The 20 languages most difficult to learn from all over the world

Prepare to break in your mother tongue and spend a serious study time.


If you think that taking a little French or Spanish during your free time is difficult, then you need to know the type of work in which you get started Learn from other languages of the whole world. Serious about learning Hungarian? Or Navajo? Or Thai, which contains an alphabet made up of 44 amazing consonants and 32 different vowels? Then you'd better be ready to study. To help you understand what it really means to jump outside your mother tongue, we have compiled this list of languages most difficult to learn.

Read this then: 70 English idioms that will help you be understood in no time .

The most difficult languages to learn in the world

Do you know one of the languages listed below? See which have made our list of the most difficult scripts than English speakers to try.

1. Arabic

Arabic writing
Shutterstock / Colombo Nicola

Learning Arabic means learning new characters Apart from the Latin alphabet and get used to reading from right to left. Many sounds in the language are difficult to master for English speakers, and grammar is full of irregular verbs.

Even if you manage to overcome all this, it is also a language with a lot, many dialects that vary considerably. So you may be able to manage in Jordan, but find it difficult to understand the Arabic spoken in Kuwait.

2. Russian

russian book
Dropout

Russian is evaluated in difficulty in three out of four External service institute (FSI), which classifies the languages according to the duration of the duration of the average native English to learn, so it is not as difficult as some of the other languages on this list.

However, there are road roadblocks defined to commonly win Russian, among which spelling is not always simple, it is full of sounds of unknown vowel with the average English speaker, and this requires learning the Cyrillic alphabet to master.

3. Korean

Good morning written in Korean, one of the hardest languages to learn
Shutterstock / Eiko Tsuchiya

The Korean language has a Simple alphabet It does not take too long to learn, unlike the characters used in Chinese and Japanese writing systems, so that you can start to ring the words fairly quickly. But being able to speak is a completely different box of worms, thanks to grammar completely different from English and the pronunciation responsible for rules that are difficult to master.

4. Navajo

Sign for Navajo health center
Shutterstock / Underawesternsky

Navajo is difficult enough to understand that Code talers during the Second World War Used the language to develop a code to communicate that the Germans could not follow.

5. Finnish

Shutterstock / Nito

The Finn has a reputation To be a delicate language to learn, and for reason. The names have 15 different cases, while in English, they only have three: subjective, objective and possessive. The language is in the family of the Fino-Ugrical Language, so it has no Latin or German influence to help you guess what something means.

The only thing that facilitates things in relation to other European languages is that it is written as it sounds in the same alphabet as English. In theory, pronunciation is also quite simple, but it can be easy to hang on to long vowels and consonant sounds.

6. Vietnamese

Hello translated into Vietnamese on paper
Shutterstock / Keitma

Unusual grammar, difficult pronunciation and Six different tones Make Vietnamese a difficult language for English speakers. So, how long does it take to master it? Expect to spend around 1,100 hours in class to obtain speech and reading skills, according to the FSI.

7. Mongoli

Mongolian script, one of the hardest languages to learn
Shutterstock / Leah-Anne Thompson

One of the most delicate parts of learning a new language is pronunciation, and this is particularly true for Mongoli. Once you have had this, grammar is not so difficult, so long - like you Know the Finnish . And the alphabet is child's play, assuming that you can read Russian.

If you do not meet these two criteria, it is a very difficult language to master.

Read this then: The 60 most beautiful words in the English language - and how to use them .

8. Hungarian

Hungarian menu board
Shutterstock / Jorn Pilon

The Hungarian is a member of the same Family of small languages like Finnish , therefore the average English speaker will not find much familiarity with his vocabulary. It also has 18 cases and 14 vowels, which makes things to say particularly difficult.

Language rests more strongly on the idioms Let other languages, so if you have abandoned the sky with a few sentences selected to your credit, you might have the impression that everyone is talking in a secret code.

9. Thai

Pepsi sign in Thai, one of the hardest languages to learn
Shutterstock / Arliftatoz2205

It is not the grammar that will remove you when you Try to learn Thai - It is the writing and pronunciation that will do so. Remember that Thai is a tonal language, which means that different inflections have different meanings. Overall, the language contains five total tones with long and short vowel sounds. The alphabet has 44 narcotic consonants and 32 vowels.

Although this is not all bad news: the vocabulary actually contains loan words that native English speakers will not have Time difficult to identify .

10. Icelandic

Sign that says
Shutterstock / Menno Schaefer

With four cases and Three sexes attributed To their words, as well as many letters unknown to English speakers, Icelandic is not a walk in the park for language learning. Words can also be very long and decipher the way of pronouncing them can challenge intuition. It is often listed as one of the most difficult languages to learn For English speakers .

11. Estonian

Baggage airport sign in English and Estonian
Shutterstock / Julia Kuznetsova

Estonian is packed With a huge 14 case. In addition to that, consonants and vowels have three distinct lengths: short, long and too long. But the pleasure does not stop there. Grammar is also responsible for exceptions which require a ton of practice.

12. Georgian

Sign that says
Shutterstock / GTW

Georgian has his own writing system that no other language uses. And many letters seem surprisingly similar. For example, ვ, კ, პ, ჰ, ყ, ფ, გ and ც are all different letters that some may have trouble distinguishing - in particular those whose mother tongues use the Latin writing system. Pronunciation is also quite difficult for native English speakers.

13. Czech

No Admittance Czech Sign
Shutterstock / M-sur

Czech declination is its own special nightmare, but you will not even have to worry about this until you go beyond the apparently insurmountable obstacle which pronounces the words correctly. On the one hand, each letter has only one pronunciation. The other, Čtvrtek Means Thursday, and mastering how each of these sounds works together will take you a while.

It is useful if you speak another Slavic language, but otherwise, it will be a challenge.

14. Albanian

Albanian books street sale
Shutterstock / Smith371

Albanian 36 letters alphabet Should tell you that trying to master this language will be a wild ride. In addition, grammar is filled with exceptions to the rule which you will have to remember.

Read this then: Tongue twisters are so good, your mouth may never be the same .

15. Turkish

Sign reading
Shutterstock / Lucky eyes

Turkish is an agglutinating language , which means, in coarse terms, that complex words are formed by nailing things without changing the previous things. It is quite foreign to English speakers, but if you speak Japanese, Korean or Finnish (which are all also on this list), you will have no trouble grasping it. It is also a phonetic language, so pronunciation should not be too difficult.

16. Polon

Polish-English dictionary for one of the hardest languages to learn
Shutterstock / 1000 Photo words

Compared to the Finno-Ugric languages of the list (Finnish, Hungarian, Estonian), The seven cases You have to face in the Pole does not seem too intimidating. Pronunciation is what will take you. Many Polish words contain sounds that are simply not present in English and require a lot of practice to master.

17. Greek

Greek carvings at Ephesus temple
Shutterstock / Abdelsalam

Most obvious an obstacle to Greek learning is the alphabet . Its complex grammar rules can also be a little difficult to follow, with unusual conjugations, many rules and gender names. And pronunciation requires some practice because there are sounds that have no equivalent in English.

There is a reason why "it's Greek for me" is a common idiom to express its confusion, after all.

18. Mandarin

Mandarin Chinese written in notebook; one of the hardest languages to learn
Shutterstock / Danielcastromia

Mandarin Chinese is one of the few classified languages as the most difficult language to learn for English speakers by Foreign Service Institute. The alphabet is made of very elaborate characters, the The language is tonal , there are a lot of idioms, and the ability to speak the language does not help you read it. AE0FCC31AE342FD3A1346EBB1F342FCB

Knowing how to read it does not even help you learn to write it. Some characters represent syllables, while others know whole words, so it is really not for the weakness of the heart.

19. Japanese

Japanese characters on wood, representing one of the hardest languages to learn
Shutterstock / Luftikus

The first obstacle to learn Japanese is the writing system, which will not provide you with no clue unless you also talk about Chinese. The grammar seems to be very simple, but the Japanese also uses particles, which are markers for parts of speech which have no English equivalent.

20. Cantonese

Cantonese flashcard that reads
Shutterstock / Eiko Tsuchiya

The tones in mandarin make it a challenge for English speakers, but Cantonese has twice so many tones Like Mandarin - Eight in total. Due to its pictorial writing system, you will not be able to learn to read phonetically.

In addition, because Mandarin is the simplified version of the Cantonese and also remains the most spoken language Through continental China , simply there are not as many resources to learn the Cantonese.

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This is everything for our list of languages most difficult to learn, but be sure to come back with us again soon to find out more about the world around you. You can also Subscribe to our newsletter So you don't miss the next step!


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