Many examples! Where its most commonly spoken: Albania, Kosovo. Nouns have 15 different cases, while in English, they have only three: subjective, objective, possessive. What's New at RussianLessons.Net. These languages also have grammar rules that are absent from Mandarin, including noun cases, noun gender, and verb tenses. The Slavic languages are also known for their complicated consonant clusters. A lot of the sounds in the language are difficult for English speakers to master, and the grammar is packed with irregular verbs. The term "Slavic" is a catch-all adjective for all languages in the group, and it is typically used to describe anything common to all or most Slavic languages. Yeah. Like a pack of wolves or a tank of gas, books in Mandarin requires the word bn to indicate a unit of five books. Pronunciation makes Danish one of the most difficult languages to learn. And switching to Ukrainian is one way to fight back. Do Not Sell My Information | 7 Hardest Languages to Learn For English Speakers - LifeHack The verb carries the most weight in Turkish. 10 Most Difficult Languages in the World! | Leverage Edu In this post, well take a look at the easiest and hardest languages to learn, the factors that determine language difficulty, and a complete ranking of the worlds most widely spoken languagesincluding how long it takes to learn each language. Take a look at the word suka. If you emphasize the first syllable ("SU-ka"), then youre saying "vomit." The script is almost entirely phonetic, which means that once you pick up the pronunciation of the letters, you can quickly begin reading fluently. And the alphabet's a breeze, assuming you can read Russian. Modern Greek is maybe the easiest language to learn that uses a different alphabet. Being able to judge how hard a language will be to learn aids you in a few ways. Where its most commonly spoken: Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, Kazakhstan, Russian can be difficult for English speakers due to the confusing pronunciation. The language requires the memorization of thousands of special characters. There are also Bulgarian speakers in some of the neighboring countries. Among the most challenging aspects of learning Japanese is the writing system, which contains tens of thousands of characters referred to as kanji.. 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. While practicing with language learning apps is useful, chatting with Spanish native speakers is crucial if you want to improve your language skills. Agreements | We would like to show you a description here but the site won't allow us. This is an existential war and language is a part of the identity, she said. document.addEventListener( 'DOMContentLoaded', function() { The best time to start learning a language is today. } Where its most commonly spoken: Iran, Afghanistan. Conversely, languages that are completely unrelated to your language will be more challenging and take longer to master. The tonal language also has four tones, so one word can be pronounced four different ways, while each pronunciation has a different meaning. 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. It has an incredible 14 noun cases and grammar packed with exceptions. It's highly similar to Slovak - Czech and Slovak are mutually intelligible - and slightly similar to Polish. These languages, which include Vietnamese and Mandarin, require correct pronunciation and inflection to create meaning for each word. She is a polyglot and a digital nomad. Benefits of Chatting with Native Spanish Speakers. So many of the words sound very similar to each other. What are the hardest languages to learn for English speakers? Despite the fact that Greek roots are found throughout the English language, Greek is among the hardest languages for English speakers to learn, according to . 15 of the Hardest Languages for English Speakers to Learn - Berlitz 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. It has six declension cases, which dont exist in English and can be challenging for English speakers to comprehend. Certainly, the most intriguing, yet difficult, aspect of learning Georgian is that it has its own writing system, and many of the letters used look incredibly similar. When we talk about linguistic distance, were referring to the fundamental differences between languages and how or where theyve evolved from. First, vowels are not included when writing. Another doozy is the 17 different cases for numbers, meaning there are 17 different ways to say one number. Tarasuik disagrees, but says Russia has unintentionally reversed decades of Russification. 10 Hardest Languages to Learn for English Speakers This list captures languages spoken by the majority of the worlds population. The ability to speak multiple languages puts you steps ahead of singular speakers. Where its most commonly spoken: Arabian Peninsula, the Middle East, North Africa. Category II Languages. Some of these pronunciations, such as the Russian letter which requires the speaker to make a rolling r sound, dont exist in Mandarin. There are plenty of resources that can tell you the hardest languages to learn if you speak English. What if youre starting from one of the other thousands of languages on Earth, though? Outside the home, Oleksandr and Natasha try to talk in Ukrainian, but when the door closes behind them, sticking to it is still difficult. So far, she has traveled to 28 countries and lived in 4. For instance, the Polish word for happiness is szcezcie, featuring Polish digraphs (sz, cz) and a nasal E sound. 1. For example: The longest word in Hungarian, megszentsgtelenthetetlensgeskedseitekrt, means for your [plural] continued behavior as if you could not be desecrated in English. Thats mainly due to their complex grammatical structure and difficult pronunciation. chrzszcz or 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. Russian is the most widely spoken Slavic language, with 155 million native Russian speakers. Spanish is one of the easiest languages to learn, so it's logical why it is the second-largest language worldwide.. 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.