[Future Snake Eater]

most of whom are busy learning a much easier language: ENGLISH!!

As I understand it, English is pretty high on the list of Most Difficult Languages To Learn.

[Polybius]

As I understand it, English is pretty high on the list of Most Difficult Languages To Learn.

Dat depend on what kinda English you be talking.

[bikepacker67]

As I understand it, English is pretty high on the list of Most Difficult Languages To Learn.

That's just because we can't seem to come to a consensus on how letter combinations sound....

Trough
Through

[EGPWS]

As I understand it, English is pretty high on the list of Most Difficult Languages To Learn.

However Chinese tops the list.

[Paul_Denton]

True, but some variations of Chinese are difficult too. There are anywhere from three (Manderin) to seven (Minan, better known as Taiwanese) tones. alhough spoken Manderin (I assume that is the dialect that this school teaches) is much easier than written.

[TheCrusader]

"As I understand it, English is pretty high on the list of Most Difficult Languages To Learn."

Not for Europeans, because English has so many commonalities in words and grammar. But if you want to know how difficult it is to understand Chinese, read on.

According to the University of Michigan, the person with average lauguage abilities takes about 480 hours to become a level-2 proficiency in Swahili, Spanish or Dutch. It takes that same student about 720 hours for Farsi, Indonesian, Hebrew and Thai. However, it takes about 1,320 hours to to become level-2 proficienty in Chinese.

So the Chicagoan students are wasting their precious time on a language that is about useful to Westerners as pig-latin.