With over 7,000 languages worldwide, it’s difficult to state what is the hardest language to find out What you discover most hard may not line up with what somebody else thinks about an obstacle.
That stated, we’ve spoken with information from the US Department of State and took a look at the cold difficult truths and figured out that these 12 extensively spoken languages will present considerable trouble for English speakers. The trouble of languages to find out is impacted by elements like challenging grammar and pronunciation, distinct composing systems, tonality, and significant difference from English.
While numerous students may set out trying to find the easiest languages to learn, these languages are best for language students who like an obstacle.
To provide you a much better understanding of these languages and the simplest languages to find out, here are some fast truths about the languages on both lists.
Language knowing trouble chart
|
.
Language . |
.
Difficulty . |
.
Hours to Learn . |
.
Writing System . |
.
Tones . |
|
.
Spanish . |
.
Easiest . |
.
600-750 . |
.
Latin . |
.
No . |
|
.
Italian . |
.
Easy . |
.
600-750 . |
.
Latin . |
.
No . |
|
.
French . |
.
Easy . |
.
600-750 . |
.
Latin . |
.
No . |
|
.
Dutch . |
.
Easy . |
.
600-750 . |
.
Latin . |
.
No . |
|
.
Portuguese . |
.
Easy . |
.
600-750 . |
.
Latin . |
.
No . |
|
.
German . |
.
Moderate . |
.
900 . |
.
Latin . |
.
No . |
|
.
Indonesian . |
.
Moderate . |
.
900 . |
.
Latin . |
.
No . |
|
.
Polish . |
.
Difficult . |
.
1100 . |
.
Latin with adjustments . |
.
No . |
|
.
Turkish . |
.
Difficult . |
.
1100 . |
.
Latin with adjustments . |
.
No . |
|
.
Somali . |
.
Difficult . |
.
1100 . |
.
Latin with adjustments . |
.
No . |
| Russian(* )
.(* )
.
. Difficult |
.(* )
.
1100 . |
.
Russian alphabet . |
.
No .(* ) . |
.
Hindi . |
| 1100
. . |
.
. No |
.
. . |
Hungarian
.(* ) . (* ) . Very Difficult |
.
. 1100 |
|
.
.(* ) . No (* ) . |
.
. . |
.
.(* ) . Very Difficult |
.
. 1100 |
.
. Latin with adjustments |
| Yes
. . |
.
.(* )Vietnamese . |
.
Very Difficult(* ) . . |
1100 (* )
.
. . |
.
. . |
|
.
. Korean |
.(* )
.
Most Difficult . |
.
2200 . |
.(* )Hangul
. . |
No
. .(* ) . |
|
.
.(* )Most Difficult . |
.
2200 . |
.
Arabic . |
.
No . |
.
. . |
| Most Difficult
. .(* ) . |
.
. . |
.
. . |
.
. .(* ) . |
.
Most Difficult .(* ) .(* ) . |
| Written Chinese( logo design syllabic )(* )
.
. . |
.
. (* ) . . |
While individuals frequently question, “(* )”
as you can see, it does not even come close to breaking the leading 12. In reality, numerous other languages fall under the 1100 hour classification, like Thai, Greek, and Icelandic. And other more unknown hard languages like Basque, Igbo, and Irish( Gaelic) merely have not been as studied, however would certainly be thought about harder than languages like |
Discover the world’s 12 hardest languages to find out Now, without additional ado, let’s take a more detailed take a look at the hardest languages for English speakers to find out. These tongue-twisting, um, tongues, are arranged from simplest to hardest– reasonably speaking, obviously. They’re all hard. |
When we state” where it’s spoken,” we’re usually noting nations where the language in concern is a main language. A lot of these languages are spoken in nations all over the world amongst immigrant neighborhoods little and big!
1. Polish Script: |
| Is it tonal?
No. Pro pointer: |
Tonal languages tend to be harder for English speakers due to the fact that we utilize tone to communicate feeling, however not significance. If you state’ cars and truck’ at a greater pitch or like it’s a concern, it still implies the very same thing in English.(* )That’s not constantly the case in tonal languages. Chinese, for instance, is tonal. Polish, luckily, is not.
What makes it so hard? Polish is a difficult language for English speakers for a couple of various factors, however among the main ones is that merely pronouncing Polish words is especially challenging for those without a background in Eastern European languages due to the fact that of the much heavier usage of consonants. There’s a town in Poland called Szczebrzeszyn (noticable, approximately,” sh-chebr-jeh-shun, “with a soft j like the q in’ beige’), and the word for frog is żaba –” zshyah-ba. “ |
That implies every noun is either manly, womanly, or sterilize, which nouns, adjectives, and pronouns can be conjugated in a massive 7 various methods. In English, for point of view, we have 3 cases, and they’re truly just used to pronouns– believe the distinction in between I, me, and mine, and he, him, and his. Those are cases. Polish simply has a lot more of them, and used more broadly.
The great news is that Polish genders are quite clear from the spelling of the words, Polish verbs have less conjugations than English, and when you comprehend Polish pronunciation, it’s phonetic. 2. Turkish |
Latin with adjustments
Where it’s spoken: Turkey, Cyprus |
Turkish is likewise what’s called an agglutinative
language. That implies that suffixes and prefixes are included onto words to develop sentences and concepts. The expression “from our home “ends up being simply one word:(* )evimizden.Is German a hard language to learn? .(* )Ev = home
. French Evim German = my homeDutch .
Evimiz
= our home
. Evimizden = from our home
.(* )And, word order-wise, while English goes subject-verb-object (” I purchased an apple” ), Turkish puts the verb last(
Bir elma aldım–” I an apple purchased”). All of these things out together make Turkish a difficult language for English speakers.
The great news is that Turkish grammar has couple of exceptions and Turkish, like Polish, is phonetic once you comprehend the Turkish alphabet. 3. Somali
Script: Latin alphabet with included accents( traditionally and delicately Arabic and Osmanya)
Where it’s spoken: Somalia, Djibouti, Ethiopia
Is it tonal?
Not precisely– while not really tonal like Vietnamese or Thai, Somali has 2 pitch accents( falling and increasing).
What makes it so hard?
Like Turkish, Somali has practically absolutely nothing in typical with English, vocabulary-wise, and utilizes the subject-object-verb syntactic arrangement. Grammatically, Somali has 2 genders however likewise has actually something called gender polarity, which implies words change gender when made plural, together with other complicated guidelines around irregular plurals. Not to point out the vowel modifications associated with verb roots and conjugation!(* )Frustratingly for brand-new students, speaking Somali likewise implies mastering lots of colloquialisms– typical expressions and phrases utilized regularly in everyday discussion that appear ridiculous on very first hearing them. For example, there’s the typical expression” they were sneezed out of the very same location,” which implies 2 individuals look alike. And thanks to the language’s nomadic cultural roots, there are several idioms based around camel-herding and rearing that merely do not equate into English. Plus, while Somali today is composed in a customized Latin alphabet, like Turkish, it was traditionally composed utilizing either Arabic or a composing system called Osmanya, and today both composing systems are still often delicately utilized amongst Somali speakers. Osmanya is frequently seen on signs in expat Somali-speaking neighborhoods around the world.
4. Russian(* )Script:(* )Russian alphabet( Cyrillic script)
Where it’s spoken:
Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan
Is it tonal?
No.(* )What makes it so hard?(* )Russian is the very first entry on this list that needs finding out a brand-new composing system– however definitely not the last. Among the important things that makes Russian difficult is, obviously, dealing with the
Russian alphabet, a Cyrillic script you’ll require to require time to master prior to you can start finding out in earnest. That’s not all. Like Turkish and polish, Russian usages extremely various noises from English, which can be challenging to pronounce and figure out. And, in Russian, inflection matters considerably to make your significance comprehended.
Russian grammar can be an obstacle, with 3 genders and
6 cases
, and words that work something like These are words that, instead of having their own significance, are positioned in a sentence for focus or to assist the speaker get their point throughout.
Want to find out among these languages for work or take a trip?
. .
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Choose amongst the 14 languages that Busuu deals and begin finding out a brand-new language today! . .
- 5. Hindi
- Script:(* )Devanagari Where it’s spoken:
- No. What makes it so hard?
- The script is likewise what’s called an abugida or syllabary, indicating that the specific characters represent a consonant and vowel mix, instead of a single vowel or consonant. So ‘to’ and ‘ta ‘may each get their own letters, for instance, in an abugida script. This is a brand-new idea for numerous English speakers.(* )Plus, the composed variation of Hindi does not have specific phonetic markings to inform a non-native speaker how to pronounce words– and Hindi is an especially subtle language, where small modifications in noise and context can alter the significance of a word completely.
India (* )Is It tonal?
First off, the script utilized to compose Hindi, Devanagari, is thought about especially difficult to get a hang of.
And, to make matters more complex, Hindi is what’s called a” split ergative” language, which implies– without going too far down the grammar bunny hole– that often it imitates English (an accusative language) and often it imitates Finnish( an ergative language which is likewise notoriously hard for English speakers ). (* )The great news? It is one of the hardest languages in the world for English speakers, Hindi shares words with
, so those who currently speak Arabic will have a leg up in terms of vocabulary!
6. Hungarian Script: Latin alphabet with included accents
Where it’s spoken:
Hungary, Serbia, Austria, Slovenia
Is it tonal? No.
What makes it so hard? Hungarian has great deals of enjoyable problems, if that’s up your street. Like Turkish, it’s agglutinative, indicating that rather of having specific prepositions, suffixes and prefixes are included on to words. Which implies that much of a sentence can be revealed in a single, long verb.
A popular example of this is the Hungarian,” megszentségteleníthetetlenségeskedéseitekért,” which I’m going to proceed and let you Google. (Just kidding, it implies, around, “for your continued habits as if you might not be desecrated”, and is mainly utilized by Hungarian speakers as an example of how agglutination can make words unreasonably long!)
The language likewise has a wonderful 26 cases, making it more than a little grammatically tough. It’s likewise a vowel-harmony language, which basically implies that often an additional vowel is included at the end to make a word sound right.
Oh, and it has less in typical with English than Hindi.
7. Navajo
Script:
Latin alphabet, plus included accents and letters to represent distinct noises. Latin alphabet with a twist!
Where it’s spoken:
United States Is it tonal?
Yes– 4 tones. What makes it so hard?
Navajo has numerous distinct functions that make it challenging for English speakers, or anybody who does not speak a language in the North American Na-Dené household of languages. It has a variety of consonants we do not utilize in English.
Plus, it has components of agglutination, where suffixes and prefixes change prepositions (the very same thing as that long Hungarian word), however Navajo does it in such an unforeseeable manner in which it’s thought about by some to be … not agglutinative.
The reverse of agglutinative is fusional.
And Navajo is sort of both. We did state this was a difficult one!
In reality, its considerable absence of loanwords from other languages and its grammatical structure make it so difficult to break that the allies had Navajo speakers speak their language to send out coded interactions throughout World War II.Japanese particles At the time, there was no released Navajo dictionary, making the language even harder to decipher. Today, nevertheless, there are a lot of online resources for those who want to handle the difficulty.
8. Vietnamese
Script:
Latin alphabet with a twist
Where it’s spoken:
Vietnam
Is It tonal?
Start learning for free
Yes– 6 tones.
What makes it so hard?
For English speakers, tonal languages are an obstacle.
We merely aren’t as attuned to tone as we require to be to efficiently interact, and 6 tones are a lot for us to comprehend. That’s not to state it can’t be done. It’s simply a high, uphill struggle.
Vietnamese likewise utilizes more vowels than English, and has numerous various dialects that, while equally intelligible, are different sufficient to trigger difficulty for somebody taking a trip in both the north and south parts of Vietnam. That stated, those who speak both Chinese and English might discover Vietnamese to be a relative breeze, considered that it utilizes the Latin alphabet (with included accent marks), and they’re currently utilized to tones.
9. Korean Script:
Hangul, Hanja (uncommon)
Where it’s spoken:
South Korea, North Korea
Is it tonal?
No.
What makes it so hard?
Well, the bright side is that Korean isn’t tonal, so that’s an assistance, and Hangul– the main alphabet– is relatively simple to get.
is Korean a difficult language to find out?
Yes. The problem is that Korean is agglutinative (suffixes and prefixes change prepositions, making some words unreasonably long). It likewise has a massive 7 speech levels, based upon the rule of the scenario, and has an unknown grammatical structure for us Anglophones.
According to , while it takes an English student usually about 26 weeks to acquire efficiency in French or spanish, it takes about 65 weeks to establish a working efficiency of Korean, Chinese, Japanese and Arabic.
Speaking of which … 10. Arabic
Script:
Arabic
Where it’s spoken: [plural] Arabic is a main or acknowledged minority language in 31 nations, mostly in the Middle East and Africa, consisting of Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, and the UAE.
Is it tonal?
No.
What makes it so hard?
utilizes its own script, which, in itself, includes a layer of trouble for English speakers. Fortunately, when it comes to Arabic, the characters in fact work relatively likewise to our Latin alphabet. Other than, obviously, the Arabic script reads right to left, rather of delegated right, which can be an obstacle.
Plus, words as composed frequently do not include their vowels, so vowels are merely understood by Arabic speakers based upon context. Not the simplest language to find out. Arabic likewise consists of a variety of distinct noises that can be difficult for English speakers to pronounce, and tough grammar guidelines, with scenario- and dialect-dependent syntactic arrangement in sentences. It likewise has a wide array of various dialects, depending upon the area.
That stated, those acquainted with Hebrew or Hindi will have a little bit of a much easier time with Arabic, considering that Hebrew’s composed language has comparable peculiarities and Hindi shares some vocabulary with Arabic. 11. Japanese
Scripts:
Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji
Where it’s spoken:
Japan, Palau
Is It tonal?
No.
What makes it so hard?
What is the 2nd hardest language to find out?
We ‘d state
Here’s why. In numerous methods, primary Japanese in fact
as it may appear in the beginning glimpse, however it’s still quite hard. There are 3 composing systems and the word order in Japanese syntax is absolutely nothing like English. That stated, if you can teach yourself
and , the 2
(well, abugidas, if you’re feeling elegant!), you can begin to figure out menus and street indications.
And what you’ll discover when you do is that Japanese usages a a great deal of loanwords from English and the Romance languages.
It’s not tonal, and a lot of the fundamentals of Japanese grammar are, in the grand plan of things, reasonably easy to get (taking a look at you, Hungarian!)– though it is definitely various from English grammar.
However, research studies have actually revealed that Japanese is the single language that takes English individuals the longest to find out.
Why?
First, due to the fact that of the Japanese system of respectful speech, called
keigo
, which is generally a completely various set of vocabulary and verbs (and is extremely crucial for doing company in Japan). And, possibly more dauntingly, due to the fact that of the enormous variety of Kanji– a system of specific logographic characters signifying syllables and words– that a student needs to remember to end up being even fairly literate in Japanese.
Many of these characters were obtained from Chinese over the previous couple of thousand years. Which methods, to make matters more complex, even Chinese speakers might not acknowledge all of the characters in Japanese. They might be sourced from loanwords from fifteenth-century China! Which leads us to our last entry …
12. Mandarin Chinese Script:
Simplified & & standard Chinese characters
Where it’s spoken: Mainland China, Taiwan, Singapore
Is it tonal?
Yes– 4 tones and a neutral tone.The Defense Language Institute’s (where CIA spies go to learn languages!) catalogs What makes it so hard?
tops the list as
the
ideal storm of difficulties for English speakers. It’s worth keeping in mind that while any of the other Chinese dialects might quickly likewise fall here at the top of the list, Mandarin is merely a stand-in as the most extensively utilized and taught.
As you ‘d get out of among the hardest languages worldwide, Mandarin Chinese is tonal, utilizes numerous distinct idioms (popular expressions that do not always have a direct translation), and subtle homophones (words that sound the very same however indicate various things). It likewise needs the knowing of countless characters to accomplish literacy. That stated, even if something is hard does not indicate it’s unworthy doing– as one of the
, finding out Mandarin is an obstacle worth accepting. It provides you access to countless individuals you may not otherwise have the ability to learn more about. It’s a lingua franca
of company in much of Asia.
Arabic
.
.
. .(* )So, what is the hardest language to find out?
Now you understand everything about the hardest languages for English speakers to find out and why they’re thought about so challenging. Which one sounds hardest to you? Are you feeling influenced and up for the difficulty?
We’re Busuu, an app that makes finding out a language much easier for everybody.
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If you’re all set to handle Mandarin– or Japanese, Arabic, or any among the other 14 languages we provide (difficult or otherwise), begin finding out with us free of charge today.
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