lexico
Chukchi Salmon
Multiple Poll: Are You Harsh on Your Own Language ?
Multiple Poll: Click as many that apply to you.
Some people claim that their mother tongue is the most difficult language in the world. Some bilinguals and polyglots claim that the langauges they speak at a native speaker's level are some of the most difficult ones they know.
Why are people more harsh and discriminating with their own/favorite/most proficient languages ?
Are they more demanding with their favorite langauges, while more relaxed with other languages ?
Are they simply too proud to accept any other langauge can be more unique than theirs ?
Or are they just too knowledgeable of their own and hence more perceptive of the fine points, but relatively ignorant of others ?
To rephrase the question: Why are you harsh and demanding on your own langauge ?
In the following excerpt, you see a native speaker of French who also speaks English like, or better than, a native English speaker, claiming that French is the more difficult langauge, and English the easier, but still more difficult than Japanese.
Multiple Poll: Click as many that apply to you.
Some people claim that their mother tongue is the most difficult language in the world. Some bilinguals and polyglots claim that the langauges they speak at a native speaker's level are some of the most difficult ones they know.
Why are people more harsh and discriminating with their own/favorite/most proficient languages ?
Are they more demanding with their favorite langauges, while more relaxed with other languages ?
Are they simply too proud to accept any other langauge can be more unique than theirs ?
Or are they just too knowledgeable of their own and hence more perceptive of the fine points, but relatively ignorant of others ?
To rephrase the question: Why are you harsh and demanding on your own langauge ?
In the following excerpt, you see a native speaker of French who also speaks English like, or better than, a native English speaker, claiming that French is the more difficult langauge, and English the easier, but still more difficult than Japanese.
EDIT: Thank you Bossel for your fine suggestions & poll revision. Thank you for lending your article Maciamo; it was the most articulate one in the category I could find. I appologize for using it without asking first.I find English easier, simpler and more logical than my native language (French). In fact, I can't think of a more difficult language than French both for native and non-native speakers (especially non-native of course). It's just so irregular (grammar, spelling, reading), idioms are just so difficult to guess (in comparison "to pop one's clogs" or "to be on cloud nine" seem so obvious in English) and the pronuciation so unlike any other languages (for non natives)...
Just the idiom part is already extremely difficult in English (esp. if you add phrasal verbs and proverbs too), and they are so different in BrE and AmE that it would take a lifetime to learn them all (there are dictionaries only for idioms, only for phrasal verbs and only for proverbs). Even Japanese doesn't have really any idioms (=expressions which one cannot understand just by knowing the words it is composed of).
I think many people underestimate the real difficulty of English. Saying what you want is easy, but understanding all the words, idioms, slangs, regional differences, formality levels, etc. is almost impossible even for a native speaker.
In French, just making one correct full sentence is a challenge for non native speakers. As a matter of fact, I have never seen a French restaurant in Japan with a menu without any mistakes, except where the chef was French.
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