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10 Hardest Languages to Learn for English Speakers - Linguatics For instance, the Polish word for happiness is szcezcie, featuring Polish digraphs (sz, cz) and a nasal E sound. She is a polyglot and a digital nomad. Abjads: These generally use letters to represent only consonants, while vowels are absent and must be inferred by the reader. There are plenty of resources that can tell you the hardest languages to learn if you speak English. 10 Hardest Languages to Learn for English Speakers Polish is another language that can give English speakers a hard time, with spelling and grammar causing the biggest problems for learners. The language requires the memorization of thousands of special characters. For instance, the letter is similar to SH (shampoo, shower, shop). Despite being the most widely spoken native language in the world, Mandarin Chinese tops the list of the toughest languages to learn. If youre up for a challenge, these are the 25 hardest languages to learn. It is pretty foreign to English speakers, but if you speak Japanese, Korean, or Finnish (which are all also on this list), you won't have such a hard time grasping it. According to the Foreign Service Institute (FSI), Spanish belongs to category I by difficulty. Thats because their grammatical structure is slightly less complex than in other Slavic languages, mainly because they dont use cases. Spanish, French, and Italian are all descendants of Latin and have many similarities. 7 Hardest Languages to Learn For English Speakers - LifeHack These endings are used to express the same things propositions do in English. The language also has a high number of vowel sounds considered difficult for most English speakers to master. Russian. Its going to be a generational change, but its going to happen eventually.. Thai is a tonal language. Belonging to the Finno-Ugric family, Estonian is a unique language that can be a challenge to learn. This is the result of it being an agglutinative language, in which prefixes and suffixes are attached to words to determine meaning and direction. Much of Macedonian vocabulary is similar to Serbian and Bulgarian, and it uses a Cyrillic alphabet, just like Bulgarian. In this post, well take a look at the easiest and hardest languages to learn, the factors that determine language difficulty, and a complete ranking of the worlds most widely spoken languagesincluding how long it takes to learn each language. Arabic only has three cases nominative, genitive, and accusative while Finnish has a staggering 15 cases. How to Say Hello in Spanish: Casual and Ser vs. Estar: The Definitive Guide to Learning How to Order Food in French (with Example Conversations), Say a Heartfelt I Love You in 25 Languages, How to Say Hello in Spanish: Casual and Formal Greetings. Mandarin Chinese is challenging for a number of reasons. Mandarin is one of the few languages ranked as the most difficult to learn for English speakers by the Foreign Service Institute. Furthermore, learning a new language enhances your worldview, improves nonverbal communication, helps you multitask and aids in your brain adapting and responding to new circumstances. The most obvious impediment to learning Greek is the alphabet. The Hardest Languages to Learn in the World - WorldAtlas It uses VSO (verb, subject, object) word order, which can be tricky for most. New: Russian Names - Learn the history of Russian names. Bulgarian is a South Slavic language spoken mainly in Bulgaria. 2023 Galvanized Media. var xhr = new XMLHttpRequest(); Polish also has seven different grammatical cases that are affected by gender. Get ready to put in some serious study time if you're looking to master one of these. Although the Czech language uses the Latin alphabet and its words are pronounced the way they are written, its one of the most difficult Slavic languages to learn. The one thing that does make it a little easier is that it is written the way it sounds in the same alphabet as English. 25 Hardest Languages to Learn, Ranked | Far & Wide 8 Hardest Languages to Learn In The World (Especially the 6th) - Jumpspeak In March, the New Voice of Ukraine reported that in the occupied city of Mariupol, Russian-installed authorities were suppressing the Ukrainian language in schools. And because its placed at the very end of the sentence, you cant understand the meaning of whats being said until the sentence is finished. They'll be very aware if there's no shade. On the one hand, each letter only has one pronunciation ever. Schlittschuhlaufen. Other troops might keep speaking Russian to keep a grasp on the language of the enemy, especially if they are working in reconnaissance, Ferlain said. Learning a language includes learning how to recognize and produce the phonemes that make up that language, and if many of those sounds dont exist in your native tongue, thats an added level of difficulty. Having originated in the Philippine islands, Tagalog is the first language of most Filipinos. To begin with, the Slavic languages derive from the Proto-Slavic language - their immediate parent language. Russian speakers could also request Russian versions of other documents, such as marriage certificates. It has six declension cases, which dont exist in English and can be challenging for English speakers to comprehend. If you don't meet those two criteria, though, it is a very challenging language to master. The Complete List of Language Difficulty Rankings And yet, that one word is mind-blowingly long. The oldest living Indo-European language, Greek is an ancient language thats filled with complications for learners. This makes them especially hard to learn for English speakers. These languages are deeply nuanced, with complex grammar and pronunciation rules. These are the most difficult to learn, as new learners will find that learning through listening is much more accessible than learning through text (though Pinyin is changing the way learners approach the language). Although not easy at all, Bulgarian and Macedonian are often considered the easiest Slavic languages to learn for English speakers. The two languages are also similar enough to English that the hardest languages for English speakers tend to be the hardest for Spanish and French speakers as well. What is the hardest language to learn? - zmescience.com Hungarian. A part of the Slavic language group, Croatian is considered one of the most difficult languages to learn. Linguistic distance is a measure of how related one language is to another language. Even then, it's very likely that you will make mistakes in pronunciation and word order. Strengthening your reading and writing skills in that language, then, takes far less time. Because youre already familiar with the alphabet, you have an understanding of characters and most letter sounds. Most English speakers have cited the language as the hardest language to learn in the world. Without a doubt, Finnish is one of the most difficult languages for English speakers. Brilliant planning there, mate. Russian, Ukrainian, and Belorussian belong to this group. It has six tonal variations that are determined by diacritics. Chinese (Mandarin) The hardest language for English speakers to learn is Mandarin Chinese. There are also various sounds made in the language that dont exist in many other languages. But again, those interviewed by Al Jazeera said there were few strict rules. It's frequently listed as one of the more difficult languages to learn for English speakers. Unlike most European languages, which belong to the Indo-European language family, Hungarian is a Uralic language. It consists of some extinct languages, including Thracian, Illyrian and Dacian, while also featuring some grammar rules and vocabulary from Greek and Latin. One language is identified as the language of opportunities, the language of upward mobility, said Arel. But Ukrainian society more broadly, Ferlain said, is making the switch just to pay respect for the nation. For example, , , , , , , , and are all different letters that you might have a hard time distinguishing between if you're new to the game. Korean and Arabic may not be as hard, but theyre still challenging. The verb conjugations can be intimidating, too, with many more variants and combinations to comprehend than other Slavic languages. Hungarian is an agglutinative language. It also has a different word order; In Hindi, like Japanese, the word order of basic sentences is subject-object-verb, but in Mandarin its subject-verb-object. In other words, a native speaker of an East Slavic language is unlikely to understand a West Slavic language. The letter b sounds like v, and the letter h sounds like n.. The most often sounds like the E in women, and to the O in rope. The has no exact equivalent in most English accents. Where individual Slavic languages border with each other, these boundaries are usually blurred there are broad stripes of transitional dialects and areas of the intermingling of phenomena characteristic of both neighboring languages (for example, in Czech and Slovak). The ability to speak multiple languages puts you steps ahead of singular speakers. Despite having what is considered the most logical system of writing in the world with an alphabet consisting of just 24 symbols, 10 of which are vowels and 14 consonants the language remains a challenge to learn. What if youre starting from one of the other thousands of languages on Earth, though? The language also relies more heavily on idioms than other languages, so if you dropped out of the sky with a few select phrases under your belt, you might feel like everyone is speaking in inside jokes or a secret code. From Russia to Poland, you can find people speaking Slavic languages. But once you do, you can pronounce almost all Russian words quite accurately. For more on the Czech language, see this comparison of Czech with Russian and German. It might not be a romance language, but there are still a lot of pretty words to love. Russian is a Slavic language, the 7 th most spoken language in the world by the total number of speakers, which, unfortunately, does not make the task of learning Russian much easier Russian is widely believed to be one of the most difficult languages to learn. Pronouncing Czech words is a nightmare for English speakers. Tarasuik disagrees, but says Russia has unintentionally reversed decades of Russification. 14 Unexpected Reasons Why Russian Is NOT Hard to Learn Syllabaries: These use symbols to represent syllables. Privacy Policy | A big reason for this is that languages that are related usually share a high number of cognates, or words with a similar appearance and meaning. A languages grammar also determines the order of words in sentences. Where its most commonly spoken: Bulgaria. document.addEventListener( 'DOMContentLoaded', function() { In Korean, its subject, object, verb, unlike in English, which is subject, verb, object. The term hard language refers to their complexity. It takes approximately 36 weeks (900 hours of practice) to reach professional working proficiency in these languages. Another challenge you will come across if you start learning Arabic is a variety of dialects. 4. The best time to start learning a language is today. The grammar seems like it's very simple, but Japanese also uses particles, which are markers for parts of speech that do not have an English equivalent. It has complex grammar rules, mainly due to numerous noun declensions. In this category, it usually takes 88 weeks or 2200 hours to reach S-3/R-3 proficiency. It takes approximately 24-30 weeks (600-750 hours of practice) to reach professional working proficiency in these languages. Whether youre interested in learning an easy or hard language, Rosetta Stone can help you achieve your language goals. It is also the most geographically widespread language. Where its most commonly spoken: Hungary, Romania, Slovakia. Mandarin Chinese. Its also ranked as one of the easier languages to master, as youll see in the list below. The Hardest Languages To Learn For English Speakers. Some languages, such as Arabic and Russian, are notoriously difficult to learn for English speakers. Arabic is a language most Mandarin speakers will find challenging. Whats more, Polish words often contain many consonants in a row, which makes them hard to pronounce for English speakers (and non-Slavic speakers in general). It has an incredible 14 noun cases and grammar packed with exceptions. Compared to the Finno-Ugric languages on the list (Finnish, Hungarian, Estonian), the seven cases you have to contend with in Polish don't seem too intimidating. Maria Stambler, a Russia-American bilingual speaker, who used to teach English, explained: "Words and phrases like `Tina Turner' and `happy birthday' are hard to pronounce because Russians . First and foremost, the writing system is extremely difficult for English speakers (and anyone else . Abugidas: These generally use letters to represent consonant-vowel combinations. So, if you learn a certain dialect, there's a chance you might not be able to understand the locals from another region. This means that, rather than containing individual prepositions, prefixes and suffixes are added onto words. With over 7,000 languages spoken across the globe, its difficult to rank them all. Haitian Creole. The Cyrillic alphabet that Russian uses can be especially confusing for Chinese learners because it has letters that look similar to English letters, but are pronounced completely differently. Whats more, the Macedonian verb system is slightly different from other Slavic languages, as it doesnt use the infinitive form of verbs. Each Slavic language developed under the influence of others, which makes them all slightly similar. Which languages are easiest for native English speakers to learn? | CNN Grammatically, verbs often come before the subject, while there are many dual forms of words in addition to the singular and plural forms. Prepositions behave similarly to English, and questions have many question words that are simple enough to remember. They are very closely related to English, so many of the same grammar rules and similar vocabulary apply. Determining language difficulty requires a birds eye view of how languages relate to each other. There are a number of ways that a language can differ from your own. It goes without saying that the more time you spend practicing something, the better you will become at it. First, it helps you determine how much of a challenge youre up for in your language journey. 3) The Russian language does not have articles, so you cannot make mistakes there. Additionally, some languages such as Mandarin, Thai, and Punjabi are tonal languages, where tone and pronunciation work together to communicate meaning. At first, we thought we needed to know our national language, but with the start of this full-scale war, the feeling changed from I have to to I want to, Zahalskyy told Al Jazeera by phone. Tackling a language that requires you to learn a ton of new words, rules, sounds, and symbols wont be easy, but it can be a rewarding hobby. 1. So far, she has traveled to 28 countries and lived in 4. The first obstacle to learning Japanese is the writing system, which will provide you no clues unless you also speak Chinese. The Hardest Languages to Learn for English Speakers And its hard for them, but they understand the significance of their choice., Al Jazeera Centre for Public Liberties & Human Rights. Some friends in Central Asia are also trying to avoid it. The language features five tones, some of which are not found in the English language. As an example of cognates, here are the words for a smile in different Romance languages: Cognates can make a language feel familiar. 6. And for the English words you're still getting wrong, check out The 14 Hardest Words to Pronounce in the English Language. Still, there are languages that lack traditional alphabets. Map Shows the Hardest Languages to Learn for English Speakers - Insider This is unfortunate since Mandarin is the most widely spoken language in the world. When it comes to pronunciation, the real difficulty factor comes into play for tonal languages. These complex grammatical structures that dont exist in the English language, combined with a challenging pronunciation, make Czech one of the hardest Slavic languages to learn for English speakers. In addition, the grammar is filled with exceptions to the rule that you'll have to remember. The main problem lies in the writing system. The Greek language is very difficult for English speakers to learn, but the effort required to learn the language is worth it. It takes approximately 44 weeks (1100 hours of practice) to reach professional working proficiency in these languages. Get the most out of this nighttime activity. Finnish has a reputation for being a tricky language to learn, and with good reason. A Finno-Ugric language, Finnish features a complicated verb conjugation, case system, consonant gradation and clitics. One word is capable of 10 different translations as a result. Mandarins four distinct tones give the same word ma four very different meanings. When we talk about linguistic distance, were referring to the fundamental differences between languages and how or where theyve evolved from. Greek. Furthermore, Thai has its own script with 44 consonants, 18 vowels and six diphthongs to memorize. For now, lets take a look at the individual components of each language that affect difficulty levels: In French, the flower translates to la fleur. To be able to read and write, you have to learn thousands of characters. Although Slavic languages are similar in terms of grammar, vocabulary, and phonetics, they are all entirely different from English. 500 Hours Need to learn complete Swedish. Russian can only be taught as a first language in primary school, and thats it, he said. As with learning Russian, becoming fluent will depend highly on the learner. You can work at your own pace, or generate a custom plan based on your goals to meet the timeline you have in mind. The default vowel sound of those letters is changed by using a secondary symbol.