asuustrike2009:

That's not true. No language is difficult to learn it all boils down to the individual learning it.

lol, I understand the zeal of most of you here to defend your native languages, lol trust me I do.
To msot of you here, that a language is considered more difficult connotes some kind of Negativity to you. But the truth is, , there actually exists Difficult and Easy languages.

No matter how you folks try to deny it, not all languages have the same level of difficulty or easiness. There are hard and simple languages.
Even the CHINESE will tell you themselves that Mandarin is more difficult than English, let's not kid ourselves.

Almost everybody in Europe will tell you than English is more easier to learn as a language than German. It isnt a fallacy.

A language difficulty chart for potential speakers was not developed for nothing.



Another:

http://piktochart.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/hardest-language.png

Most people I know think Hausa is the easiest, and I think there may be some truth to it. Maybe its easiness to acquire/learn may partly account for the way it is spreading rapidly and eating into the territory of other Northern Nigerian languages. I know an uneducated Igbo man in a village in Enugu State who learnt to speak very good Hausa (albeit with a heavy Igbo accent) without ever leaving his village, simply by interacting with passing Hausa shoemakers. I have a friend from Anambra that went to learn trading in Kano, but had to come back after four months because of disagreement with his master. In four months he had acquired enough Hausa to have conversations with Hausa okada riders in the Lagos.


A lot of people say Igbo is the most difficult. I think part of the reason is that most Igbos still speak dialects. The standard/General Igbo is not yet a Spoken language. The Yoruba and the Hausa have been more successful in coming up with Spoken Standards (while still retaining their dialects.) The kind of Igbo Emeka is teaching you may have some differences from the kind of Igbo the girl in the next shop is speaking. This isn't much of a problem for native-speakers (except in extreme cases), but for a learner, it could be quite a challenge; one could get quite confused and frustrated.

RedboneSmith:
Most people I know think Hausa is the easiest, and I think there may be some truth to it. Maybe its easiness to acquire/learn may partly account for the way it is spreading rapidly and eating into the territory of other Northern Nigerian languages. I know an uneducated Igbo man in a village in Enugu State who learnt to speak very good Hausa (albeit with a heavy Igbo accent) without ever leaving his village, simply by interacting with passing Hausa shoemakers. I have a friend from Anambra that went to learn trading in Kano, but had to come back after four months because of disagreement with his master. In four months he had acquired enough Hausa to have conversations with Hausa okada riders in the Lagos.


A lot of people say Igbo is the most difficult. I think part of the reason is that most Igbos still speak dialects. The standard/General Igbo is not yet a Spoken language. The Yoruba and the Hausa have been more successful in coming up with Spoken Standards (while still retaining their dialects.) The kind of Igbo Emeka is teaching you may have some differences from the kind of Igbo the girl in the next shop is speaking. This isn't much of a problem for native-speakers (except in extreme cases), but for a learner, it could be quite a challenge; one could get quite confused and frustrated.

I'm inclined to agree with you to the extent that i still feel it's not just that Hausa is easy but because if you spend your time around native Hausa speakers, they tend to converse most of the time in Hausa and if you live in the north, you can barely have much done without understanding the Hausa language. If that's what people mean by a language being easy, then i agree Hausa is easier than other languages.

But take a group of white people that has never been to Nigeria, teach him Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba at the same rate and see if the results will not be different. However, the results could be different if you take the same person to Ibadan, Enugu and Kano at different times. They're mostly likely to pick up Hausa better followed by Yoruba because of the point i raised earlier.

I understand that the Igbos have not gone through what i call "The Igbo experience" which will foster what we call central Igbo on everybody, though i don't exactly agree that everyone speaks their dialect.

scholes0:


lol, I understand the zeal of most of you here to defend your native languages, lol trust me I do.
To msot of you here, that a language is considered more difficult connotes some kind of Negativity to you. But the truth is, , there actually exists Difficult and Easy languages.

No matter how you folks try to deny it, not all languages have the same level of difficulty or easiness. There are hard and simple languages.
Even the CHINESE will tell you themselves that Mandarin is more difficult than English, let's not kid ourselves.

Almost everybody in Europe will tell you than English is more easier to learn as a language than German. It isnt a fallacy.

A language difficulty chart for potential speakers was not developed for nothing.



Another:

http://piktochart.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/hardest-language.png

One of best way to learn a language is to speak it with the speakers

i don't think igbo is hard as people claim it to be,my mom is etsako but she said it took her just less than a year to learn igbo even her sister that now lives in enugu can now understand igbo.

It isbactually true that some languages are more difficult to learn euw to several reasons let mW mention two. One is tone system and the other is few speakers willing to teach....that said try to learn in the environment and region of the language, it is easier.learn Yoruba in osogbo or Oyo,learn Igbo in Enugu,anambra or imi learn Hausa in sokoto,kano or Kaduna,learn ebira in kogi,tiv in Benue and so on..people should also be willing to teach others their language ,in have discovered that some people don't Like teaching people their languages, it is very bad!!!!

agadez007:
how did she learn to Read without learning English first,is it Possible?

Same with my late granny..the way she reads ignore bible words with ease but only know how to insult people in English. She can't read ordinarily come and go in english

Afam4eva:

Exactly. They're comparing an Igbo person who learned Yoruba in Lagos to a Yoruba person who wants to learn Igbo from an Igbo person also in Lagos. If you want to learn Igbo effectively, go to Igboland.

spent 7 years in Lagos 1994 to 2000 I can speak Yoruba very well, then I spent 6 years as an undergraduate in Zaria I can speak Hausa well,right now I have spent five years in Enugu and I can't speak no sh!t,mind you 95%communication in Enugu is Igbo. Even Chinese I believe is easier than igbo.I don give up tey! tey!!








And any arshole who asks me why I can't speak after five years I be like

kuuljay:
spent 7 years in Lagos 1994 to 2000 I can speak Yoruba very well, then I spent 6 years as an undergraduate in Zaria I can speak Hausa well,right now I have spent five years in Enugu and I can't speak no sh!t,mind you 95%communication in Enugu is Igbo. Even Chinese I believe is easier than igbo

My mother was born in Lagos but only understands, WA (come) and Oloribu. So, it's not just staying so long in a place but making a conscious effort to learn a language. You've not been able to learn Igbo because you've not made an effort to integrate properly and learn it.

Btw, where are you from?

Afam4eva:

My mother was born in Lagos but only understands, WA (come) and Oloribu. So, it's not just staying so long in a place but making a conscious effort to learn a language. You've not been able to learn Igbo because you've not made an effort to integrate properly and learn it.

Btw, where are you from?

middle belt

kuuljay:
middle belt

Ok. Where in Enugu do you stay?

Afam4eva:

Ok. Where in Enugu do you stay?

GRA close to all saints church

kuuljay:
GRA close to all saints church

When you were in Lagos where did you stay?

Afam4eva:

When you were in Lagos where did you stay?

ikorodu,why the interrogations