> the modern lingustics community generally ascribes to the theory that all languages are equal in complexity That doesn't mean the complexity has to be evenly

> the modern lingustics community generally ascribes to the theory that all languages are equal in complexity That doesn't mean the complexity has to be evenly distributed along the learner's path. Also, I'm not saying one is better than the other. But it's certainly something people experience. When I learned German, it took longer to craft correct sentences because there are more rules to pay attention to. You have to get the cases and its interactions with the genders right in every sentence for example. Same with conjugations. There is no "simple subset" of the language where you can avoid this. While there is a simple English that you can resort to and use almost perfectly with little study. To build even a simple Hungarian sentence you need to understand vowel harmony, definite and indefinite conjugation, nuanced word order rules etc. Also regarding this: > the modern lingustics community generally ascribes to the theory that all languages are equal in complexity It's very hard to quantify as you say and I don't think they'd be able to say otherwise even if it was otherwise due to fear of misinterpretation (i.e. they'd be accused of racism).