, Matthew Kupfer (@Matthew_Kupfer) April 4, 2022. Where its most commonly spoken: Arabian Peninsula, the Middle East, North Africa. The most often sounds like the E in women, and to the O in rope. The has no exact equivalent in most English accents. Korean and Arabic may not be as hard, but theyre still challenging. This means that you just have to memorize the nouns with their corresponding gender. It has Dutch at its core but it is also intertwined with other dialects and indigenous languages from Africa. Japanese requires a large amount of study to learn because its writing system includes three different scripts, and the language includes different vocabulary and grammatical forms to use based on social context. Because Russian culture dominated the days of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, most Ukrainians can speak Russian. Meanwhile, written Danish has three more vowels than the English alphabet: , and . The hardest languages for you to learn will depend on the languages you currently speak, particularly your native languages. For English speakers, Russian is arguably more difficult than German. Thats because their grammatical structure is slightly less complex than in other Slavic languages, mainly because they dont use cases. Karolina Assi is an English and Polish teacher on iTalki.com. Knowing how high a barrier youre up against will help you not get discouraged when you run into obstacles, as well as savor the progress you make. FSI language-learning categories are numbered like hurricaneshigher number, scarier language. The script is almost entirely phonetic, which means that once you pick up the pronunciation of the letters, you can quickly begin reading fluently. To understand it, you must recognize the pitch of a tone in relation to the context of the world and overall sentence. Tackling a language that requires you to learn a ton of new words, rules, sounds, and symbols wont be easy, but it can be a rewarding hobby. English is taught in Chinese schools, so most Mandarin speakers are familiar with English and the Latin script that makes up the English alphabet. 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. So, you might be able to get by in Jordan, but have a hard time in Kuwait. It is spoken as a native language by 13 million people, most of whom live in Hungary. Data Privacy and Security. It doesnt bother with the difference between I was running, I had been running, etc. Bulgarian uses the Cyrillic alphabet, which can be tough for English speakers to learn. Pronouncing Czech words is a nightmare for English speakers. And because there are no characters, its harder to visualize them for memorization purposes. Pronunciation makes Danish one of the most difficult languages to learn. Whenever you think of Slavic languages, the first language that comes to your mind is probably Russian. Dont let their place on this list deter you from diving right in, thoughweve built courses to help you learn quickly and effectively! The first obstacle to learning Japanese is the writing system, which will provide you no clues unless you also speak Chinese. But being able to speak is a completely different can of worms, thanks to grammar that is totally different from English and pronunciation that is laden with difficult-to-master rules. Natasha has been taking Ukrainian courses online. The West Slavic languages include Polish, Czech, and Slovak. . Russian is a Slavic language, the 7 th most spoken language in the world by the total number of speakers, which, unfortunately, does not make the task of learning Russian much easier Russian is widely believed to be one of the most difficult languages to learn. The term hard language refers to their complexity. 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. Or Thai, which contains an alphabet comprised of a staggering 44 consonants and 32 different vowels? The Russian language is the official language of Russia and is ranked 3rd among the hardest languages to learn. It means that, in Czech, different grammatical aspects are condensed into one word by changing its structure. Every aspect of learning Mandarin is difficult. It became a symbol of our resistance against Russian aggression, said Viktoriia Tarasuik, a 25-year-old born and raised in Kyiv, who grew up speaking Russian and has also made the linguistic shift. Where its most commonly spoken: Republic of Serbia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Montenegro, Kosovo. Mandarin Chinese. The main phonetic similarity between all Slavic languages is the presence of phonemic palatalization, known as softening. Being able to judge how hard a language will be to learn aids you in a few ways. 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. 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. The way theyre used directs the meaning of the world as well. Another difficult language is Russian. The tonal language also has four tones, so one word can be pronounced four different ways, while each pronunciation has a different meaning. Editor's note: You can use our free language tool to make your own vocabulary lists, and record your own phrases. These are people who spent a minimum of 60 years of their life speaking in Russian. The Slavic languages are also known for their complicated consonant clusters. Arabic speakers find Russian grammar complicated because it has a large number of unfamiliar rules and a ton of exceptions to those rules. Another challenge you will come across if you start learning Arabic is a variety of dialects. 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. To help you understand what you're getting into, we've compiled this list of the 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. Where its most commonly spoken: China, Taiwan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore. 3. For instance, the letter is similar to SH (shampoo, shower, shop). Some of these pronunciations, such as the Russian letter which requires the speaker to make a rolling r sound, dont exist in Mandarin. 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. Shutterstock/VPales. 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. 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. Take a look at the word suka. If you emphasize the first syllable ("SU-ka"), then youre saying "vomit." Right now, she teaches, writes, and creates content from the Dominican Republic. Another doozy is the 17 different cases for numbers, meaning there are 17 different ways to say one number. Privacy Policy | For English sayings you didn't realize were offensive, check out 7 Common Phrases That You Didn't Know Have Racist Origins. 3) The Russian language does not have articles, so you cannot make mistakes there. What Level Of Difficulty Is Mandarin. Where its most commonly spoken: Bulgaria. If you have ever heard a Russian person speak English, you might have spotted this mistake: "I put the pizza in oven". The Greek language is very difficult for English speakers to learn, but the effort required to learn the language is worth it. On the other hand, tvrtek means Thursday, and mastering the way each of those sounds works together is going to take you a while. Though German is in the same family as English, its nuanced pronunciation gives it a higher difficulty level than other Germanic languages. These languages also have grammar rules that are absent from Mandarin, including noun cases, noun gender, and verb tenses. Pronunciation is also tricky because word stress varies based on context, and you cant rely on a few simple rules to learn proper Russian pronunciation. However, most languages only use a few dozen of these sounds. No matter the difficulty level of your new language, Rosetta Stone makes learning easy, effective, and fun. But, said Arel, the legislation affected education as it essentially eliminates Russian from high schools. The verb conjugations can be intimidating, too, with many more variants and combinations to comprehend than other Slavic languages. Because Macedonian doesnt have a complex case system like other Slavic languages, its considered one of the easiest Slavic languages to learn. Maria Stambler, a Russia-American bilingual speaker, who used to teach English, explained: "Words and phrases like `Tina Turner' and `happy birthday' are hard to pronounce because Russians . The Slavic languages have many words in common, although some of the similarities can be confusing. So, if you learn a certain dialect, there's a chance you might not be able to understand the locals from another region. You know that friend you have that speaks three languages fluentlyeffortlessly even? 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. if( navigator.sendBeacon ) { 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. It also has 18 cases and 14 vowels, which makes saying things right particularly difficult. But Ukrainian society more broadly, Ferlain said, is making the switch just to pay respect for the nation. Although both Bulgarian and Macedonian have been recognized Category IV languages in terms of difficulty for English speakers, they are relatively easy to learn compared to other Slavic languages. Thats mainly due to their complex grammatical structure and difficult pronunciation. Serious about learning Hungarian? It has six declension cases, which dont exist in English and can be challenging for English speakers to comprehend. 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. The pronunciation is also pretty challenging for native English speakers. German and English belong to the same Germanic language family, so their linguistic closeness wins out. Although the Czech language uses the Latin alphabet and its words are pronounced the way they are written, its one of the most difficult Slavic languages to learn. 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). Russian also has many words where consonants are grouped together, which makes spelling and pronunciation difficult. Pinyin is a phonetic alphabet for Mandarin, and is much easier to grasp since it uses the same letters as English's alphabet. 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. Gabe Wood is a writer for Rosetta Stone and other websites in the IXL family of brands. The grammar can also be a little tricky, with some unusual conjugations, lots of rules, and gendered nouns. Russian speakers could also request Russian versions of other documents, such as marriage certificates. It might not be a romance language, but there are still a lot of pretty words to love. For English speakers, an additional concern is the three gendered nouns. } 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. The longest word in Hungarian, megszentsgtelenthetetlensgeskedseitekrt, means for your [plural] continued behavior as if you could not be desecrated in English. Language difficulty rankings exist so you can set the fluency goal posts at a realistic distance. So, if you have ever considered learning a Slavic language, there are many options to choose from. Also, Arabic has several sounds that must be pronounced back in the throat, sounds that dont occur in spoken Mandarin. Answer (1 of 4): Very difficult. So, what are the easiest and the hardest Slavic languages to learn for English speakers? It's helpful if you speak another Slavic language, but otherwise, it's going to be a challenge. The tones in Mandarin make it a challenge for English speakers, but Cantonese has twice as many tones as Mandarineight in total. I just dont see any other way. var xhr = new XMLHttpRequest(); 1. 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. So, what are the origins of the Slavic languages, and what are they? And yet, that one word is mind-blowingly long. Russian. In this category, it usually takes 88 weeks or 2200 hours to reach S-3/R-3 proficiency. And if you're serious about learning Chinese, you'll have to tackle Chinese characters. It takes time, discipline, and a well of motivation that youll need to refill. There are a lot of sounds that simply aren't present in the English language and require a lot of practice to master. Phonetically English is quite remote from Russian, and features insane amount of vowels, along with fricatives and aspirated consona. Arabic is a language most Mandarin speakers will find challenging. But did you know that there are more than 10 different Slavic languages? Its okay to not be that person. Czech and Polish are often considered the most difficult Slavic languages to learn for English speakers. The language features five tones, some of which are not found in the English language. See for instance this, Whether you already speak or are familiar with any other Slavic language, Availability of learning resources online. Some languages, such as Arabic and Russian, are notoriously difficult to learn for English speakers. Privacy Policy | Russian can only be taught as a first language in primary school, and thats it, he said. 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. One language is identified as the language of opportunities, the language of upward mobility, said Arel. Born in 1960 in what was then the Soviet Union, Zahalskyy hails from the largely Russian-speaking Ukrainian city of Kherson. It takes approximately 36 weeks (900 hours of practice) to reach professional working proficiency in these languages. Because of its pictorial writing system, you aren't going to be able to learn to read phonetically. Where its most commonly spoken: Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, Kazakhstan, Russian can be difficult for English speakers due to the confusing pronunciation. It takes approximately 44 weeks (1100 hours of practice) to reach professional working proficiency in these languages. 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. The alphabet has a staggering 44 consonants and 32 vowels. New: Russian Names - Learn the history of Russian names. We would say "I put the pizza in THE oven". Conversely, languages that are completely unrelated to your language will be more challenging and take longer to master. Were grouping Spanish and French (which are the worlds fourth and fifth most widely spoken languages, respectively) because they are both Romance languages, and theyre similar enough that both Spanish and French speakers will find the same languages difficult for largely the same reasons. It's not for the faint of heart. Along with natives and Spanish language learners, there are more than 572 million Spanish speakers worldwide. 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. This is just one example of unique grammar rules that dont exist in other languages. } Thats why knowing the difficulty level of a language in relation to your native tongue can be useful. Have you ever wondered how hard MANDARIN is to learn? For instance, the Polish word for happiness is szcezcie, featuring Polish digraphs (sz, cz) and a nasal E sound. Turkish is filled with extremely long verbs. Albanian nouns have both a case and a number, requiring the learner to memorize each noun. It takes approximately 24-30 weeks (600-750 hours of practice) to reach professional working proficiency in these languages. And for words you should cut out of your vocabulary right this second, check out Stop Using These Phrases to Sound Instantly Smarter. 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. We have also become interested in Ukrainian history, Ukrainian culture before, there was a large gap, he said. Russia is bombing eastern Ukraine, the population that allegedly [President Vladimir] Putin seeks to defend, he said. A lot of the sounds in the language are difficult for English speakers to master, and the grammar is packed with irregular verbs. Learning a language is a marathon, not a sprint. 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. Whats more, the Macedonian verb system is slightly different from other Slavic languages, as it doesnt use the infinitive form of verbs. 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. This is the result of it being an agglutinative language, in which prefixes and suffixes are attached to words to determine meaning and direction. Though German is in the same family as English, its nuanced pronunciation gives it a higher difficulty level than other Germanic languages. . 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. Czech and Polish are often considered the most difficult Slavic languages to learn for English speakers. For instance, its 15 grammatical cases mean that even the slightest change in the end of a word can alter its meaning. 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. 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. After hearing their stories, I decided to stop speaking Russian too.. Prepositions behave similarly to English, and questions have many question words that are simple enough to remember. 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 main problem lies in the writing system. It is easy to make errors in pronunciation and spelling when learning this language. 1. Learning Russian is quite an experience because of the intricate case and gender system, different grammatical rules and novel writing system. 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. Each language has its own distinct set of these rules. It's a famously difficult language for English speakers to learn, with complex grammar and pronunciation. For example: Where its most commonly spoken: Greece, Cyprus. Even then, it's very likely that you will make mistakes in pronunciation and word order. 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 . In theory, pronunciation is also fairly straightforward, but it can be easy to get hung up on long vowel and consonant sounds. One example is the Japanese writing system hiragana. Moreover, each language has its own letters that have developed to denote particular phonetic phenomena. Where individual Slavic languages border with each other, these boundaries are usually blurred there are broad stripes of transitional dialects and areas of the intermingling of phenomena characteristic of both neighboring languages (for example, in Czech and Slovak). Even if you manage to overcome all of that, it is also a language with many, many dialects that vary widely. And for the English words you're still getting wrong, check out The 14 Hardest Words to Pronounce in the English Language. Here's a look at the top 10 hardest languages to learn: Learning a new language is a rewarding experience, but some languages are harder to master than others. xhr.setRequestHeader('Content-Type', 'text/plain;charset=UTF-8'); If you want to become proficient in a language, youll eventually need to learn whatever system of writing the language uses. Great job defending the Russian language and Russian speakers, Putin! For English-speaking students, the hardest foreign languages to learn include Arabic, Cantonese, Mandarin, Japanese, and Korean. While practicing with language learning apps is useful, chatting with Spanish native speakers is crucial if you want to improve your language skills. >> Dive right in: Get the complete list of languages ranked by difficulty. Forget carpe diem. Youll notice that many of these languages do not use the Latin alphabet. So, how long does it take to master it? Polish is closely related to Czech and to Slovak. A very serious shift has occurred in the consciousness of many people, said Zahalskyy, a landlord who used to own a pharmacy business. This is because the grammar rules are highly complex, and you need to memorize many grammatical exceptions and vocabulary words. Does she think the Russian language will eventually disappear in Ukraine? 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. How to Order Food in French (with Example 102 Essential Spanish Phrases for Traveling. Get the most out of this nighttime activity. Most experts believe that to become truly fluent in Russian that is thinking and speaking in Russian requires 7-10 years of study. With over 70 years of experience teaching languages to US government employees, theyve compiled a comprehensive and widely accepted list of language rankings. To begin with, the Slavic languages derive from the Proto-Slavic language - their immediate parent language. Over time, the Proto-Slavic language separated into three branches: East Slavic, West Slavic, and South Slavic. Knowing language difficulty will also help you come up with a realistic timeline for learning. Haitian Creole. Determining language difficulty requires a birds eye view of how languages relate to each other. Learn how to pronounce these everyday words that don't always sound the way they're spelled. If you were to go to Lviv right now [considered the heart of the Ukrainian-speaking part of the country] and walk into a caf there and start speaking in Russian, the waiter or waitress will change to speaking with you in Russian, Zahalskyy said.
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