What is the most difficult language to learn?

[nighean-neonach]

That's one reason which really frightenes me off learning Cherokee or Cree... I hate learning foreign scripts

[Steisi]

Those Cherokee verbs don't look too hellish, they seem to be just a root (yalv?) with a range of suffixes and prefixes that perform morphological roles to express subject and object, animate and inanimate etc. Reminds me of swahili a bit.

Different for English speakers but I'd find something like the Chinese script much more nightmarish

[nighean-neonach]

Reminds me of swahili a bit.

... and of Greenlandic, although it is only affixes there, and without the animate/inanimate difference, but you have the agent+object affixes there as well, like pulaarparma = you visit me, pulaarpakkit = I visit you, pulaarpaat = they visit them, etc.

[Formiko]

Reminds me of swahili a bit.

... and of Greenlandic, although it is only affixes there, and without the animate/inanimate difference, but you have the agent+object affixes there as well, like pulaarparma = you visit me, pulaarpakkit = I visit you, pulaarpaat = they visit them, etc.

and of Klingon! (most Amerindian languages are similar..which is why Okrand chose American Indian grammars as his basis for Klingon..they are very foreign..)
Greenlandic I think is easier because at least it's regular.

And you don't have to learn the Cherokee script..most Cherokee don't know it (actually, I don't even know it that well) I use the yudit editor to write Cherokee (www.yudit.org)

[nighean-neonach]

Greenlandic is very regular. It has a lot of assimilations and stuff, compared to the Inuit languages on the American continent, but at the surface of the language, as it is today, it is quite logically structured - it's the sheer amount of affixes and endings which makes it difficult for a learner, because you need about 10 different pieces of information to build or to analyse an average word... But it's beautiful and interesting.

I'd love to learn Cherokee or Cree, but it will have to wait a while, I don't like starting stuff half-heartedly.

[Formiko]

While Cherokee is agglutinating, I think it's easier to comprehend than Eskimo because Cherokee isn't verb based. When I learned tlingit, it was like Inuit in the fact that you had HUGE words.
For example, It's cold outside is
kutíkusa'áat
You change affixes in the middle, beginning and end. To say It's cold right now you would say kutíkuta'áat..you changed a part of the word WITHIN the clause. I was immersed into the language, so much of it I can't really describe anymore. (or even remember)
In Cherokee, to say It is cold outside you would say doyáditlv uyvtlv. (outside it is cold)..to say It is cold now you say ka uyvtlv (now it is cold)..a little different, and a bit easier

[Nero]

Reminds me of swahili a bit.

... and of Greenlandic, although it is only affixes there, and without the animate/inanimate difference, but you have the agent+object affixes there as well, like pulaarparma = you visit me, pulaarpakkit = I visit you, pulaarpaat = they visit them, etc.

and of Klingon! (most Amerindian languages are similar..which is why Okrand chose American Indian grammars as his basis for Klingon..they are very foreign..)
Greenlandic I think is easier because at least it's regular.

And you don't have to learn the Cherokee script..most Cherokee don't know it (actually, I don't even know it that well) I use the yudit editor to write Cherokee (www.yudit.org)

True about Klingon. It does have some characteristics of Native Languages, though completely foreign nevertheless.

As far as the most difficult language, I go with pastorant and say Cherokee. I love grammar but I could not make heads or tails of my (very indepth) Cherokee book. I've tried several times...

tlhIngan HolvaD teH. Hol Sung puS rurbej, 'a novchu' Hol.

Hol Qatlhqu' qImDI', pastorant vItlhej 'ej Qatlhqu' loD Doq Hol 'e' vIQub. pab vIparmaq 'a mumISmoHchu' (QIjqu'bogh) Hol paqwIj. pIj vInID...

[Formiko]

As far as the most difficult language, I go with pastorant and say Cherokee. I love grammar but I could not make heads or tails of my (very indepth) Cherokee book. I've tried several times...

tlhIngan HolvaD teH. Sung Hol puS rurbej, 'a novchu' Hol.

Hol Qatlhqu' qImDI', pastorant vItlhej 'ej Qatlhqu' loD Doq Hol 'e' vIQub. pab vIparmaq 'a mumISmoHchu' (QIjqu'bogh) Hol paqwIj. pIj vInID...

You have Beginning Cherokee by Ruth Bradley Holmes, right? The truth is, Cherokee language material absolutely stinks. I might write a new system...maybe like a Pimsleur..

[Nero]

As far as the most difficult language, I go with pastorant and say Cherokee. I love grammar but I could not make heads or tails of my (very indepth) Cherokee book. I've tried several times...

tlhIngan HolvaD teH. Sung Hol puS rurbej, 'a novchu' Hol.

Hol Qatlhqu' qImDI', pastorant vItlhej 'ej Qatlhqu' loD Doq Hol 'e' vIQub. pab vIparmaq 'a mumISmoHchu' (QIjqu'bogh) Hol paqwIj. pIj vInID...

You have Beginning Cherokee by Ruth Bradley Holmes, right? The truth is, Cherokee language material absolutely stinks. I might write a new system...maybe like a Pimsleur..

Yep, that's my book. I remember that you were thinking about making a new cherokee book. Do you think that you will indeed do it? It might help some of us who are uneasy with the language

HIja', paqwIj 'oH Dochvatlh 'e'. Hol Sung paq chu' DachenmoHmeH bIjatlhtaH 'e' vIqaw. vaj Daruch 'e' DaHar'a'. HollIjmo' QuchHa'ghach wIHotbogh chaq nuQaH

[Formiko]

Yep, that's my book. I remember that you were thinking about making a new cherokee book. Do you think that you will indeed do it? It might help some of us who are uneasy with the language

HIja', paqwIj 'oH Dochvatlh 'e'. Hol Sung paq chu' DachenmoHmeH bIjatlhtaH 'e' vIqaw. vaj Daruch 'e' DaHar'a'. HollIjmo' QuchHa'ghach wIHotbogh chaq nuQaH

I might find an individual who is more fluent than me (maybe the guy from culturev.com), I'd have to see the demand first...

[Ennys]

I think modern Irish is very difficult, because it has a weird spelling, a pronounciation which I have to learn by heart because I never guess it from the spelling,

Actually, there are rules (but many, and exceptions). Once you've mastered them, you can pronounce almost every new word.

That's what they say, yes... Why on earth write an aoi when you're just pronouncing the i?
I found out the trick in many of these clusters of vowels is to find the one with a fada on it, and pronounce only that one

and some sounds I cannot reproduce,

Which ones? Here you'll here most of them (I did the recordings) http://www.phouka.com/gaelic/sounds/sounds.htm

thanks.

plus the broad-slender variants between which I can not always hear the difference

I can help you with them too. All broad and slender variants are different when they are well pronounced (but in some learning recordings and stuff, the recordings are made by non-native speakers and they don't master the sounds themselves... ).

My teacher is a native speaker, and well...he pronounced all these different sounds for us in our first class. But I only distinguish the difference in some vowels. I hear the difference between broad and slender l or k, for example, these are obvious. (yes I read you thought the difference between the l's a difficult one, but to a dutchie it is just the two l's in 'lepel') But with a b or m or so...I listened to your recording of broad and slender b, and to me, the two b's are exactly the same - it is the vowel behind them that differs and gives broad lips or (aba) or pointed ones (abuh). But still, it SOUNDS the same to me. But maybe I'm deaf in a particular way or so . Same for the m's, by the way. In those the way you hold your lips is even the same,or isn't it?

You give a slightly different pronounciation of broad dh than I heard before - what you're doing is a bit easier in class I learned something that sounds closest to someone suffocating - in a very slow and painful way.

And in your recording I find the difference between broad and slender t, which I didn't get earlier. So thanks!!

[Ennys]

Quite a large number of OI verbs are weak a-class (or whatever you want to call that), and those are quite regular... anyway, as long as you don't attempt to speak, but only to read OI, you will get far enough with some [s]guesswork[/s]... erm, intuition
90% of the verbs in any text will be forms of téit, do-icc, and as-beir anyway, apart from copula and substantive verb forms of course, and yes, those are evil.

Old Irish verbs are not so iorregular I thought, there are just many ways of inflection!
But for the substantive verb and the copula there is page 68-73 of the Paradigms by Strachan The most evil thing to me are prototonic forms of verbs, like as-beir vs. ni epir, because I never remember what verb they came from..

The great thing of Old Irish is, that you're only supposed to translate it and not to speak it, and allowed to keep a glossary and a grammar at hand while doing this! And the stories are fun.

The most horrinle assignment I ever had to do was picking middle Irish forms from an old Irish text - I failed that exam. I don't know any Irish grammar by heart, it is too complicated. I treasure my Paradigms

This is why Cherokee (and most NDN languages are complex)

Let's say we have a verb "to tie up"

ᎠᎸᎢᎭ a'lv'íha
You have about 500 combinations, like so:
ᎬᏯᎸᎢᎭ gvyalv'iha I tie you up
ᏕᎬᏯᎸᎢᎭ degvyalviha I'm tying you up
ᏥᏯᎸᎢᎭ jiyalv'ha I tie him up
ᎦᎸᎢᎭ I tie it
ᏍᏓᏯᎸᎢᎭ sdayalv'iha I tie you (dual)
ᎢᏨᏯᎢᎭ ijvyalv'iha I tie you (pl)
ᎦᏥᏯᎸᎢᎭ gajiyalv'iha I tie them (animate)
ᏕᎦᎸᎢᎭ I tie them up (inamimate)
ᏍᏆᎸᎢᎭ squahlv'iha You tie me
ᎯᏯᎸᎢᎭ hiyalv'iha you're tying him
ᎭᏢᎢᎭ hatlv'iha you tie it
ᏍᎩᎾᎸᎢᎭ skinalv'iha you're tying me and him
...
...
ᎪᎩᎾᏢᎢᎭ goginatlv'iha they tie me and him

Is Cherokee having infixed pronouns? That is so cool!! It is much more efficient than using all kinds of lose personal pronouns everywhere. It is also a trait of the celtic languages to do this, one of the charms of Old Irish. It is very efficient and esthetically pleasing

Does Cherokee also have verbal particles which you can use to stick your pronouns to, or is it just the complicated verb?

And I love the difference between animate and inanimate object - very subtile. A cool language!!

[nighean-neonach]

The most evil thing to me are prototonic forms of verbs, like as-beir vs. ni epir, because I never remember what verb they came from..

It's easier if you speak modern Gaelic, you can use a lot of intuition then... as-beir and epir both remind me of abair, and do-beir has form like tabair, tuc, etc. which look like modern tabhairt/toirt, and thug.

[Ennys]

Are you also having this weird compulsion to pronounce modern Irish tabair, for example, as 'tabhair', because you're used to lenite a consonant between two vowels?

[nighean-neonach]

Are you also having this weird compulsion to pronounce modern Irish tabair, for example, as 'tabhair', because you're used to lenite a consonant between two vowels?

Can't follow you there, and it's Scottish Gaelic I speak, not Irish. I do have a tendency to read out Old Irish stuff like Scottish Gaelic, including pre-aspiration, which drives my teachers crazy

[DelBoy]

Are you also having this weird compulsion to pronounce modern Irish tabair, for example, as 'tabhair', because you're used to lenite a consonant between two vowels?

The word is tabhair in modern Irish though...

[nighean-neonach]

Maybe he means words like tobar, which have what looks like an intervocalic voiced consonant, but actually it is pronounced almost voiceless (at least in Scottish Gaelic).

[Quevenois]

[Ennys]

Yes, I was wrong...I was looking for an example but took the wrong word

[michaalk]

From the ones I've tried to learn - French definitely!. Just because they write and read the same word in 100 different ways. When I watch French TV programme it all looks for me like a river of different strange sounds - pleasent though. And when I have a French text read - it just looks to me like a waste of letters since no matter how long the word is, it sounds like one syllabe.
Hebrew is hard as well, but mostly to read. The same sign is sometimes read in two different ways and there are almost no vowels.