What is the most difficult language in the world?

1.  People talk about this topic quite often, and Abdullah told us that Arabic is the most difficult language in the world, but I would like to object to his claim.
   
2. First of all, no language is difficult as the first language. Every child can master her/his native language no matter what the language she/he speaks. In this sense, it might be meaningless to discuss which language is more or less difficult.
3. Second of all, each language has a different difficulty in each skill. For example, Korean is fairly easy to write; however, they have a really difficult system of honorific expressions. You have to distinguish many ways of expressions depending upon who you are talking to.
4. Regarding Chinese, they have tons of characters. In addition, Chinese is a tonal language. This means, depending upon how you tone a word, the meaning differs. I believe there are at least four tones in Chinese (or more). However, their grammar is fairly easy.
5. I don't know much about Arabic. Arabic writing seems daunting, but it might be so complicated once you learn it. I think the hardest part in Arabic, as we heard in class, its variation. Even if you learn the formal Arabic, that is not enough. You need to learn a dialect.
6. Third of all, if you are learning a language, how difficult a language is depends on your first language. For the Japanese, Korean and Chinese are easier to learn because we share so many features in common. One research showed that the Japanese need only half of time to learn Korean compared to English. However, Korean is often regarded as one of the most difficult languages for English speakers.
7. Similarly, Spanish and French are fairly easy for English speakers. But they are as difficult as English for Asians. Not only Korean but also Chinese and Japanese are also difficult ones to learn for English speakers.
8. So the answer to the question: what is the most difficult language in the world can not be single. It depends on how you take a look at a language.
9. Still, English does not seem to be one of the difficult languages in the world. That may be why lots of people chose to use English for communication, and we end up by learning it.
10. This is an interesting site to take a look at. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardest_language) Although Wiki is not really trustable, if you believe in this article, Koreans should be proud to be able to handle the most(?) difficult language in the world!

Self-introduction

Nobi

1. Hello, everyone.
2. My name is Nobuhiro Kamiya.
3. I am Japanese.
4. I am your Reading and Writing teacher this summer.
5. Please feel free to call me Nobi.
6. I have been a teacher for more than 15 years so far.
7. I taught English, math, and science in Japan.
8. I taught English and Japanese in New York City.
9. I have taught at the ELC for a year.
10. Nice to meet you all.