In this category, it usually takes 88 weeks or 2200 hours to reach S-3/R-3 proficiency. Born in 1960 in what was then the Soviet Union, Zahalskyy hails from the largely Russian-speaking Ukrainian city of Kherson. There is nothing natural about the way a language develops, Arel told Al Jazeera. The language also has a high number of vowel sounds considered difficult for most English speakers to master. In addition, consonants and vowels are made up of three specific lengths: short, long and overly long. And switching to Ukrainian is one way to fight back. Most experts believe that to become truly fluent in Russian that is thinking and speaking in Russian requires 7-10 years of study. These languages, which include Vietnamese and Mandarin, require correct pronunciation and inflection to create meaning for each word. And a lot of the letters look surprisingly similar. 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. Mandarin, by contrast, has little to no inflection. Abjads: These generally use letters to represent only consonants, while vowels are absent and must be inferred by the reader. Grammar is the system that defines how words are formed and put together into sentences. Even more intimidating is that each of these cases has plural forms to consider! Its one of the official languages of the European Union, spoken by over 40 million people, mainly in Poland. Turkish is an agglutinative language, which means, in crude terms, that complex words are formed by tacking stuff on without changing the previous stuff at all. And for words you should cut out of your vocabulary right this second, check out Stop Using These Phrases to Sound Instantly Smarter. Having originated in the Philippine islands, Tagalog is the first language of most Filipinos. German. But even though they know the language, the challenge lies in changing their inner machinations, the way they think, the Zahalskyys said. 4. Thats German for ice skating. German is often preceded by its hard-to-master accent and enthusiastically long vocabulary. Unlike other Slavic languages, Bulgarian has no case system. If youre looking for ease of learning, finding a language with familiar or easy-to-master grammar rules can help you tone down the language difficulty level. Whats more, the Macedonian verb system is slightly different from other Slavic languages, as it doesnt use the infinitive form of verbs. One example is the Japanese writing system hiragana. There are 30 letters in the Bulgarian Cyrillic alphabet. They also have a relatively easy noun system. The language requires the memorization of thousands of special characters. Natasha has been taking Ukrainian courses online. For English sayings you didn't realize were offensive, check out 7 Common Phrases That You Didn't Know Have Racist Origins. According to the Foreign Service Institute (FSI), Spanish belongs to category I by difficulty. One word is capable of 10 different translations as a result. She said many soldiers she works with who spoke Russian before the invasion are continuing to do so. Great job defending the Russian language and Russian speakers, Putin! Descending from the ancient South Asian language of Sanskrit, Hindi is a phonetic language, but many sounds are foreign to English speakers. Russia is bombing eastern Ukraine, the population that allegedly [President Vladimir] Putin seeks to defend, he said. Among the most challenging aspects of learning Japanese is the writing system, which contains tens of thousands of characters referred to as kanji.. And because there are no characters, its harder to visualize them for memorization purposes. 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. I just dont see any other way. These languages are deeply nuanced, with complex grammar and pronunciation rules. Nouns have 15 different cases, while in English, they have only three: subjective, objective, possessive. 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. Where its most commonly spoken: Arabian Peninsula, the Middle East, North Africa. It is spoken as a native language by 13 million people, most of whom live in Hungary. Mandarin Chinese is challenging for a number of reasons. Most of the cities that have been reduced to rubble, such as Mariupol, Severodonetsk, Mykolaiv and Bakhmut, were largely Russian-speaking, Arel said. So, verbs are usually given in the first person of the singular form. Whether for gaining a deeper cultural understanding of a country or for the simple necessity of co-existing and even performing business, multilingual speakers put themselves at the forefront of new possibilities. 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. Because Macedonian doesnt have a complex case system like other Slavic languages, its considered one of the easiest Slavic languages to learn. FSI language-learning categories are numbered like hurricaneshigher number, scarier language. Everyone kept speaking Russian, everyone kept watching Russian television, except probably for the Western regions of Ukraine, Zahalskyy told Al Jazeera. Start dropping carpe vinum instead. The sentence structure is also very different from English. In addition to that, consonants and vowels have three distinct lengths: short, long, and overly long. Whether youre interested in learning an easy or hard language, Rosetta Stone can help you achieve your language goals. Most Slavic languages implement an extensive system of cases in which the endings of nouns (declination), adjectives, and prepositions change depending on the case. The main phonetic similarity between all Slavic languages is the presence of phonemic palatalization, known as softening. So, you might be able to get by in Jordan, but have a hard time in Kuwait. 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. Their criteria is largely tied to the average length of time it takes a student to learn a language, which well dive into in the next section. Arabic is a language most Mandarin speakers will find challenging. And for some useful wisdom from a "dead" language, here are 40 Latin Phrases So Genius You'll Sound Like a Master Orator. For this reason, it is worth learning all Slavic languages - each of them is unique. This is a question you can resolve with some degree of certainty when talking about a single language. Some friends in Central Asia are also trying to avoid it. Or Navajo? 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. Often, one word in Hungarian equals a whole sentence. 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. Just as learning Arabic is hard for Mandarin speakers, learning Mandarin is hard for Arabic speakers. A major reason why is that Finnish has so many different noun cases and verb conjugations that can shape words depending on their context. Strengthening your reading and writing skills in that language, then, takes far less time. From Chinese sentence structure to memorizing foreign symbols, this language demands the most out of beginners. Country with the greatest number of speakers: Egypt. It doesnt bother with the difference between I was running, I had been running, etc. 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). 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. It also has 18 cases and 14 vowels, which makes saying things right particularly difficult. Mandarin, for example, has a logosyllabic writing system in which characters match distinct syllables in each word. 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. Albanian nouns have both a case and a number, requiring the learner to memorize each noun. ae0fcc31ae342fd3a1346ebb1f342fcb. Where its most commonly spoken: Hungary, Romania, Slovakia. The tonal language also has four tones, so one word can be pronounced four different ways, while each pronunciation has a different meaning. You know that friend you have that speaks three languages fluentlyeffortlessly even? I would even say, it's the most difficult language I have ever faced, maybe if you disregard Asian non-alphabetic writing systems. Benefits of Chatting with Native Spanish Speakers. It takes approximately 44 weeks (1100 hours of practice) to reach professional working proficiency in these languages. Where its most commonly spoken: Republic of Serbia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Montenegro, Kosovo. Category 3: Hebrew, Hindi, Persian Farsi, Russian . Hardest languages to learn for English speakers . Thus, Russian . The languages youll find in the second category are moderately challenging. 6. Do Not Sell My Information | Once you've got that down, the grammar is not so hard, as long as you know Finnish. We would like to show you a description here but the site won't allow us. So, what are the origins of the Slavic languages, and what are they? It has an incredible 14 noun cases and grammar packed with exceptions. Although Slavic languages are similar in terms of grammar, vocabulary, and phonetics, they are all entirely different from English. With over 70 years of experience teaching languages to US government employees, theyve compiled a comprehensive and widely accepted list of language rankings. Privacy Policy | One of the most intriguing aspects is that emphasis can completely change the meaning of certain words. Tarasuik disagrees, but says Russia has unintentionally reversed decades of Russification. That's mainly due to their 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. Take a look at the word suka. If you emphasize the first syllable ("SU-ka"), then youre saying "vomit." 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. These are the HARDEST LANGUAGES to learn ranked by the time it takes to be FLUENT in them! For example, , , , , , , , and are all different letters that you might have a hard time distinguishing between if you're new to the game. Syllabaries: These use symbols to represent syllables. But Ukrainian society more broadly, Ferlain said, is making the switch just to pay respect for the nation. 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. And if you're serious about learning Chinese, you'll have to tackle Chinese characters. The oldest living Indo-European language, Greek is an ancient language thats filled with complications for learners. Although not easy at all, Bulgarian and Macedonian are often considered the easiest Slavic languages to learn for English speakers. Where its most commonly spoken: India, Fiji, Pakistan. It uses VSO (verb, subject, object) word order, which can be tricky for most. Another challenge you will come across if you start learning Arabic is a variety of dialects. It might not be a romance language, but there are still a lot of pretty words to love. The transition to Ukrainian began for some in 2014, when Moscow annexed Crimea and led forces into the Donbas region, which borders Russia. These are people who spent a minimum of 60 years of their life speaking in Russian. In contrast to the similarities between the Romance languages listed above, German and Mandarintwo languages of different families with entirely unique writing systemscouldnt be more linguistically distant. comparison of Czech with Russian and German, The grammar, pronunciation, and general structure of a language, The alphabet (as mentioned in the article, some Slavic languages use the Cyliric alphabet, which means more things to learn). For many, switching from Russian to the Ukrainian language is an act of resistance as the war continues to devastate lives and cities. As with learning Russian, becoming fluent will depend highly on the learner. It's a famously difficult language for English speakers to learn, with complex grammar and pronunciation. To understand it, you must recognize the pitch of a tone in relation to the context of the world and overall sentence. Hungarian is an agglutinative language. The Slavic languages are also known for their complicated consonant clusters. English is taught in Chinese schools, so most Mandarin speakers are familiar with English and the Latin script that makes up the English alphabet. Grammatically, verbs often come before the subject, while there are many dual forms of words in addition to the singular and plural forms. When it comes to pronunciation, the real difficulty factor comes into play for tonal languages. Modern Greek is maybe the easiest language to learn that uses a different alphabet. Without a doubt, Finnish is one of the most difficult languages for English speakers. 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, Languages that use the same Latin alphabet youll find in English, Languages that have their own unique alphabets, Languages based on unique writing systems. Mandarin is one of the few languages ranked as the most difficult to learn for English speakers by the Foreign Service Institute. Editor's note: You can use our free language tool to make your own vocabulary lists, and record your own phrases. First, vowels are not included when writing. Privacy Policy | Category II Languages. The language is packed with mouthfuls of consonants, making individual words total tongue twisters. There are also various sounds made in the language that dont exist in many other languages. And its hard for them, but they understand the significance of their choice., Al Jazeera Centre for Public Liberties & Human Rights. And for the English words you're still getting wrong, check out The 14 Hardest Words to Pronounce in the English Language. 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. However, it remains one of the most challenging languages to learn due to its unique alphabet and script that differ from many western languages. The best time to start learning a language is today. 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 speakers, an additional concern is the three gendered nouns. Try it today at www.rosettastone.com. It can also set you apart from other people who speak your native language, since fewer people are willing to learn difficult languages, generally. But again, those interviewed by Al Jazeera said there were few strict rules. After hearing their stories, I decided to stop speaking Russian too.. Furthermore, it requires learning the Greek alphabet, which is not a requirement for the majority of European languages. Or what abou. Languages that don't use a Latin script, though, tend to give Mandarin speakers the most trouble. Spanish, French, and Italian are all descendants of Latin and have many similarities. Hungarian. You can see this illustrated with some simple sentences centered around the Finnish word for house, talo.. This is an existential war and language is a part of the identity, she said. In terms of learning to read, Korean has a relatively straightforward alphabet that doesn't take too long to learn, unlike the characters used in Chinese and Japanese writing systems, so you can start sounding out words pretty quickly. See what you can accomplish in just one lesson at www.rosettastone.com! Chinese (Mandarin) The hardest language for English speakers to learn is Mandarin Chinese. The Foreign Service Institute includes time estimates alongside their difficulty rankings, but its important to note that everyones language goals are different. 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.. Polish is another language that can give English speakers a hard time, with spelling and grammar causing the biggest problems for learners. Croatian has seven cases, while English only has three. } else { Where its most commonly spoken: North Korea, South Korea. Polish. One example is Thai. How to Order Food in French (with Example 102 Essential Spanish Phrases for Traveling. We researched the top 5 most widely spoken non-English languages to see which languages are the hardest for their speakers to learn. It also has a complicated verb conjugation system, which can be pretty confusing for English speakers. 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. 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. These languages also have grammar rules that are absent from Mandarin, including noun cases, noun gender, and verb tenses. Many examples! By the way, if you guessed that Dutch, Swedish, German, and Danish are part of the same language family, youre right! Another intriguing yet foreign concept to many English speakers, for instance, is the emphasis on respectful speech. . chrzszcz or However, if youre up for a challenge, these are the 25 hardest languages to learn. 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. Afrikaans is a beautiful language that is surprisingly easy to learn for native English speakers. document.addEventListener( 'DOMContentLoaded', function() { For more on the Czech language, see this comparison of Czech with Russian and German. The grammar can also be a little tricky, with some unusual conjugations, lots of rules, and gendered nouns. If you emphasize the second ("su-KA"), then you have "vinegar." By Theo Ioannou. Russian is rated a two of three in difficulty by the Foreign Service Institute (FSI), which ranks languages based on how long it would take the average native English speaker to learn it, so it's not as difficult as some of the other languages on this list. navigator.sendBeacon('https://www.google-analytics.com/collect', payload); One example is the Chinese writing system hnz. Navajo is hard enough to figure out that code talkers in World War II used the language to develop a code for communicating that the Germans wouldn't be able to track. Chinese speakers around the world: 1.2 billion native speakers . Like a pack of wolves or a tank of gas, books in Mandarin requires the word bn to indicate a unit of five books. 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. For instance, in Italian, sentences are structured subject-verb-object (such as I threw the ball). Thai is a tonal language. For English speakers, Russian is arguably more difficult than German. Albanian's 36-letter alphabet should clue you in that attempting to master this language is going to be a wild ride. Where its most commonly spoken: Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, Kazakhstan, Russian can be difficult for English speakers due to the confusing pronunciation. Get ready to put in some serious study time if you're looking to master one of these. The Japanese writing system actually has three different scripts to learn (two are syllabaries and one is a logographic script, similar to Chinese characters). 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. Phonetically, there are more than 20 vowel sounds in the Danish language. For most people, language learning is deeply fulfilling, fun, and a bit challenging. Very different! Declension in Czech is its own special nightmare, but you won't even need to worry about that until you get past the seemingly insurmountable hurdle that is pronouncing the words correctly. 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. As an example of cognates, here are the words for a smile in different Romance languages: Cognates can make a language feel familiar. A very serious shift has occurred in the consciousness of many people, said Zahalskyy, a landlord who used to own a pharmacy business. It goes without saying that the more time you spend practicing something, the better you will become at it. Schlittschuhlaufen. Articulation can prove a challenge as well, due to the exorbitant consonant clusters. Another difficult language is Russian. Many linguists consider Slavic languages to be the most challenging languages to learn for native English speakers. So, if you learn a certain dialect, there's a chance you might not be able to understand the locals from another region. The language is also known for having very confusing conjugations. Because youre already familiar with the alphabet, you have an understanding of characters and most letter sounds. To help you understand what you're getting into, we've compiled this list of the hardest languages to learn. Theyre all Germanic languages. 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. These languages take up to 600 hours to master. Where its most commonly spoken: Philippines. Greek in particular is a highly inflected language, which means its words often change based on grammatical categories such as tense, number, and gender. Some languages, such as Arabic and Russian, are notoriously difficult to learn for English speakers. In terms of grammar, a lexical and grammatical similarity exists between Bulgarian and Macedonian. The ability to speak multiple languages puts you steps ahead of singular speakers. Where its most commonly spoken: Bulgaria. Expect to spend around 1,100 hours in class to attain speaking and reading proficiency, according to the FSI. Generally speaking, difference equals difficulty when it comes to learning a new language. Mandarins four distinct tones give the same word ma four very different meanings. From Russia to Poland, you can find people speaking Slavic languages. Russian is rated a two of three in difficulty by the Foreign Service Institute (FSI), which ranks languages based on how long it would take the average native English speaker to learn it, so it's not as difficult as some of the other languages on this list. Agreements | To learn Arabic, you have to learn a new alphabet, and get used to reading from right to left. Easier, too, to keep your eye on the prizeyour personal language goalsat all times. And in the territories Moscow has occupied since 2014, it has swiftly moved to restore the primacy of Russian culture and language. Czech and Polish are often considered the most difficult Slavic languages to learn for English speakers. But once you do, you can pronounce almost all Russian words quite accurately. You need about 3,000 to . The Slavic languages have many words in common, although some of the similarities can be confusing. 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. The largest group within the Slavic family, by the number of speakers, are the East Slavic languages. Still, there are languages that lack traditional alphabets. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, not everyone who spoke Russian was ethnically Russian; for some Ukrainians and other minority populations such as the Crimean Tatars, Russian was also the first language. However, most languages only use a few dozen of these sounds. This is one of the giveaways that a person's native language is Slavic. Meanwhile, case endings are added to word stems as suffixes. On the other hand, tvrtek means Thursday, and mastering the way each of those sounds works together is going to take you a while. If youre up for a challenge, these are the 25 hardest languages to learn. 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. However, there are some definite roadblocks to becoming fluent in Russian, among them being that spelling isn't always straightforward, it's full of vowel sounds unfamiliar to the average English speaker, and it requires learning an entirely new alphabet to master.
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