There is No Such Thing as the "Hardest Language"

This is a claim that seems inherently counterintuitive, that there is no such thing as the hardest language to learn. But the truth is there isn't, and I would even go one step further: that no language is any more complex than any other language. From Spanish to Arabic to Mandarin to Dutch, none of these languages are quote unquote simpler than any other. In order to

understand how this is possible when it seems so obvious that there are multiple aspects to a language that can make it feel over complicated, we need to understand what we mean when we're talking about how complex a language is. For this conversation I'm not talking about how difficult it would be to learn the language as an adult. That is a very different conversation that

entirely depends on what languages you already know. I'm also not referring to the official, standardized, or nationally recognized version of a language, so apologies to the French Academy, this is not about you. I'm talking about the languages as native speakers naturally speak them.

The way you talk to your family and verbalize your thoughts in your own head. Is there anything that suggests that a baby born in China will learn a fundamentally more difficult language than a baby born in the United States, regardless of their education level? Or that a native speaker of any language can claim that their language is richer or more complex than someone else's?

The answer to both of these questions and every variation of them, is no. Now there are a couple reasons that'll lead people, particularly English speakers, to believe that a language is inherently more difficult to learn. If a language has grammatical gender, obviously that would make it more complex, because on top of having to memorize new vocabulary you have to consistently remember the gender of genderless objects. Additionally English has very few verb conjugations, so clearly

a language like Spanish, which has approximately 6,000 tenses, each of which equipped with multiple conjugations, would be more difficult to learn. And if a language has noun declensions, meaning that the precise form of the noun changes depending on how it's used in a sentence, then of course that would be more difficult to master. Russian has six of these, meaning that

the word pencil can be said six different ways depending on if the pencil is the subject of the sentence, a direct object, in indirect object, a possessive, an instrument to accomplish something, or follows a preposition. You're going to tell me that a language like this is just as easy as English where the word pencil is always just pencil? Yes. it's difficult to realize, particularly for monolingual English speakers whose only experience with foreign languages is in

a classroom, that there are many aspects that make up how complex a language is. The complexity of a language is determined by a lot more than just whether or not it has grammatical gender or how many verb conjugations you need to memorize. The issue is most people only recognize complexities in other languages when it's ones they are not already familiar with. If you're a native English

speaker, you're by default not familiar with grammatical gender and don't have to memorize that many verb conjugations, so those aspects will seem particularly difficult if they're present in your target language. But just because those two things aren't difficulties in English, does not mean that English itself does not have difficulties. English has plenty of them. Here are

a couple that, if you're a native English speaker, you might have never noticed. English has,

depending on who you ask, anywhere from 12 to 16 different tenses, made possible by the three worst words that plague every ESL learner across the planet: have, had, and has. I have never had, nor will I ever have had, any trouble using them correctly. Anyone who has had such trouble would say that I might have, had I had any experience dealing with what they have had to,

but I haven't. But if I had, then I would not have been able to have the fluency that I have, have had, will have, and will continue to have had. Now if you're a native English speaker, you might argue that this is still easier than a language with dozens of conjugations because it's just three words and you don't have to memorize so many unique forms. But I'll tell you that if your

mother tongue is something like Russian or Arabic, languages that only have one present one past and one future tense, the idea of over a dozen time tenses, Each of which conveying something slightly different is incredibly difficult to wrap your head around. It's the same reason English speakers struggle with differentiating between quise and quería in Spanish, because they distinguish between tenses that we do not, so it takes an incredibly long time for English

speakers to be able to understand when to use each form. Perhaps one of the most frustrating things in English has to be phrasal verbs, which is when a verb is combined with another word to convey an entirely separate meaning that it would not have on its own. The first thing that makes learning this difficult is that they often have absolutely nothing to do with each other. "Keep up" means to

move at a certain pace. "keep down" means to not vomit, but if you said "keep it down", well now I'm asking you to be quiet. "Keep back" means to stay away, and "keep forward" means...

absolutely nothing, to my knowledge. Some phrasal verbs are separable, for example you can "pick up the ball" or you can "pick the ball up", but others aren't. You can "look up to your brother", but you can't "look your brother up to." You can, however, "look your brother up", but of course that's entirely unrelated. I bring all these up not to say that English is needlessly complicated,

but to point out that very often when people complain about the complexities of other languages, they often don't notice the complexities of their own. And just to be clear, this conversation is strictly about spoken language, the language you naturally acquire as a baby, regardless of your education. So while there may be a case for which written language is the most difficult, that makes no difference here. Now part of the reason you might think languages

like Mandarin and Cantonese are objectively harder than languages like Spanish or Italian, is because you might have heard that they are officially ranked as part of the most difficult languages a person can learn, but that's not true. The thing you are almost certainly thinking of is the Foreign Service Institute's or FSI's ranking of foreign languages, which, yes, lists Mandarin, Cantonese, as well as Japanese, Arabic and Korean as Category 5 languages, but this is very

specifically based on how difficult it would be for native English speakers to learn them, not on which languages are inherently more complex. The FSI is the home to the US government's language training program for foreign diplomats, so the only thing they're considering is how difficult it would be for English speakers to master these languages, which is an entirely separate question.

English speakers find Spanish easier to learn than Mandarin, not because it is easier, but because Spanish is significantly more similar to English than Mandarin is. If you're not convinced think about the inverse situation: do you think it would be difficult for a Chinese person to learn English as an adult? Well if you've ever met a Chinese adult attempting to learn English from scratch, then you know that the answer to that question is yes, unequivocally yes.

English is incredibly difficult for them to master, and if it is just as difficult for a mandarin speaker to master English, as it is an English speaker to master Mandarin, then that would indicate that the reason English speakers have difficulty learning Mandarin has absolutely nothing to do with any inherent complexities, but rather because these two languages are so vastly different. If

Mandarin were truly more complicated just at a base fundamental level, then you would expect to see Chinese adults having a significantly easier time learning English than American adults learning Mandarin, but that's very clearly not the case. Now you might say, "okay you all these are really interesting ramblings and all, but is there any evidence for this?" And yes, there is.

I'd say the biggest piece of evidence for this is the fact that all humans across the planet learn their native language at virtually the same rate. I'm unaware of any data that suggests that Chinese babies, Egyptian babies, or Icelandic babies take longer to reach fluency than American ones. This is true even for deaf babies learning sign languages. Now deaf babies will start signing

ones. This is true even for deaf babies learning sign languages. Now deaf babies will start signing individual words before hearing babies start speaking, but this is primarily because babies's hands are more dextrous than their mouths are, so it is easier for them to move their hands than it is for them to speak clearly, but the time to comprehension and, more importantly, forming

complete and coherent and fluent sentences, is the same. By 5 years old, virtually all children, regardless of their native language, will be able to speak at an adult-like level. Now when I say that, I'm not saying they'd be able to talk about bilateral trade commissions, or the influence on French architecture from the fall of the Roman Empire, but they will be able to fluidly use

grammatically correct syntax, express thoughts and feelings, and be able to talk to any other native speaker without difficulty. I used to play Cowboys and Indians. Yeah, that's what I play. Do

you? Yeah! Now before anybody brings up tokipona as an example of an objectively easier language, know that we're talking about naturally occurring languages, not constructed languages that have no native speakers. Any human language will develop natural complexities just due to the fact that

native speakers. Any human language will develop natural complexities just due to the fact that a language needs to reflect the complex ideas that humans want to express, and the complexity of a language will be determined by how complex the language can, be while still being simple enough to communicate effectively, and it makes sense that that would average the same level of

complexity across large groups of people all using the same language. And we can see objectively that any naturally occurring language will develop these complexities just by looking at how complex slang can be within a language. In English the word shit can mean many different things depending on which animal's shit we're talking about. If something's bullshit, it's untrue. if something's

dogshit, well that means it's terrible quality. If it's horeshit, well then it's ridiculous and unfair. If something's apeshit, that means it's alarmingly aggressive, but if something's batshit,

unfair. If something's apeshit, that means it's alarmingly aggressive, but if something's batshit, then it's just crazy. Sometimes, slang can become tonal. In New York the phrase "you good" can mean multiple different things depending on how it's said. Do you need help? You good? What's up?

(friendly) You good? Are you okay? You good? Don't worry about it. You good. Stop. You good. If I put on a monotone tone voice and just said "YOU GOOD", that doesn't mean anything. It's effectively

nonsense; you have absolutely no idea what I'm trying to say. It would be the equivalent of speaking Mandarin but ignoring all of the tones; it wouldn't mean anything. Which, yes, means that some English slaying has gotten so complex it's effectively become a tonal language. Now while

I hope I've made it clear that there is no such thing as the hardest language to learn, there is, however, an easiest language to learn, and that language is English. Now this might seem to contradict literally everything thing I just said, but it's true. English is significantly easier to learn than any other language, not because of any inherent simplicity, but because English is

unavoidable. If you've ever tried to become fluent in a second language, then you probably know that

unavoidable. If you've ever tried to become fluent in a second language, then you probably know that you need to immerse yourself in order to truly achieve fluency, and no matter where you live in the world, there's no easier language to immerse yourself in than English. You can find signs written in English in nearly every single country in the world, regardless of how much English is

actually spoken there. English also has a bit of a chokehold on virtually all popular media.

The top 50 highest grossing films of all time are all in English, as well as the top 20 highest grossing franchises. Of the 29 bestselling books of all time, only seven of them have an original

grossing franchises. Of the 29 bestselling books of all time, only seven of them have an original language other than English. Now you might not think that this would be much of an issue, because subtitles and translations exist, but those are not nearly as universal or accessible as you might think. For many languages in the world, accurate subtitles for popular films are hard to come by,

think. For many languages in the world, accurate subtitles for popular films are hard to come by, and the translations of bestselling novels are often made entirely independently of the original and come out significantly later. For example, if you want wanted to read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows when it first released, you'd be able to do that on July 21st 2007, provided

you knew English. If, however, you spoke Hebrew, then you would have had to wait until December 24th 2007, over 5 months later. The translator Gili Bar-Hillel Semo, like many other translators of famous works, had to fly to London in order to pick up a copy of the book on its release date. And this 5-month delay was relatively fast. The first Arabic translation of Game of Thrones

date. And this 5-month delay was relatively fast. The first Arabic translation of Game of Thrones wasn't published until 2015, 19 years after the original release date. So if you want to read any of these books without having to wait years for the necessary translations to come out, guess what? You got to learn English. Additionally, TV and the internet have made it incredibly easy for

what? You got to learn English. Additionally, TV and the internet have made it incredibly easy for people to immerse themselves in English without even trying. 60% of all websites are primarily in English, and English TV is a staple for many children across the world. It's why English slang has appeared in nearly every single language on the planet. ...and then said "zeh lo big deal", as

in, it's not a big deal. Then he looked at me and asked, "Yuval, ata yodea ma zeh 'big deal'"? As

in, do you know what a big deal is? That's right, my uncle did not realize that the words "big deal" were English, and then went on to explain to me how "big deal" was the Hebrew slang. So, because

of how pervasive English is, something that we can thank the British Empire for I suppose, it becomes significantly easier to immerse yourself in, and thus master, English, than it would be for any other language. That and more people speak English than any other language in the world, so it's going to be a lot easier to find fluent speakers to practice with. Now of course I'm not

saying that if you're having difficulty learning a language you should stop complaining because it's actually really easy. I just like pointing out that the only thing that really makes a language difficult, is not grammatical gender or how many verb conjugations it has, but it's really just how much access you have to that language. And for as difficult as the language is that you're trying

to learn, it is really no more difficult than the language that you already speak, a language that you manage to master just fine, even with all of its complexities. Which means

the complexities that you're struggling with now, you can probably learn as well.