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1. Arabic<\/h2>\n
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Arabic is considered a Category IV language, which is the highest language difficulty. The estimate is you need 2,200 class hours (or 88 weeks) to become proficient in it.<\/p>\n
The most obvious way Arabic differs from English is the alphabet. Arabic uses a right-to-left cursive script that draws on 28 letters<\/a>. Additionally, vowels in written Arabic are often written as small marks above and below words (rather than separate letters!) or even omitted entirely<\/strong>, so readers have to rely on their knowledge of the language to fill in the gaps between consonants.<\/p>\n However, because of the limited number of letters used in the Arabic alphabet, English speakers can develop an intuitive sense of Arabic writing fairly quickly.<\/p>\n Arabic grammar is an involved process, with many surprising inflections and rules<\/strong>. For example:<\/p>\n Thanks to these kinds of grammatical quirks in combination with the writing system, learning Arabic can be a mind-bending experience for English speakers. For another perspective on what makes Arabic interesting for English speakers to learn, check out this article<\/a> from Slate<\/em>.<\/p>\n Like Arabic, Chinese uses a writing system unfamiliar for English speakers. Unlike Arabic, Chinese doesn’t have an alphabet. Instead, written Chinese is comprised of one-syllable characters, and every Chinese word is either its own character or a combination of characters. As a result, learning Chinese means internalizing the thousands of different characters<\/a> that make up the language<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Tones also play a crucial role in Chinese, and words that differ only in terms of intonation can have radically different meanings<\/strong>. Mandarin Chinese has four tones<\/a> (some varieties of Chinese use more).<\/p>\n That said, Chinese grammar<\/a> is actually fairly simple for English speakers to pick up. For starters, Chinese’s subject-verb-object word order will feel familiar to English speakers. More importantly, Chinese is pretty much the polar opposite of Arabic as far as inflection goes: Whereas Arabic is highly inflected, Chinese is minimally inflected.<\/p>\n So no need to worry about gender or verb conjugation when learning Chinese. For that matter, no need to worry even about singular vs. plural or tense. These aspects of the language are communicated using word order and context rather than inflection in Chinese.<\/p>\n The writing system used in Japanese is based on kanji<\/a>, which are characters adopted from Chinese<\/strong>. Therefore, individual characters tend to be similar in both appearance and meaning from Japanese to Chinese, although some differences have arisen over time.<\/p>\n Beyond kanji, Japanese also uses sets of characters called kana that are used to write grammatical markers, foreign words and other words with no kanji representation. Kana itself breaks down into different classes of characters\u2014so at the end of the day, Japanese writing is an amalgamation of several different scripts<\/a>.<\/p>\n Japanese writing isn’t the only brain-stretching aspect of the language for native English speakers. Japanese grammar<\/a> generally takes more time for English speakers to get down because it has less in common with English<\/strong>. For example, the verb goes after the object in Japanese sentences, and Japanese uses postpositions instead of prepositions.<\/p>\n According to some, these features may actually make Japanese the hardest language for native English speakers to learn.<\/p>\n For the last hundred years or so, written Korean has primarily used Hangul<\/a>, an alphabet consisting of 24 letters. By itself, Hangul is the easiest for English speakers to learn compared to the writing systems in Arabic, Japanese and Chinese.\u00a0<\/p>\n However, lurking in the background in written Korean is Hanja<\/a>, the Korean equivalent of Japanese kanji. Hanja, which isn’t based on an alphabet but on borrowed Chinese characters, was the main form of written Korean until the 20th century, and it’s still used in some situations today\u2014for example, to differentiate words with the same hangul spelling.<\/p>\n Korean grammar<\/a> is similar to Japanese grammar (verb goes after the object, for instance) but a little more complicated<\/strong>. For example, Korean has more particles<\/a>. Korean also uses more sounds<\/a> than Japanese, many of them sounds that English speakers aren’t accustomed to.<\/p>\n Both Korean and Japanese are also steeped in complex social etiquette<\/strong> that requires English speakers to adjust their mindset a little. In both languages, there are several different degrees of politeness<\/a> you can use.<\/p>\n Another difficult language for native English speakers is Pashto, spoken in Afghanistan and Pakistan.<\/p>\n English speakers find Pashto hard for reasons similar to why they find Arabic hard. First, the Pashto alphabet<\/a> is related to the Arabic alphabet<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Maybe more significantly, Pashto is a highly inflected language, so learning Pashto means becoming immersed in a world of complex grammatical peculiarities<\/strong>. For instance, which nouns agree with which verbs in Pashto depends on tense.<\/p>\n You might recall that some languages like Japanese tend to use postpositions rather than prepositions. Well, Pashto uses postpositions, prepositions and something called ambipositions<\/em>\u2014words that fit around nouns like sandwiches.<\/p>\n For a taste of Pashto, check out this website<\/a>.<\/p>\n After Mandarin Chinese, Cantonese<\/a> is the second-most spoken language in Chinese-speaking regions. It\u2019s primarily used in the southeast areas, such as Guangdong, Macau and Hong Kong.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Cantonese is sometimes labeled as a Chinese dialect, but linguistically it\u2019s argued that it\u2019s its own language: exclusively Mandarin Chinese speakers wouldn\u2019t fully understand exclusively Cantonese speakers (and vice versa). A \u201cchicken talking to a duck\u201d is a common Cantonese saying to refer to this.<\/span><\/p>\n Cantonese is considered to have six or nine tones<\/a><\/strong>, compared to Mandarin Chinese\u2019s four. This already makes it significantly more difficult for many learners, even for Mandarin Chinese speakers. It\u2019s widely believed that Cantonese pronunciation is regarded as the hardest thing for learners to master.<\/span><\/p>\n There\u2019s also a distinction in how written Cantonese is used. While modern-day Mandarin Chinese primarily uses the simplified writing system, Cantonese can be written in two ways: in a specified Cantonese-friendly system (known as <\/span>jyutping<\/span><\/i>), or in a more standard Chinese system that can be somewhat understood by Mandarin speakers. It\u2019s necessary to learn both, as each one is used in different contexts.<\/span><\/p>\n Cantonese grammar is actually quite straightforward. It doesn\u2019t include tenses or conjugations. Like Mandarin Chinese, basic Cantonese sentences follow the Subject-Verb-Object order. However, unlike in Mandarin, Cantonese tends to position adverbs after the verb and indirect objects after the direct objects.<\/span><\/p>\n Many agree that Cantonese is overall harder to learn than Mandarin Chinese<\/strong>, especially if one has no prior knowledge of the Chinese language.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The first issue that English speakers will likely have with Greek is its <\/span>devious alphabet<\/span><\/a>. A few letters certainly look like English ones, but they definitely don\u2019t represent the same phoneme<\/strong>. For example, the German letter H is known as \u201ceta\u201d and can be written as \u0397\/\u03b7.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Basic Greek grammar isn\u2019t actually too far off from English\u2019s. It has a similar sentence structure of Subject-Verb-Object, but there isn\u2019t much restriction regarding this order, which can be tricky business. Understanding verbs and their specific functions in sentences can come as a veritable challenge. <\/span><\/p>\n Greek verb conjugations can be a big hassle<\/strong>, since there are many notable irregularities to account for.<\/span><\/p>\n Greek nouns also come with gendered articles (masculine, feminine or neuter), which are modified based on the sentence case. However, a Greek adjective is also \u201cgendered\u201d based on the noun it modifies.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n On the flip side, English speakers can appreciate that they may have a leg up in decoding a good bunch of Greek vocabulary, as plenty of English vocabulary has Greek roots.<\/span><\/p>\n The most widely-spoken member of the <\/span>Slavic language<\/span><\/a> family, Russian comes with its many uses and obstacles for learners.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Russian uses the <\/span>Cyrillic script<\/span><\/a> for writing purposes. This system was derived from the Greek alphabet (which, as stated earlier, can be head-spinning). <\/span><\/p>\n The alphabet consists of 33 letters which are phonetic in nature and, technically speaking, aren\u2019t very difficult to write out. Still, learners can be intimidated by the unfamiliar characters, some of which can look similar to each other.<\/span><\/p>\n A unique challenge to Russian consonants is the usage of either a \u201csoft\u201d pronunciation or \u201chard\u201d pronunciation<\/a><\/strong>. These are determined by the vowel following the consonant. Distinguishing between the two can be difficult, particularly in spoken conversation.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Russian grammar is also complex<\/strong>. Russian nouns are designated with one of three \u201cgendered\u201d articles (masculine, feminine or neuter), and there isn\u2019t an exact strategy to figure out which noun has which article.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Sentence structures also don\u2019t follow any standard order\u2013you can shuffle around words in a given Russian sentence and still come upon the same meaning. This aspect may seem convenient, but the caveat is that it also demands knowledge of how the words themselves must be modified to indicate concepts such as tense or case<\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n The Russian language does so via inflection. Most Russian words can undergo inflection, which means that there is more to learn in regards to conjugation.<\/span><\/p>\n Written Turkish luckily uses the same Latin script as English (with only a few extra letters). Letters are phonetic, so what you read is what you say. There aren\u2019t any gendered articles to worry about either, and there are less pronouns to memorize.<\/span><\/p>\n However, several grammatical differences do make the language a bit of a head-scratcher.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Firstly, Turkish sentences typically follow a Subject-Object-Verb order<\/strong>\u2014verbs are always last in a sentence. This is a consistent rule, but it can be a common initial trip-up for English speakers.<\/span><\/p>\n Moreover, the language is considered an <\/span>agglutinative language<\/a><\/strong>: words can take on new meanings when given affixes to their roots.<\/strong> The affixes aren\u2019t necessarily arbitrary either, due to another unique concept known as vowel harmony. Vowel harmony dictates that the beginning and end of words must follow certain vowel patterns.<\/span><\/p>\n These two concepts in particular make Turkish a unique challenge for English speakers.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n While difficult, it\u2019s also agreed that Turkish is overall a systematic and \u201cefficient\u201d language. In other words – there aren\u2019t so many linguistic twists and turns, and once you learn the rules, consistent practice can help take you the rest of the way to fluency.<\/span><\/p>\n Farsi, also known as Persian, is an Indo-European language used primarily in Iran. The rules of Farsi haven\u2019t actually changed much over its long history, but that doesn\u2019t mean they\u2019re readily easy to grasp for modern language learners.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n First things first: the Farsi script is certainly very different from the Latin alphabet<\/strong>. Related to the Arabic script, the beautiful but intricate way in which Farsi characters appear demands a critical eye and careful hand. Like Arabic, words are also written from right to left, which can be hard to get accustomed to.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Grammar does have a few advantages. Farsi possesses little to no irregular verbs, genders or adjective inflection. Learners do have to get used to the basic Subject-Object-Verb order, but the process of making sentences in Farsi is a reasonably regular, predictable experience.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s also important to note that Farsi is a diglossic language. This means that there are essentially \u201ctwo versions\u201d in which it\u2019s spoken: a more formal, \u201cby the book\u201d variation, and a more informal colloquial version.<\/strong> <\/span><\/p>\n The differences between them aren\u2019t as simple as the contrast between formal and informal English. Learners must learn both Farsi variations<\/a>, but also know the correct contexts in which to use them.<\/span><\/p>\n Both Hindi and English are the two official languages of India, but for an English speaker, learning Hindi can be a difficult endeavor on nearly every front.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The standard written script, Devanagari<\/a><\/strong>, is composed of 46 letters in total<\/strong>. Besides the staggering number of characters and the intricate manner in which they\u2019re written, learners must also recognize that each consonant also automatically comes with a vowel sound. Thankfully, the letters are phonetic, so there aren\u2019t too many confusing enunciation rules.<\/span><\/p>\n But the usage of diacritics can make spelling and pronunciation quite nuanced. A single diacritic can completely change the meaning of a word.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Grammar is also, unfortunately, a sophisticated concept. For one, verb (and even adjective) conjugation is gender-specific. Masculine nouns follow a different conjugation pattern to feminine nouns.<\/span><\/p>\n All of these obstacles are further heightened by how Hindi is an incredibly diverse language. There are nearly 48 dialects, and they can have variations in vocabulary, pronunciation and even grammar<\/strong>. Learners should be aware of which dialect they\u2019re focusing on.<\/span><\/p>\n Again, those with experience in Arabic languages have some advantage when learning Hindi, as the two share some similarities.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Polish, like Russian, is also a Slavic language. However, there are a number of key differences that can come as either a boon or bane for English speakers.<\/span><\/p>\n Thankfully, the Polish alphabet is based on Latin script. Besides some diacritically-marked letters and a few stand-out phonemes, the alphabet itself shouldn\u2019t be too hard to grasp. It also helps that a lot of Polish vocabulary has Latin roots, so it\u2019s easy for an English speaker to tell what they mean.<\/span><\/p>\n The challenge, however, is Polish has a strong emphasis on consonant sounds<\/strong>\u2013whereas in English, any consonant must be followed by a vowel, Polish can have multiple consonants<\/a> all together, which complicates both spelling and pronunciation.<\/span><\/p>\n The very basics of Polish sentence structure does follow a Subject-Verb-Object order, but similar to Russian, there isn\u2019t much regulation. Words are shuffled around to emphasize certain parts of a sentence\u2013even a verb can be dropped into the very beginning of a sentence. This can complicate the process of forming and decrypting longer sentences.<\/span><\/p>\n Polish grammar isn\u2019t a walk in the park either. There are three main genders, but the masculine gender includes subcategories. There\u2019s also a total of seven cases (compared to English\u2019s three).<\/strong> <\/span><\/p>\n One saving grace is that there are only three tenses in Polish: present, past and future.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Are some languages actually that much harder to learn, though?<\/p>\n Technically, the answer is no. All languages are evolved to be as easy to learn as possible, and there’s nothing that makes any one language inherently more difficult to learn than another.<\/p>\n However, learning a second language is a little different than learning your first language.<\/p>\n When it comes to learning a foreign language, how hard a language is to learn depends mostly on how different it is from the language or languages you’re already fluent in<\/strong>. Some languages will differ more from your native language in terms of syntax, word order, writing system, vocabulary and so on.<\/p>\n Still, when we say these languages are “harder” to learn, all we really mean is that they take longer to learn<\/strong>. You have to figure out how to\u00a0memorize more stuff, and you might have to spend more time listening to internalize the flow of the language.<\/p>\n But words are still words and grammar is still grammar. It’s about determining your “why” to learn specific languages so you don’t get stuck on the “difficulty” of acquiring them.<\/p>\n It’s the same way celebrities seem to easily pick up languages, being motivated by their careers and the love of cultures they get exposed to as they’re traveling the world. Shakira and Alicia Vikander are just a couple of multilingual A-listers out there, as outlined in the FluentU YouTube video<\/a> below:<\/p>\n With a good plan and a good\u00a0language learning method<\/a>, you’ll still prevail.<\/p>\n Not sure where to start? You can try an immersive language program such as FluentU<\/a>, which tackles many of these languages\u2013including Mandarin, Japanese, Korean and Russian. FluentU<\/strong> takes authentic videos\u2014like music videos, movie trailers, news and inspiring talks\u2014and turns them into personalized language learning lessons.<\/p>\r\n <\/p>\r\n You can try FluentU for free for 2 weeks. Check out the website or download the iOS app<\/a> or Android app.<\/a><\/p>\r\n\n
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2. Mandarin Chinese<\/a><\/h2>\n
![\"chinese](\"https:\/\/www.fluentu.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/chinese-vocabulary-builder-1.jpg\")
<\/p>\n3. Japanese<\/a><\/h2>\n
![\"collection](\"https:\/\/www.fluentu.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/plural-in-japanese.jpg\")
<\/p>\n4. Korean<\/a><\/h2>\n
![\"night](\"https:\/\/www.fluentu.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/pexels-yong-seok-yoon-4721691-1024x599.jpg\")
<\/p>\n5. Pashto<\/h2>\n
6. Cantonese\u00a0<\/b><\/h2>\n
![\"street](\"https:\/\/www.fluentu.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/pexels-arnie-chou-927485-1024x684.jpg\")
<\/p>\n7. Greek<\/b><\/h2>\n
![\"street](\"https:\/\/www.fluentu.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/carlos-torres-ZUFSrwCl_Lk-unsplash-1024x683.jpg\")
<\/p>\n8. Russian<\/b><\/a><\/h2>\n
![\"using](\"https:\/\/www.fluentu.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/yandex.jpg\")
<\/p>\n9. Turkish<\/b><\/h2>\n
![\"magazine](\"https:\/\/www.fluentu.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/pexels-the-cactusena-18936417-1024x576.jpg\")
<\/p>\n10. Farsi<\/b><\/h2>\n
![\"text](\"https:\/\/www.fluentu.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/amin-moshrefi-aqUf4BhR0gk-unsplash.jpg\")
<\/p>\n11. Hindi<\/b><\/h2>\n
![\"street](\"https:\/\/www.fluentu.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/pexels-julia-volk-5205652-1024x683.jpg\")
<\/p>\n12. Polish<\/b><\/h2>\n
![\"polish](\"https:\/\/www.fluentu.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/kasia-derenda-UvHuS-XfhxY-unsplash-1024x682.jpg\")
<\/p>\nAre Some Languages Really Harder to Learn?<\/h2>\n
![\"FluentU](\"https:\/\/www.fluentu.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/try-fluentu-for-free.jpg\")
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