What IS the hardest language in the world… hmm… 20 years ago who could’ve answered this kind of a question? A college linguistics professor ? the brother, mother, best friend or uncle who somehow seemed to know everything? that crazy uncle that was a sailor for a number of years and had been everywhere ? The cat is smiling thinking about those crazy know-it-all sailing uncles... Nowadays, you can ask Google, and it’ll provide the know-it-all-sailing linguistic uncle response of Mandarin, Icelandic, Hungarian, Basque, Arabic, Japanese, Hindi, Russian… etc. In the end, the answer is entirely specific to each individual, their way of learning, and their unique language experience. As a language geek, I’ve dabbled in Hindi, and Arabic, but personally, Mandarin takes the prize. Spent three years in-country plunging into its depths daily daily. Take a look at the magic that this single chinese character holds within: “xiang” means 1) to want 2) to miss something,someone, or someplace 3) to think 4) to wish Here’s what it and other “xiang” tonal variations sound like: “Xiang” really does have ALL four of these meanings in daily life. Fascinating that such diverse denotations are represented by a single word. And yet, at the same time, it’s very buddhist in nature, is it not? — to want is to think of something that you don’t have which you wish you did, which means you miss a past experience, and you want it again, so you think about what you’re missing, and not what you have, which makes you want it even more. :) Characters in chinese are often composed of different components, 1) a “SOUND” piece and a 2) “MEANING” piece. Thus, we can divide “xiang” / to want/ 想 into a top and bottom: 相 = appearance 心 = heart 1) The heart, 心, thus provides a part of the MEANING— words that are related to emotions/mind will often have this little heart. Does 心 look like a heart ? The