And switching to Ukrainian is one way to fight back. For most people, language learning is deeply fulfilling, fun, and a bit challenging. There's a tongue-in-cheek book titled "Learn Greek in 25 years," but you'll be surprised at how . Each language has its own distinct set of these rules. The Top 5 Hardest Languages to Learn for English Speakers One example is the Japanese writing system hiragana. The Korean language doesnt have an equivalent phoneme. Lets take a look at them in more detail. And for words you should cut out of your vocabulary right this second, check out Stop Using These Phrases to Sound Instantly Smarter. It isn't the grammar that will bog you down when you're trying to learn Thai, it's the writing and the pronunciation, which has five different tones and long and short vowel sounds. While you may be able to get by in non-tonal languages while making pronunciation mistakes, tonal languages demand more care. One word is capable of 10 different translations as a result. Having originated in the Philippine islands, Tagalog is the first language of most Filipinos. There are a lot of sounds that simply aren't present in the English language and require a lot of practice to master. Additionally, some languages such as Mandarin, Thai, and Punjabi are tonal languages, where tone and pronunciation work together to communicate meaning. Despite the fact that Greek roots are found throughout the English language, Greek is among the hardest languages for English speakers to learn, according to . Unlike most European languages, which belong to the Indo-European language family, Hungarian is a Uralic language. From Russia to Poland, you can find people speaking Slavic languages. Arabics writing system has several features that can confuse learners, including leaving out most vowels, writing from right to left, and letters changing shape depending on their position in a word. This is because native speakers can offer valuable insights on the nuances of the language, including slang and idiomatic expressions. 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. Part of what makes it one of the easiest Slavic languages to learn for English speakers is its simple vocabulary, which makes it pretty simple to speak and comprehend. However, it remains one of the most challenging languages to learn due to its unique alphabet and script that differ from many western languages. They think faster in Russian language, she said. In the wars early days, their apartment block was hit twice by artillery fire from the nearby town of Bucha, where Russians are accused of many atrocities. Being able to judge how hard a language will be to learn aids you in a few ways. Where its most commonly spoken: Arabian Peninsula, the Middle East, North Africa. Another difficult language is Russian. This Slavic language consists of two scripts (Cyrillic and Latin), seven tenses and a consonant (R) that is also sometimes a vowel. With over 70 years of experience teaching languages to US government employees, theyve compiled a comprehensive and widely accepted list of language rankings. We have also become interested in Ukrainian history, Ukrainian culture before, there was a large gap, he said. Knowing how to read it doesn't even particularly help learn how to write it. Polish also has seven different grammatical cases that are affected by gender. Descending from the ancient South Asian language of Sanskrit, Hindi is a phonetic language, but many sounds are foreign to English speakers. It's incredibly helpful for learning pronunciation, and can enable you to read some written . After the events of 2014, some eastern students moved to Kyiv and started learning the Ukrainian language, because they did not want to associate with anything Russian, any more, said Tarasiuk, who met several Donbas natives at university. Official forms such as those in doctors offices, particularly in Russian-speaking areas, largely came in both Russian and Ukrainian. This system of honorific speech is called keigo. Trying to learn a language that uses different grammar rules could mean retraining your brain to think of words and sentences in brand new ways. Macedonian is the language spoken in Macedonia, which used to be part of the former Yugoslavia. As an example of cognates, here are the words for a smile in different Romance languages: Cognates can make a language feel familiar. The time estimates here reflect how long it would take the average person to reach a Level 3 proficiency level, which is pretty fluent by most standards. In theory, pronunciation is also fairly straightforward, but it can be easy to get hung up on long vowel and consonant sounds. Over time, the Proto-Slavic language separated into three branches: East Slavic, West Slavic, and South Slavic. 3) The Russian language does not have articles, so you cannot make mistakes there. Human speech as a whole uses over 800 phonemes, which are the individual sounds that act as the building blocks of spoken language. For more trivia and language facts sent right to your inbox, sign up for our daily newsletter. A languages grammar also determines the order of words in sentences. So, verbs are usually given in the first person of the singular form. For English speakers, an additional concern is the three gendered nouns. Chinese (Mandarin) The hardest language for English speakers to learn is Mandarin Chinese. 4. Maybe its PTSD, but we react negatively to the media in Russian, she said. Turkish is filled with extremely long verbs. To begin with, the Slavic languages derive from the Proto-Slavic language - their immediate parent language. 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. Beginning language learners may want to start with an easier language, such as Spanish, German or Italian. With similar pronunciation and grammar to other salvia languages, the thing that makes learning Russian so difficult is the Cyrillic alphabet which is notably employed throughout eastern Europe and central Asia. For English terms you need to finally perfect, here are 23 Words You Need to Stop Mispronouncing. For instance, the Polish word for happiness is szcezcie, featuring Polish digraphs (sz, cz) and a nasal E sound. Meanwhile, case endings are added to word stems as suffixes. In 2022, the entire country witnessed the war and all the crimes the Russians committed. And the alphabet's a breeze, assuming you can read Russian. On the one hand, each letter only has one pronunciation ever. I would even say, it's the most difficult language I have ever faced, maybe if you disregard Asian non-alphabetic writing systems. Chinese speakers around the world: 1.2 billion native speakers . } ); Agreements | And for some useful wisdom from a "dead" language, here are 40 Latin Phrases So Genius You'll Sound Like a Master Orator. Afrikaans is a beautiful language that is surprisingly easy to learn for native English speakers. Tarasuik disagrees, but says Russia has unintentionally reversed decades of Russification. Even a lot of authors that wrote their books in Russian or singers or poets that wrote in Russian have decided to stop spreading the language of the aggressor, added Ferlain. Phonetically, there are more than 20 vowel sounds in the Danish language. Gabe Wood is a writer for Rosetta Stone and other websites in the IXL family of brands. Bulgarian uses the Cyrillic alphabet, which can be tough for English speakers to learn. Very different! To understand it, you must recognize the pitch of a tone in relation to the context of the world and overall sentence. This makes them especially hard to learn for English speakers. 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. Arabic. There are 30 letters in the Bulgarian Cyrillic alphabet. The term hard language refers to their complexity. The Hardest Languages in the World to Learn Best Life We'll start by looking at the characteristics of Slavic languages, then we'll look at: Slavic languages are spoken by nearly 300 million people around the world and cover a vast geographical area. The language requires the memorization of thousands of special characters. Polish is undoubtedly one of the hardest languages to learn for English speakers due to its complex grammar and pronunciation. The Hardest Languages to Learn for English Speakers There are a number of ways that a language can differ from your own. Finnish. For example, if youre a Brazilian who speaks Portuguese, Russian would probably be a tricky language for you to learn. Where its most commonly spoken: North Korea, South Korea. The takeaway here is that the farther your native language is from the language youre learning, the more challenging you may find your new language. Now, when she sees or hears Russian propaganda, Tarasiuk baulks. Some languages, such as Arabic and Russian, are notoriously difficult to learn for English speakers. Top 20 Most Difficult Languages to Learn. Greek. The Japanese writing system actually has three different scripts to learn (two are syllabaries and one is a logographic script, similar to Chinese characters). Once you've got that down, the grammar is not so hard, as long as you know Finnish. Interestingly, the hardest language to learn is also the most widely spoken native language in the world. Slavic languages make a distinction between three main grammatical genders (male, female, neuter), as well as the division of verbs into perfective and imperfective. The pronunciation is also pretty challenging for native English speakers. Arabic features 28 script letters, is written from right to left and excludes most vowels in words. Moreover, each language has its own letters that have developed to denote particular phonetic phenomena. Thats because its the most widely spoken one of all Slavic languages. Estimated to be spoken by over 10 million people, Czech is the official language of the Czech Republic. It takes approximately 36 weeks (900 hours of practice) to reach professional working proficiency in these languages. Expect to spend around 1,100 hours in class to attain speaking and reading proficiency, according to the FSI. Russian. Whether youre interested in learning an easy or hard language, Rosetta Stone can help you achieve your language goals. 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. 3. Abugidas: These generally use letters to represent consonant-vowel combinations. Does she think the Russian language will eventually disappear in Ukraine? Russian is the most widely spoken Slavic language, with 155 million native Russian speakers. Even the easiest languages typically take a few hundred hours of practice to become proficient, while harder languages can take thousands of hours. After hearing their stories, I decided to stop speaking Russian too.. Whats the hardest language to learn if English is not your first language? Quora - A place to share knowledge and better understand the world 11 Hardest Languages To Learn - StoryLearning Learn how to pronounce these everyday words that don't always sound the way they're spelled. Thai is a tonal language. Its going to be a generational change, but its going to happen eventually.. In 2019, Kyiv adopted a law to guarantee Ukrainian as a state language, which required Ukrainian to be used in most aspects of public life. What Is the Hardest Language to Learn for Non-English Speakers? It's helpful if you speak another Slavic language, but otherwise, it's going to be a challenge. 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. Gender plays a big part as well. In fact, the further the languages are classified from each other, the fewer similarities they have. For instance, lina means "linen" in Estonian, but linna means city., Where its most commonly spoken: Turkey, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Greece. The transition to Ukrainian began for some in 2014, when Moscow annexed Crimea and led forces into the Donbas region, which borders Russia. The grammar is also loaded with exceptions that require a ton of practice. According to the first census conducted in Ukraine in 2001, about 14.3 million Ukrainian people, or 29 percent of the population, spoke Russian as a first language. Standard Chinese - 'Mandarin' - is often cited as the most difficult language for English speakers to learn. The hardest languages to learn are those that are very different from your native language in terms of vocabulary, grammar features, pronunciation, and spelling.For an English speaker, the hardest languages generally belong to a different language family (i.e., non-Germanic or non-Indo-European).However, there are also languages in the same family as English that are difficult for other . All adverbs and adjectives must have the same gender. What if youre starting from one of the other thousands of languages on Earth, though? Haitian Creole. In terms of grammar, the main feature that makes this language easier to learn than other Slavic languages is the lack of noun cases. However, most languages only use a few dozen of these sounds. Polish pronunciation can be a doozy for learners. Yeah. As in English, Bulgarian has a standard set of pronouns, places the adjectives in front of the nouns, and is consistent in gender and number. The language features five tones, some of which are not found in the English language. 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. But the fun doesn't stop there. Where its most commonly spoken: Philippines. Certainly, the most intriguing, yet difficult, aspect of learning Georgian is that it has its own writing system, and many of the letters used look incredibly similar. It is easy to make errors in pronunciation and spelling when learning this language. Thats because Czech is a highly complex language. Because youre already familiar with the alphabet, you have an understanding of characters and most letter sounds. German. It is spoken as a native language by 13 million people, most of whom live in Hungary. Its also ranked as one of the easier languages to master, as youll see in the list below. } else { It might not be a romance language, but there are still a lot of pretty words to love. A 2010 study that looked at immigrants to the Netherlands who were learning Dutch found that people who spoke languages with a lot of Dutch cognates such as Swedish, German, and Danish did better on a Dutch language exam compared to people who spoke languages with few Dutch cognates, such as French and Greek. Seems that every person I know in #Ukraine has stopped speaking Russian. They also have a relatively easy noun system. Do Not Sell My Information | To be able to read and write, you have to learn thousands of characters. Here's a look at the top 10 hardest languages to learn: The Foreign Service Institute classifies most Slavic languages as Category IV languages - which means that they require 44 weeks or 1100 hours of study to reach conversational level. For example: A very serious shift has occurred in the consciousness of many people, said Zahalskyy, a landlord who used to own a pharmacy business. Estonian is packed with a whopping 14 noun cases. You need about 3,000 to . In Polish, words are loaded with consonants which makes them difficult to spell and pronounce, for example, szczcie means "happiness" and bezwzgldny means "ruthless.". Arabic speakers find Russian grammar complicated because it has a large number of unfamiliar rules and a ton of exceptions to those rules. Its okay to not be that person. Because Macedonian doesnt have a complex case system like other Slavic languages, its considered one of the easiest Slavic languages to learn. English is taught in Chinese schools, so most Mandarin speakers are familiar with English and the Latin script that makes up the English alphabet. If your goals align more with a Level 1 or 2 proficiency, you may be able to learn a language even faster. What are the hardest languages to learn for English speakers? Shutterstock/VPales. Around 4,000 Spanish words, including naranja (orange) and taza (cup), are derived from Arabic words. February 8, 2022. 25 Hardest Languages to Learn, Ranked. To listen to more examples of Polish pronunciation, refer to the audio recordings provided in the following articles: When it comes to grammar, Polish is quite complex. As an English speaker, youll encounter three types of writing systems: Languages that fall in the first category are often the easiest languages to learn. For English sayings you didn't realize were offensive, check out 7 Common Phrases That You Didn't Know Have Racist Origins. Finally, the South Slavic languages are Bulgarian and Serbo-Croatian (Serbian and Croatian can be considered as two separate languages or as one language with two different dialects). One example is the Chinese writing system hnz. In addition, Croatia is a small country with different dialects, making it difficult to grasp just one of them if youre trying to immerse yourself in the language while there. There are also various sounds made in the language that dont exist in many other languages. 10 Hardest Languages to Learn for English Speakers After 2022, the number of those who identify as Russian-speaking has probably decreased. Great job defending the Russian language and Russian speakers, Putin! The main problem lies in the writing system. 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. Although not easy at all, Bulgarian and Macedonian are often considered the easiest Slavic languages to learn for English speakers. What Is the Hardest Language to Learn for Non-English Speakers? Most experts believe that to become truly fluent in Russian that is thinking and speaking in Russian requires 7-10 years of study. Credit: Greek Reporter. Mandarin, for example, has a logosyllabic writing system in which characters match distinct syllables in each word. The phrase I speak Spanish would be yo hablo Espaol, while you speak Spanish would be tu hablas Espaol.. Privacy Policy | When it comes to the similarities between the Slavic languages, their kinship lies in the fact that they all derive from a common ancestor the Proto-Slavic language. The invasion Russia launched on February 24 last year, which started the biggest war in Europe since 1945, is seen by many Ukrainians as an attempt to wipe them out and their culture, language and way of life. When it comes to everyday communication, Russian remains even amid war one of Ukraines two main languages. It means that an average person takes up to 600 hours, or about 24 weeks . Its something they tried to tell me shouldnt exist; they wanted to suppress it but couldnt.. - instead, Russians affix endings and use inflection to indicate the same kinds of tenses and action. The 5 Hardest Languages to Learn For Spanish Speakers (or Not?) These languages, which include Vietnamese and Mandarin, require correct pronunciation and inflection to create meaning for each word. New: Lesson 18 - Russian Homes and Apartments - Learn all the words needed around the house. It took me a while to start speaking naturally without feeling any pressure.. Also, some of its letters are tricky to pronounce, and Korean has its own version of honorific speech that requires specific forms of words depending on social context. Grammatically, verbs often come before the subject, while there are many dual forms of words in addition to the singular and plural forms. Its one of the official languages of the European Union, spoken by over 40 million people, mainly in Poland. Meanwhile, the written version of Hindi, which is written in Devanagari script, lacks certain phonetic markings that would help learners better comprehend how to pronounce words. 8 Hardest Languages to Learn In The World (Especially the 6th) - Jumpspeak For instance, Arabic has complex grammar and a different alphabet . Languages that dont use a Latin script, though, tend to give Mandarin speakers the most trouble. 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. Easier, too, to keep your eye on the prizeyour personal language goalsat all times. Category II Languages. . It's frequently listed as one of the more difficult languages to learn for English speakers. Phonetically English is quite remote from Russian, and features insane amount of vowels, along with fricatives and aspirated consona. Russian. If youre considering learning a Slavic language, its important to remember that its difficulty will largely depend on many factors, such as: And while these are important factors to consider, remember that the difficulty level of a language should not be your only reason for choosing a language to learn. Everyone kept speaking Russian, everyone kept watching Russian television, except probably for the Western regions of Ukraine, Zahalskyy told Al Jazeera. Its synthetic nature gives rise to a complex system of declension and conjugation. Generally, students require around 88 weeks of full-time study to reach proficiency in these languages. A Finno-Ugric language, Finnish features a complicated verb conjugation, case system, consonant gradation and clitics. Most Slavic languages implement an extensive system of cases in which the endings of nouns (declination), adjectives, and prepositions change depending on the case. Hardly. Although Slavic languages are similar in terms of grammar, vocabulary, and phonetics, they are all entirely different from English. Hungarian is a member of the same small language family as Finnish, so the average English speaker won't be finding much familiarity in its vocabulary. On the other hand, Polish doesnt distinguish as many tenses as English does - theres only past, present, and future combined with a perfective and imperfective verb aspect. And its hard for them, but they understand the significance of their choice., Al Jazeera Centre for Public Liberties & Human Rights. The archaic language is made up of extremely long words, while the specific syllables are pronounced entirely differently from typical English syllables. The language is packed with mouthfuls of consonants, making individual words total tongue twisters. 10 Most Difficult Languages in the World! | Leverage Edu And if you're serious about learning Chinese, you'll have to tackle Chinese characters. Thats German for ice skating. German is often preceded by its hard-to-master accent and enthusiastically long vocabulary. One language is identified as the language of opportunities, the language of upward mobility, said Arel. So many of the words sound very similar to each other. Category 3: Hebrew, Hindi, Persian Farsi, Russian . They are very closely related to English, so many of the same grammar rules and similar vocabulary apply. The best time to start learning a language is today. 2023 Galvanized Media. This is a question you can resolve with some degree of certainty when talking about a single language. 6. Where its most commonly spoken: Denmark, Greenland, Faroe Islands. The ability to speak multiple languages puts you steps ahead of singular speakers. The grammar can also be a little tricky, with some unusual conjugations, lots of rules, and gendered nouns. Grammar can be a tricky one, even in your native language. First of all, there are many resources available online to learn Russian, and its also taught in many languages schools. Why it's hard: Despite 221 million native speakers that you can potentially learn from, Arabic is still one of the hardest languages to learn. Thus, Russian . It means that, in Czech, different grammatical aspects are condensed into one word by changing its structure. It takes approximately 88 weeks (2200 hours of practice) to reach professional working proficiency in these languages. 1. brzcze. For instance, while the language is made up of Latin letters, many letters sound entirely different. It's not for the faint of heart. 14 Unexpected Reasons Why Russian Is NOT Hard to Learn Or what abou. >> Dive right in: Get the complete list of languages ranked by difficulty. Linguistic distance is a measure of how related one language is to another language. xhr.send(payload); Data Privacy and Security. 15 of the Hardest Languages for English Speakers to Learn - Berlitz Where its most commonly spoken: Iran, Afghanistan. } Georgian has its own writing system that no other language uses. Editor's note: You can use our free language tool to make your own vocabulary lists, and record your own phrases. Words can also be very long, and deciphering how to pronounce them can defy intuition. But even though they know the language, the challenge lies in changing their inner machinations, the way they think, the Zahalskyys said. It goes without saying that the more time you spend practicing something, the better you will become at it. First and foremost, the writing system is extremely difficult for English speakers (and anyone else . Spanish is one of the easiest languages to learn, so it's logical why it is the second-largest language worldwide.. However, its universally acknowledged that Slavic languages dont belong to the easiest languages to learn, especially for English speakers. Russian also has many words where consonants are grouped together, which makes spelling and pronunciation difficult. Moscow paints Kyivs language policies as oppressive as Russian officials claim they are liberating Russian speakers from the Ukrainian project. Belonging to the Finno-Ugric family, Estonian is a unique language that can be a challenge to learn. For instance, the letter is similar to SH (shampoo, shower, shop). And yet, that one word is mind-blowingly long. For example, , , , , , , , and are all different letters that you might have a hard time distinguishing between if you're new to the game. 7 Hardest Languages to Learn For English Speakers - LifeHack The language is also known for having very confusing conjugations. No matter the difficulty level of your new language, Rosetta Stone makes learning easy, effective, and fun. 500 Hours Need to learn complete Swedish. Mandarin and Japanese are liable to give Hindi speakers a lot of trouble, in large part because they both involve learning completely new systems of writing. Ukrainians who grew up speaking Russian learn a new mother tongue And pronunciation requires some practice because there are sounds that don't have an equivalent in English. Serious about learning Hungarian? For one, Russian has six grammatical cases whereas German only has four. They probably also get eight hours of sleep every night, never misplace their keys, and hit the gym without fail every morning at 5am, but thats besides the point. Hungarian is an agglutinative language. First, vowels are not included when writing. Pronunciation makes Danish one of the most difficult languages to learn. Mandarin, by contrast, has little to no inflection. The Hardest Languages To Learn For English Speakers. 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). Brilliant planning there, mate. Is Russian Hard To Learn? - Language Tsar So, if you have ever considered learning a Slavic language, there are many options to choose from. Mexican Spanish vs. Spain Spanish: The Must-Know Differences. Unlike other Slavic languages, Bulgarian has no case system. But the more each language continued to evolve, the more it differed from its initial state. The ability to speak multiple languages puts you steps ahead of singular speakers. Hindi uses an abugida, which is different from the English alphabet and from hnz, a Chinese script that uses characters to represent entire words and concepts.