The languages youll find in the second category are moderately challenging. The Korean language doesnt have an equivalent phoneme. navigator.sendBeacon('https://www.google-analytics.com/collect', payload); Hardly. Whats more, its important to notice that Slavic languages use not one but two main alphabets - Latin and Cyrillic. 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. The grammar can also be a little tricky, with some unusual conjugations, lots of rules, and gendered nouns. 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. It has complex grammar rules, mainly due to numerous noun declensions. Japanese is often considered to be one of the most difficult languages to learn for English speakers due to its complex writing system, which includes three scripts: hiragana, katakana, and . The ability to speak multiple languages puts you steps ahead of singular speakers. In English, its acceptable to say that you bought five books. Now, at 63 and living in the capital, Kyiv, Zahalskyy and his wife Natasha are in the midst of the difficult but voluntary transition making the Ukrainian language their own. Forget carpe diem. This means that you just have to memorize the nouns with their corresponding gender. For many, switching from Russian to the Ukrainian language is an act of resistance as the war continues to devastate lives and cities. With over 7,000 languages spoken across the globe, its difficult to rank them all. Where its most commonly spoken: Republic of Serbia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Montenegro, Kosovo. Expect to spend around 1,100 hours in class to attain speaking and reading proficiency, according to the FSI. } This list of the most difficult languages for English speakers to learn comes from data gathered by the US State Department. However, theres no way of accurately guessing the gender of the noun. A languages grammar also determines the order of words in sentences. So, what are the origins of the Slavic languages, and what are they? The alphabet is made of very elaborate characters; the language is tonal; there are lots of idioms, and the ability to speak the language doesn't help you read it. One example is the Chinese writing system hnz. Arabic only has three cases nominative, genitive, and accusative while Finnish has a staggering 15 cases. Its synthetic nature gives rise to a complex system of declension and conjugation. if( 'moc.enilnoefiltseb' !== location.hostname.split('').reverse().join('') ) { To understand it, you must recognize the pitch of a tone in relation to the context of the world and overall sentence. 4. 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. Haitian Creole. 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. Where its most commonly spoken: Iran, Afghanistan. The transition to Ukrainian began for some in 2014, when Moscow annexed Crimea and led forces into the Donbas region, which borders Russia. Hungarian is an agglutinative language. 1. Once you've got that down, the grammar is not so hard, as long as you know Finnish. Thai is a tonal language. 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. It also has 18 cases and 14 vowels, which makes saying things right particularly difficult. Now, when she sees or hears Russian propaganda, Tarasiuk baulks. Arabic is a complex language with rich grammar and syntax. The ability to speak multiple languages puts you steps ahead of singular speakers. Albanian nouns have both a case and a number, requiring the learner to memorize each noun. Shutterstock/VPales. Brilliant planning there, mate. Some friends in Central Asia are also trying to avoid it. For one, Russian has six grammatical cases whereas German only has four. Gender plays a big part as well. A professional translator, she now works as a cultural and language liaison for the Rubizh brigade, a part of the national armed forces engaged in fighting around Bakhmut. It made people rethink what language they wanted to speak and I started hearing Ukrainian literally everywhere, said Tarasiuk, a front-end designer who had to put her career on hold because of the persistent blackouts caused by Russian attacks. It takes time, discipline, and a well of motivation that youll need to refill. The Japanese writing system actually has three different scripts to learn (two are syllabaries and one is a logographic script, similar to Chinese characters). Plus, Polish often likes to break its own grammatical rules, which makes it slightly unpredictable while learning. The pronunciation is also pretty challenging for native English speakers. Its writing system is an abjad, which functions very differently from both Chinese characters and the English alphabet because it uses letters to represent consonants but not all vowels, and it uses a cursive script, so letters combine and change forms. The Hardest Languages in the World to Learn, The 14 Hardest Words to Pronounce in the English Language, Stop Using These Phrases to Sound Instantly Smarter, 40 Latin Phrases So Genius You'll Sound Like a Master Orator, 7 Common Phrases That You Didn't Know Have Racist Origins, Hungarian is a member of the same small language family. All adverbs and adjectives must have the same gender. It takes approximately 44 weeks (1100 hours of practice) to reach professional working proficiency in these languages. Ukrainian was enshrined as the only national language in the constitution in 1991, the year Ukraine became independent, but the law was not enforced nor did it change daily life. On the one hand, each letter only has one pronunciation ever. Arabic is a language most Mandarin speakers will find challenging. Schlittschuhlaufen. Serious about learning Hungarian? Dont let their place on this list deter you from diving right in, thoughweve built courses to help you learn quickly and effectively! There is nothing natural about the way a language develops, Arel told Al Jazeera. In theory, pronunciation is also fairly straightforward, but it can be easy to get hung up on long vowel and consonant sounds. Georgian has its own writing system that no other language uses. Polish is another language that can give English speakers a hard time, with spelling and grammar causing the biggest problems for learners. Someone who speaks German, someone who speaks Farsi, and someone who speaks Vietnamese will likely have massive differences in what languages they find easy or hard to pick up, because the native languages theyre starting with are so dissimilar from one another. It takes approximately 36 weeks (900 hours of practice) to reach professional working proficiency in these languages. Maddie is an education writer at IXL, a sister brand of Rosetta Stone. 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. Theyre all Germanic languages. 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. Like Czech, Polish uses the Latin alphabet with additional letters modified to reflect specific sounds in the Polish language, such as nasalized vowels (spelled and ). In 1989, for example, while about 40 percent of the Donbas population identified as ethnically Russian, more than 60 percent considered Russian as their mother tongue. Boasting a whopping 300 million speakers, Russian is one of the more popular languages globally. This means that, rather than containing individual prepositions, prefixes and suffixes are added onto words. German and English belong to the same Germanic language family, so their linguistic closeness wins out. If you don't meet those two criteria, though, it is a very challenging language to master. So, you might be able to get by in Jordan, but have a hard time in Kuwait. They think faster in Russian language, she said. 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. 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. These endings are used to express the same things propositions do in English. Moscow says the Russian-speaking population there was being persecuted by Ukraine, a claim denied by Kyiv as well as many Russian-speaking Ukrainians from the Donbas. Youll notice that many of these languages do not use the Latin alphabet. Start dropping carpe vinum instead. Many linguists consider Slavic languages to be the most challenging languages to learn for native English speakers. Data Privacy and Security, The Complete List of Language Difficulty Rankings, Get the complete list of languages ranked by difficulty, Mexican Spanish vs. Spain Spanish: The Must-Know Differences. The oldest living Indo-European language, Greek is an ancient language thats filled with complications for learners. These languages, which include Vietnamese and Mandarin, require correct pronunciation and inflection to create meaning for each word. Hardest languages to learn for English speakers . if( navigator.sendBeacon ) { However, its universally acknowledged that Slavic languages dont belong to the easiest languages to learn, especially for English speakers. The best time to start learning a language is today. 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. Agreements | Learning a language is a marathon, not a sprint. Privacy Policy | Outside the home, Oleksandr and Natasha try to talk in Ukrainian, but when the door closes behind them, sticking to it is still difficult. Furthermore, it requires learning the Greek alphabet, which is not a requirement for the majority of European languages. And for words you should cut out of your vocabulary right this second, check out Stop Using These Phrases to Sound Instantly Smarter. One example is the Japanese writing system hiragana. Seems that every person I know in #Ukraine has stopped speaking Russian. This makes them especially hard to learn for English speakers. 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. Theres no set timeline for how long it takes to learn a language, but language difficulty rankings serve as useful goals posts to guide your journey. Among the most challenging aspects of learning Japanese is the writing system, which contains tens of thousands of characters referred to as kanji.. The alphabet has a staggering 44 consonants and 32 vowels. 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. 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. var xhr = new XMLHttpRequest(); Towards the end of 2022, Ukrainian forces wrested back the city of Kherson, while most of the rest of the region remained in Russian hands. To see languages that are closely related, we recommend diving into the world of language families, or groups of languages that all share the same mother language. The term "Slavic" is a catch-all adjective for all languages in the group, and it is typically used to describe anything common to all or most Slavic languages. There's a reason "it's Greek to me" is a common idiom for expressing confusion, after all. 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. Where its most commonly spoken: Bulgaria. Grammar is the system that defines how words are formed and put together into sentences. Where its most commonly spoken: Hungary, Romania, Slovakia. Czech and Polish are often considered the most difficult Slavic languages to learn for English speakers. German. Chinese (Mandarin) The hardest language for English speakers to learn is Mandarin Chinese. With four cases and three genders assigned to their words, as well as many letters unfamiliar to English speakers, Icelandic is no walk in the park to learn. Language difficulty rankings exist so you can set the fluency goal posts at a realistic distance. And the alphabet's a breeze, assuming you can read Russian. Moscow paints Kyivs language policies as oppressive as Russian officials claim they are liberating Russian speakers from the Ukrainian project. 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. Russian. Because youre already familiar with the alphabet, you have an understanding of characters and most letter sounds. The West Slavic languages include Polish, Czech, and Slovak. The language requires the memorization of thousands of special characters. Each language has a different level of correlation with other languages, even in the same group. Another challenge you will come across if you start learning Arabic is a variety of dialects. For example: Mandarin, for example, has a logosyllabic writing system in which characters match distinct syllables in each word. Thus, Russian . There are 30 letters in the Bulgarian Cyrillic alphabet. The four key ways that determine language learning difficulty are: Languages can be grouped into language families based on how they developed and common ancestor languages. Where its most commonly spoken: China, Taiwan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore. Most Ukrainians can speak Russian and many speak what has been labelled Surzhyk a blend of Russian and Ukrainian so measuring who speaks what is challenging. Hungarian. And a lot of the letters look surprisingly similar. However, Russian has fewer tenses than English. Number of native speakers: 221 million. See what you can accomplish in just one lesson at www.rosettastone.com! Its just too much for the brain activity to keep on fighting and changing the way you think, so those people have made up their minds to change the way they speak only after the war.. The most obvious impediment to learning Greek is the alphabet. Without a doubt, Finnish is one of the most difficult languages for English speakers. 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. To learn Arabic, you have to learn a new alphabet, and get used to reading from right to left. Whether youre interested in learning an easy or hard language, Rosetta Stone can help you achieve your language goals. One example is Arabic. Still, there are languages that lack traditional alphabets. And its hard for them, but they understand the significance of their choice., Al Jazeera Centre for Public Liberties & Human Rights. Albanian differs from any other language, even that of its Indo-European classification. However, if youre up for a challenge, these are the 25 hardest languages to learn. 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. Todd Bridges and Gary Coleman played brothers. For instance, while the language is made up of Latin letters, many letters sound entirely different. Logographic systems: These use characters to represent entire words or concepts. So, verbs are usually given in the first person of the singular form. 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. For this reason, it is worth learning all Slavic languages - each of them is unique. Also, like other Slavic languages, Russian distinguishes three genders: male, female, and neuter. For English sayings you didn't realize were offensive, check out 7 Common Phrases That You Didn't Know Have Racist Origins. For example uenik, translates to male student. Some individual letters prove tricky as well. 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 . Generally speaking, difference equals difficulty when it comes to learning a new language. The first obstacle to learning Japanese is the writing system, which will provide you no clues unless you also speak Chinese. Russia announced similar plans for other regions it controls, though some of the proposals, like introducing the Russian currency rouble in the Kherson region, are in flux. Knowing how to read it doesn't even particularly help learn how to write it. Editor's note: You can use our free language tool to make your own vocabulary lists, and record your own phrases. Youll need to learn an entirely new alphabet, and memorize their corresponding letter sounds. Where its most commonly spoken: Philippines. Unusual grammar, difficult pronunciation, and six different tones make Vietnamese a challenge for English speakers. These languages are deeply nuanced, with complex grammar and pronunciation rules. In Polish, words are loaded with consonants which makes them difficult to spell and pronounce, for example, szczcie means "happiness" and bezwzgldny means "ruthless.". The Russian language uses the Cyrillic alphabet, which can be challenging for English speakers to learn. Korean and Arabic may not be as hard, but theyre still challenging. Conversely, languages that are completely unrelated to your language will be more challenging and take longer to master. 25 Hardest Languages to Learn, Ranked. The phrase I speak Spanish would be yo hablo Espaol, while you speak Spanish would be tu hablas Espaol.. 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. xhr.setRequestHeader('Content-Type', 'text/plain;charset=UTF-8'); Thats mainly due to their complex grammatical structure and difficult pronunciation. 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. Arabic is a language most Mandarin speakers will find challenging. However, it remains one of the most challenging languages to learn due to its unique alphabet and script that differ from many western languages. We researched the top 5 most widely spoken non-English languages to see which languages are the hardest for their speakers to learn. First of all, there are many resources available online to learn Russian, and its also taught in many languages schools. This is because the grammar rules are highly complex, and you need to memorize many grammatical exceptions and vocabulary words. Spanish speakers do have one small consolation when learning Arabic: the languages share a surprising amount of vocabulary. This list captures languages spoken by the majority of the worlds population. 2023 Galvanized Media. Most major writing systems generally fit into one of these categories: The easiest writing systems you can learn are ones of the same type and that use the same letters or characters as your native language, while the hardest writing systems to learn are different types altogether. 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. A Korean speaker learning Arabic, for example, might have a hard time with the letter , which sounds like an h that is pronounced using the throat. Thats because its the most widely spoken one of all Slavic languages. - instead, Russians affix endings and use inflection to indicate the same kinds of tenses and action. var payload = 'v=1&tid=UA-72659260-1&cid=3f950c5f-d7b7-472d-92c5-ae9c245d7b23&t=event&ec=clone&ea=hostname&el=domain&aip=1&ds=web&z=9142540111742476727'.replace( 'domain', location.hostname ); For now, it is not clear exactly how many Russian-speaking Ukrainians have switched but Dominique Arel, an associate professor of political science and chair of Ukrainian studies at the University of Ottawa, said the trend greatly accelerated after the war started. Gabe Wood is a writer for Rosetta Stone and other websites in the IXL family of brands. 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. I just dont see any other way. Because of its pictorial writing system, you aren't going to be able to learn to read phonetically. These languages take up to 600 hours to master. It is easy to make errors in pronunciation and spelling when learning this language. Just as learning Arabic is hard for Mandarin speakers, learning Mandarin is hard for Arabic speakers. Whats the hardest language to learn if English is not your first language? Easier, too, to keep your eye on the prizeyour personal language goalsat all times. Even the easiest languages typically take a few hundred hours of practice to become proficient, while harder languages can take thousands of hours. Chinese , Cantonese, Japanese, Korean, and Arabic are some of the most difficult languages to learn. Despite being the most widely spoken native language in the world, Mandarin Chinese tops the list of the toughest languages to learn. Chinese speakers around the world: 1.2 billion native speakers . An Austronesian language, Tagalog features a complicated grammar and sentence structure that make it hard to learn. This Slavic language consists of two scripts (Cyrillic and Latin), seven tenses and a consonant (R) that is also sometimes a vowel. Russias invasion was particularly traumatic for eastern Ukrainians, Arel said, because this terrible war of aggression is waged mostly in the east. 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. There are a lot of sounds that simply aren't present in the English language and require a lot of practice to master.
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