What Are the Hardest Languages to Learn?

[[Patterns 13e_e-Reading for Classification and Division 2 of 2, division]]

Voxy

Founded in New York in 2010, Voxy is an online service that provides language instruction. The company uses mobile- and web-based technologies to teach languages in a “real-life” context. Voxy now has more than 2.5 million users.

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Questions

Examine “What Are the Hardest Languages to Learn?” and respond to the following questions.

Comprehension

Question 13.1

The infographic lists several factors that determine how long it will take an English speaker to learn a specific language. What are those factors?

Question 13.2

How many weeks does it generally take for an English speaker to achieve proficiency in a language of medium difficulty?

Question 13.3

According to the infographic, why is Chinese a difficult language for English speakers to learn?

Purpose and Audience

Question 13.4

What do you think the main purpose of this infographic is? To inform? Persuade? Analyze? How does the classification and division pattern serve this purpose?

Question 13.5

Who is the target audience for this infographic? Explain.

Mode

Question 13.6

The entry for each language includes its name written in that language, as well as an image of a country where the language is spoken. Each entry also includes the number of people in the world who speak the language. Why do you think the infographic’s creators included this information?

Question 13.7

Do you find the integration of images, numbers, and information in this infographic difficult to understand? Why or why not? Would adding—or subtracting—anything from it make it clearer?

Writing Workshop

Question 13.8

This infographic classifies foreign languages according to their relative difficulty for English speakers. Write a classification-and-division essay that classifies different languages according to another principle of organization.

Question 13.9

Foreign-language instruction is a common element of education in the United States—not merely in schools and colleges, but also in other contexts, as the success of language-learning companies such as Voxy and Rosetta Stone suggest. What kinds of people study foreign languages, and for what purposes? Write an essay that classifies foreign-language students according to their purposes, situations, goals, or any other organizing principle.