It is pretty foreign to English speakers, but if you speak Japanese, Korean, or Finnish (which are all also on this list), you won't have such a hard time grasping it. The main phonetic similarity between all Slavic languages is the presence of phonemic palatalization, known as softening. It's incredibly helpful for learning pronunciation, and can enable you to read some written . . The silent D, can really throw learners for a loop, with the DD in jeg hedder sounding more like an L. Along with finding places to use Gaelic (theres a major drop in usage in Ireland, never mind globally), the language also has many grammatical cases and dialects that prove hard to pick up. And in the territories Moscow has occupied since 2014, it has swiftly moved to restore the primacy of Russian culture and language. 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. 12 Easiest & Hardest Languages to Learn for English Speakers Also, some of its letters are tricky to pronounce, and Korean has its own version of honorific speech that requires specific forms of words depending on social context. Each Slavic language developed under the influence of others, which makes them all slightly similar. Russian Language Lessons - Learn Russian For Free And the alphabet's a breeze, assuming you can read Russian. According to the first census conducted in Ukraine in 2001, about 14.3 million Ukrainian people, or 29 percent of the population, spoke Russian as a first language. The verb carries the most weight in Turkish. The letter b sounds like v, and the letter h sounds like n.. They are very closely related to English, so many of the same grammar rules and similar vocabulary apply. 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. Because youre already familiar with the alphabet, you have an understanding of characters and most letter sounds. What is the hardest language to learn? - zmescience.com For example, , , , , , , , and are all different letters that you might have a hard time distinguishing between if you're new to the game. For English-speaking students, the hardest foreign languages to learn include Arabic, Cantonese, Mandarin, Japanese, and Korean. 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. Czech and Polish are often considered the most difficult Slavic languages to learn for English speakers. Just as learning Arabic is hard for Mandarin speakers, learning Mandarin is hard for Arabic speakers. Russian is the most widely spoken Slavic language, with 155 million native Russian speakers. Privacy Policy | It's frequently listed as one of the more difficult languages to learn for English speakers. The four key ways that determine language learning difficulty are: Languages can be grouped into language families based on how they developed and common ancestor languages. Thats because its the most widely spoken one of all Slavic languages. The pronunciation is also pretty challenging for native English speakers. The Hardest Languages to Learn in the World - WorldAtlas Editor's note: You can use our free language tool to make your own vocabulary lists, and record your own phrases. 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. In contrast to the similarities between the Romance languages listed above, German and Mandarintwo languages of different families with entirely unique writing systemscouldnt be more linguistically distant. 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. Linguistic distance is a measure of how related one language is to another language. Other troops might keep speaking Russian to keep a grasp on the language of the enemy, especially if they are working in reconnaissance, Ferlain said. It has Dutch at its core but it is also intertwined with other dialects and indigenous languages from Africa. The transition to Ukrainian began for some in 2014, when Moscow annexed Crimea and led forces into the Donbas region, which borders Russia. Schlittschuhlaufen. Top 20 Most Difficult Languages to Learn. If you're looking for official statistics, the Defense Language Institute (where they teach members of the CIA foreign languages) has organized languages into four categories, the 1st Category being the easiest, and the 4th Category being the hardest languages to learn for English speakers. Greek Among Hardest Languages for English Speakers to Learn From Chinese sentence structure to memorizing foreign symbols, this language demands the most out of beginners. 3) The Russian language does not have articles, so you cannot make mistakes there. The sentence structure is also very different from English. Arabic is a language most Mandarin speakers will find challenging. The Foreign Service Institute is a reliable industry expert here. Belonging to the Finno-Ugric family, Estonian is a unique language that can be a challenge to learn. Finally, theres Finnish, which has a broad reputation for being a difficult language to learn. Turkish is filled with extremely long verbs. Finnish has a reputation for being a tricky language to learn, and with good reason. With over 70 years of experience teaching languages to US government employees, theyve compiled a comprehensive and widely accepted list of language rankings. Boasting a whopping 300 million speakers, Russian is one of the more popular languages globally. What's New at RussianLessons.Net. A professional translator, she now works as a cultural and language liaison for the Rubizh brigade, a part of the national armed forces engaged in fighting around Bakhmut. According to Arel, any identification with Russian culture, including the Russian language, is untenable right now. Towards the end of 2022, Ukrainian forces wrested back the city of Kherson, while most of the rest of the region remained in Russian hands. It has six tonal variations that are determined by diacritics. Take a look at the word suka. If you emphasize the first syllable ("SU-ka"), then youre saying "vomit." Mexican Spanish vs. Spain Spanish: The Must-Know Differences. But, said Arel, the legislation affected education as it essentially eliminates Russian from high schools. First, vowels are not included when writing. All of our peers in this apartment complex, they are all above 60. Whats the logic there? The Complete List of Language Difficulty Rankings You can see this illustrated with some simple sentences centered around the Finnish word for house, talo.. In 1989, for example, while about 40 percent of the Donbas population identified as ethnically Russian, more than 60 percent considered Russian as their mother tongue. On the flip side, you may be looking for a language thats as easy to learn as possible, and being able to judge which languages are most similar to your own will help you find one. The closer a language is related to yours, the easier it will be to learn. Japanese. But it's certainly a big challenge. Some languages, such as Arabic and Russian, are notoriously difficult to learn for English speakers. What Is the Hardest Language to Learn for Non-English Speakers? Languages that don't use a Latin script, though, tend to give Mandarin speakers the most trouble. In addition, Croatia is a small country with different dialects, making it difficult to grasp just one of them if youre trying to immerse yourself in the language while there. Interestingly, the hardest language to learn is also the most widely spoken native language in the world. Conversely, languages that are completely unrelated to your language will be more challenging and take longer to master. How To Learn Spanish and Chatting with Native Speakers It takes time, discipline, and a well of motivation that youll need to refill. Being able to judge how hard a language will be to learn aids you in a few ways. Which languages are easiest for native English speakers to learn? | CNN To understand it, you must recognize the pitch of a tone in relation to the context of the world and overall sentence. If you think picking up a little French or Spanish in your spare time is difficult, then you should know the kind of work you're getting into learning some other languages from around the world. Russian. Modern Greek is maybe the easiest language to learn that uses a different alphabet. It also has a different word order; In Hindi, like Japanese, the word order of basic sentences is subject-object-verb, but in Mandarin its subject-verb-object. xhr.send(payload); When we talk about linguistic distance, were referring to the fundamental differences between languages and how or where theyve evolved from. Bulgarian is a South Slavic language spoken mainly in Bulgaria. Russian grammar and phonetics would sound more familiar to you, and some Polish and Russian vocabulary is related. Arabic. One example is Thai. How to Order Food in French (with Example 102 Essential Spanish Phrases for Traveling. } Meanwhile, case endings are added to word stems as suffixes. - instead, Russians affix endings and use inflection to indicate the same kinds of tenses and action. , Matthew Kupfer (@Matthew_Kupfer) April 4, 2022. Forget carpe diem. This can be done by adding a prefix or suffix or modifying the word. The takeaway here is that the farther your native language is from the language youre learning, the more challenging you may find your new language. These languages, which include Vietnamese and Mandarin, require correct pronunciation and inflection to create meaning for each word. This is just one example of unique grammar rules that dont exist in other languages. For many, switching from Russian to the Ukrainian language is an act of resistance as the war continues to devastate lives and cities. Does she think the Russian language will eventually disappear in Ukraine? 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. These are the HARDEST LANGUAGES to learn ranked by the time it takes to be FLUENT in them! } ); Unlike most European languages, which belong to the Indo-European language family, Hungarian is a Uralic language. 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. The most often sounds like the E in women, and to the O in rope. The has no exact equivalent in most English accents. Hardest languages to learn for English speakers . Whats the hardest language to learn if English is not your first language? It's highly similar to Slovak - Czech and Slovak are mutually intelligible - and slightly similar to Polish. To begin with, the Slavic languages derive from the Proto-Slavic language - their immediate parent language. Right now, she teaches, writes, and creates content from the Dominican Republic. Chinese (Mandarin) The hardest language for English speakers to learn is Mandarin Chinese. Arabic only has three cases nominative, genitive, and accusative while Finnish has a staggering 15 cases. This is because native speakers can offer valuable insights on the nuances of the language, including slang and idiomatic expressions. A very serious shift has occurred in the consciousness of many people, said Zahalskyy, a landlord who used to own a pharmacy business. brzcze. Yeah. Though German is in the same family as English, its nuanced pronunciation gives it a higher difficulty level than other Germanic languages. Turkish is an agglutinative language, which means, in crude terms, that complex words are formed by tacking stuff on without changing the previous stuff at all. Plus, it doesnt even take that long to get used to the new alphabet, as its pretty straightforward! Gabe Wood is a writer for Rosetta Stone and other websites in the IXL family of brands. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, not everyone who spoke Russian was ethnically Russian; for some Ukrainians and other minority populations such as the Crimean Tatars, Russian was also the first language. comparison of Czech with Russian and German, The grammar, pronunciation, and general structure of a language, The alphabet (as mentioned in the article, some Slavic languages use the Cyliric alphabet, which means more things to learn). But Ukrainian society more broadly, Ferlain said, is making the switch just to pay respect for the nation. The 10 Hardest Languages to Learn for English Speakers It means that, in Czech, different grammatical aspects are condensed into one word by changing its structure. The West Slavic languages include Polish, Czech, and Slovak. Descending from the ancient South Asian language of Sanskrit, Hindi is a phonetic language, but many sounds are foreign to English speakers. There are some shared cognates such as ' ja ' which means ' yes ' and ' veld ' which means ' field '. If youre from Poland and grew up speaking Polish, though, Russian likely wouldnt be as difficult for you because it has more in common with your native language. 7 Hardest Languages to Learn For English Speakers - LifeHack The very subtle language features minute changes in sound and context as well. Mandarin, by contrast, has little to no inflection. The oldest living Indo-European language, Greek is an ancient language thats filled with complications for learners. But did you know that there are more than 10 different Slavic languages? These endings are used to express the same things propositions do in English. Hindi uses an abugida, which is different from the English alphabet and from hnz, a Chinese script that uses characters to represent entire words and concepts.