Can you learn the hardest language in the world? | Irina Pravet | TEDxOtaniemiED

[@seppopihlajamaki7350]

I had 2 room mates, both foreigners, both had been in Finland for several years, 1 spoke Finnish, the other didn't, the one who didn't speak Finnish was fluent in english, the one who spoke Finnish didn't know how to speak english. The fluent english speaker could get by easily with english (as Finns are excellent english speakers), but for the other one, learning Finnish was the only way to be able to communicate with people. Based on this, I would say that the best way to learn Finnish while living in Finland is to refuse to use english.

[@tinasolare]

Completely agree. The same thing is with Danish.

[@AI913]

Learning Finnish is easier after watching this video, but something else of me got much harder.

[@josef5636]

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

[@Krastavac987]

AI913 :^)

[@FFCUltra]

Lived in Finland for 4 months now. Everytime ive even tried to speak Finnish, locals just look at me like "what are you talking about" then speak to me in English. I give up, i go home in 2 months. Thank god Finns know English!

[@SpeakWritePlayinEnglish]

You must like what you're doing, so you can master it quickly.

[@Antonella-nb8ie]

Chinese and Arabic are way harder than Finnish

[@daniellee6912]

i think chinese is kinda simple because the verbs dont change like in english

[@Antonella-nb8ie]

Daniel Lee​ well i don't know that! But i think that English is simple and fast to learn specially comparing with Arabic cauz verbs in Arabic change a lot since i'am an Arabic native speaker!

[@yt5241]

Chinese has no grammar in use. You remember only vocabulary, but the hardest thing of learning Chinese is remembering those vocab itself, of course

[@kraemder]

I think the language you're trying desperately to learn and failing miserably at is the hardest language. So all foreign languages pretty much qualify.

[@alecrosewell6959]

there is grammar in chinese , but it is little. vocabulary doesnt allow you to form sentences? grammar is needed to form sentences? how do you think of my opinion?

[@Apollyon.King.of.the.Locusts]

Finnish language is not so complicated per se. The greatest difficulty lies in the huge difference between written and spoken Finnish languages. So a foreigner has to learn several different variations of Finnish language in order to not sound like a total douche bag in bar or to not look like a total idiot in school exams.

[@pasiojala3227]

Spoken Finnish mostly drops parts of the words (shortens mostly numbers and pronouns but you can fully drop most pronouns anyway due to built-in redundancy), but should still be easier than French ... Things you don't need to learn in Finnish: no articles, no word genders you need to memorize, no need to memorize pronunciation independently of the written language. And the maybe infamous 15 cases are just a way to get along without prepositions (and most of the 15 cases are just variations of others).

[@gunhasirac]

linguistically, if I didn't get it wrong, there's no such hardest language in the world. The difficulty all depends on how similar is the language you are learning to the languages you have already known.

[@amelia.landry]

While it is obvious that some languages are easier than others, nothing is "the hardest". It depends on a variety of things, like your mother tongue, how many languages you already know, and, like she repeatedly said for 16 minutes, your motivation.

[@syenaamay8895]

PARUN KUMAR I

[@tavherter1521]

The very first key to learn anything is convince yourself it's easy, next take time to learn, and the last is practice practice practice!!

[@gladJonas]

Finnish is hard but it's not the hardest language in the world...

[@xackfunnelk1387]

+Majid Q pretty much every language in the world's native speakers never "finish" learning it. As in I don't know every word in the entire, vast English language

[@jo7801]

+Jonas Right. Ithkuil is the hardest. www.ithkuil.net/04_case.html

[@Querer-no-querer]

+Jo no, it is not...

[@eev24eshmolikali]

+Jonas I have taken Finnish and I know if I really applied myself I could learn it. Avarsky (the main language of Respublica, Dagestan ) is harder because you must also learn Russian and go to Maxachkala University, Dagestan in order to learn it. Maг1арул мац1 (по аварски ) = Аварский ( по Русски ) And it is important to remember to say you are Avar, when you go there. It order to determine which is the hardest language in the World you would have to study every language in the World and that is completely impossible. Basque is supposed to be another hard one, and I have studied a small smidge of it.

[@eev24eshmolikali]

+Анастасия Юрь Ева Another factor is all the dialects of Avarsky, even though only a million people speak it. There is the Dialect of Northern Azerbaijan / Za Ka Tala, which is quite different than the S.W. Dagestani Dialect of Charodinski Raion. ( Raion 28 )

[@ChrisPPotatoIDC]

4:32 A normal person would be scared to fuck that cartwheel up in front of everyone, she's a savage

[@ImCalebRosengard]

twice.

[@ChrisPPotatoIDC]

Caleb Rosengard ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) Twice...

[@ChrisPPotatoIDC]

penile 1 So truu and cause she used one hand ( ͡◉ ͜ʖ ͡◉)

[@suhairawsaj3638]

+A Cat I love your profile picture and name (coz I love cats)!

[@ChrisPPotatoIDC]

Suhair Awsaj :D ^-^

[@jasonshin3490]

She literally said nothing. She was supposed to talk about the topic which was whether or not you can learn the harddest language in the world. She didn't even talk about the theme which was Designing for love of learning. I have no idea how someone can go to talking about a language to cartwheeling.

[@neoanderson7349]

"Can you learn the hardest language in the world?" - The question is very subjective. The difficulty of the particular language depends on what language group you belong to. If you are native Estonian, then Finish will be the easiest language to learn... It's frustrating to see TEDx gives the stage to the so-called "experts" who have no idea what they are talking about...

[@nanphyokyaw]

Pj musk

[@TheHartleydog]

neither motivating nor educational.

[@TonyStark799]

+RD Cain It's "Neither motivational nor educational."

[@jaimebenito620]

+RD Cain Her presentation is not that good, but her points and her ideas are. How about you try a more contructive approach and give her some specific suggestions to improve? Because your comment was not motivational, educational, funny or constructive either.

[@CDEbFGAbB]

+RD Cain Why do you need motivation from a video? If you wanna learn a new language practice and learn it with people who speak it. There are lots of forums in the net where you can easily find people and contact them by Skype. Give it a try! ;)

[@林某-p3x]

exactly

[@kakavi26]

she said literally nothing

[@JuniorSantiago3x]

hahahaha at least she did a cartwheel

[@rastablazeahfire7899]

I'm saying.. 😂💥🔫

[@edwardfanboy]

The hope is that you can apply the principles that the speaker has applied to learning Finnish to other large learning tasks.

[@Svafnir666]

AHAHAHAHAH, Upvoted!

[@DavidSinghiser]

More than 5 minutes into this and I'm still waiting . . .

[@DiamanteDea]

People who think French is hard make me laugh, look at Chinese and Finnish! lol. Hard, complicated, like any language would be but NOT impossible !

[@brainchild2197]

+Diamante Dea Chinese isn't that hard though. No need to be scared of it.

[@Ripcraze]

+Diamante Dea I think with Chinese you're thinking of the written part, but the spoken language itself isn't that complicated.

[@Gumardee_coins_and_banknotes]

+brainchild Cantonese is, 6 tones, and most westerners have trouble distinguishing between the tones.

[@l.mosfet9859]

+Diamante Dea Well, the two hardest parts of spoken Chinese are the tone and its high dependence of context. Nothing more. ;)

[@TheShows247]

日本語は…

[@Jerry-gt7kx]

As an ESL speaker, I think she literally said nothing, I mean nothing.

[@animepeople8744]

You are an electrostatic loudspeaker?

[@Aditya-te7oo]

@@animepeople8744 I don't know if you're joking or not but he/she meant English as a second language (ESL).

[@vikas7193]

I saw her 25 minute initiation video to lure Finnish learners. It was the most boring thing ever. Lots of talk, rhetoric but no substance.

[@janlamprecht9229]

As an English teacher and speaker of 4 languages I unfortunately have to agree. I mean no offense. This is applicable to everything in life, absolutely everything.

[@mathiasmaranhao]

Pretty boring. Not straight to the point, so wordy.

[@mathiasmaranhao]

A third of the video is a waste of life time.

[@spoe_]

Mathias Maranhão Thought the same thing exactly

[@jacquesm1652]

She's Jewish, what can you expect. They love hearing themselves talk.

[@mathiasmaranhao]

For some reason I forgot i've been here before... wasted minutes of my life again...

[@natanbeyero4910]

Please don't be so rude.

[@renan6118]

Finnish is very hard, but I think that is not the hardest in the world. I'm still trying to learn and get better in Finnish :D Like she said, the best way to learn is practicing, but is a little bit hard to find someone to talk or learning too

[@enenenergp]

I could help you if you need someone to chat with in Finnish. I'm not really up for giving my email or anything else personal up on KZbin, but there's this gaming site called playforia (i think it'd originally finnish or smtn but it has many languages to choose for playing) with online versions of basic games like chess, yatzy, pool, snooker etc. I used to play with german people so i could chat in german to them. Tell me if you're interested and I can share my nickname and we can be friends and play something or you can just go there by yourself and try to find finns who'd want to chat a bit in Finnish during a game. :)

[@renan6118]

I criated an account in this web site, my neme there is Renan_Finn, I suppose that is easier you add me, because I don't know very well the site. Thanks, I will use to search finnishes to talk, mutta add minua :)

[@mjohnson77682]

What are we supposed to get out of this talk? I don't feel any further ahead after watching it.

[@bailywassup9704]

+GhostsOfAsia nothing, its a pointless video

[@Gumardee_coins_and_banknotes]

+GhostsOfAsia Just shut up and do it, stop whining. That's the point I got.

[@jacquesm1652]

She's just showing us how great she is.

[@-danR]

When a talk starts out with something like: "Can you learn?" you can usually tell there will not be enough substantive material following to obstruct your progress to the inevitable end of a blind alley.

[@billtomey1266]

Baily Wassup sure🔔🔊

[@punkabone]

finnish is easy, i've been speaking it my whole life! :D

[@PS-bn1nu]

I'm finn, but for me it's just so funny to see so many people fighting about which language is the hardest. The funniest part is that most of the people havent even try really to learn that language, even they say "its not that hard, or the hardest". Like cmon, there is not such a thing "the hardest language". I would call english the hardest if it would be my opinion, but it would not make it the ultimateandonlyfact. Same thing with finnish, it might be hard to many people, but its just a personal opinion. Thanxx and sry my bad english. 👼

[@annoloki]

People have all kinds of crazy ideas about language learning... one of the most common is that learning a language is much easier as a kid, like your first language... this is just because people totally forget everything they went through learning their first language, the hours spent at nursery (pre-school) and school learning the alphabet, the shapes of different letters... I remember colour cards to learn "red", "green", "blue" etc etc, and for ages whenever it got to "silver", I would call it "shiney"! Usually, the hard thing is putting the effort into learning it when it's so much easier not to. Or maybe it's just hard to teach it if you don't know techniques that are easier.

[@coxsum302]

english isnt hard ! i am an Arabian i learnt english from playing video games!

[@themightychabunga2441]

I found Bulgarian the hardest language to learn. I dabble in around 17 languages but have not attempted Finnish. I will wait to try to learn Finnish as my last language. I will finish with Finnish.

[@hiromashimoto7551]

How did u learn bulgarian, what resources did u use??

[@metaliumtux]

Try Polish or Russian then Bulgarian will be a piece of cake, I guess.

[@themightychabunga2441]

I did not learn much Bullnblahh. Do OK with Russian (Ukrainian) and polisk

[@scarlettmcadams156]

do you really know/speak 17 languages? that's amazing!

[@themightychabunga2441]

I'm not at a conversational level but can do basic communication. Say hello, thank you,please,ask for help and such.

[@kevinros1274]

I'm an African American polyglot who speaks multiple languages at various levels..Finnish being one of them and I think the hardest language in the world is the African language Xhosa even tho Finnish is tuff but so is Polish..which I just started

[@keithclark3046]

Asian languages are much harder than Finnish.

[@Tidussoul]

Cantonese is one of the most hardest languages I have ever studied. Poeh!

[@Tidussoul]

Yeah... No... The different tones, the writing style and pronounciation it's very simillar to Vietnamese. Have you study Cantonese? Or Mandarin? Then we will talk.

[@justinliu4063]

+Donald Trump So... You tried Korean? So how complex do you think the grammar of it compared to Finnish? Since I know Korean should be mildly hard to understand with its' strange rammar, but Finnish do have about 15 cases and a verb can have many different kind of forms.

[@justinliu4063]

Donald Trump​ Ok, I know. I'm just asking the grammar difficulty.

[@justinliu4063]

Donald Trump Oh.. Ok.

[@Wasp239]

oh, Irina! What are you talking about? Where are you from? Don't be so proud yourself if you have learnt Finnish. I'm learning Finnish too and I already have read fictions while I have been learning Finnish less then 6 months. It's so hard for you if you belong to group of Romanic-German languages, but not for Slavs! Cause we too have many endings and the degree of alternation of consonants and we have word's genders which Finns haven't. Also our stresses always fall to different sylabs and it changes a meaning of the word! I don't say that Finnish is easy, no. But it's not impossible! Especially for Slavs! ;)

[@gabrifroja5186]

Why "especially for slavs"? Slavic languages are indo-european too, just like romance and germanic languages.

[@paulb6099]

Self- fufilfillling prophecies happen across any and all boundaries. Not just language but in all topics of the human race.

[@SocialistFinn1]

Finnish really isn't as hard as people think, it's just a different structure but it's very logical and consistent. Stop thinking in the Germanic and Romance language structures and basically try to think outside the box and you'll be fine. But of course if you don't live in Finland then it's hard cause you might not use it so much.

[@suaptoest]

Finnish is learned like other languages; one step at a time.

[@bretwalda100]

Great, now I know how to cartwheel.

[@rafaelantunes1982]

Hehehehe!

[@allu1dxd]

Finnish is hard even to me, and I'm from Finland and I have lived my whole life in Finland :D

[@galt82]

Wasted 16 minutes of my life. Learned absolutely nothing. Her speech was just meaningless drivel.

[@poohspaws8976]

Having lived in different countries, I always have measured my own comfort level in speaking a foreign language by how comfortable I was answering the phone, and understanding what the person on the other end was talking about, and being able to answer the person without too much trouble. I say "the phone", because you don't have the luxury of pausing for very long on a phone, like you would in a face to face situation, without having the person on the other end of the phoneline yelling out "hello, hello???" They can't see you grasping for words on a telephone, you can't read their lips while they are talking, they can't see your gestures, so you better be able to answer them, quickly.

[@anidaria]

I don't think learning basic finnish is hard but learning all the variations of words used in sentences with different meanings must be a pain in the ass. And also getting used to saying the word just how it's written could be difficult for some people.

[@Nikolay76Gogol]

Absolutely hollow presentation! 15 minutes of speaking about nothing.

[@deboranestal9597]

I couldn't understand the reference that she made to the trees. 🤔

[@wolframhuttermann7519]

i think chinese is more difficult for europeans than finnish, as it has tones.

[@alejo994]

+Wolfram Hüttermann Well, every language has its tricky side, but also chinese words are often short and its grammar is rather simple and very similar to the english one. (Although I know you meant europeans beyond english speaking countries).

[@jacklong5391]

汉语是世界上最难学的语言

[@carlober6852]

German is the easiest language to learn !!!

[@steve-marsh]

The only thing I took from this is that she loves herself

[@leenodie5664]

Arabic is much more harder than Finnish !!!

[@ransonjoseph7275]

TAMIL is Harder than Anything With vast grammar theories etc..

[@Dragom4n]

The hardest language in the world? You mean Cree? Or Navajo? Inuktitut?

[@tuffgong9951]

Or Hungarian?

[@shep7544]

Marianne Swedish is nothing like English, atleast from my experience. I’m fluent in Finnish and English, but my Swedish still sucks

[@Dragom4n]

@Marianne Yeah no. Navajo has the "same alphabet" as English in the same sense that Finnish does. So does Turkish. So does Maltese. So does Tagalog. Alphabets aren't a major issue when it comes to learning to speak a language.

[@huyenvo775]

I'm from Vietnam. I love to learn English and I think I love learning languages...!!! Not really hard to learn any languages If you have passion, believe yourself and confident DARE TO LEARN, You will know it's easy or hard when you learn :)

[@ibe9367]

+Huyen Vo Cool! I've been learning Vietnamese for about a year now and although it has been hard, I sill enjoy learning it :)

[@huyenvo775]

+Caleb Lee Wow. Bạn rất giỏi. Hy vọng bạn sẽ học tiếng vIệt giỏi hơn nữa. Chúc bạn thành công nhé :)

[@ibe9367]

Da cam on ban! :D

[@baduypham3410]

Huyen Vo can i learning English with you?

[@trancuongbk5567]

@@huyenvo775 Hi! I come in from Viet Nam, and I want to learing English with you?

[@drewrichardson9944]

Language difficulty is relative to your native tongue and any other languages already learnt / familiar. Since Finnish belongs to a very small linguistic family, its characteristics will be very different from what one is likely to know already, rendering the learning process much more difficult. So actually, we are dealing with a "difficulty versus different" concept. Also, the various areas of the brain are more or less active in individuals including memory (short-term and long-term), creative and logical , which means that we are all naturally good at something and will find certain things easy and other things more challenging. I speak 3 foreign languages (Latin-based, Slavic and Finnic) and I can say that learning Finnish has pushed my mind to extremes, so I disagree with the concept, "you can learn anything" attitude. I have also witnessed many people abandon classes because it gets too much for them. I think it's great to listen to this motivational speech but the reality speaks volumes. There's a good reason why Finland has two national languages and why most people speak English. Finnish is not the most difficult, nor one of the most difficult... but it's certainly one of the most unique in the world!

[@fabv1966]

she said if you think you can't then you can't

[@EilahtaNandVal]

before watching this I was more positive I will learn this language. In regards to some sexist comments here, really sad you have to reduce this person to being hot or whatever. makes me sick

[@popcornfilms1]

Makes me hard

[@linguaphile9415]

People who are talking about the hardest language rarely know the really hard languages. All you need is devotion and time. The question alone is ridiculously easy to answer: Yes you can.

[@slavicdrill3211]

Finnish isnt harder than polish

[@falcoillusion982]

Yes Finnish is so hard that I have never heard a foreigner speaking fluent Finnish. There is always mistakes in pronunciation or grammar.

[@DarkVikingMaster]

Same with British English, although sounding like a native or never making mistakes are unrealistic goals.

[@falcoillusion982]

+luisvictormf But I know Finnish people who can speak fluent English or at least I can not tell the difference between native speakers and them. But I am unable to find any native English speaker speaking native Finnish. I am native Finnish speaker and I have acquaintance who is native English speaker and has lived over 20 years in Finland. However his Finnish does not sound native at all. For example (Smokahontas) SAARA is famous Finnish singer who can speak fluent English. Can you find an example of native English speaker who can speak native Finnish?

[@DarkVikingMaster]

+falcoillusion982 Nope. Never heard a Finnish speaker sounding native-like from any I've ever heard (from dozens). It's usually very good but mistakes are usually in every sentence. But the point is that it's generally the same for foreign speakers of any language, including me. The focus should be on being able to communicate effectively, not producing flawless language.

[@diseasesofcivilization31]

+falcoillusion982 "There is always mistakes in pronunciation or grammar." Indeed, and your English is free of such mistakes ;)

[@DarkVikingMaster]

+Diseases of Civilization US/UK. Point stands.

[@scotmcpherson]

for westerners, Japanese is considered the very hardest human language. Finnish isn't even in the _hardest_ category. It's considered Category 4 of difficulty, which is difficult. Chinese, Arabic, Korean and Japanese are category V with Japanese being subtexted as the most difficult of the category V difficulty languages. The title of this talk is a bit misleading, but it is still topical.

[@mky3039]

Category 5 is only harder than category 4* because of the alphabet. Category 4* grammar is generally considered harder than category 5 grammar.

[@metaliumtux]

I do have learned Finnish. In fact, it isn't that hard ass people think. I'd say even Finnish is one of the easiest languages for me. Yeah, maybe grammar seem difficult, but very logical, almost no exeptions from the rules and the best thing is that it is pronoused same way as written, letter by letter, and you always know how to pronounce a word unlike in English and many other languages. I wish Finnish was global a language instead of fkn English. :D

[@user-bm4rz7fe3x]

Евгений Александрович i think finnish have very easy pronounciation compared to english or russian, i have just started to study russian and some words are just impossible for me to pronounce XD like i cant even heard any difference between и and ы... and then there is ц,ш,щ,з,ж,ч,с.......

[@topiesponja]

It's a long journey my friend... I've been learning russian for quite a few years now, but only for 9 months in an actual academic way, and let me tell you that it takes quite some time to get it right. I haven't even passed the basic level yet. The point is to really be interested in the language (and i'm obsessed), otherwise i would have probably dropped it already

[@metaliumtux]

+BAEPSAE, but in English there're some difficult sounds like th ar r, and never can be sure how to pronounce most word whereas Finnish also is pronouced same way as written. Russian is partially also about it, you never get [i] sound instead of written o (women), or written u as [u] or [a] and other sound metamorphoses which may be listed endlessly. We have only some kind of reduction with o and e, witch unstressed make sounds similar to a and и (but not strong a/и stressed) and then с/з (like s in English can sound differently). Another problem might be stress syllable, but English has same trouble too, whereas Finnish don't and always has same stress position. Russian may be hard at grammar, but when it comes to pronunciation - English is a real piece of hell and I can't speak it. Ч - CHair, Ш - SHop, З - iS, C - buS, И - shEEp (but short), Ы - shIp (in US accent), Ж - George (ʤ without d), Ц/Щ I can't remember any word in English to represent these sounds, but anyways it isn't even comparable with difficulties we have with th (ð vs s vs z vs θ vs f). Try Polish else, it is "a Paradise for Ц, Ч, Ш and Щ. :D

[@Kilo-sz4ch]

Läpinäkymätön I'm learning Russian now as well. That's how I accidentally got to this video.

[@sirseigan]

+Golden Mushrooom Sorry but we do have W and it is suppose to, in standardized Swedish, sound very close to the W in English (with a slightly rolling sound similar to W in "welcome"), we just very rarely use it and are lazy and use the sound for "V" instead in modern language. The situation is similar with Z that we also have but very few actually uses and the S sound is used instead. But we still have them both. It is also good to remember that when it comes to pinpoint sounds in a language one often neglect the fact that it is very rare that all native speakers pronounce the words in exactly the same way. There are always dialect, sociolects and different types of slang from different eras, and even the pronunciation between age groups with int he same dialect and sociolect might differ. Even if you boils it down to a standardized formal language you will still have variations within what is still considered "correct language". Language is not static, it is organic and messy just like people is. So for example it is often said that Swedish do no have diphthongs, and that might be true for the "standard Swedish" that was constructed and thought in public school to eradicate dialects and create a national unified language, but no one has ever spoken like that in normal life. There are many dialects that has diphthongs and even triphtongs in Swedish. There is also Swedish dialects that do have sounds similar to IPA Þ and well as sounds similar to IPA ð but are written T and D. In some places the letter Ä sounds like "e" and in others it is a deep "ä" and in yet others there it is a diphthong similar to "äe". In some places you will not hear a difference in U and Ö but in yet other places the letter Ö sounds like a michmash of "öou". The same with the sound "sj", "stj", "sk", "skj" etc where in my dialect the words Sjö, Stjärna, Skönt, Skjuta, Station, Vision, Jargong and Dijong has the exact same sound, IPA X or ɧ, and just 100 km away the sound is more similar to IPA ʑ . Should a mention the south Swedish "R" or the northern thick "L"? I could go on and on and on but the point is that because of this it is actually very hard to draw general conclusions of what exact sound a letter actually represent without hearing the sounds, knowing how the person speak or write it in IPA (but that might not be perfect either). And it is even harder to draw conclusion on how a word is pronounced in a language - or even worse; how a word in English is pronounced with a accent from that language - without knowing the dialect/sociolect etc of the person describing it. Last but not least: I was actually drilled by my English teacher in the British "Posh" pronunciation(UK public school pronunciation) go the English alphabet in school, so we did actually learn "new sounds" in our language class. However I still ended up sounding more like a nasal American, because of all movies and music. However it happens that I do mix the two creating kind of a mishmash dialect/accent. I think this is a quite common problem among Swedes and that quite few actually know/reflect on when they use what dialect and the mix ends up sounding like an accent in it self (on top of the accent originating from the mother-tongue).

[@Patralgan]

Japanese is considered at least twice as hard for English native speaker. Finnish =1100 hours of learning while Japanese is 2200+ hours.

[@mikkoh5213]

It's quite impossible to say for sure which langauage is the most difficult to learn, because as you said it depends so much on what you already know before starting. For example, for native speakers of some Asian langauages Finnish is normally much more challenging to learn than Japanese, because many Asian langauages are more or less related to each other. Same with most langauages spoken in Europe. Finnish langauage is related to Estonian and Hungarian, and it has lot of words copied from German, English and Swedish, and that's why it helps a lot if you already speak one of those langauages.

[@dashgull5855]

Patralgan english is also very hard for someone that is japanese

[@yuchen8412]

FannyPlaysMLBB that’s not true. Japanese has tons of borrowed words from English.

[@ericsnider2342]

Chinese is the hardest lauangue cause it all f*cking symbols

[@isaac-p6126]

Japanese has 3 different types of em..

[@musiclover5767]

It depends on your mother tongue

[@Chillazilla2]

The difficulty of any language depends on a person's perspective. Personally, Khmer (Cambodian) seems much harder.

[@imya666]

Объясните, что она хотела сказать? выступление на 16 минут, а смысла не уловил(

[@imedbenzahra5653]

Arabic and Chinese are the hardest according to the studies

[@Aurinkohirvi]

Perspective: my both dogs learnt to understand Finnish really, really well. In a year, we could communicate real nice. In the end part of their life, they understood as much as children of maybe 5 years old. Dogs are linguistically talented (some concepts may be too hard, like explaining Earth or how a car operates) but people are even more so. I trust anyone can learn what ever language, if they want to. In a couple of years, you can pretty much compete against the smartest dogs understanding what ever language.

[@Schnittwin]

but can they do a cartwheel

[@Aurinkohirvi]

@@Schnittwin Probably. Search videos about it.

[@rorik.3842]

Chinese and Arabic are way harder I'm an Arab and I have learnt a lot of Finnish in a month compared to Chinese.

[@jacklong5391]

汉语是世界上最难学的语言

[@vend1301]

estou tentando aprender um pouco de inglês.e admiro muito quem falar vários idioma.

[@CDEbFGAbB]

+vend1301 1301 Tudo é questão de pràctica. Você deve praticar o inglés sempre que você poder sem medo.

[@Ketutar]

Well... Finnish is not the hardest language in the world and USA isn't the leader of the free world, it's just things people say. I consider Finnish to be relatively easy as a foreign language, because the phonemes are few and easy (no Norwegian Y, Chinese R or the dozens of different s-z-sh-shch-zsc-sounds, no clicks or stød or tones or...) and the grammar is pretty forgiving and straightforward, even with all the cases and verb conjugation. No articles, no grammatic gender. Easy.)

[@HumbrianSung]

That's about 8 minutes of my life I won't ever see again. Some might say clickbait...

[@droid264]

Humbrian Sung welcome to the world

hard languages are doomed to extinction in 100 years sharp

[@ookkonaaoulusta]

Suomihan on helppoa.

[@kiki-tw7vg]

no eikä oo

[@ClassicsFroms-sq7zk]

kyl se on kun koko ikänsä on puhunu :D

[@humanforotherhumans]

Ovimbarungue no visepa mbindu.

[@nhht77]

ookkonaaoulusta kyllä

[@lumppa04]

ei ulkomaalasille

[@santitapia7]

Could you give me a summary of this video please if it could be 10 lines

[@grazielaalmeida8438]

Finnish, Hungarian, Icelandic, Russian, Cantonise, Arabic they are all very dificult

[@aldopaulino5223]

+Graziela Almeida don't forget portuguese u.u ahh theres so much grammar that even i a native speaker gets destroyed x.x

[@ozanbayrak562]

+Aldo Paulino difficult latin language but this is because the pronounciation differences and an extensive vocabulary (brasilian and european portuguese). I think someone who knows english and spanish can learn portuguese easily.

[@aldopaulino5223]

Ozan Bayrak i don't know about latin but in my opinion all of the romance languages are hard to learn because of the construction and grammar itself. There are less vocabulary in verb to be in english compared to portuguese that's why i think it is simpler than say: french, portuguese and spanish about Latin i don't know since it's pretty much a dead language

[@tylerwills7887]

+Graziela Almeida POLISH

[@ozanbayrak562]

+Aldo Paulino take a look :D en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adyghe_language

[@vilhelmvonbraun3093]

Arabic is way harder than Finnish, at least for me. I don't understand why people say Finnish is harder than other languages. If you think Finnish is hard, you are doing it wrong. I know it is easy to scare people with Finnish grammar by pointing out the number of endings or cases etc but no one tells you what you don't have to learn by putting endings to the nouns and no one tells you about how logical it is.

[@alhashmy1310]

Arabic is hardest

[@highestraad3241]

omarmustafa khalil96 ALLAH (swt) SAYS THAT, THE HOLY QURAN IS REVEALED IN THE EASIEST OF LANGUAGES. FRENCH IS HARDEST LANGUAGE BRO

[@valentinrafael9201]

Kids can learn it. Ofc everyone can learn it.

[@cinderellaandstepsisters]

Kids can easily learn any language.

[@demnotmem]

IF you think Finnish is hard.... try CANTONESE! It'll make Finnish a piece of cake

[@xxgamergirlxx7917]

+Them Notmen Yea Cantonese has 9 tones & shit xD

[@perfumelyrics520]

+EmpressMileena 2015 omg, Cantonese is not as hard as VIETNAMESE (I am learning Japanese and Vietnamese)!!

[@Wasp239]

+Them Notmen cantonese is fuck. Words haven't declansions and conjuctions.

[@Gumardee_coins_and_banknotes]

+Them Notmen It is hard for an English speaker, grammar is easy, tones are not. And the difference between writing and spoken pronunciation is a mind fuck.

[@areyoukirringmeirriyaa]

+Perfume Lyrics HAHAHHAH no.

[@mrbilingual]

There is absolutely no such thing as the hardest language in the world!! If someone speaks it then it is not hard. Also, anyone who speaks a native language close to that language would not find it hard. Just because something is deemed hard by one does not mean it is hard to others. An Asian or Arab sees English as very difficult. A German really enjoys learning English and excels at it. They are all humans, so what is the common denominator? It has to do with familiarity not what is hard or easy.

[@lynnng.5649]

I've been learning French for about 3 months and I'm still struggling with pronouncing the r sound 😂

[@maranegoita49]

The pronouncing is one of the hardest things in French. After two years I'm still trying not to sound wierd while speaking

[@dorotas-k5406]

Arabic is the hardest. Polish, which is my mother tongue, is the 4th. I'm not sure if Finnish is even in the first 10.

[@blackcoffeebeans6100]

It is supposed to be the 6th hardest language.

[@Andromediens]

Finnish is pretty easy to learn, the 3 hardest languages are pretty "dead" nowadays but: 1) Old Chinese 2) Old Arab 3) Old French It would take several years for anyone to learn one of these three.

[@RiderInHell]

I can't speak for the finnish language as I never studied it or anything, but I can say that it's debatable. I mean, the hardest language in the world is different depending on where you were born, or rather what your mother tongue is (or what the languages you speak are). Because languages have concepts. And every language has different concepts as the next one. Though, there are 'similar' languages. For instance, I'm portuguese (from Portugal) and I have never studied spanish (Spain in our neighbouring country). Although, even though I can't speak it (just a few words) I can understand about 50/60% of it, because there are many similarities to the languages. Why? Because they share the same roots. So, if I, as a portuguese person, think that spanish or english are quite easy for me, why aren't languages like japanese, korean or mandarin? Because they don't share those roots. And vice versa, a japanese person (nihonjin, which means 'japanese', in english) may find it quite easy to learn korean and mandarin, but they mostly find it difficult to learn any western language (well, in this case it's also due to the fact that Japan is an overall closed up country, but fortunatelly it's slowly opening up... emphasys on slowly! lol). I am actually in the beginning of a process to learn japanese, even though I find it hard. But I have my own motivation, my own reason to do it. I'm not doing it just for the sake of doing it. So, in the end you just have to find your motivation!

[@Elena-kq1fe]

as a Hungarian girl myself I still have a hard time 😂 you really need to learn Hungarian if youre young other wise its really really hard to learn to speak it correctly plus speak Dutch & English :) but I really want to learn Spanish ahhhh

[@Elena-kq1fe]

I speak*

[@diegopichaco9384]

+Elena :3 hy español is very easy, if you born in Spain

[@saikoggpsycho2782]

what about polish? Try to say "Grzegorz Brzęczyszczykiewicz" or "Chrząszczyrzewoszyce powiat Łękołody"

[@mando1337]

Polish is from the Slavic group of languages so it's not that hard as some people are trying to make it. I can point to a lot of non-Poles who can speak Polish. I'm yet to meet non-Finnish person to speak Finnish. I know quite few people from Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Estonia and when I asked them whether they understood Finnish they all shook their heads.

[@epicgamer8751]

That isnt very hard as a (50%) native czech speaker. It would be extremely hard for a complete english native though.

[@monicacollins8289]

Why does Polish have so many Z's???

[@RayMysteryo]

those were some nice cartwheels lol

[@edmanuelsong]

I can sing Spanish, French, Italian, German, Greek, Russian, Mandarin, Japanese, Jewish, Filipino, Balinese and English.

[@jpdmusiccomedyjpdmusiccome5181]

I can,I can speak Chinese. ....it is the one of the hardest language.. .....

[@losangrinchen4656]

你会中文吗？

[@jeremyimmanuel1172]

luo sang认清 我会

[@francoiswilliams]

How about Khoisan?? The oldest language in the world...

[@flaze3]

I expect what it really comes down to--and what she was saying between the lines--is that Finnish people won't speak Finnish to foreigners, so foreigners can't learn it. That's because Finnish people speak English very well, so they don't feel they need to put up with other people's bad Finnish. I can understand it, but I can also see how frustrating it must be for people who actually want to learn Finnish. Probably the best strategy in these situations is to plough on in Finnish and try to explain to your interlocutor that you really want to learn Finnish. Eventually once you get good enough people will stop automatically switching to English. Or at least one would hope so!

[@Ap-ig1ui]

I am from finland and I started to learn englis at third class and I am now only 12 years old.

[@iidarasanen9325]

every one who goes to school in Finland starts to study English in third or first grade of school and it doesn't stop before 9 grade so thats why almost everyone speaks English in Finland.

[@KrzysiuNet]

Flaze3, your conclusion is wrong, as it's a typical behavior for most people around the world. I've been in 10-15 countries and it was always like that.

[@shahrazade26]

I have an idea. Pretend that you don't speak English. Tell them you speak Japanese. When they start speaking English, say "what?" in Finnish.

[@ingamesniperr]

Can you finish learning finnish?

[@susitytto7483]

InGameSniperr Nope 😂

[@drillgirl718]

she cute

[@ipdavid1043]

Oh my god the worst speaker in the world. Know idea what the theme is about????? Motivation? Perseverance????

[@chelsea90cute]

For Malaysian like me, the hardest language to pronounce the words are german and other Balkan languages

[@jhuntracks]

i feel that pronouncing german is pretty direct, imo similar to how we try to pronounce malay, except it is pronounced differently.

[@buzzingtalk]

learn the hocking/spitting noise, then get your head around the vowels. they are sort of inbetween malay and english. but, it's similar to Malay in that it is pronounced 'how it reads' except for the hocking noise and vowels. You have to pronounce EVERYTHING including bits at end of sentences unlike in Malay where often you stop during the last letter and intone things without pronouncing the whole word. prob the hardest ones are schw and eischt type combos which don't happen in Malay. Also the grammar is way more complicated than Malay but you speak English so it won't be too scary ;) I'm Englis but my mum is German so I grew up hearing older relatives talking it. And learning malay as my dad lives there. My malay is way better than my German though as I don't live there/use it.

[@chelsea90cute]

buzzingtalk it is fun to learn new language :)

German is not Balkan, you can't say „German and other Balkan languages“ :)

[@zptell1913]

Im sure you dont know what Danish is

[@miesperas]

the difficulty level of language is all relative.... cannot say one particular language is hardest...

[@superflyj416]

7:52 most extreme vocal fry ever

[@KirillBerezin]

I thought dead languages hardest to learn

[@renebarendse2864]

+Kirill Berezin Absolutely. Just try Learning Akkadic (language of ancient Babylon) very distant relative of Arabic (but with a more complicated grammar) but then written like Chinese-style characters. Or new Hittite - grammar as complicated as Sanskrit but written in hieroglyphs unique to the new Hittite language - some of it has been deciphered) or there is Sogdian - very remote relative of Persian BUT WRITTEN IN CHARACTERS (LIKE CHINESE) WHICH ARE however UNIQUE TO SOGDIAN this (LANGUAGE is STILL UNDECIPHERED0 OR THE NEW MEROE LANGUAGE - of the ancient Meroe empire in Sudan WRITTEN IN HIEROGLYPHS (LIKE ANCIENT EGYPiIAN) BUT the hieroglyphs are REFERRING TO WORDS FROM some AFRICAN TONGUE THAT HAS NOT BEEN DECIPHERED.

[@KirillBerezin]

rene barendse sounds very fascinatingly. Thank you for such wide answer :))

[@renebarendse2864]

Latin is dead too but I can assure you you don" t come very far studying European history before the eighteenth century without knowing Latin and similarly you need Akkadic for any serious study of the ancient Near East. So there are far more linguists, historians or theologians studying it than you would think and it is taught at hundreds of universities.

[@Ken.-]

The most difficult language - Arabic requires, on average, 1,679,000 years, or 22,368,916,864,311 class hours, to reach speaking and reading proficiency.

[@kenmarriott5772]

This talk has given me some motivation. All my life I was occasionally around other people that were fluent in other languages. Polish (my mother), Lithuanian (a friend), German (wrestling coach), mandarin (coworker), Hindi (coworker), ebo (coworker), Russian (a friend), Spanish(coworker), italian(a neighbor), japanese(a neighbor). And I'm interested in speaking French, Portuguese, Greece and Korean and visiting these countries. What do you think?

[@itsmylife2802]

the whole world is surrounding you!

[@humanforotherhumans]

almost...I am not there.

[@thevitruvianman9781]

Ken Marriott *igbo

[@kenmarriott5772]

Yes igbo. I can't spell.

[@pasinpoika4597]

Mikä vaan kieli on helppo jos synnyt siihen maahan puhumaan, niin turha suomalaisten täälä on kommentoida et voi ompa vaikeeta:D

[@KristopherWilliams_tahmson]

wow she's beautiful

[@skankhunt-sf1to]

Kristopher Williams.....not really

[@philharris1967]

^ gay

[@문숙장-g1w]

Phil Harris

[@thatboyjordancool]

Kristopher Williams she's a Jew...

[@user-it8kw3wy2y]

Diamond Miner 😅😃

[@davidshea7201]

Actually, Estonian is much more difficult than Finnish.

[@itacom2199]

Navajo language: i'm about to end this man's whole carreer

[@got2kittys]

You will progress quickly if you use it. Looking at books won't work. Talk, badly, lol. Make 10,000 mistakes. You'll get it.

[@rinkokonoe8644]

I thought Vietnamese was the hardest

[@crimsonleavesfalling5224]

+Seiko Shinohara Vietnamese is definitely up there in difficulty

[@rinkokonoe8644]

Aveyond Keiver yeah

[@cheyennehenry8726]

+Aveyond Keiver Japanese?

[@cheyennehenry8726]

+cheyenne henry I know you don't mean Japanese I mean I wanna know your thoughts on it.

[@crimsonleavesfalling5224]

cheyenne henry Japanese is definitely one of the toughest. They have a really unique sentence structure/grammar, plus you have to learn a huge amount of kanji. I like how Japanese sounds, just like I do with Vietnamese. Vietnamese is like a french-asian fusion, which I think is very interesting. Both have their harder areas. What do you think?

[@ZK-Desu]

I mean yeah it is hard but not the hardest for example TUYUCA with less than a thousand speakers, Tuyuca is considered the world's most complex language (just saying) or we'll have a more HARDER, COMPLEX & MORE DIFFICULT one once Elon Musk succeed with the Mars Colonization thing LOL😜✌

[@JariSatta]

Suomea, täytyypä joskus opetella, seku vain. Lappia ossaan jo jotenki: "Matte motav vee" (Minä ajattelin että minä otan veden.) "Säyt syä" (Sinun täytyy syödä.)

[@blackheavyblans]

Jari Satta mä oon kotosin kymenlaaksosta ja puhun välil miinku lappalainen; kaikki kirjaimet päällekkäin. :)

[@KwaiiBear369]

I Just Don't Agree About It Being The Most Difficult Language! I Have Not Seen Any Comparable Evidence Or Proof Of This Statement! Why Did She Say This? To Prove She Is Uber Intelligent Or Something??

[@thinfilmboy]

For English speakers, no way is Finnish the hardest language. I would say Vietnamese would probably be the most difficult.

[@diseasesofcivilization31]

Yo, just read a Malcolm Gladwell book rather than listening to someone clumsily regurgitate his ideas.