Managed vs Unmanaged languages: Why Unmanaged languages are harder?

Do you even know what a mananged code is? The code that runs for the .NET framework is known as managed code. There are more than 20 lanugages that can be used to write applications on .NET framework, C++ is also one of them and you can write applications in C++ and they can be called managed code applications because they are executed under .NET framework and IL etc. This term, "Managed Code" is owned by Microsoft, because this is used by them, to distinguish the code written for their platform, from others.

What is Managed Code? (MSDN link)[^]

The thing is, that unmanaged code, like you said, C++ is harder to learn. Is because, while working in an unmanaged code, you have to stick to the default language, the native one. For example, there is a difference between managed and unmanaged C++ code, have a look below,

// for input, output 
#include <iostream>

// for cout
using namespace std;

void main() {
   cout << "Hello world!";
}

/* Below is the mananged code, 
 * using the .NET classes and framework
 * First of all, Edit the configuration make sure Runtime is
 * targeting the \CLR in General and C/C++ */

#include <windows.h>

// for Console
using namespace System;
void main () {
  Console::WriteLine("Hello World");
}
</windows.h></iostream>

Now, if you're getting uneasy, trying to read the above code then you first need to start love to program applications, not just .NET applications. Programming, is a huge field however .NET is a mainly used framework, but these languages are of good use, outside of "Managed" state too. They're not tough, you just don't find the "System" namespace around.

However, the high-level scripting languages are even more easy to laern. PHP, JavaScript etc. However, even in Managed languages, C++ is the toughest one to learn, because it requires a lot of time to understand the features like pointers etc. Maybe that is why, the syntax seems horrible.