Did you know that there are more than 6,909 languages spoken in the world? Some of them, however, are easier to learn than others.
With so many to choose from, these are just a few of the hardest languages to learn.
If you think that learning English as a second language is tough, keep in mind that there are many that are much tougher.
We’ve compiled a list of the hardest languages to learn for you to check out. Discover more below!
1. Mandarin
Mandarin is the most spoken language in the entire world. But many people find it to be one of the hardest languages to grasp. Here’s why.
Mandarin is a tonal language. This means that every sound has four distinct pronunciations. This is part of their phonetic system called Pinyin. For each sound you include, you have to make sure you pronounce it in the correct way.
It’s also a language full of homophones and idioms. Since it has been around for such a long time, it has picked up a lot of things over its rich history.
2. Icelandic
Icelandic definitely isn’t the hardest language in the world, but it’s up there. Only 400,000 people speak it and they all live on one island.
This means that it’s full of its own quirks and oddities that have developed over the years. The good news, though, is that the core of the language has stayed the same since the country was settled in the 9th century.
One thing to keep in mind, however, is that Icelandic hasn’t adopted many foreign words. Instead, when a new concept is introduced and needs a way to be explained, a brand new word is created.
The biggest challenge with learning Icelandic is that it’s most helpful to become fluent by immersion and it’s not very often that visitors go to the country, although this is changing.
3. Hungarian
Hungarian is the official language of Hungary. You can also find it spoken in parts of Romania, Serbia, Slovakia and Ukraine. It is part of the Uralic language family.
Wondering why Hungarian is on this list? It’s because it has some of the most complex grammar rules in the world. To start, it has 26 different cases that can be used.
Additionally, the suffix of the word is what dictates possession and tense. In most European language, this is determined by word order. But in Hungarian, you have to pay special attention to each and every suffix.
4. Korean
Korean is one of the most difficult languages because it’s a language isolate. This means that it has no demonstrable relationship to other languages–it’s not related to any other tongue and it’s totally unique.
Korean is the official language of both North and South Korea and is spoken by more than 80 million people. The sentence structure of Korean is particularly unique.
For example, instead of saying “I drink juice” the sentence would read “I juice drink.” The subject is first, followed by the object and then the action. This can be tough for English speakers to grasp.
5. Another One of the Hardest Languages to Learn: Basque
Ever heard of Basque? It is the native language of the Basque area which is found in northeastern Spain and southwestern France.
Basque can be really hard to learn because it is also a language isolate. The good news is that it has a lot of similarities with the Romance languages. But the bad news is that is completely unique in the way it’s both spoken and written.
The other hard part is that there are five versions of the language, or dialects, still spoken today. Before you start learning Basque, you first have to decide which dialect you want to study.
6. Arabic
The version of Arabic spoken in the world today comes from the Classic Arabic language which emerged during the 6th century. In other words, it has a long history!
It is spoken in Africa and much of the Middle East. The tricky part is that the language can vary a lot between the different countries. The Arabic you hear in Saudi Arabia is different than what is spoken in Morocco or Egypt.
So while you can learn how to read and write Arabic in a classroom or through your own personal study, it is quite difficult to actually speak it because of the various dialects.
Another interesting fact about Arabic is that most letters have 4 different forms. They change depending on their placement in a word.
On top of all of that, vowels also aren’t included in writing. This makes translation a super hard task.
7. Japanese
Japanese is spoken by more than 125 million people throughout the world. It can be hard to learn though because it comes from the Japonic language family. This means it is related to Chinese, making it one of the hardest languages to learn in the world.
One of the most difficult parts of learning Japanese has to do with their character system. It’s much harder than the average character-based writing system because you need to know thousands of different characters before being able to write well.
It’s also complicated because there are 3 distinct writing systems–hiragana, katakana, and kanji. These all have their own alphabet.
8. Navajo
Navajo is a Southern Athabaskan language that is spoken by Native American tribes in the southwestern United States. There are around 120,000 to 170,000 speakers currently.
Navajo is a unique language and is very difficult to translate into English. This is because it’s verb-centered. Descriptions of things are usually communicated through verbs, which means the majority of adjectives in English or other languages do not translate into Navajo at all.
It’s also unique in its pronunciation. There are multiple sounds in Navajo that do not exist in English. This can make speaking it quite complicated.
Keep in mind that it’s not related to Germanic or Latin languages. However, there are written versions of Navajo that were created starting in the 1930s that use a Latin-based alphabet.
Final Thoughts
Well there you have it: a list of the hardest languages to learn!
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