What's the Hardest Language to Learn? Probably not the One You Would Expect

If you have ever tried to learn a foreign language, unless you learned as a young child, it can be a very frustrating experience. Gender, tenses, expressions that have no direct translation--language learning can feel like an uphill battle.

But what about a language that features clicks? One such language is !Xóõ, which is an African language spoken by just a few thousand, mostly in Botswana. !Xóõ has five basic clicks and 17 accompanying ones. Interestingly enough, the top academic studying !Xóõ, Tony Traill, developed a lump on his throat from learning to make their sounds. Further research showed that mature !Xóõ-speakers had the same lump.

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