it sounds like Greek might actually be one of the easier foreign languages to learn for us. A good bit of similar grammar, mostly similar phonetics and writing system that is pretty straight forward to get a hang of if you already know Cyrillic. It's a lot more familiar feeling that English or German grammar at least, and has the added benefit of making you sound smart, even when you're ordering a gyros in a takeout spot 😂
@stopthelightskinguilt.3775
@stopthelightskinguilt.3775 Год назад
Lol like me a native English speaker German is soo freaking easy 😅I love it. It really depends on your mother tongue to determine what’s and easy language to learn.
@rosseslife5887
@rosseslife5887 Год назад
@@stopthelightskinguilt.3775 fax
@fionaslifechannel
@fionaslifechannel Год назад
@@stopthelightskinguilt.3775 ehm well me as a native german speaker i am always wondering what English native speakers are trying to say in German because it sound so off 😅 It may be you are different but yeah thats my perspective 😊
@stopthelightskinguilt.3775
@stopthelightskinguilt.3775 Год назад
@@fionaslifechannel lol I’m sure it does sound off 😂
@fionaslifechannel
@fionaslifechannel Год назад
@@stopthelightskinguilt.3775 Yeah your right 😂
@yeungyuetyancharlotte8972
@yeungyuetyancharlotte8972 2 года назад
I feel like people who are born speaking Cantonese are so lucky. It’s just that it’s like one of the hardest languages to learn and we automatically learn it when our language-learning ability is the highest-merely newborn. Also, most places that speak Cantonese also speaks mandarin and English, like Hong Kong and Macau, therefore we know three languages by heart since we were babies and we don’t even need to put that much effort. (Respect to those who struggle)
@ShinChan-ke5ei
@ShinChan-ke5ei 2 года назад
香港人?👁👄👁
@__Poli_
@__Poli_ 2 года назад
Me too, I speak Cantonese, Chinese, and English And I totally understand
@weirddude9832
@weirddude9832 2 года назад
Same i learn Cantonese from my dad and all the relatives during Chinese new year . I know Chinese and English and Malay too
@NecronHandlee
@NecronHandlee 2 года назад
gifted basically
@EG_800
@EG_800 2 года назад
Yea I understand but it’s so hard to learn that I get like 62% in my tests
@ronweasley1354
@ronweasley1354 2 года назад
Knowing how to read Cyrillic makes Greek writing make a lot more sense
@bhami
@bhami 2 года назад
I think of Cyrillic as 60% Latin, 20% Greek, and 20% its own thing.
@akl2k7
@akl2k7 2 года назад
And then there's the Coptic alphabet, which is Greek's with a few extra symbols, though that's only useful for one ancient, dead language.
@theKRUGMEISTER
@theKRUGMEISTER 2 года назад
I was thinking the same thing. Every character he showed I was like “oh yeah that’s how the Russians pronounce it too”
@highviewbarbell
@highviewbarbell 2 года назад
No really, i can read cyrillic like the back of my hand and looking at Greek is like alien writing to me, and I've already spent several days trying to understand and pronounce it where cyrillic took about 30 minutes to master
@magroves
@magroves 2 года назад
Not at all to me :( I know both alphabets well, some conversational Russian and took a year of Greek. My mom's family is Greek, my YiaYia taught me the alphabet as a kid, sang me to bed with feggariki mou lambro. I still have trouble reading Greek words. The letters can stand for so many things. υ can even make a "f" sound. ευχαριστώ Ζευς etc. I had no clue it could sound like f, i was taught it was a vowel that sounded like "ee" In short, there are lots of little quirks about modern Greek and it takes more than a simple cursory "learning the rules" to be able to pronounce it. I think the rules might have been simple once upon a time but the language evolved, just like English and not every evolution is treated the same way in spelling. I wish it was more simple "this always makes this sound" but there are so many tricky moments
@AbbieLo925
@AbbieLo925 Год назад
As a native Cantonese speaker, I hope people won't be scared off from learning Cantonese, it's really an interesting language. But I'm really struggling when I want to teach my foreign friends Cantonese as I don't know how I learn it myself. We didn't have "lessons" in class that teach the grammar, pronunciation etc of it, instead when we're in class, we just learn a similar word if we ever encounter a new word. My whole Cantonese learning experience is 100% immersive (though I know that there's definitely some kind of classes that you can take to learn the rules), so yeah, being immersed into a Cantonese environment ins important.
@patcountryball_lover
@patcountryball_lover Год назад
You live in Hong Kong like me
@seard8442
@seard8442 Год назад
其實粵語最精髓的地方是粗口w
@thedustwhispered
@thedustwhispered Год назад
my mother is from HK, and while i can understand it mostly, i just can't recall how to speak when i have to speak (the vocabulary, the grammar.. i forget it all). there are very few opportunities for overseas chinese to immerse as you suggested, or at least without guidance. in any case i ended up better at speaking mandarin..
@sanaxthetic
@sanaxthetic Год назад
@@seard8442 xD
@kikiww198
@kikiww198 11 месяцев назад
Can I say Cantonese is my mother language? I could speak Cantonese until I was six years old, but when I went to primary school and everyone spoke Mandarin,(our school on mainland are all Mandarin environment) 🥲 I forget how to speak Cantonese
@candyflossz099
@candyflossz099 Год назад
As a native Cantonese speaker I’m very proud Cantonese is on the top of the list Also he’s not just simply ranking languages according to their difficulties but gives full introduction about that language and reasons
@Lemon-sz4sy
@Lemon-sz4sy 7 месяцев назад
Same I'm a native Cantonese speaker too I'm born in hk
@erinwashere3757
@erinwashere3757 2 года назад
I often wake up to my partner saying “good morning” in Cantonese before he remembers I’m merely an English speaker. I asked him to teach me Cantonese. He said good luck 😂
@arvin7386
@arvin7386 2 года назад
cantonese is my native language
@szecr
@szecr 2 года назад
@@arvin7386 same
@erinwashere3757
@erinwashere3757 2 года назад
@@MichaelTheophilus906 I am super confused about your reply. What does my comment have to do with my gender?
@erinwashere3757
@erinwashere3757 2 года назад
@@MichaelTheophilus906 I mean it doesn’t. Anyone can refer to the person they are in a relationship with as a partner. Even if I was in a same sex relationship, what would that have to do with my comment? It doesn’t change the context at all
@doger944
@doger944 2 года назад
If you have a dedicated native speaker to teach you, it probably won't be as impossible as you think. It's worth learning your partner's native language, just stick at it!
@annalise9011
@annalise9011 2 года назад
Me: Laughs in native Cantonese Funny thing, English is actually considered a hard language to master for us, so I'm very proud of the fact that I can speak both languages fluently and without accents. Yay!
@otakuforever9165
@otakuforever9165 2 года назад
Well it's not really the case for us arabic people. I don't know why but it's kind of easy to learn for native speakers even if we don't have the same alphabet ( I speak for the majority, cuz I have a lonnnnng way to go, i'm just 15 ^^" )
@inachan1540
@inachan1540 2 года назад
@@otakuforever9165 الأمر يتعلق المخارج الحروف العربية التي تسمح لنا بنطق كل الحروف مهما كانت صعبة + عند العرب ذكاء لغوي 😏😏
@otakuforever9165
@otakuforever9165 2 года назад
ذكاء لغوي..... احب هذه العبارة 😁 لاول مرة ساعتبر نفسي ذكية في مادة ما 😜
@inachan1540
@inachan1540 2 года назад
@@otakuforever9165 العرب عموما يحق لهم يفخرون بفصاحتهم وطلاقة ألسنتهم😏👌🏻
@EG_800
@EG_800 2 года назад
English is not that hard actually *gets 95-100% in tests*
@bananaeater8458
@bananaeater8458 Год назад
Cantonese is a very difficult language to understand. Even my grandma, who spoke two Hakka dialects, putonghua, Hokkien and could understand Shanghainese had problems understanding Cantonese. She understood some of course, because she had a lot of exposure to it through Cantonese dramas, but her understanding was still very limited.
@zyrob3435
@zyrob3435 Год назад
That's the opposite of my parents' experience though. Both my parents, who speak Mandarin and Hokkien, picked up Cantonese fairly easily from watching lots of Cantonese dramas in their teenage years. They told me it was very common among their generation. They still retain much understanding of Cantonese now though they struggle with speaking it.
@wonyoung_i
@wonyoung_i Год назад
My dad was from Shanghai and moved to hk when he was 10 I was born in hk and Cantonese is my first language it’s hard to switch from canto to mandarin my English is fluent tho
@steveunderwood3683
@steveunderwood3683 8 месяцев назад
I know a few people from northern China who moved to HK in their teens who told me it was easier learning English as a Mandarin speaker than it was for them to learn Cantonese.
@richard999
@richard999 Год назад
I was amused to find Hungarian at number 3. I know this is traditionally a difficult language but I lived in Hungary for two years and became quite proficient for a non-native especially in pronunciation. Hungary is a lovely country and I really enjoyed my time there.
@Nerurin0
@Nerurin0 Год назад
We're glad you enjoyed your time! ☺️
@kevhynaleks2631
@kevhynaleks2631 Год назад
Yes, to speak on basic not so difficult. And Hungarians adore you, if you try to speak their language...
@kellysoo8615
@kellysoo8615 11 месяцев назад
Richard, I agree. I lived in Hungary as a 'diak' decades ago in college. The pronunciation is relatively easy for an English speaker. Grammar and everything else difficult. It is an agglutinative language and I think many English/Romance lang speakers initially find that characteristic difficult. But as a Korean speaker, I found this aspect intuitive. Enjoyed my time there. Vislat.
@TheHesseJames
@TheHesseJames 9 месяцев назад
It is only difficult if compared to learning another Indo-European language as a native Indo-European speaker. I think Navajo and Zulu are much more difficult.
@RiverWorksCo
@RiverWorksCo 8 месяцев назад
​@@kellysoo8615yeah I guess Asians have less difficulty learning Hungarian than a native English speaker. After all, even if it was a long time ago, we also come from that part of the world.
@Abiodun92
@Abiodun92 2 года назад
Hungarian sounds weirdly nostalgic to my Finnish ears, it's how they pronounce the words, the vowel harmony and the way the language "flows" it has a very Finno-Ugric quality to it, despite being completely unintelligible for us. Every time I hear Hungarian from a distance, I mistake it for Finnish until I get closer and then it becomes clear that it isn't Finnish. 🇫🇮❤️🇭🇺
@Julieseven
@Julieseven 2 года назад
I learned this about fifteen years ago when I worked with a woman with Hungarian roots. She said the exact same thing about Finnish. She told me that she watched the TV coverage of the ice hockey world championship in Finland, and she first thought that the Finnish commentators were speaking Hungarian because the sound of the words were so familiar to her. And because I've always been a language nerd, I did some research and found out that Hungarian is the only Finno-Ugric language spoken in central Europe, and no one knows why. Absolutely fascinating!
@sarapaltan8207
@sarapaltan8207 2 года назад
Im from Hungary, and it is very difficult for you to understand what we are saying lol
@Manoka0923
@Manoka0923 2 года назад
I agree
@Manoka0923
@Manoka0923 2 года назад
I agree @Sára Paltán
@dfrose2120
@dfrose2120 2 года назад
Moro miten menee
@arjay9745
@arjay9745 2 года назад
I knew Hungarian would be on this list, but it's not as hard as the description makes it sound. I learned it to practically native level in just a couple years. The nice thing about Hungarian is that every single rule has a purpose. Nothing is there just to frustrate you. Everything is there to help you do something or accomplish something in communication. Once you learn what it's FOR, you realize you've just been liberated a little further in expressing yourself. Seriously, I like speaking it better than my own mother tongue because there's just nothing it can't do. Also, it's freaking regular. Nothing stupid to memorize 'just because'.
@arieltineo1605
@arieltineo1605 2 года назад
Please Help me!! Could you share with me a pdf book to learn Hungarian? It can also be a website or a channel on RU-vid
@ImSlayah
@ImSlayah 2 года назад
How does someone go about learning Hungarian? Would you mind sharing how you did it?
@arjay9745
@arjay9745 2 года назад
@@arieltineo1605 I learned it 30 years ago, before the Internet, so I can't help you there, though I'll look around maybe and get back to you. I had a three-pronged attack myself. 1. I bought this weird, old communist-era grammar book that was, in fact, brilliant, because it recognised that structure will be a foreigner's main challenge, and though the sentences were nonsense, it carefully built up its examples one bit at a time to convey how simple thoughts are layered into more complex ones; in parallel to that, I read children's books, because Hungarians have written some amazing ones, particularly those by Lázár Ervin and Janikovszky Éva; and finally, I watched loads of those old-fashioned, completely chill, low-budget/high-quality Hungarian TV shows like Másfélmillió Lépés Magyarországon, A Desszert, and Lehetetlen!. Hungarian is spoken slowly as a rule and words are carefully articulated, so its easy to pick out the vocabulary you've learned from your books, spoken in context.
@arjay9745
@arjay9745 2 года назад
@@ImSlayah Beyond repeating what I just wrote in response to Ariel, I'd mention that I didn't push myself to start speaking right away. Olly's right that it's so different, you sort of have to let go of your mother tongue a bit and your native way of thinking and be more like a baby starting from zero. The reason more people don't succeed in learning Hungarian, in my opinion, is that they try to compare words and sentences to their native tongues, which is something that works for languages closer on the tree to their own. Also, Hungarian has far fewer words than English altogether, but uses more on average in everyday speech, so there's a hump to get over before you can start. I was almost mute for a year or so, just watching, reading, and listening. Then one day I opened my mouth and that was it, I was off.
@user-ry2nq7ng5e
@user-ry2nq7ng5e 2 года назад
I concur. Hungarian has a tidy structure and quite intuitive when you get into it, unlike Russian that even the exceptions form new rules that again have exceptions. Also lots of crazy rules that you need to memorize. The textbooks in Hungarian usually don't present the many cases with their names, because, as you said, there is a purpose for each rule, ..case suffix etc.. Nevertheless Russian is interesting and fascinating in its own way. I think I will be brushing up on my Hungarian soon as well.
@Cipotalp
@Cipotalp Год назад
9:18 As a native Hungarian I can confirm.... Our language is really f***ng hard XD
@nellitheretrogamer8666
@nellitheretrogamer8666 Год назад
Finland here. One of the hardest things about learning foreign languages, in my experience, is when something that is very common in your own language is missing from the other language. One of the difficult things about English for me is that English doesn't have genitive forms for the words "this" and "that". As a result, some things that are very easy to say in Finnish sometimes result in ridiculously complex sentence structures when translated into English.
@SiiriRebane
@SiiriRebane 8 месяцев назад
@@JimCarner yes, please? i mean, nelli the retro etc. i'm neither english or finnish, but can understand some; i guess in english you just use 'it' and genitive 'its' when you need it, or 'of this' or 'of that'?
@user-zh8hf8bq3x
@user-zh8hf8bq3x 8 месяцев назад
Well, Finnish is a very powerful language. For example on word: "saadakseni" ( saada = to get; ksi/e = in order to or at the aim of; ni = me ) translates to any other language with at least five words: "in order for me to get".
@nellitheretrogamer8666
@nellitheretrogamer8666 8 месяцев назад
@@JimCarner for example, in Finnish I can say "tämän näköinen" which translates into English as "something that looks like this". The Finnish words literally sort of translate as "this's looking", with the genitive form of "this" in the beginning there. There's a lot of things like this... for example, in Finnish I would just say "tämän värinen", but if I try to say it in English, it would become "something that is the same color as this". Grammatically, it is possible to say "the color of this" in English but no one really says it like that. By now I know that native speakers of English would simply say "this color" and would not feel the need to have the genitive there, but a Finnish speaker, especially someone who is still learning English, would try to form a genitive and when that is not possible, ends up having to form a much longer sentence.
@vaenii5056
@vaenii5056 7 месяцев назад
When speaking / writing English the thing I miss the most are the particles such as -pa, -han, -kaan and so on. You can express many things with them depending on context and in Finnish they are used all the time. Sometimes they can be translated and sometimes not, but even when translated the translations are often somewhat clumsy approximations. The lack of these particles is also why Finns often sound blunt when speaking English - these are often used to soften questions, avoid the imperative and so on. Not to mention "intensifiers" which are also used very frequently. These are pretty much untranslatable even though they can significantly affect the feeling of a sentence.
@samuelwaller4924
@samuelwaller4924 7 месяцев назад
@@nellitheretrogamer8666 as an american native english speaker, "the color of this" sounds perfectly fine to me. in fact I personally would be more likely to say that over "this color" as it is more laid back and matches my personality better. its a very subjective language lol
@vilarinforte
@vilarinforte 2 года назад
As someone from Poland i do feel really lucky, when compared to English speakers. Thanks to very melodic letters and nuances of my mother language I am able to literally speak in every language. I might not be able to learn them all, but our Polish tongues are flexible enough to spell literally everything!
@Vaniego.
@Vaniego. 2 года назад
Hej hej hej sokoły!
@penguinbic
@penguinbic 2 года назад
Same for me, as a czech! :D
@H4nn4H404
@H4nn4H404 2 года назад
To może być prawda This can be true
@NiveaCow
@NiveaCow 2 года назад
I still remember my Mandarin teacher being shocked how well I can pronounce all the sounds with no effort. She planned a week for phonetic practise and I pretty much nailed them on my first try. All the ż, dż, sz, ś sounds are in our language too, they are just spelled differently. But I was her first Polish student, she was used to teaching English speakers. ;)
@sachimei959
@sachimei959 2 года назад
That's true. When I started learning Mandarin my teacher said that Polish people can grasp pronunciation cuz we are used to say "ch" "sz" etc.
@user-pp9lt7vy5c
@user-pp9lt7vy5c 2 года назад
As a Greek I'm telling you, the funny thing is that we have words that sound the same but if you replace one letter, it changes the meaning totally! It may be difficult for a foreigner to learn it, although most of the medical and scientific terms and words used worldwide, have their roots in Ancient Greek!
@oliversissonphone6143
@oliversissonphone6143 2 года назад
And Latin..?
@user-pp9lt7vy5c
@user-pp9lt7vy5c 2 года назад
@@oliversissonphone6143 Even Latin got influenced by Ancient Greek but ok... I m not gonna argue
@whatsinthename21
@whatsinthename21 2 года назад
I learned all the greek Alphabets in my physics and mathematics classes. Lol And I'm interested in this language.
@Jimboy12
@Jimboy12 2 года назад
True
@LegoCityFilms
@LegoCityFilms 2 года назад
Panaglooths Tsoonhsh? I really tried to translate that with my own Greek ability and keyboard 😅😅
@user-dd8ev2xr7f
@user-dd8ev2xr7f 2 года назад
I’m Greek and the fist language I had to learn was english. The only thing that had me confused was the grammar, because our language is so flexible but English has a more straightforward way of expressing one’s feeling. Well whatever kisses from Greece 🇬🇷
@za-mm
@za-mm Год назад
the same for me, portuguese has a lot more of words that help you to express better
@flyvez2303
@flyvez2303 8 месяцев назад
Greek is my favourite foreign language, greetings from Italy
@FlorPerezLascano
@FlorPerezLascano 4 месяца назад
Αγαπώ τα ελληνικά!! Άρχισα να τα μαθαίνω το 2020 και έγινε εμμονή για μένα.
@lisaahmari7199
@lisaahmari7199 Год назад
For anyone studying French, Spanish or Italian and feeling frustrated with the difficulty: force yourself for three days to study Mandarin, Russian or Greek. I promise you, you will running screaming back to your Romance language, embracing it and blubbering great gratitude for its simplicity! I do this any time I am feeling too challenged by French and Spanish. Works every time for me. I start sobbing within two hours of trying to learn Mandarin.....and am so relieved to go back to my mystifying Subjunctive. Even Verlan seems easy in comparison!😅🤣
@stillnotstill
@stillnotstill Год назад
Honestly? Not for everyone, I'd say. I'm a native English speaker. I took Latin in school. As an adult I moved from the USA to Canada. Because French is prevalent in Canada I tried to learn it and quickly became incredibly frustrated and stopped. Now I am trying to learn Mandarin and it feels so much more welcoming to me. I prefer tones and even trying to read over trying to memorize word endings and figure out pronunciation that doesn't make any sense to me. At least with Mandarin I know it's hard. With French I feel like it should be a little easier with my Romance language background but I look at all the endings and the letters that in my mind should. Not. Be. There. and I kind of freak out about it. Mandarin I feel willing to put in the work for.
@lisaahmari7199
@lisaahmari7199 Год назад
@stillnotstill Maybe you have a gift for intonation! I sure wish I was the way you are, with Chinese! And that was a hilarious way to describe French and its spelling! It is how we all feel, too!😅
@stillnotstill
@stillnotstill Год назад
@@lisaahmari7199 Oh yay! I know not everyone turns on notifications / sees replies and I was hoping you would see 😄 And your kind reply made me smile. Hope you have a great day and best of luck on your language journeys!
@lisaahmari7199
@lisaahmari7199 Год назад
@@stillnotstill You too!😊
@dollypanda90
@dollypanda90 Год назад
French is my mother tongue, and I studied a lot of languages, I still believe French is the hardest. I even speak Japanese and let me tell you, it is far easier than French XD I even found Polish to be easier. Plus, in Canada, we have unique pronunciation and way of saying things that if you studied French from France, you will be lost here. I highly prefer to indulge myself into the 2000 kanji in Japanese rather than French verbs lol
@Maya_Ruinz
@Maya_Ruinz 2 года назад
Greek sounds so beautiful, it really feels ancient in its sound.
@beafoxxylady
@beafoxxylady 2 года назад
Has I’m ancient lool
@liampos_21
@liampos_21 2 года назад
well i guess I am ancient now
@user-ji9qo1qh5t
@user-ji9qo1qh5t 2 года назад
Είναι πολύ ωραία γλώσσα, meaning "it's a beautiful language".
@AFFoC
@AFFoC 2 года назад
It sounds like a latinized Slavic language.
@mtmcommunity
@mtmcommunity 2 года назад
Heard this school in Nashville sing in Greek in this Coliseum and the echo was godly
@shaohtsai
@shaohtsai 2 года назад
I managed to somewhat do the clicks, but combining them with actual sounds seems impossible. What a fascinating language!
@bafanaramodibe1387
@bafanaramodibe1387 2 года назад
😂 😂 It's not that hard once you practice them.
@nightyonetwothree
@nightyonetwothree 2 года назад
lol, have ezly do all the clicks, even they aren't even used in my language (russian). Just it was a fun to do these sounds when being a child.
@fourteens2336
@fourteens2336 2 года назад
It sounds so cool. Bit like dolphin language. :D
@vuyisilemyeni6198
@vuyisilemyeni6198 2 года назад
Lol it's my native language and it's not that hard, maybe I'm biased since it's my language but Zulu isn't that hard tbh
@ThapeloMKT
@ThapeloMKT 2 года назад
@@vuyisilemyeni6198 i refuse say words starting with gq or gx
@crazybomb888
@crazybomb888 9 месяцев назад
as a cantonese speaker, i thank you for highlighting some of the most challenging aspects in cantonese that are often overlooked in other difficult language videos (e.g. synonyms, particles(!)). it is very obvious that these are coming from someone who has put in much effort in learning the language. hats off to you!
@christopherlord3441
@christopherlord3441 Год назад
Hats off to Olly for learning Cantonese. The only people I know who have managed it learned it as children. But I would add to his explanation of Navajo that it also has an incredibly complicated grammar, with a three-level aspect system that I would say makes it basically impossible for non-natives to learn.
@Lemon-sz4sy
@Lemon-sz4sy 7 месяцев назад
ye that's kinda true coz I'm a Hong konger and I've NEVER heard a non native Cantonese speaker speak it perfectly
@dancingddh8063
@dancingddh8063 2 года назад
I feel lucky to be a native Cantonese speaker. Can’t imagine others learning our language. It’s not just the 9 tones, there are many slangs that sometimes even I don’t understand. For those who are working hard to learn Cantonese, keep going don’t give up!
@aotuman7879
@aotuman7879 2 года назад
It really is, we don't have alphabets, each word have to be memorised and can only be learned by simply repeat writing that word everyday, even I'm Cantonese there are even some high - level word that I've never heard.
@onewayraildex4827
@onewayraildex4827 2 года назад
I found it kinda strange that they consider several consonant ending sounds, their own tones For example the ending sound K is considered a different tone like "black and white"黑白(yes I know it's in simplified) would be "Hak Bak" The ending sound of T like in 发出 or "Fat Chut" The ending sound of P like in 碟 or 级 “Dip or Kap”
@dancingddh8063
@dancingddh8063 2 года назад
@@onewayraildex4827 I get what u mean that’s why many Cantonese speakers miss the ending sounds in english
@bobollj6111
@bobollj6111 2 года назад
I’m from HK :D
@Hana-qs9zg
@Hana-qs9zg 2 года назад
It’s nice living in mainland because I’m exposed to mandarin and can detect Cantonese by the tones. I can understand some of the wording too due to understanding some mandarin. But overall the hardest part is understanding when someone is calling from waimai 😅
@saroltahajdu3599
@saroltahajdu3599 2 года назад
Im watching this as a Hungarian person, and I want to tell you guys that if you learn Hungarian then just don't give up. After a while you are going to find it so much easier. You can do it❤️
@kezako6783
@kezako6783 2 года назад
I confirm : I learned it and the 6-10 first months felt like hell. After that, it became "easy" enough. Very logical, very few exceptions. Haven't practiced in 10 years so it's pretty much gone and I was never close to native level but I was fluent enough. I've been learning Japanese for 2 years now, I still don't feel like the worst part is behind me.
@Daneelro
@Daneelro 2 года назад
My sister is a language teacher and her students include foreigners learning Hungarian, and their experience is similar. There is a lot to learn, but once you get the basic logic of the language, you get by. on the other hand, progressing to accent-free pronunciation and zero mistakes in conjugation still takes a long time. Also, in the reverse direction, while I would rate my written English as better than that of most native speakers, my English pronunciation is atrocious, which is not made easier by my familiarity with both British and American English (I shift between the two even mid-sentence and don't always know which is which).
@sss1969
@sss1969 2 года назад
thats so nice 💜
@DayD1v3
@DayD1v3 2 года назад
Im half Hungarian lol
@Dr.Jegesmedve
@Dr.Jegesmedve 2 года назад
Amúgy ez igaz. Ha valaki az alapokat megtanulja nagyon könnyen elboldogul onnantól, mert logikus a nyelv és csak 3 igeidő van, ami könnyebbség az angollal szemben. A magyarban igazán az a nehéz, hogy rengeteg olyan kifejezés van, ami más nyelvekben nincs. English: Yes, It's real. If anyone learn the bases, he would be good because the language is logical and just have 3 tenses contrast to English. It is more difficult in Hungarian compared to other languages ​​that there are many more terms and idioms that cannot really be translated. Sorry for the not too good translate but I'm a beginner in English.
@FlorPerezLascano
@FlorPerezLascano 4 месяца назад
I really recommend everyone to learn modern greek. I was starting german because my favorite composer is Schubert when some day I watched a movie in greek and decided to drop german and give my full attention to greek. It is fascinating how it has so many ties with every european language through latin. It is also very logical, has science, mythology and many other interesting things. I started in 2020 and it became an obsession. It is like doing archaeology with a modern language. ❤️
@JimmyMidnite
@JimmyMidnite Год назад
Good to know that, while Japanese (which I'm learning) is extremely complex, there's at least 5 languages harder for English speakers 🙂
@vaenii5056
@vaenii5056 7 месяцев назад
The writing system in Japanese is difficult to learn, for obvious reasons, but other than that it shouldn't be more difficult than any other non Indo-European language for an English speaker.
@JimmyMidnite
@JimmyMidnite 7 месяцев назад
@@vaenii5056 4 months later, I’d say the hardest parts are kanji and just getting used to the different verb and noun placement. On the upside, many of the sounds are similar to English.
@nerdyguy5086
@nerdyguy5086 2 года назад
as a cantonese speaker, i actually have never even heard about the tone system. We just say things naturally.
@caim3465
@caim3465 2 года назад
Master Yoda!
@alishanightshade3270
@alishanightshade3270 2 года назад
Me too. Didn't learn that
@kat1345
@kat1345 2 года назад
lol same
@Kiki15578
@Kiki15578 2 года назад
I learn about the tone system during form 4 because of my cool Chinese teacher
@gaming4K
@gaming4K 2 года назад
Exactly, you don't need the grammar rules to learn a language. 🤷🏻‍♂️
@run2fire
@run2fire 2 года назад
The Navajo language was instrumental in helping the USA defeat the Japanese in the Pacific theatre during WW2. Many Navajos were US Marines and they used their native language to transmit information that the Japanese could not understand. Watch the movie “Windtalkers”
@danbrodt977
@danbrodt977 2 года назад
And they took it one step further to make it even harder to decode. They would replace most military vocabulary with other words. For instance, they would replace the word "tank" with "turtle."
@aeganratheesh
@aeganratheesh 2 года назад
...and they probably hold responsibility in fkin up the world
@laur-unstagenameactuallyca1587
@laur-unstagenameactuallyca1587 2 года назад
@@aeganratheesh why would they hold responsibility for that you dummy. the US government is the one that nuked Naga&Hiroshima
@lewjames6688
@lewjames6688 2 года назад
Yep. SFMF.
@bshbhyuh
@bshbhyuh 2 года назад
@@aeganratheesh American imperialism pre- and post-WWII doesn’t negate the fact that the 2nd World War itself was a just war. I’ll go on all day about how American imperialism screwed up different parts of the world, but the fight against literal monarcho-fascists and the fucking actual nazis was a net good. Those Navajo men bore no responsibility for US foreign policy regardless, so I don’t know why they’re being blamed here in your comment
@siirsimaytaskran2714
@siirsimaytaskran2714 Год назад
I am Turkish, but sometimes there are places where we have difficulty with words even in Turkish. 
@tinalettieri
@tinalettieri Год назад
English speakers who move to Israel have a really hard time learning Hebrew. My late husband had learned to read Hebrew well for his bar mitzva, even if he didn't know what he was reading he could recite perfectly. He struggled to speak for years until I told him, "look, you read well, start reading more and you'll learn, to speak better" and he did. hebrew grammar is really simple compared to many languages. I could speak better but couldn't read. He passed a little over 2 years ago so I lost my "eyes" so to speak. I HAD to learn to read and it is starting to come to me. I have some visual difficulty with some of the fonts but simple, modern ones are ok.
@emilianofuentes4129
@emilianofuentes4129 2 года назад
I, being a Mexican myself, would say Greek is easy to Spanish speakers to pronounce, besides it's the non-romance language most easy to understand or comprehend due to its similarities in pronounciation in common with the Castillian Spanish from Spain and also because of the many Greek-borrowed words we have in Spanish. Greek's numbered among the five languages I really want to learn (I'm studying English, Portuguese and I want to learn Italian, French and Greek) and actually I know how to read it, I mean, I know Greek alphabet, and not to mention its pronounciation, which is beautiful, and I also master it.
@A-ID-A-M
@A-ID-A-M 2 года назад
Not understand. Pronounce.
@SaeSaeyoungyoung
@SaeSaeyoungyoung 2 года назад
For real, i was like "this is like watching someone from spain-"
@emilianofuentes4129
@emilianofuentes4129 2 года назад
@@A-ID-A-M We in Spanish have TONS of borrowed words from Greek, that's why I said 'understand', because I can understand a little of Greek. Perhaps it isn't easy to understand but to pronounce it really is to us.
@YouAwakeYet
@YouAwakeYet 2 года назад
@@emilianofuentes4129 really!? Like what words? I'm a Spanish speaker. I know we have tons of Arabic words but I didn't know we had Greek words
@zara7478
@zara7478 2 года назад
@@YouAwakeYet Because Spanish comes from latin, we have a lot of words that come from greek in our lexicon due to romans. Some words: Cadera, esqueleto, arteria, camaleón, sepia, dromedario, geranio, teatro, narciso, tragedia, comedia, monje, obispo, iglesia, Cristo, bodega, sandalia, geografía, psicología (y demás disciplinas/ciencias con el término logía) trigonometría, esfera, autonomía, rinoceronte, etc.
@magicofshootingstar5825
@magicofshootingstar5825 2 года назад
I was sure to find Finnish in the list since everybody says it's hard for foreigners. Until there was Hungarian and I knew our language group had already been covered. 😂
@zombiechocolate541
@zombiechocolate541 2 года назад
Its funny, because as a Hungarian, i sometimes mindlessly switch thru foreign channels, to randomly find a "Hungarian one" later, to relalize its Finnish and i cant understand one word, just the vowel harmony and the flow of the speaking, is so similar, it makes me mistake it for Hungarian for a whole minute :D
@forgottenforgetfulness6643
@forgottenforgetfulness6643 2 года назад
Estonian is hard for foreigners too. Uralic languages in general. At least I find them difficult. 🇪🇪 🇫🇮 🇭🇺
@FluffySylveonBoi
@FluffySylveonBoi 2 года назад
Try Czech too ^^
@tonipalm
@tonipalm 2 года назад
@@zombiechocolate541 :D I randomly clicked the video where she's speaking Hungarian and took me moment to catch that she's not speaking Finnish :D First I thought she's just having some Russian-type accent until I noticed I understood zero words. I think it's the vowel harmony and rhythm that fooled me. Estonian is easy to spot since they don't have vowel harmony although from Estonian us Finns can guess quite many words :)
@prplt
@prplt 2 года назад
I'm Finnish learning Hungarian and I think Hungarian is much easier than Finnish, for example in Hungarian if you have an adjective+noun and you have to decline them the adjective doesn't change and only the noun does (whereas in Finnish you must decline all words) for example "new red car" = új piros autó (H) uusi punainen auto (FI) "in a new red car"= új piros autóban uudessa punaisessa autossa plus in Hungarian the declination is usually done just by adding an ending, whereas in Finnish you often have to change the middle of the word as well (like uusi became uudessa) another thing is that spoken Finnish is extremely different from standard written Finnish, for example in standard Finnish "I am" is "minä olen" but in spoken language most people would say "mä oon" (and this happens for many other verbs as well) whereas in Hungarian it's more or less the same one thing where Hungarian is more difficult tho is that many verbs have 2 forms depending on whether the action is definite or indefinite, in Finnish we have only 1 form
@deechsea
@deechsea Год назад
Mind completely blown by Navajo. Neat! Thank you for including it.
@codyscott8687
@codyscott8687 Год назад
I worked on the Navajo rez for 2ish years and I learned some basic words, but the language is very difficult. But so beautiful to hear it spoken. A lot of the elderly are Navajo speaking only and translators were in high demand in the hospitals
@BlankCanvas88
@BlankCanvas88 2 года назад
My American friend moved to Hungary a few years ago, and I was astounded that about a couple years into her being there she put up a video of her interpreting an American's speech into Hungarian. She worked her butt off to get there! I'm so proud of her. :)
@RobloxAdoptmeSupport
@RobloxAdoptmeSupport Год назад
Amazing! The best way to truly learn a new language is to live a couple years in the country.
@RiverWorksCo
@RiverWorksCo 8 месяцев назад
Not many people have the courage to learn Hungarian after seeing its complexity, so tell her, well done. You probably did tell that to her already tho...😅
@zakzag
@zakzag 8 месяцев назад
My wife is indonesian, speaking probably one of the easiest language of the world. She started the basic level course second time and still knows almost nothing. Which is mostly becausevof the teachers' skills and her diligence. But she learned english by herself. Hungarian is difficult.
@duncanb4835
@duncanb4835 7 месяцев назад
Aquanet hairdos ...tits teeth and ass gets you ANYWHERE in the world 😅
@Imamotherfreakingavocado
@Imamotherfreakingavocado 2 года назад
I've been trying to learn Hungarian because my friend Karmen is from Hungary, so I want to be able to speak it so I can talk to her in her native language. I can say it's hard as hell man, I respect anyone who's learning it for sure
@ateex8070
@ateex8070 2 года назад
Heyya, currently 8th main comment on this vid, Ar Jay, and the subcomments are talking about it and how he learned Hungarian himself. Maybe you could ask them if you happen to need some help ;)
@lilianaj.1108
@lilianaj.1108 2 года назад
keep it up! hello from Hungary 🇭🇺
@noemifarkas1813
@noemifarkas1813 2 года назад
Tudom, hogy nehéz, de a magyar egy nagyon szép nyelv;) I know it's hard, but hungarian is a beautiful language;) (Sorry, for bad english)
@LegoCityFilms
@LegoCityFilms 2 года назад
@@noemifarkas1813 no your English is great
@noemifarkas1813
@noemifarkas1813 2 года назад
@@LegoCityFilms Thank you:)
@daleneswanepoel7586
@daleneswanepoel7586 2 года назад
Makes me feel super proud to be South African: most of us speak 2 languages (standard). A home language and then a language that is common in your your region so you can communicate with people that have another home language. So...I speak Afrikaans, English is my second language. We had Xhosa (with all those clicks that Zulu has) as a 3rd language in school.
@koeki7750
@koeki7750 Год назад
Absolutely adore your effort in learning Cantonese, keep up the good work ! Love from Hong Kong ❤️
@koveek
@koveek 2 года назад
The clicks alone isn't really a problem for me though. The problem starts when you need to use them in the middle of a word xD
@mahatmaniggandhi2898
@mahatmaniggandhi2898 2 года назад
exactly 😂
@Emma.S.
@Emma.S. 2 года назад
Imagine you’re in a stressful situation and have to talk real fast to a group of people, rapid clicks
@Sthuthukile
@Sthuthukile 2 года назад
Well they're consonants, not just random sounds. They're part of the word
@koveek
@koveek 2 года назад
@@Sthuthukile I know they are, it doesn't change the sense of me comment though. It's still hella difficult without practice 😂❤
@medi06
@medi06 2 года назад
If you're referring about zulu, it's actually harder than you think. You use a specific click, and whist talking, if you're not use to it, you 'pronounce' the clicks wrong which then automatically the word is pronounced wrong
@sadunlap
@sadunlap 2 года назад
Cantonese also has words that do not occur in standard written Chinese. So the Cantonese have to create their own adaptations of standard characters. If you study Mandarin/Standard Chinese look at a Cantonese newspaper sometime. You'll see characters you will never find in a standard Chinese dictionary.
@mahatmaniggandhi2898
@mahatmaniggandhi2898 2 года назад
the way he said you think one language and say something else makes no sense at all! he thinks that cantonese is a local "variation" of mandarin and that mandarin is the "literary" form of the language, while they just have a common ancestor. and the writing doesn't matter if you use latin to learn it. and another thing is that from what i've heard wenzhounese is much harder
@user-db2sy4nk7f
@user-db2sy4nk7f 2 года назад
I think it is a normal phenomenon, because Cantonese is not the official language, so a lot of word don't have Written Word is normally. In ancient, there are a lot of Ancient Chinese didn't have Character, so they Borrow some wors which have same sound, for example: 能néng means Bear originally, but Ancestors want to write Ability能力 which didn't have Character and same sound with 能, so they borrowed 能 for 能力 and create a new word 熊xióng for Bear.
@jennifer9047
@jennifer9047 2 года назад
哈哈 BIANG
@azukichiu
@azukichiu 2 года назад
@@jennifer9047 biangbiangmian
@kingking1223
@kingking1223 2 года назад
Actually all the words come are in Morden Chinese, but since the 1910s which a lot Mainlander come to Hong Kong because of the Civil War in Mainland, they don’t know those word. Since the 60s, they start creating words for the word they don’t know and have to use.
@three-side-cube
@three-side-cube Год назад
As a Cantonese native speaker. I'm surprised that Cantonese is the hardest language to learn for English speakers. I thought Mandarin will be one of the hardest languages to learn before I watch the video but never thought Cantonese will be the hardest.
@eschweiler2
@eschweiler2 Год назад
I am a German speaker and I had problems with English in school and Latin was rather easy to me. But I realised the Easyness of Latin when I started to learn Ancient Greek. I never managed to reach a reasonable speaking level, although I like to hear the language, even more than Latin.
@firegaze21
@firegaze21 2 года назад
I tried to learn some basic Hungarian before taking a trip there. I thought my brain was suddenly broken because nothing would stick or make sense. I felt relieved when I discovered how different its family is, where it originated, and seeing it on many lists of hardest languages for native English speakers to learn. Kind of a fascinating history really.
@clury9477
@clury9477 2 года назад
Hey, Hungarian person here! We appreciate the effort that you put into learning some of our language. Even as a native speaker I have to admit that I get a few things mixed up sometimes so don't worry about it.
@belstar1128
@belstar1128 2 года назад
I can understand some Hungarian but i have a hard time getting the grammar right.
@stelinakritsepis2813
@stelinakritsepis2813 2 года назад
I am so glad to see and hear from people that are interested in greek language. I am greek and i love all these reactions and laughs about our language. In Greece children start learning foreign languages by the age of seven or eight or later at nine. I started learning french at six and english at 9. I told one of my foreign friends and she told me " THEY ARE TORTURING YOU!!!!! SO YOUNG!?" . Well that's our reality. Not many people speak our language so we have to learn theirs. #GREEKGIRL
@sugakookies8063
@sugakookies8063 2 года назад
It’s also best to learn languages when you’re young
@atomicdancer
@atomicdancer 2 года назад
2:40 *laughs in Greek*
@Jimboy12
@Jimboy12 2 года назад
Not always at that big degree but it's true
@philomelodia
@philomelodia 2 года назад
They should teach you Spanish. Pronouncing our language would be as easy as falling out of bed for you. We have the same sounds.
@ddpmk355
@ddpmk355 2 года назад
@@philomelodia The first time I heard Spanish I was 6 and I asked my father why they were speaking so strange that I couldn’t understand. He told me it was another language, not Greek and I insisted it wasn’t!! 😄😄😄 Now when I hear European (not Latin American) Spanish sometimes it takes me 2-3 seconds to realize it is not Greek.
@user-jh9rq4zc7v
@user-jh9rq4zc7v 8 месяцев назад
Your Cantonese sounds so good! One of the best aspects of Mandarin and Cantonese is, it's one syllable per word (or at least, there's a one syllable expression for most meanings), which means one word can be placed on one note in music. For Contonese, the tones can also match the tones of notes, which is grainy. Although some styles and genres were imported from the west and Japan, Cantonese lyrics just hit different.
@janettesinclair6279
@janettesinclair6279 2 года назад
Wow! I am practising my Zulu "tics" and trying to remember my Navajo word precedence... What an interesting video, well done on learning Cantonese.
@Danny30011980
@Danny30011980 2 года назад
I am learing Hungarian for 8 years now too and love it. It is not easy alright, lots of cases, lots of different endings, the conjugations in definite and indefinite is defo a challenge. But I love the sound of it
@from_wonderland
@from_wonderland 2 года назад
Szia, hogyhogy magyart tanulsz?
@goldpaulike5304
@goldpaulike5304 2 года назад
@@from_wonderland With talent
@milkyway_939
@milkyway_939 2 года назад
@@goldpaulike5304 the translation is wrong
@sakuraogami9946
@sakuraogami9946 2 года назад
@@from_wonderland Ugye, én se értem, minek tanulna bárki magyart? Ronda nyelv, és még csak nem is hasznos. English translation: I know right, I don't get it either, why would anyone study Hungarian? It's an ugly language, and it's not even useful either. (native Hungarian over here)
@from_wonderland
@from_wonderland 2 года назад
@@sakuraogami9946 nem azért kérdeztem, én szeretem a magyar nyelvet 😅
@eleniyo1992
@eleniyo1992 2 года назад
As a native Greek speaker I think that Greek is damn hard to master academically, like spelling and intense rules of grammar, but easy enough to learn in a conversational level. As long as you get the pronunciation right, you can pretty much say anything and learn pretty fast the common speech
@user-it6qf1uy4t
@user-it6qf1uy4t 2 года назад
Well depends on whom you ask because if you ask a native friend and not a tutor, teacher or someone close to those professions or a relative you might have who knows greek ,you will be taught the basic curses like Malaka, Ilithie, gamisou etc. (I say this because i am a greek myself and i have seen things that confirm this)
@TarisSinclair
@TarisSinclair 2 года назад
As a non-native non-speaker (!!!) who had ventured to Greece for a number of years to spend summer in the Cyclades (Andros stole my heart), I picked up enough just to get by on a daily basis. Conversational? No way. But I learned enough to not be totally lost without an interpreter. Making the effort is what counts. Even if my Greek was atrocious, with vocabulary of maybe 200 words, mixing declinations, conjugation, and tenses, once locals saw that I made the effort to learn and pick up even more, they were eager to help and their attitude made a 180 turn from "another vacationer" to "actually someone I like".
@blacktiger2154
@blacktiger2154 2 года назад
I recently met a native German speaker who learned Greek and speaks it pretty good and I must say that I have so much respect towards them, because in my opinion as a native Greek speaker it actually is very difficult. I mean, learning a couple of words and phrases, ok, but actually conversing with someone, nonetheless on an intellectual level, is something I completely understand why many struggle with.
@user-hl4vl8qd7h
@user-hl4vl8qd7h 2 года назад
Greeks is a hard language to learn even to start a small conversation!! It has many grammatical rules, thousands of words and a flexibilty to use and make new ones complaining two or three together! Also we use the same words with different meaning so it must be really confusing for forgein learners!! Thats why I found quite easy to learn germans and french! As for tatalog I tried but no... Mandarin were easier so finally I can say that I'm quite fluent to it!
@TKDDLJ09
@TKDDLJ09 2 года назад
I would love to learn Greek! Just the alphabet alone is so pretty looking. And the history of Greece is just everything! I have yet to visit, but man do I want too, I just need to save up a lot of money and a lot of vacation days, because a week will not be enough in Greece for me. Just the historic sites alone would take me ages!
@callmeswivelhips8229
@callmeswivelhips8229 Год назад
My grandmother spoke Finnish, as her parents emigrated form Finland to the States. Someday, I can see myself learning the language. I want to know how it impacts your world view. And I'd like to do it as a homage to her. But right now, I'm still mastering Spanish. And I'm starting to get exposed to more and more Portuguese via my Capoeira training. So I can see myself learning that language next! Finnish is my personal hobby language essentially. I don't know anyone that speaks it. Not even in my own family.
@Aavikkonaali
@Aavikkonaali Год назад
How cool it is to see someone wanting to learn Finnish! Onnea opintoihisi ja terveisiä Suomesta! 😊
@DominikVarga0207
@DominikVarga0207 Год назад
@@Aavikkonaali I am just started learing it too, by myself. I don't know anyone that speaks it either. suomalainen kieli on kaunis. terveisiä Unkarista
@magiruthia
@magiruthia Год назад
Good Luck! Learning Finnish myself as my boyfriend is Finnish and I hope to move to Finland in a year or so's time. I think the conjugation and spoken language will be what sends me insane first 😂
@xaviotesharris891
@xaviotesharris891 Год назад
Can't tell you how pleased I was to learn that the language I picked up in my 40s ranked as #5 most difficult. I mean, I'm not fluent or anything, but I don't have to speak English when I'm in Greece. I remember the joy of getting to that place of learning Greek adverbs, at least, were impervious to declensions or conjugations.
@ajramirez77
@ajramirez77 2 года назад
Russian should've been on the list. As a English speaker who has learned Russian to a B2/C1 level, I can say it has been very challenging. The Russian alphabet (Cyrillic) has letters from Greek and it has sounds that English speakers have never heard before. You have 6 cases, 3 genders, and aspect for verbs. Don't get me started on motion verbs! Any Russian learner knows how difficult these can be. I know English and Spanish and I've never seen anything like motion verbs. And Russian has some idioms that don't exactly make sense even if you know the words. Overall, the language is beautiful and very worth knowing, but if you're an English speaker just know that it will take a bit longer to learn Russian than it would other European languages.
@storylearning
@storylearning 2 года назад
There were lots of hard languages I would’ve put on the list, but had to choose only five 😃
@user-ry2nq7ng5e
@user-ry2nq7ng5e 2 года назад
And not to mention Russian numbers (cases, rules, exceptions with these), aspects, stress patterns... and the list goes on and on ... 😰
@Svensk7119
@Svensk7119 2 года назад
@@user-ry2nq7ng5e Well, in English every vowel has at least three sounds... not that I disagree. I only remember the first three letters and the last, ya. A backwards R! Who'd'a thunk it?
@videogamerka0009
@videogamerka0009 2 года назад
I think Polish, Czech or Slovak are more difficult than Russian despite latin alphabet
@user-ry2nq7ng5e
@user-ry2nq7ng5e 2 года назад
@@videogamerka0009 Yeah, I think I would agree, having looking into it. E.g. verb forms, pronunciations etc. Some things are easier in the West Slavic languages than Russian, e.g. the unpredictable stress in Russian words and inclensions/conjugations, but on contrary there are other things that are probably more tricky in the West Slavic languages.
@jeffreysommer3292
@jeffreysommer3292 2 года назад
I've studied Mandarin for thirty years, but Cantonese just throws me. My ear just fails to understand the entering tones.
@tanvt8924
@tanvt8924 2 года назад
It because mandarin do not have entering tone. Basically entering tone only uses in -p, -t, and -k ending. Because mandarin don't have those final so mandarin don't have entering tone.
@belstar1128
@belstar1128 2 года назад
I am just having a hard time finding basic content in Cantonese because of they fascist Chinese gov blocking youtube.
@janicesee__
@janicesee__ 2 года назад
@@belstar1128 would you like some Hong Kong RU-vid channel recommendedations?
@belstar1128
@belstar1128 2 года назад
@@janicesee__ Yea please give me some recommendations but i don't like "mainstream" youtubers i love science news gaming (but not most big popular games like minecraft mobas and fps games) audio books technology history and other hobby videos.
@israellai
@israellai 2 года назад
That's because entering tones aren't tones, but they're just regular tones with particular endings. If you can tell bee from beat, you can understand them.
@Fallen_Ember
@Fallen_Ember Год назад
A friend of mine from highschool was fluent in both Greek and English from childhood. She's honestly the only reason I know of the term Hellenic language!
@vell2994
@vell2994 2 года назад
I'm learning greek and it's so nice to hear someone explaining my struggle so well !!!! 🤣😅😅🤣😅🤣
@946abc
@946abc 2 года назад
As a Hongkonger speaking both Cantonese and English, I didn't know it was that hard😂 有無香港人係度~
@kingking1223
@kingking1223 2 года назад
有~
@oanson7250
@oanson7250 2 года назад
勁搞笑
@brianplum1825
@brianplum1825 2 года назад
I find very few of the former (and present) British who lived for decades in Hong Kong able to speak Cantonese. If one of them manages to speak Cantonese, he's viewed by locals with amazement like a circus animal that learned to ride a bicycle.
@chloe-lp9jj
@chloe-lp9jj 2 года назад
有~
@tcfung754
@tcfung754 2 года назад
@@brianplum1825 it could be partially due to their superior social status during the British war colonial period so they simply have no such motivation or simply couldn’t be bothered to learn Cantonese. However, there have been a few Europeans / non Chinese who take HK as their second home could speak Cantonese quite well over there.
@chipchilinka5645
@chipchilinka5645 2 года назад
I live in region where Hungarians lived in ancient times. Here are many finno-ugor nations that has own languages and there are many similarities with hungarian. Like Komi, Mordva or Udmurt
@marsukarhu9477
@marsukarhu9477 2 года назад
I met a guy in Finland who was a Mari speaker and he had moved to Helsinki about a year and a half prior... and he spoke perfect Finnish! So I guess it's pretty easy to learn for other Finnic languages.
@ridita5221
@ridita5221 2 года назад
Say hi for our distant relatives!
@SuperSuperTimon
@SuperSuperTimon Год назад
Olly you are very good my friend! With your video I realised how difficult is Greek language! Love from Athens, Greece! Να είσαι πάντα καλά! Argyris
@s20091504
@s20091504 2 года назад
I'm so proud to be a native Cantonese speaker. As a native, I notice the girl who demonstrate speaking Cantonese, casually inserts english words in a Cantonese sentense. It's a trend in modern spoken Cantonese. Honestly I do that quite a lot, mainly because sometimes the English word just come into my mind way quicker than the appropreate Cantonese word. ( Sometimes I never come up with a more appropriate Cantonese word to replace that particular English word, even after finishing my whole sentense.) 😂
@robyncorson4002
@robyncorson4002 2 года назад
I visited Hungary and was shocked at how hard it was to learn basic things. Truly amazing.
@markvizsolyi1769
@markvizsolyi1769 Год назад
@Megmondó jogos😂
@AlvinSeville1
@AlvinSeville1 Год назад
értesz magyarul?
@jyrkilehtinen9886
@jyrkilehtinen9886 Год назад
For a Finn hungarian is an interesting language. You do not understand anything beforehand (just like with english and greek) but all the peculiarietes of the grammar and so on are the same as in Finnish: lots of cases, vowel harmony, long and short vowels, and, no gender in personal pronouns. And what makes it easier, the writing system is almost totally phonetic, like in Finnish but unlike in English. And of course then the cognate words: veri - ver (blood), käsi - kez (hand), mennä - menni (to go), elää - elem (to live), vesi - viz (water) etc.
@hhgygy
@hhgygy Год назад
@@jyrkilehtinen9886 elää - elem (to live) it's not elem (which means element or (electric) battery) but élni
@FoScoJo
@FoScoJo 2 года назад
When I worked at Microsoft, I spent some time on the Complex Script languages (Thai, Arabic, Hebrew, Vietnamese, and Hindi) team even though I only speak English. So Microsoft put us through a crash course in those languages. It was more for fun team building event as knowing the languages didn't really affect our ability to code and test the software elements we handled. It has been a couple of decades but from what I remember of Thai, it was something like no spaces between words and words at the end of the sentence can change the pronunciation of the words at the beginning that completely broke my brain.
@vorpal22
@vorpal22 2 года назад
Many Asian languages have no spaces between words. All forms of Chinese (Cantonese, Mandarin, etc.) and Japanese certainly don't. Japanese is fairly easy, though, in this regard (just hard in every other regard) because concepts are usually separated by particles, so you can roughly guess where words or short bursts of words begin / end.
@aced_pomachu1
@aced_pomachu1 Год назад
@@vorpal22 As a Vietnamese, I'm surprised some don't even have spaces. Welp! My bad spacing can come in handy after all!
@vorpal22
@vorpal22 Год назад
@@aced_pomachu1 The spacing can definitely be very tough in Chinese and Japanese (don't know about others), but when you reach a certain point, especially in Japanese with the tons of particles, filling in the spacing is easy. Chinese is easy because words tend to be 1-3 characters.
@vorpal22
@vorpal22 Год назад
@@aced_pomachu1 But LOL it is amazing how all these languages evolved and almost none of them are easily to learn... in fact, they seem to go out of their way to be hard to learn! Look at English! It's crazy.
@aced_pomachu1
@aced_pomachu1 Год назад
@@vorpal22different the English, we put noun then adjective , for example, jacket purple, but there can be things like “dried squid” instead on some occasions
@joyousmonkey6085
@joyousmonkey6085 Год назад
I'm glad you discussed Navajo. This wonderful language is well worth exploring for its use of roots for building up more complex ideas, and its verb system. The Navajo Verb by Faltz is absolutely mind-blowing. Quite a few of the other Native American languages are similarly complicated when compared to English and the Indo-European family. Lakota, Cree, Tlingit, Lushootseed, Haida... just to name a few. There are linguistic concepts totally alien to English. For example, quite a few Native American languages have 4 persons against the 3 persons of English (I/You/He-She-It and then He-She_it who isn't here but is being referred to in relation to someone who is here.) Surprised you didn't mention Basque. Loads of wonderful cases and as a language isolate, it's a breath of fresh air. Even more clicky than isiZulu or isiXhosa - try Ju/'hoan. It has 4 basic clicks. Another Khoisan language is Hoa, which has 5 basic clicks, including a bilabial plosive. And if you want a fiendishly complicated writing system, try hieroglyphic Maya.
@oliviersavard8676
@oliviersavard8676 8 месяцев назад
i was waiting for basque as well
@alvinwong5521
@alvinwong5521 Год назад
As a native Cantonese speaker, more proficient now in English, I commend this guy's ability to pick up this dialect at his current level. Not bad, bro. Keep it up!
@ponta1162
@ponta1162 Год назад
Cantonese is a language, not dialect
@alvinwong5521
@alvinwong5521 Год назад
Wow, the semantic police. Whatever gets your goat, peeps.
@lynns_studio
@lynns_studio 2 года назад
It makes me feel special and proud to have Cantonese as my native language! To anyone who wants to learn the language, good luck because you need it!
@keidanekeith668
@keidanekeith668 2 года назад
So hard
@mikasaackerman6448
@mikasaackerman6448 2 года назад
It's the most difficult language in the world , by the way, it has the most Native speakers what an interesting information i just found on google lol
@meeple39397
@meeple39397 2 года назад
I’m lucky Navajo is my native language, plus another reason why it is difficult to learn is lack of resources. I noticed that non native speakers have trouble finding material to learn. So far there’s mostly Rosetta Stone and Duolingo. I’m fluent in terms of understanding and pronunciation but I’m terrible at making conversation. I never noticed that the tones could be hard to pronounce for others. Also congrats on hitting 100k subscribers!
@jlizard8500
@jlizard8500 2 года назад
yá'át'ééh I'm half navajo and lived on the rez for almost 6 years and I still don't know how to speak Navajo, even though I have grandparents who speak it. It really is hard to have resources, because they always have to be payed for and I'm broke.
@MaryMagdaleneMagdalene
@MaryMagdaleneMagdalene 8 месяцев назад
😂I’m a Cantonese speaker and never realised Cantonese is that hard lol btw Olly’s Cantonese is very impressive!!!
@brianponikvar9927
@brianponikvar9927 Год назад
Learning Greek now and I agree its the hardest language I've studied so far. Love the retracted S sound though. Very similar to my favorite Spanish accent.
@bigstitchydreams9065
@bigstitchydreams9065 2 года назад
Oh I love this! As a learner of Russian playing the guessing game with Greek alphabet filled me with such satisfaction
@ajramirez77
@ajramirez77 2 года назад
Same lol I saw Х and thought холодно
@user-ry2nq7ng5e
@user-ry2nq7ng5e 2 года назад
Yes, most of the Cyrillic script is based on Greek, some others from other scripts, f.ex. Cyrillic ш (sha) probably from the Hebrew ש (shin) (?). And I think I read somewhere that я и where just flipped R and N lead letters and introduced to the Cyrillic. Maybe somebody could confirm that..
@negan.defender
@negan.defender 2 года назад
same lol
@parabot19
@parabot19 2 года назад
I learnt Russian to an advanced level at school. Thrn learnt Greek some 30 years later. Everything was fine till I tried to read Russian again. It was incredibly difficult!
@sylviap6890
@sylviap6890 2 года назад
Thank you for adding greek! I’m a greek tutor and I teach foreigners. It has an extremely unique and difficult grammar and it’s typically difficult for english speakers to wrapt their head around it. It’s one of the most underrated hard languages in the world.
@razziade
@razziade Год назад
Navajo:. I asked my grandma how to say 'Germany' in Navajo (back in 1985). Translated to English, "Land of the people with the pointed hats.'. I'm assuming she was referring to the Kaiser's helmets. Love you grandma!
@shaash5236
@shaash5236 Год назад
I love this video. Thanks.
@heatherwood2664
@heatherwood2664 2 года назад
*I only lived in South Africa for three months, however, I learned Zulu well enough to communicate with my household staff. all it took was a positive attitude that I could learn the important parts, and I did!*
@Nix_-us3qf
@Nix_-us3qf 2 года назад
3 izinyanga ukuthi Ibe mfushane
@olyashalnova4562
@olyashalnova4562 2 года назад
Everybody guessing Greek sounds: "oh my god, why the letters are different from sounds" Russian speakers: ... Update: it's not just that there are some letters in Rissian different from English, but they are close to Greek ones
@FluffySylveonBoi
@FluffySylveonBoi 2 года назад
PYCCKNŇ. I don't have azbuka here, but I tried to write as good as I can on a Czech keyboard xD
@helgaioannidis9365
@helgaioannidis9365 2 года назад
Actually when I learned Greek I thought the good thing about Greek is that the letters and the sound match. When you read a word you immediately know how to pronounce it. Something English doesn't offer to us non native speakers. Like its "tea", but "bear", "tube", but "but", "talk", but "sad", and then there's "shoe", "do", "too", "me", "pee", "snow", "so", "dough",... 🙄
@Nikelaos_Khristianos
@Nikelaos_Khristianos 2 года назад
Thanks, Cyrillic. 😂 Though I have to say, ater learning the Ancient Greek alphabet in Uni, Cyrillic looks way less intimidating now than before. But the "new" letters adapted to specific Slavic sounds really throw me off whenever I see written Cyrillic.
@Nikelaos_Khristianos
@Nikelaos_Khristianos 2 года назад
@@helgaioannidis9365 .... "rough", "tough", "though", "thorough", "bough", "laugh", do we go on? 😂 My own native language looks so weird to me now. Why the heck are we like this? Also, don't mention "a" vs "an" inconsistencies. Like "an animal" and "a teacup" but it's "an hour" and "an honour"? I have actually pointed this out to native speakers who still genuinely couldn't believe that it was "an hour" not "a hour".
@helgaioannidis9365
@helgaioannidis9365 2 года назад
@@Nikelaos_Khristianos it's a nightmare when you learn English at school 😂 But about "a" and "an" I can actually explain the rule, there really is one. It's about the phonetic sound. In "hour" the"h" is silent, so the first letter of the word that you hear, is a vowel. And whenever the first letter that is actually pronounced is a vowel you use "an". Italian has a similar rule about "i" and "gli".
@dj12dj12dj12dj12
@dj12dj12dj12dj12 Год назад
As a Cantonese speaker from Hong Kong, I do really appreciate your efforts in learning this wonderful language, but just one thing Cantonese really is NOT a dialect Thankyou 😊
@Songfugel
@Songfugel 7 месяцев назад
Love the specification for English speakers, makes the video so much more accurate, even though I don't agree with the picks
@juliandeveaux2848
@juliandeveaux2848 2 года назад
I would definitely watch a whole video solely about the Navajo language and how it works. There aren't many resources. It's such a shame that such an interesting language and so many others like it were completely or nearly wiped out.
@gamermapper
@gamermapper 2 года назад
There's even less resources for other Athabaskan languages
@drts6955
@drts6955 2 года назад
I was surprised to learn it's one of the most spoken indigenous languages. If I recall correctly more people speak than Irish but we've lots of resources to learn that in Ireland. Pity the same can't be said of Navajo (or any American language I believe).
@accessnavajo3128
@accessnavajo3128 2 года назад
Kudos to Olly for including Navajo! He has actually trod softly as regards the difficulty involved in learning this language. In addition to some new consonants, there are short and long vowels (as in Japanese, Arabic). The long vowels can come in any of four tones (rising, high flat, falling, low flat) similar to Mandarin, but with the third tone in Mandarin having been replaced with a low flat tone. All of the vowels also have nasal forms. There is also a ton of vowel harmonization/assimilation and consonant harmonization that takes place, as in Turkish. The really cool part is the verb stems and how they work. To build a typical verb, you start with a stem set (gis, géés, giz, gis, géés) (see Fun With Navajo Verbs, Book 1, V-29) (corresponding to future, imperfective, perfective, usitative/iterative, optative modes) to build up to seven modes (in addition to the six above, there is also a progressive mode for some verbs). These stem sets themselves come in patterns based on whether the final consonant is voiced, unvoiced, or a glottal (AABAA, ABBAB, etc.; see Fun With Navajo Verbs, Book 2). There are three main patterns, each with about a half dozen subpatterns. You then build a given verb form by adding various components in front of the stem (not after the stem as is done in Japanese, etc.). Again, the modes involve patterns, which then combine into further overarching conjugation patterns. For a great rundown of how you build verb forms from stem sets, see Faltz, The Navajo Verb, UNM Press. Once you have gained a basic understanding of how that works, you might use Perkins, Fun With Navajo Verbs Books 1-4, Access Navajo (there are free downloadable software games associated with the books for practicing various elements of conjugation, practice sentence patterns, and building vocabulary). You see, there are now some EXCELLENT materials available. If you can master Navajo, you should have a fighting chance at learning any of the Asian languages. Have fun!
@roshn.i
@roshn.i 2 года назад
there's a Duolingo course i believe
@TrumanStalls18
@TrumanStalls18 2 года назад
There are actually lots of resources on it.
@CaptNaptastic
@CaptNaptastic 2 года назад
I'm Native American from Oklahoma. My tribal language is massively much easier to learn than Navajo. My friend from college was Navajo and tried to teach me. It's so hard. Lol I have a bad mumble and could never say "thank you" because of all the 'h' sounds. Lol
@shiyang2030
@shiyang2030 Год назад
A good video with one fundamental flaw: Cantonese is not widely spoken in Taiwan but in Hong Kong and the surrounding areas including Guangdong and Guangxin Provinces and part of Hainan Province. Also, Japanese and Welsh are both very difficult, too.
@chrismartinez5711
@chrismartinez5711 Год назад
Greek's cadence is challenging. I agree. It's not quite stress timed or syllable timed, and the stressed syllables aren't as predictable as Italian or Spanish. But one of the things I personally find most challenging is just how the hell you plow through a 9 syllable word like αποτελεσματικότητα. I can do it now, but on average, words seems to have more syllables in Greek than any other languages I've tried learning.
@lindy9741
@lindy9741 2 года назад
I'm South African I hear them speak regularly around us . We have 11 languages in our country ❤❤❤❤❤
@ajitthomas4855
@ajitthomas4855 2 года назад
My country India has 28 official languages
@lindy9741
@lindy9741 2 года назад
@@ajitthomas4855 ..okay.. Good to know
@kingking1223
@kingking1223 2 года назад
In my country we 70+ languages
@lindy9741
@lindy9741 2 года назад
@@kingking1223 Okay its not a competition 🤣🤣👌🏻❤ good to know 💋💗💓💛
@kingking1223
@kingking1223 2 года назад
:)
@dwarfanakuma7481
@dwarfanakuma7481 2 года назад
Thank you for mentioning Diné Bizaad and other Native American languages!!! I speak 3 languages (Mandarin, English, Japanese) to an academic level and I'm learning Mi'kmaw (an Algonquian language, on Northern East Coast NA). It is so very different from sino-tibetan, germanic or japonic languages, is verb-centric, and has complete free word order. They might be hard but very fascinating. I hope more polyglots can work on endangered languages as well.
@lisanarramore222
@lisanarramore222 2 года назад
I agree! And Mi'kmaw sounds fascinating.
@karlmakhwa4182
@karlmakhwa4182 2 года назад
I completely agree with you! Not quite as endangered as Mi'kmaw, but I'm learning one. Have you heard of Kabardian/the Circassians?
@dwarfanakuma7481
@dwarfanakuma7481 2 года назад
@@karlmakhwa4182 Only the name. I just searched and there are so many consonants in Kabardian! It must be a super cool language to learn
@tallspoon0224
@tallspoon0224 2 года назад
すごいですね!日本人ですが初めて聞きました〜 まだまだ知らない言語もいっぱいあるんですね 僕も日英は分かるのですが、ヘブライ語とかアラビア語に興味を持ってますが、英語からも日本語からも遠くて難しいです😇(日本語で失礼します😂🙏)
@Val.Kyrie.
@Val.Kyrie. 2 года назад
They teach mi’kmaq out east. It’s quite interesting.
@zackreagin8384
@zackreagin8384 8 месяцев назад
Although I'm not fluent in any of the languages mentioned in this video, I have had some experience studying each of them. The aspects of these languages which were featured to demonstrate their difficulty may seem intimidating when you're not familiar with them, but if you put in the effort, they're really not too bad to get the hang of. Personally, I enjoy learning a language that has features that I've never encountered before. It's refreshing, and can be a lot of fun trying to master them.
@DonG191
@DonG191 8 месяцев назад
As a HK native Cantonese speaker, I never hear people asking 你去邊處呀? (Malaysian Cantonese?) Usually they would ask 你去邊度? The Malaysians like putting 啦 or 呀at the end of the sentences.
@khuzeniblue9109
@khuzeniblue9109 2 года назад
As a Zulu person I can confirm 'R' is non existent... Zulus often get teased for not being able to pronounce the letter R... instead we pronounce it as L..
@tedcrowley6080
@tedcrowley6080 2 года назад
Almost no language on earth uses the English R sound. Most languages with an R use the Spanish version instead (a voiced stop, similar to D). In Korean and Japanese, L and American R are the same letter.
@sertaki
@sertaki 2 года назад
@@tedcrowley6080 There are in fact multiple other "R" sounds that are used, with two different trills (created by rapid vibrations of tongue or of the uvula): one in front (tongue), used in Arabic, Slavic languages and Spanish and a whole lot more - see "perro" in Spanish, one in the back of your throat, used in French, Hebrew and some others). Then you have a flap in the same spot you have the front trill (meaning you only vibrate the tongue for a moment), like in English "better" and a lateral variant, of this in Japanese. There's also unvoiced version of the tongue twirl and tap, and some completely differently created "r" sounds, like the German one, which is a fricative at the same area as the uvular trill (meaning you create vibrations not by vibrating the uvula itself, but by constricting the airflow so much that the air itself begins vibrating - and depending on where this happens, you get different sounds - ranging from "f" and English "th" at the front to "s" and German "r" or "h" at the back. And there is still a few other "r" sounds, like the two retroflex ones used in many languages and dialects on the Indian subcontinent (including Indian English), which are created by pointing the tip of your tongue towards the back of your throat ... etc etc. See the International Phonetic Alphabet.
@lizmcguire8649
@lizmcguire8649 2 года назад
Did he write 28 correctly? It seemed like it was two tens and nine, instead of two tens and eight.
@khuzeniblue9109
@khuzeniblue9109 2 года назад
@@lizmcguire8649 you're right. It was written 29 instead of 28
@brianplum1825
@brianplum1825 2 года назад
You're not alone. Japanese speakers cannot pronounce the difference between the English "R" and "L".
@GK-yi4xv
@GK-yi4xv 2 года назад
Interestingly, the famous Foreign Service Institute's rankings of difficulty place Arabic, Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean, and Japanese in their 'most difficult' category (Category 5, taking the longest to reach general proficiency). And they give Japanese an asterisk as standing out even within that category for its difficulty. Languages like Zulu, Hungarian, Greek, etc rank Category 4, supposedly taking only about half as many hours to reach general proficiency.
@birdeynamnam
@birdeynamnam 2 года назад
They may be taking into consideration how precise your accent must be to appear fluent, and the culture you must learn (such as formal/informal language). Since they might be teaching people who will become spies or must otherwise appear trustworthy by natives.
@xXJ4FARGAMERXx
@xXJ4FARGAMERXx 2 года назад
Also also, they count the writing system as part of the difficulty, so you could learn korean hangul in 7 days, but acoording to them it adds a lot of difficulty
@bigsmall2842
@bigsmall2842 2 года назад
Arabic might be hard to achieve fluency, but the mechanics of the language aren’t really hard at all.
@whateverqaq5307
@whateverqaq5307 2 года назад
I don't know why only Mandarin and Cantonese stand out from the Chinese linguistic family? as for me, the southern hokkien and Wu language are much harder to learn even for Chinese
@MrChristianDT
@MrChristianDT 2 года назад
Yeah, Japanese isn't a difficult language to speak, it's just that you have to learn three different alphabets & one of them in the Chinese system, the most complicated modern writing system that exists- modified from it's original form for Japanese useage. I get that most of what you actually learn in the average Japanese class doesn't always help with informal usage or slang, but so long as you can understand & be understood, it's not a difficult language to learn. The hardest sounds for a foreigner to pick up are the ry & ts sounds.
@amirabouibrahim6514
@amirabouibrahim6514 Год назад
13:11 The Navajo word for coffee is the same as to how we say it in the Lebanese Arabic dialect (we say Ahweh).
@huilongwong4378
@huilongwong4378 Год назад
As a native Cantonese speaker I feel SO PRIVILEGED as I got to learn to speak Chinese (cantonese and mandarin), as well as English. It is a real advantage in terms of learning other languages.
@valentinevii9059
@valentinevii9059 2 года назад
0:38 *Here is an english translation of this* 😁 Greece, the country of light, (is located in a south & east place of Europe?). From Greece, are originated all the well-known ancient phylosofists & scientists. Some of them are, Platon , Aristotelis & Socrates. Greece contributed to the development of many cultures around the world. Greece is widely known for its monuments such as Acropolis and Parthenon , its amazing islands, its fabulous beaches, its traditions, for its polite & welcoming people and mainly for its tastly food 😋 . ( _disclaimer_ : In general its difficult to translate some greek phrases to english so sorry if I made any mistakes 😁)
@Csili86
@Csili86 2 года назад
As a Hungarian I am obsessed with other languages. Thank you for this video! Actually I missed you saying: zulu is a beatboxing language - with a serious face 🤣 I really enjoyed hearing zulu letters, it's crazy they do a click or a pop in the middle of the word i love it 😃
@AlvinSeville1
@AlvinSeville1 Год назад
I know the feeling. If it was up to me I'd know 20+ languages, and perhaps, add Hungarian to the list. 🙂
@retrieveri
@retrieveri Год назад
As a Finn I can imagine that to English speaking people Finnish and Hungarian sound about the same. And the grammars are close to each other. But there are only a few similar words - mostly old words like blood (veri - vér), water (vesi - víz), hand (käsi - kéz), arrow (nuoli-nyíl)....
@nataliexhjztew9251
@nataliexhjztew9251 Год назад
@@retrieveri I’m from St. Petersburg. As for me Finnish is very unique and doesn’t sound like any other language. It’s very melodic and lingering. And also it’s really complicated. I tried to learn it by myself, but in the very beginning realized that it’s totally tricky. Now I regret that I didn’t continue studying it.
@southprockhard
@southprockhard Год назад
Cantonese learner here. It's definitely difficult, but if you focus just on speaking and listening and look at reading and writing later, it's a lot less difficult!!
@antoniotadeupassarelli4605
@antoniotadeupassarelli4605 Год назад
I taught myself Finnish would be difficult 'cause it has 15 DECLINATIONS plus a 16th historical one. But at least all the wowels sound as they ARE (not like in English...). My native idiom is Portuguese, so beautiful. Great post, friend! Abraços!!!
@brunogripp
@brunogripp 2 года назад
I completely disagree about Greek being so difficult. I learned it quite quickly while I still stumble with German or Russian. Specially for native romance speakers it is one of the most similar, both in sounds and in vocabulary. Greek phonology is quite similar to (European) Spanish, and the amount of overlap in vocabulary with Italian is higher than one thinks. Besides, the Greek alphabet is the easiest to learn.
@brunogripp
@brunogripp 2 года назад
@M.L Granted, but English is itself an Indo-european language with significant Greek, Latin and Romance loanwords, there are literally hundreds of languages much more difficult.
@aminekakla10
@aminekakla10 2 года назад
@@brunogripp indo-european doesnt rlly mean anything here, even tho greek isnt a romance language, greek had a great influence on old latin which is the base of all the romance languages, and english is a germanic language that has more bases in old languages from germania and heavy influences from old norse, since the roman presence in england isnt really what the roman empire is known for thus latin didn't influence the language in england. the most obvious example is some french words that are completely different when compared to the italian, spanish or portugese counterpart due to a northern influence from tribes and such
@dhsf5937
@dhsf5937 2 года назад
I know speak European spanish and know people from Spain,I have daily contact with the spanish language and has nothing to do with spanish,the pronunciation is similar with french.If you are talking about the "r" thing that you can find in words like "joven",the spanish pronunciation is something more soft and easy.
@DXP322
@DXP322 2 года назад
@@aminekakla10 nah, English is heavily influenced by French, so English speakers shouldn’t really find it that hard to learn a Romance language. Being lazy does not mean a language is difficult to learn. Greek will be 100 times easier than Cantonese and the other languages in this video.
@user-xt4fx2jk8x
@user-xt4fx2jk8x 2 года назад
A lot of international scientific terms came also from greek roots. I believe that this fact also helps in vocabulary.
@troyrowe7670
@troyrowe7670 2 года назад
I think the hardest part about learning Modern Greek for me, is it's numerous different noun paradigms that are needed to be memorized. Within one gender, there can be 10 different noun paradigms that you need to master
@bbenjoe
@bbenjoe Год назад
11:27 - huh, that's so true and we often don't even notice ourselves.
@shokhrukh9769
@shokhrukh9769 2 года назад
In Uzbek language, we have these letters: 1:50; 2:25 (and some other letters) and this 13:18 sign (you can pronounce like native) 3:55 this rule also works at some point. Officially we have the rule that there have to be used latin alphabet, but we use both crillic and latin (older generation uses crillic, adults who are between 35 and 20 use both of them equal and young generation under 20 use latin alphabet) Interesting fact that government also use crillic alphabet because most of them are older generation and younger man wanted to work here he needs to use crillic alphabet xD The last thing is that you need to know 2 alphabets and some letters which I mentioned with sign to speak my native language. Don't forget about most population can speak russian and in some regions (most of them are large cities) there'll be spoken tajik language which is persian language group. This would be very interesting for both your followers and you to make something about Uzbek language.
@georgios_5342
@georgios_5342 2 года назад
I'm Greek and here in Greece we always say it's the hardest language in the world. I always doubted it's really the case, but apparently the fact that it's so different from other languages means that, just as us Greeks have a harder time learning languages, foreigners also find it really tough to learn Greek! Still, the millennia old Greek civilization and the vast number of vocabulary that Greek has loaned to other European languages (words that often are compounds from Greek, like democracy=rule of the people, philosophy=love of wisdom, geography=writing down the Earth etc) are really attracting for learners of Greek! If you put your mind into it, anything is possible!
@drakesmith471
@drakesmith471 2 года назад
For me I’m a person who loves science and math a great deal. I also find learning about your ancient history and your mythos to be quite fascinating. With that said, your language always gives me the impression of sounding somewhere between Spanish and Russian and I love your alphabet. If it came down tomorrow to where you had to submit your loyalty to one language (not your own) or that language’s culture, it’d more likely than not be Greek that I’d choose. So much more I could say but I’ll stop for now.
@RGJBosma
@RGJBosma 2 года назад
I've wanted to learn Greek for some time now, actually. Cuz I've always enjoyed my Old-Greek classes, I think I might have a headstart with vocab, word order and alphabet, although I have noticed that some things have changed. Do you maybe have any tips for Greek lifestyle/ educational RU-vid channels?
@feliciagaffney1998
@feliciagaffney1998 Год назад
Friend of mine, his parents are Greek. I told him I was learning Dutch and asked if he knew Greek. He said yes. And then he tells me it's not as hard as I think it is. 🙄 Well, according to this video and these comments, it most certainly is! Haha! But HE grew up hearing it. Of course he thinks it's easy. 🤷🏻‍♀️
@georgios_5342
@georgios_5342 Год назад
@@drakesmith471 That's so nice! Fun fact: Maths is a Greek word as well! It comes from μαθηματικά (mathematica) which means "learning related things". Pretty cool huh?
@georgios_5342
@georgios_5342 Год назад
@@RGJBosma hey! It's nice that you would like learning Greek. You can definitely check out "Easy Greek", they're doing a really good job in creating educational Greek content, with subtitles in both Greek and English, and with content that ranges from Greek history and culture to slice of life and asking people's opinions on things in the street. Other than that, you can check newspapers like Η Καθημερινή, Το Βήμα and Το Πρώτο Θέμα. There are some nice Greek channels on RU-vid that I know with various subjects, but they're for a bit more advanced learners. You can check out: Greekonomics for economical-game theory related videos Astronio for astronomy and space exploration videos Καθημερινή Φυσική (Daily Physics) for physics related videos Πρακτική Σκέψη (Practical Thinking) for history related videos Many of the videos on these channels have subtitles as well!
@accessnavajo3128
@accessnavajo3128 2 года назад
Kudos to Olly for including Navajo! He has actually trod softly as regards the difficulty involved in learning this language. In addition to some new consonants, there are short and long vowels (as in Japanese, Arabic). The long vowels can come in any of four tones (rising, high flat, falling, low flat) similar to Mandarin, but with the third tone in Mandarin having been replaced with a low flat tone. All of the vowels also have nasal forms. There is also a ton of vowel harmonization/assimilation and consonant harmonization that takes place, as in Turkish. The really cool part is the verb stems and how they work. To build a typical verb, you start with a stem set (gis, géés, giz, gis, géés) (see Fun With Navajo Verbs, Book 1, V-29) (corresponding to future, imperfective, perfective, usitative/iterative, optative modes) to build up to seven modes (in addition to the six above, there is also a progressive mode for some verbs). These stem sets themselves come in patterns based on whether the final consonant is voiced, unvoiced, or a glottal (AABAA, ABBAB, etc.; see Fun With Navajo Verbs, Book 2). There are three main patterns, each with about a half dozen subpatterns. You then build a given verb form by adding various components in front of the stem (not after the stem as is done in Japanese, etc.). Again, the modes involve patterns, which then combine into further overarching conjugation patterns. For a great rundown of how you build verb forms from stem sets, see Faltz, The Navajo Verb, UNM Press. Once you have gained a basic understanding of how that works, you might use Perkins, Fun With Navajo Verbs Books 1-4, Access Navajo (there are free downloadable software games associated with the books for practicing various elements of conjugation, practice sentence patterns, and building vocabulary). You see, there are now some EXCELLENT materials available. If you can master Navajo, you should have a fighting chance at learning any of the Asian languages. Have fun!
@chantii.5420
@chantii.5420 Год назад
As a hungarian, I clicked immediately just to check if hungarian is on the list, and yeah, I wasn't disappointed. It's so true. Also I'm glad that the algorythm chose to show me this video, I love channels related to all kinds of languages :)
Далее
5 Impossible Languages for English Speakers
21:16
Просмотров 368 тыс.
7 Most Confusing Languages for English Speakers
23:38
КТО ЭТО😱
00:41
Просмотров 909 тыс.
7 Difficult American Accents You'll NEVER Guess
13:09
Is German Hard to Learn?
10:53
Просмотров 157 тыс.
11 Difficult English Accents You WON'T Understand
18:20
How Latter-Day Saint Missionaries Learn Languages Fast
24:02
Korean vs Japanese vs Chinese: which is the hardest?
19:28