A 2010 study that looked at immigrants to the Netherlands who were learning Dutch found that people who spoke languages with a lot of Dutch cognates such as Swedish, German, and Danish did better on a Dutch language exam compared to people who spoke languages with few Dutch cognates, such as French and Greek. Russian. Russian is one of the most famous European languages with over 150 million speakers across the world. 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. Also, like other Slavic languages, Russian distinguishes three genders: male, female, and neuter. In addition, because Mandarin is the simplified version of Cantonese and is widely used across mainland China, there simply aren't as many resources for learning Cantonese. These languages, which include Vietnamese and Mandarin, require correct pronunciation and inflection to create meaning for each word. Gabe Wood is a writer for Rosetta Stone and other websites in the IXL family of brands. These are the HARDEST LANGUAGES to learn ranked by the time it takes to be FLUENT in them! Whenever you think of Slavic languages, the first language that comes to your mind is probably Russian. 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. A very serious shift has occurred in the consciousness of many people, said Zahalskyy, a landlord who used to own a pharmacy business. You can see this illustrated with some simple sentences centered around the Finnish word for house, talo.. Bestlifeonline.com is part of the Dotdash Meredith Publishing Family. Where its most commonly spoken: India, Fiji, Pakistan. What's New at RussianLessons.Net. The most obvious impediment to learning Greek is the alphabet. Trying to learn a language that uses different grammar rules could mean retraining your brain to think of words and sentences in brand new ways. Ferlain, who asked Al Jazeera to use her callsign, speaks Ukrainian as her first language. 5 Hardest Languages for English Speakers to LearnRanked! It takes approximately 36 weeks (900 hours of practice) to reach professional working proficiency in these languages. Indeed, Slavic languages (unlike Romance languages) often appear on the lists of the hardest languages to learn. If you have ever heard a Russian person speak English, you might have spotted this mistake: "I put the pizza in oven". Dark red (Category V*): On the map, this category only includes Japanese. Languages that don't use a Latin script, though, tend to give Mandarin speakers the most trouble. What Is the Hardest Language to Learn for Non-English Speakers? 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. 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. 10 Most Difficult Languages in the World! | Leverage Edu While practicing with language learning apps is useful, chatting with Spanish native speakers is crucial if you want to improve your language skills. The grammar is also loaded with exceptions that require a ton of practice. Includes lists of 100 common names. Afrikaans is a beautiful language that is surprisingly easy to learn for native English speakers. Is Russian Hard To Learn? - Language Tsar What Are the Hardest Languages to Learn? | Dive into Language - WordDive It has an incredible 14 noun cases and grammar packed with exceptions. By Theo Ioannou. To help you understand what you're getting into, we've compiled this list of the hardest languages to learn. Additionally, some languages such as Mandarin, Thai, and Punjabi are tonal languages, where tone and pronunciation work together to communicate meaning. Without a doubt, Finnish is one of the most difficult languages for English speakers. Although not easy at all, Bulgarian and Macedonian are often considered the easiest Slavic languages to learn for English speakers. brzcze. All of our peers in this apartment complex, they are all above 60. 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. But, said Arel, the legislation affected education as it essentially eliminates Russian from high schools. What if youre starting from one of the other thousands of languages on Earth, though? New: Russian Names - Learn the history of Russian names. We researched the top 5 most widely spoken non-English languages to see which languages are the hardest for their speakers to learn. Russian. For instance, the Polish word for happiness is szcezcie, featuring Polish digraphs (sz, cz) and a nasal E sound. 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. 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. 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 Hardest Languages in the World to Learn Best Life if( navigator.sendBeacon ) { The script is almost entirely phonetic, which means that once you pick up the pronunciation of the letters, you can quickly begin reading fluently. Most Difficult Language To Learn - LearnAdvice.net 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. 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. This is a question you can resolve with some degree of certainty when talking about a single language. Hungarian is an agglutinative language. Even more intimidating is that each of these cases has plural forms to consider! 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. The Hardest Languages to Learn for English Speakers First, it helps you determine how much of a challenge youre up for in your language journey. 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. 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. Which languages are easiest for native English speakers to learn? | CNN There are a lot of sounds that simply aren't present in the English language and require a lot of practice to master. Thats German for ice skating. German is often preceded by its hard-to-master accent and enthusiastically long vocabulary. Great job defending the Russian language and Russian speakers, Putin! 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. Or Thai, which contains an alphabet comprised of a staggering 44 consonants and 32 different vowels? The term hard language refers to their complexity. Experts say these things bring unlucky energy. Grammatically, verbs often come before the subject, while there are many dual forms of words in addition to the singular and plural forms. 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. Lets take a look at them in more detail. There are plenty of resources that can tell you the hardest languages to learn if you speak English. 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. One of the most intriguing aspects is that emphasis can completely change the meaning of certain words. Editor's note: You can use our free language tool to make your own vocabulary lists, and record your own phrases. } else { Brilliant planning there, mate. Korean uses an alphabet, but unlike Spanish or French, its letters combine to form syllabic blocks. The 28 Easiest and Hardest Languages to Learn for English Speakers 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. In Polish, words are loaded with consonants which makes them difficult to spell and pronounce, for example, szczcie means "happiness" and bezwzgldny means "ruthless.". It took me a while to start speaking naturally without feeling any pressure.. Mandarin Chinese is challenging for a number of reasons. This is the result of it being an agglutinative language, in which prefixes and suffixes are attached to words to determine meaning and direction. In terms of grammar, the main feature that makes this language easier to learn than other Slavic languages is the lack of noun cases. New: Lesson 18 - Russian Homes and Apartments - Learn all the words needed around the house. Chinese. So far, she has traveled to 28 countries and lived in 4. And for words you should cut out of your vocabulary right this second, check out Stop Using These Phrases to Sound Instantly Smarter. Another difficult language is Russian. English is taught in Chinese schools, so most Mandarin speakers are familiar with English and the Latin script that makes up the English alphabet. But did you know that there are more than 10 different Slavic languages? Furthermore, it requires learning the Greek alphabet, which is not a requirement for the majority of European languages. Hardly. 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. These endings are used to express the same things propositions do in English. A languages grammar also determines the order of words in sentences. chrzszcz or 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. Moscow paints Kyivs language policies as oppressive as Russian officials claim they are liberating Russian speakers from the Ukrainian project. 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 . Conversely, languages that are completely unrelated to your language will be more challenging and take longer to master. But to translate that same statement into Mandarin, youll need a measure word. 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. 12 Easiest & Hardest Languages to Learn for English Speakers Greek Among Hardest Languages for English Speakers to Learn Arabic speakers find Russian grammar complicated because it has a large number of unfamiliar rules and a ton of exceptions to those rules. Number of native speakers: 221 million. The main problem lies in the writing system. A language tends to come out politically as the language of modernity. So many of the words sound very similar to each other. } Agreements | 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. Human speech as a whole uses over 800 phonemes, which are the individual sounds that act as the building blocks of spoken language. Mandarin and Japanese are liable to give Hindi speakers a lot of trouble, in large part because they both involve learning completely new systems of writing. In contrast to English, Czech is a synthetic language. The pronunciation is what will get you. Because youre already familiar with the alphabet, you have an understanding of characters and most letter sounds. Some friends in Central Asia are also trying to avoid it. It has 7 declension cases for nouns, adjectives, and pronouns. 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. Where its most commonly spoken: Hungary, Romania, Slovakia. Born in 1960 in what was then the Soviet Union, Zahalskyy hails from the largely Russian-speaking Ukrainian city of Kherson. Unusual grammar, difficult pronunciation, and six different tones make Vietnamese a challenge for English speakers. Another doozy is the 17 different cases for numbers, meaning there are 17 different ways to say one number. These are "super-hard languages" that are "exceptionally difficult for native English speakers" to learn, including Arabic, Cantonese, Mandarin, and Korean. Grammar can be a tricky one, even in your native language.

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