Hardest Languages to Learn - Top 10 that are Too Difficult to Master
by Surya | Updated Apr 29, 2023
Hardest Languages to Learn
Having the ability to speak multiple languages gives you a significant advantage over monolingual speakers. Not only does it allow you to gain a deeper understanding of a country's culture, but it's also essential for coexisting and conducting business. Multilingual individuals open themselves up to new possibilities, and acquiring new languages can broaden their worldview, enhance nonverbal communication, improve multitasking abilities, and aid in the brain's adaptation to new circumstances.
If you're just starting to learn a language, it may be beneficial, to begin with an easier one, like Spanish, German, or Italian. However, if you're looking for a challenge, here's a list of the 10 most challenging languages to learn.
Top 10 Hardest Languages to Learn
The languages below are the world's hardest languages and are difficult to learn for people globally.
1
Mandarin
2
Arabic
3
Japanese
4
Hungarian
5
Korean
6
Finnish
7
Basque
8
Navajo
9
Icelandic
10
Polish
S.No
Languages
Let us delve into the difficulties of learning the 10 hardest languages for English speakers, and the challenges that come with them.
Mandarin
Mandarin is the most widely spoken language in the world and is spoken by 70% of the Chinese population. However, mastering Mandarin Chinese can be a challenging task for English speakers. It is a tonal language, which means that every sound in its phonetic transcription system, pinyin, has four distinct pronunciations and meanings. For instance, the word "ma" has four different pronunciations, each carrying a different meaning, depending on the tone: mother, fiber, horse, or curse. Mandarin is also full of homophones, meaning words with the same pronunciation but different meanings, which can be confusing for English learners. Additionally, Mandarin is rich in idioms and aphorisms developed over centuries of poetry, politics, war, ceremony, and religion, adding to the language's complexity.
Arabic
Arabic is the official language of 22 sovereign states and has over 25 distinct dialects, which means that the Arabic spoken in one country can be very different from that spoken in another country. Moreover, Arabic reads from right to left, and most Arabic letters are written in four different forms, depending on whether they are placed at the beginning, middle, or end of a word, or as a stand-alone letter. Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) is used for formal writing and speeches across all Arabic-speaking countries, while Arabic dialects are spoken for everyday conversation. Arabic grammar can be challenging, and learning it can be a bit of a puzzle. Additionally, there are several homophones and false friends, which can create confusion among English speakers trying to learn the language.
Japanese
Japanese has only two tenses, past and non-past (present and future), making the grammar a little tricky. Japanese has three independent writing systems – hiragana, katakana, and kanji, and writing can be a challenge as it has a large volume of characters that must be mastered before learning to write. Hiragana is the Japanese alphabet and is used for native Japanese words. Katakana is used for loanwords, technical and scientific terms, and some plant and animal names. Kanji is made up of thousands of symbols representing whole words, phrases, or ideas that can't always be directly translated into English. There are two forms of speech that English speakers must master to break through the language barrier and build trust – polite and plain. Moreover, Japanese is a phonetic language, making it a little easier to pronounce, but it is packed with homophones, leading to many false friends.
Hungarian
Hungarian is spoken by over 13 million people worldwide and has unique grammar rules that can be challenging for English speakers. Instead of relying on word order, Hungarian uses over 18 case suffixes, dictating tense and possession, so mastering the grammar is crucial. However, the Hungarian language does not have grammatical genders, making it an excellent language to test gender bias in AI. Hungarian heavily relies on idioms, which can create a barrier for language learners. The language also has fourteen vowels, differentiated by various accents, which carry different meanings, making it difficult for English speakers to speak and understand.
Korean
Korean is a unique language as it is the world's most spoken language isolate, meaning it has no proven genetic relationship to other languages. When constructing a sentence in Korean, the word order typically follows the pattern of subject + object + action. This can lead to confusion for English speakers who are also challenged by the language's levels of formality, which are determined by factors such as age, seniority, and familiarity with the individual.
The Korean alphabet, Hangul, was created instead of developing naturally like other alphabets. It reads from left to right like English but flows from top to bottom, and its characters are often taller than those in Latin script. This can present difficulties when localizing software applications across different platforms. Hangul's 24 characters are phonetic, making pronunciation easier, but the language is also filled with homonyms, which are words that are spelled and pronounced the same but have different meanings. As a result, learners of Korean may encounter many false friends, such as 'a bat and ball' versus 'the bat flew at night.'
Finnish
Finnish, with 6 million native speakers worldwide, has a multitude of regional dialects that can vary greatly from the standard language. Despite this, one cultural trait that remains consistent is the tendency for Finns to skip small talk, similar to the Danes.
While Finnish lettering and pronunciation are reminiscent of English, the grammar is vastly different. For instance, Finnish doesn't have a future tense, and instead relies on context and present tense. Additionally, the language has 15 grammatical cases, with small changes in word endings drastically altering their meanings. There are also no articles like "a" or "the" in Finnish. Finnish doesn't share any similarities with Latin or Germanic languages, although Finns incorporate loanwords from other countries such as "Googlata" for "to Google." Furthermore, some Finnish words have become part of the English vernacular, such as "sauna," "tundra," and "Molotov cocktail."
Basque
Basque, a language isolate like Korean, has over a million speakers primarily in the Basque Country in northern Spain. The written and spoken form of Basque is distinct from any other language, even between the five Basque dialects. While it borrows vocabulary from Romance languages like French and Spanish, there was a push in the 19th century to create new Basque words for phrases. Politician and writer Sabino Arana created a collection of new terms called "sabinismos," including "Lehendakari" (president) and "argazki" (photo). Unlike Romance languages, Basque doesn't use gender cases for nouns or adjectives, which makes it easier for English speakers to learn.
Navajo
Navajo, spoken by 170,000 people in the Southwestern United States, is the most widely spoken Native American language in the US. The Navajo alphabet consists of 33 consonants, including several uncommon ones that can be challenging for English speakers to pronounce. Navajo basic word order is subject + object + verb, and descriptions are given through verbs, so most English adjectives don't have direct translations. For example, "love" is expressed in Navajo as "Ayóó ánóshní," which conveys a higher regard for the person. Navajo has few loanwords, and instead uses descriptive terms to develop Western words. For instance, "military tank" is expressed as "chidí naa'naʼí beeʼeldǫǫhtsoh bikááʼ dah naaznilígíí," which translates to "vehicle that crawls around, by means of which big explosions are made, and that one sits on at an elevation."
Icelandic
Icelandic, spoken by fewer than 400,000 people on one island, remains largely unchanged since the ninth century. Icelandic sagas from the medieval period are still easily understandable to modern speakers. To express new concepts, Icelandic coins new words called neologisms. For instance, "computer" is expressed as "tölva," which combines "tala" (number), "völva" (seeress), "sími" (telephone), and a disused word for "thread." Icelandic has had an impact on English, contributing the "th" sound in words like "three" and "thought." However, Icelandic grammar is difficult for English speakers to master, and fluency requires immersion in the Icelandic language.
Polish
After Russian, Polish is the second most spoken Slavic language; however, it is considered a long-tail language when it comes to translation work. Its alphabet is more familiar, but its gender system is complicated and it has a free word order. Unlike English, which has a subject + verb + object sentence structure, Polish does not follow a set rule for sentence structure, making it difficult to identify who is doing what. For instance, the sentence "I fed the cat this morning" can be translated in Polish to "I fed this morning the cat" or "This morning the cat I fed." The latter sentence might confuse an English speaker about who was fed to whom.
Additionally, Polish retains the old Slavic system of cases, with seven cases for nouns, pronouns, and adjectives. Polish words change depending on the context, unlike English. Lastly, even though Polish words are pronounced as they are written, it is challenging to articulate all the different sounds in Polish pronunciation because of the abundance of consonant clusters.
What is the Most Hardest Language to Learn?
It is intriguing that the most widely spoken native language in the world is also the most challenging to learn. Mandarin Chinese poses several difficulties for learners. Foremost among them is the writing system, which is considerably more complex than the Latin alphabet familiar to English speakers and others. Those studying Mandarin must commit to memory thousands of special characters, which are entirely distinct from those used in Latin-based languages.
Apart from the writing system, there are other challenging aspects to mastering Mandarin. For example, the tonal nature of the language makes speaking it quite difficult. Mandarin is just one of several Chinese dialects, including Cantonese, which is prevalent in southeastern China, Hong Kong, and other parts of Southeast Asia. These dialects have distinct written characters and pronunciations, and they are similarly arduous to learn. Mandarin has four tones, so each word can be pronounced in four different ways, and each pronunciation carries a different meaning. For instance, the word "ma" can signify "mother," "horse," "rough," or "scold," depending on the tone used.
Top 10 Hardest Languages to Learn - FAQs
These languages are considered the hardest to learn due to their complex grammar rules, unique writing systems, and unfamiliar sounds, tones, and pronunciations that are different from English. They also have a large volume of characters to be mastered and can be challenging for English speakers to understand.
Mandarin is a tonal language, which means that each sound in its phonetic transcription system has four distinct pronunciations and meanings. It is also rich in homophones, making it confusing for English learners, and it has a complex system of idioms and aphorisms developed over centuries of poetry, politics, war, ceremony, and religion.
Arabic has over 25 distinct dialects, and most Arabic letters are written in four different forms, depending on whether they are placed at the beginning, middle, or end of a word, or as a stand-alone letter. Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) is used for formal writing and speeches across all Arabic-speaking countries, while Arabic dialects are spoken for everyday conversation.
Japanese has three independent writing systems, two tenses, and a large volume of characters that must be mastered before learning to write.
Hungarian uses over 18 case suffixes instead of relying on word order, dictating tense and possession, making mastering the grammar crucial.