Not the hardest, but I did hear that english is one of the hardest. I think it was cause all of the screwed up rules that we have that sometime defy themselves. Like how we have alot of silent letters makes it hard to read sometimes. As for people like BOC above who as usual are rude, I wouldn't say you're an illiterate dumbass.

To be honest though - this includes myself - I really don't think any natural english speaker, or even someone who grew up around the language has any right to comment. If you grow up around something, you mimic and adapt to it, where as when you are learning something, without constantly being around it, it is much harder. This is probably a reason why some can also pick up english quicker then other languages. Someone said above it is an international language, you can hear some of it almost everywhere, which means it's easier to adapt to and mimic.

Go to this website and skip the first 3 paragraphs is you want. Here. It talks about how imitation is the key to learning a language.

This website tells why english is hard to read in an European perspective. Here.

Since I did kind of show an example for speaking, and reading, here's one for pronunciation. This is something my french teacher showed us. We could obviously say it with ease, but he then explained how for a french person to say that, it takes ALOT of practice, and is probably much harder for them then for any of us to say a french poem. This is also a fun little word twister on how our words can defy themselves in the same sentence. Here.

Now I don't think english is the hardest language, but I think it is up there. I have heard cantonese is the hardest in many people's opinion. I really don't think anyone can say which is hardest and which is easiest unless you come from the same background or culture, and who knows, maybe to different backgrounds and cultures, there is different languages that are harder.