FSI language-learning categories are numbered like hurricaneshigher number, scarier language. Agreements | 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. The 5 Hardest Languages to Learn For Spanish Speakers (or Not?) 1. Alphabets: These use letters to represent a languages phonemes, which are both consonants and vowels. And yet, that one word is mind-blowingly long. >> Dive right in: Get the complete list of languages ranked by difficulty. Oleksandr Zahalskyy spent most of his life speaking only Russian. The archaic language is made up of extremely long words, while the specific syllables are pronounced entirely differently from typical English syllables. The Bulgarian writing system uses a Cyrillic alphabet, similar to the Russian alphabet but with some distinct differences. 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. You need about 3,000 to . Chinese. 1. Where its most commonly spoken: Albania, Kosovo. Chinese (Mandarin) The hardest language for English speakers to learn is Mandarin Chinese. 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. Terms & Conditions | Russian is the most widely spoken Slavic language, with 155 million native Russian speakers. Does she think the Russian language will eventually disappear in Ukraine? The way theyre used directs the meaning of the world as well. They studied in the Soviet Union, in Russian-speaking schools, completed university in the Russian language and now we are all transitioning to Ukrainian. Where its most commonly spoken: Greece, Cyprus. 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. ae0fcc31ae342fd3a1346ebb1f342fcb. It has six declension cases, which dont exist in English and can be challenging for English speakers to comprehend. The script is almost entirely phonetic, which means that once you pick up the pronunciation of the letters, you can quickly begin reading fluently. She's currently learning Dutch (and forever brushing up on her Spanish and French) using the Rosetta Stone app. 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.. So, verbs are usually given in the first person of the singular form. , Matthew Kupfer (@Matthew_Kupfer) April 4, 2022. How Russians learn English and why they fail at it xhr.setRequestHeader('Content-Type', 'text/plain;charset=UTF-8'); To help you understand what you're getting into, we've compiled this list of the hardest languages to learn. These endings are used to express the same things propositions do in English. These complex grammatical structures that dont exist in the English language, combined with a challenging pronunciation, make Czech one of the hardest Slavic languages to learn for English speakers. Albanian nouns have both a case and a number, requiring the learner to memorize each noun. Arabic features 28 script letters, is written from right to left and excludes most vowels in words. Mandarin is one of the few languages ranked as the most difficult to learn for English speakers by the Foreign Service Institute. Between Japanese and Mandarin, Mandarin presents more of a challenge because its a tonal language, which means the pronunciation and tonal inflection of a word can change its meaning. 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 ). This can be done by adding a prefix or suffix or modifying the word. And for words you should cut out of your vocabulary right this second, check out Stop Using These Phrases to Sound Instantly Smarter. Easiest languages for English speakers - closely-related languages like Romance language (French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Romanian, Galician, Catalan), and other languages with historical influence in English (Afrikaans, Danish, Dutch, Swedish, and Norwegian). Generally speaking, difference equals difficulty when it comes to learning a new language. According to Arel, any identification with Russian culture, including the Russian language, is untenable right now. The Hardest Languages to Learn in the World - WorldAtlas What's New at RussianLessons.Net. Known as keigo, how you say a word depends on the formality of a situation. Gabe Wood is a writer for Rosetta Stone and other websites in the IXL family of brands. They think faster in Russian language, she said. It's incredibly helpful for learning pronunciation, and can enable you to read some written . This is just one example of unique grammar rules that dont exist in other languages. Russian: 144: 7: Vietnamese: 69: 8: Turkish: 51: 9: Polish: 40: 10: Thai: 21: 11: Serbian: 16: 12: Hebrew: 5: . For instance, Arabic has complex grammar and a different alphabet . In Gaelic, though, verbs go at the beginning of a sentence, so Gaelic sentences are structured verb-subject-object (Threw I the ball). Part of the Austroasiatic language family, Vietnamese can also be difficult to speak due to its foreign pronunciations to English speakers. And because there are no characters, its harder to visualize them for memorization purposes. Right now, she teaches, writes, and creates content from the Dominican Republic. 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 . Where its most commonly spoken: Hungary, Romania, Slovakia. In order to become fully proficient in any Slavic language, you need to invest years of study. 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. In Spanish, its la flor, and in Italian, its il fiore. Coincidence? This is the result of it being an agglutinative language, in which prefixes and suffixes are attached to words to determine meaning and direction. 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. What Level Of Difficulty Is Mandarin. Editor's note: You can use our free language tool to make your own vocabulary lists, and record your own phrases. Modern Greek is maybe the easiest language to learn that uses a different alphabet. The Korean language doesnt have an equivalent phoneme. 4. And pronunciation requires some practice because there are sounds that don't have an equivalent in English. 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. Russian, Ukrainian, and Belorussian belong to this group. Its also ranked as one of the easier languages to master, as youll see in the list below. Even more intimidating is that each of these cases has plural forms to consider! Factors such as grammar rules, syntax, vocabulary, and pronunciation can make some languages more difficult to learn than others. The Complete List of Language Difficulty Rankings 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. 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). Mexican Spanish vs. Spain Spanish: The Must-Know Differences. 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. Schlittschuhlaufen. So, if you have ever considered learning a Slavic language, there are many options to choose from. 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. Often, one word in Hungarian equals a whole sentence. Meanwhile, case endings are added to word stems as suffixes. Here's a look at the top 10 hardest languages to learn: Start dropping carpe vinum instead. There are three different genders for nouns and various grammar rules unfamiliar to English speakers. The pronunciation is what will get you. 10 Most Difficult Languages in the World! | Leverage Edu They make decisions faster. Ferlain, who asked Al Jazeera to use her callsign, speaks Ukrainian as her first language. Another challenge you will come across if you start learning Arabic is a variety of dialects. These languages take up to 600 hours to master. Linguistic distance is a measure of how related one language is to another language. For example uenik, translates to male student. Some individual letters prove tricky as well. The ability to speak multiple languages puts you steps ahead of singular 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. Very different! Thai is a tonal language. The 6 Hardest Languages For English Speakers To Learn - Babbel Magazine How to Order Food in French (with Example 102 Essential Spanish Phrases for Traveling. So far, she has traveled to 28 countries and lived in 4. The three Slavic language groups are mutually unintelligible. Russias invasion was particularly traumatic for eastern Ukrainians, Arel said, because this terrible war of aggression is waged mostly in the east. Polish is another language that can give English speakers a hard time, with spelling and grammar causing the biggest problems for learners. 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 largest group within the Slavic family, by the number of speakers, are the East Slavic languages. Another difficult language is Russian. 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. Comparison: Hardest Languages To Learn - YouTube Its something they tried to tell me shouldnt exist; they wanted to suppress it but couldnt.. 12 Easiest & Hardest Languages to Learn for English Speakers If youre from Poland and grew up speaking Polish, though, Russian likely wouldnt be as difficult for you because it has more in common with your native language. This is one of the giveaways that a person's native language is Slavic. Have you ever wondered how hard MANDARIN is to learn? Estonian is packed with a whopping 14 noun cases. Credit: Greek Reporter. 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. New: Lesson 18 - Russian Homes and Apartments - Learn all the words needed around the house. Though German is in the same family as English, its nuanced pronunciation gives it a higher difficulty level than other Germanic languages. The best time to start learning a language is today. Still, there are languages that lack traditional alphabets. 3. 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 . Turkish is filled with extremely long verbs. 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. According to the Foreign Service Institute (FSI), Spanish belongs to category I by difficulty. There's a tongue-in-cheek book titled "Learn Greek in 25 years," but you'll be surprised at how . If you're looking for official statistics, the Defense Language Institute (where they teach members of the CIA foreign languages) has organized languages into four categories, the 1st Category being the easiest, and the 4th Category being the hardest languages to learn for English speakers. brzcze. In theory, pronunciation is also fairly straightforward, but it can be easy to get hung up on long vowel and consonant sounds. These are people who spent a minimum of 60 years of their life speaking in Russian. This is unfortunate since Mandarin is the most widely spoken language in the world. 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. Hnz is hard enough that it's typical for Mandarin learners to learn a different writing system first, called pinyin. For this reason, it is worth learning all Slavic languages - each of them is unique.