Kanji

I'm back to studying kanji 漢字, the Chinese symbols that make up the bulk of the Japanese language.  The kanji are an amazing combination of art and literature.  There are about 200 basic parts that almost all of the kanji are made of.  The parts have either a direct meaning (like tree or water) or they have a very subtle meaning (they tend to affect the overall meaning of the kanji in the same sort of way).

Here's how difficult Japanese is: It has two alphabets plus 2,000 standard symbols, but you need to know about 3,000 symbols to really understand the language.  Each symbol typically has one Japanese pronunciation (kunyomi) and about 3 or so Chinese pronunciations (onyomi).  Some words have a single symbol and typically some alphabet letters after it; typically a lot of verbs and adjectives and some basic nouns.  These typically use the Japanese pronunciation.  Other words have two or more symbols, sometimes with alphabet letters after them; typically nouns and some verbs and adjectives.  These typically use some combination of Chinese pronunciations.  Most of the Japanese pronunciations are unique.  But the Chinese pronunciations are typically just one syllable and you can have 30 or more symbols that all have the same pronunciation.  Some of the symbols follow a system for pronunciation based on their parts.  Others have a partial system.  Some are totally random.

To really learn the language, you need to know the symbol parts, about 3,000 symbols, multiple pronunciations of each symbol and often multiple meanings.  Then combinations of symbols that form words, then sentences that are put together completely differently from English using particles.

Then there's plain language, polite language, humble language, and honorific language.  The language spoken by men uses some different words than what women speak.

If I wanted to try to make the most difficult language to learn, without being completely ridiculous, Japanese would be the best I could do.