Is bengali harder or english ?

[Pheonix]

Originally posted by Seema
Arabic is actually supposed 2 b the hardest language I think or is it Latin?I've been trying 2 learn Bangla from those Teach yourself Bengali books and I think it's ok.

Assalamu alaikum!!

Arabic caligraphy is considered one of the universal and fine arts. It embodies the language of one of the world's greatest civilisations and religions. It is hallowed as the vehicle of God's revelation in the Quran, whose numerous and different manuscripts are taken as masterpieces of art.


All letters in Arabic are consonants. Consonants cannot achieve a full sound without vowels.

Whereas 'B' in English for example achieves different sounds with different vowels e.g. ba, bi, bu, b(unvowelled); sounds occuring with vowels a, i, u. Also occurs by absence of vowel as the sound in the stop sounds B of the word rib.

The Arabic alphabet consists of 28 consonants and no vowels to achieve the same sounds which occur in english letters. Thus, these vowels in arabic are represented by signs written above or below the consonant (harakat - vowel signs)

The basic vowel signs are 4 short vowels, from which 9 other vowels are derived (4 = 9 = 13). This means that every leter in the Arabic alphabet could be pronounced with 13 different sounds. Also means that the alphabet with its 28 consonants multiplies up to 28 x 13 = 362 different sounds!!

A paradoxial difficulty cos Arabic speakers hardly use these vowels at the end of the words in their daily conversation or use the signs in their correspondence!!

Books, printings and other mass media never use these vowel signs excepton very rare occasions. Used only in teaching beginers and in important religious and literary texts. They are very useful for scholars and grammarians who deal with classical Arabic!

The vowels signs are particularly in the preliminary stages of teaching beginners as they are the foundation of writing and reading rules. Once getting used to the language you can dispense with the vowel signs!!

The linguistic authorities of the past have left clear advice for the Arabic speaking world; advice is to avoid all the final vowel signs. In their invaluable advice - sakkin taslam (literally translated means - unvowel (the endings), deliver yourself of the error)

Take care of consonants and the vowels will take care of themselves!!

I dont know about other languages being harder than English or Bangla tho!!

[Edited by Pheonix on 27th November 2001 at 03:03]

[DEFDEFIRE]

Japanese is definitley hard!
it uses Kanji from teh chinese language and combines it with two other sets of characters known as Hiragana and Katakana so in other words u have 3 languages to learn when doing japanese!

ima nanji desu ka?
what time is it

suki desu
i love you

ikura desu ka?
how much is this

heheheh!

ikle bits and peices i can remeber off teh top of my head!

[rez]

i guess u need to make a distinction between learning how to speak a language n then how to write it.

cos in terms of writing chinese seems v difficult indeed what with 1000 characters (or more) to learn (god imagine inventing a typewriter for them!!). japanese too seems really complex cos as defdefire mentioned they use 3 different scripts. ive got this friend whose a bit of a japan-enthusiast, n he was telling me that for nouns they use one script, for verbs another. one script is phonetic (based on sounds) while the other on pictograms! thank allah we have only simple english writing to master (and bengali i spose..since thats quite easy to learn how to write)

in terms of learning the language though, i wouldnt say japanese is the hardest. as sis suhanaa pointed out, many sino-tibetan languages are based around intonations n that can be VERY difficult for non natives to master. other languages such as japansese dont make such a big deal outta intonation but rather the consonants. u c in japanese u cant have two consonants together, they have to be separated by vowels i.e. card would become ca-ra-du etc

alot of non -english speakers have said that they find english difficult to master because of a)writing irregularities (again the concept of writing it not speaking it) b) pronunciation...they find americans easer to understand than brits (god knows why )

however i dont have a clue what the most difficult language to learn is

i dont htink its french cos personally im finding it easy lol........maybe one of the oriental languages then :/!

[S_BIBI]

well i think bengali is harder than enlish. cause i've took bengali for my gcse. verbal and written. once you get the hang of it its easy.there are two types of bengali 1}slyheti and another proper bengali. i think the hardest one is the proper bengali.for this moment i'm fine with both. i can speak shudu bengali. i think when you learn how to speak its very easy. the most hardest i would say is writting and reading. i always make spelling mistake when i'm writting.
anyway for some english is harder.for me both are okay.

[sweetsista]

WELL I HIGHLY DOUBT THAT ENGLISH IS THA HARDEST LANGUAGE!!! CUZ I MEAN JUST THINK BOUT IT... EVRY1 IN THIS WORLD TO BE SUCCESFUL THEY LEARN ENGLISH!!! SO BASICLY ANY1 CAN SAY IT IF THEY LEARN.... UNLIKE BENGLA IS HARDER 4 ME....I MEAN HEY BEING RAISED IN THA USA IS NOT THA BEST PLACE TO LEARN BANGLA...I CANT EVAN HAVE A CONVERSATION IN BANGLA OR SAY A SENTANCE W/ OUT PUTTIN SOME ENGLISH IN IT!!! YA I KNOW THISZ SAD....O WELL IM GOIN TO BD THIS SUMMER!! I'LL CATCH ON!!!

[scrumpy_chip]

Originally posted by sirat_aman
All my life I have easily spoken bengali, without any trouble at all. To me bengali was always easy to me. But now when I go to my school, my teacher says that english is the hardest language in the world!

To me this is very, very confusing. I have always hard from my parents that bengali is a really hard language. But on the other hand my teacher says that english is way harder then english. Who is correct?

I find bengali much harder then english. I think to an extent it depnds on the person and what language it is. Some people may find it difficult to speak bengali and english hard or the other way round.

[Mujer]

Bengali is wayyyyy harder!