Feed - Quora: Basque. Generally regarded as one of the most difficult languages in the world, since it is not even remotely related to anything else.
Georgian. Agglutinative (everything is expressed by hanging endings on the main word in the phrase, so you can end up with one long word that needs a dozen words in English), a different language family so it’s not related to any language you already speak, and an alphabet like nothing you’ve seen before.
Sami, in particular the Ume variety. It is spoken by about 30 people, so in addition to the same convoluted, near-agglutinative structure as Finnish, you are hard put to find anyone to practice on. Also, some 40 words for different types of snow, and 100 for reindeer.
Hungarian. Not really close to any other language (yes, it’s related to Finnish, just like English is related to Greek), and you can’t even trust normally safe bets like “restaurant” which tend to be very similar in many languages (in Hungarian, it’s “ettendre”).
Gaelic, any variety. Also unrelated to anything you speak, and the spelling is horrendous; it took me ages to realise the bus with the sign “Dun Laoghaire” went to a place that’s pronounced “Dunleary
Georgian. Agglutinative (everything is expressed by hanging endings on the main word in the phrase, so you can end up with one long word that needs a dozen words in English), a different language family so it’s not related to any language you already speak, and an alphabet like nothing you’ve seen before.
Sami, in particular the Ume variety. It is spoken by about 30 people, so in addition to the same convoluted, near-agglutinative structure as Finnish, you are hard put to find anyone to practice on. Also, some 40 words for different types of snow, and 100 for reindeer.
Hungarian. Not really close to any other language (yes, it’s related to Finnish, just like English is related to Greek), and you can’t even trust normally safe bets like “restaurant” which tend to be very similar in many languages (in Hungarian, it’s “ettendre”).
Gaelic, any variety. Also unrelated to anything you speak, and the spelling is horrendous; it took me ages to realise the bus with the sign “Dun Laoghaire” went to a place that’s pronounced “Dunleary