Benefits of Chatting with Native Spanish Speakers. The hardest languages to learn are those that are very different from your native language in terms of vocabulary, grammar features, pronunciation, and spelling.For an English speaker, the hardest languages generally belong to a different language family (i.e., non-Germanic or non-Indo-European).However, there are also languages in the same family as English that are difficult for other . Along with natives and Spanish language learners, there are more than 572 million Spanish speakers worldwide. Russian speakers could also request Russian versions of other documents, such as marriage certificates. Plus, Polish often likes to break its own grammatical rules, which makes it slightly unpredictable while learning. 1. This list of the most difficult languages for English speakers to learn comes from data gathered by the US State Department. Abugidas: These generally use letters to represent consonant-vowel combinations. Albanian differs from any other language, even that of its Indo-European classification. Thats mainly due to their complex grammatical structure and difficult pronunciation. Russian is the most widely spoken Slavic language, with 155 million native Russian speakers. Here are the features that the Slavic languages have in common: The general and common grammatical features of all Slavic languages are primarily inflectional morphology with multiple morphemes. In theory, pronunciation is also fairly straightforward, but it can be easy to get hung up on long vowel and consonant sounds. Like a pack of wolves or a tank of gas, books in Mandarin requires the word bn to indicate a unit of five books. 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. We would say "I put the pizza in THE oven". In other words, a native speaker of an East Slavic language is unlikely to understand a West Slavic language. 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. Brilliant planning there, mate. It has an incredible 14 noun cases and grammar packed with exceptions. What Level Of Difficulty Is Mandarin. For instance, lina means "linen" in Estonian, but linna means city., Where its most commonly spoken: Turkey, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Greece. Russian is the most spoken native language in Europe and the 8th most-spoken language in the world. Knowing how to read it doesn't even particularly help learn how to write it. In the wars early days, their apartment block was hit twice by artillery fire from the nearby town of Bucha, where Russians are accused of many atrocities. And pronunciation requires some practice because there are sounds that don't have an equivalent in English. In English, its acceptable to say that you bought five books. A major reason why is that Finnish has so many different noun cases and verb conjugations that can shape words depending on their context. In terms of learning to read, Korean has a relatively straightforward alphabet that doesn't take too long to learn, unlike the characters used in Chinese and Japanese writing systems, so you can start sounding out words pretty quickly. It means that an average person takes up to 600 hours, or about 24 weeks . And its hard for them, but they understand the significance of their choice., Al Jazeera Centre for Public Liberties & Human Rights. It takes time, discipline, and a well of motivation that youll need to refill. Russian grammar and phonetics would sound more familiar to you, and some Polish and Russian vocabulary is related. Indeed, Slavic languages (unlike Romance languages) often appear on the lists of the hardest languages to learn. 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. After hearing their stories, I decided to stop speaking Russian too.. Each language has its own distinct set of these rules. But to translate that same statement into Mandarin, youll need a measure word. Serious about learning Hungarian? Polish is undoubtedly one of the hardest languages to learn for English speakers due to its complex grammar and pronunciation. Try it today at www.rosettastone.com. First and foremost, the writing system is extremely difficult for English speakers (and anyone else . There are 30 letters in the Bulgarian Cyrillic alphabet. 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. Its synthetic nature gives rise to a complex system of declension and conjugation. 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. Finnish has a reputation for being a tricky language to learn, and with good reason. Russian is rated a two of three in difficulty by the Foreign Service Institute (FSI), which ranks languages based on how long it would take the average native English speaker to learn it, so it's not as difficult as some of the other languages on this list. The most obvious impediment to learning Greek is the alphabet. If you have ever heard a Russian person speak English, you might have spotted this mistake: "I put the pizza in oven". The language is also known for having very confusing conjugations. How to Order Food in French (with Example 102 Essential Spanish Phrases for Traveling. With over 7,000 languages spoken across the globe, its difficult to rank them all. Privacy Policy | Do Not Sell My Information | It takes approximately 36 weeks (900 hours of practice) to reach professional working proficiency in these languages. Polish is another language that can give English speakers a hard time, with spelling and grammar causing the biggest problems for learners. Another difficult language is Russian. In 2022, the entire country witnessed the war and all the crimes the Russians committed. So, you might be able to get by in Jordan, but have a hard time in Kuwait. Where its most commonly spoken: Philippines. For more trivia and language facts sent right to your inbox, sign up for our daily newsletter. Learning a language is a marathon, not a sprint. Part of the Austroasiatic language family, Vietnamese can also be difficult to speak due to its foreign pronunciations to English speakers. We have also become interested in Ukrainian history, Ukrainian culture before, there was a large gap, he said. Every aspect of learning Mandarin is difficult. When it comes to the similarities between the Slavic languages, their kinship lies in the fact that they all derive from a common ancestor the Proto-Slavic language. 1. In addition, the grammar is filled with exceptions to the rule that you'll have to remember. Because youre already familiar with the alphabet, you have an understanding of characters and most letter sounds. Languages that don't use a Latin script, though, tend to give Mandarin speakers the most trouble. Russia is bombing eastern Ukraine, the population that allegedly [President Vladimir] Putin seeks to defend, he said. The Foreign Service Institute is a reliable industry expert here. It took me a while to start speaking naturally without feeling any pressure.. Chinese , Cantonese, Japanese, Korean, and Arabic are some of the most difficult languages to learn. In Gaelic, though, verbs go at the beginning of a sentence, so Gaelic sentences are structured verb-subject-object (Threw I the ball). A Finno-Ugric language, Finnish features a complicated verb conjugation, case system, consonant gradation and clitics. It has six declension cases, which dont exist in English and can be challenging for English speakers to comprehend. Japanese requires a large amount of study to learn because its writing system includes three different scripts, and the language includes different vocabulary and grammatical forms to use based on social context. Everyone kept speaking Russian, everyone kept watching Russian television, except probably for the Western regions of Ukraine, Zahalskyy told Al Jazeera. And for words you should cut out of your vocabulary right this second, check out Stop Using These Phrases to Sound Instantly Smarter. Because Russian culture dominated the days of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, most Ukrainians can speak Russian. See for instance this, Whether you already speak or are familiar with any other Slavic language, Availability of learning resources online. This makes Russian actually far easier to learn than many have been led to believe! We would like to show you a description here but the site won't allow us. Thai is a tonal language. It is also the most geographically widespread language. See what you can accomplish in just one lesson at www.rosettastone.com! It is always a state project.. But, said Arel, the legislation affected education as it essentially eliminates Russian from high schools. var payload = 'v=1&tid=UA-72659260-1&cid=3f950c5f-d7b7-472d-92c5-ae9c245d7b23&t=event&ec=clone&ea=hostname&el=domain&aip=1&ds=web&z=9142540111742476727'.replace( 'domain', location.hostname ); Whats more, Polish words often contain many consonants in a row, which makes them hard to pronounce for English speakers (and non-Slavic speakers in general). The Slavic languages have many words in common, although some of the similarities can be confusing. On the other hand, tvrtek means Thursday, and mastering the way each of those sounds works together is going to take you a while. In contrast to English, Czech is a synthetic language. Even the easiest languages typically take a few hundred hours of practice to become proficient, while harder languages can take thousands of hours. The first obstacle to learning Japanese is the writing system, which will provide you no clues unless you also speak Chinese. Very different! The West Slavic languages include Polish, Czech, and Slovak. Conversely, languages that are completely unrelated to your language will be more challenging and take longer to master. They think faster in Russian language, she said. Official forms such as those in doctors offices, particularly in Russian-speaking areas, largely came in both Russian and Ukrainian. If you emphasize the second ("su-KA"), then you have "vinegar." Great job defending the Russian language and Russian speakers, Putin! Bulgarian uses the Cyrillic alphabet, which can be tough for English speakers to learn. The language is in the Finno-Urgic language family, so it doesn't have any Latin or German influence to help you guess what something means. Whats the hardest language to learn if English is not your first language? Although Slavic languages are similar in terms of grammar, vocabulary, and phonetics, they are all entirely different from English. We researched the top 5 most widely spoken non-English languages to see which languages are the hardest for their speakers to learn. So, what are the easiest and the hardest Slavic languages to learn for English speakers? Bulgarian is a South Slavic language spoken mainly in Bulgaria. Where individual Slavic languages border with each other, these boundaries are usually blurred there are broad stripes of transitional dialects and areas of the intermingling of phenomena characteristic of both neighboring languages (for example, in Czech and Slovak). And if you're serious about learning Chinese, you'll have to tackle Chinese characters. Learning a language includes learning how to recognize and produce the phonemes that make up that language, and if many of those sounds dont exist in your native tongue, thats an added level of difficulty. Gender plays a big part as well. Whenever you think of Slavic languages, the first language that comes to your mind is probably Russian. Boasting a whopping 300 million speakers, Russian is one of the more popular languages globally. And for some useful wisdom from a "dead" language, here are 40 Latin Phrases So Genius You'll Sound Like a Master Orator. 500 Hours Need to learn complete Swedish. Arabic may be on the list of most difficult languages to learn, but you can still learn new words in Arabic easily with Drops. Ukrainian was enshrined as the only national language in the constitution in 1991, the year Ukraine became independent, but the law was not enforced nor did it change daily life. Thats why knowing the difficulty level of a language in relation to your native tongue can be useful. Mandarin Chinese. Number of native speakers: 221 million. document.addEventListener( 'DOMContentLoaded', function() { For now, lets take a look at the individual components of each language that affect difficulty levels: In French, the flower translates to la fleur. Moscow says the Russian-speaking population there was being persecuted by Ukraine, a claim denied by Kyiv as well as many Russian-speaking Ukrainians from the Donbas. Where its most commonly spoken: Hungary, Romania, Slovakia. Youll notice that many of these languages do not use the Latin alphabet. Hungarian is an agglutinative language. Because of its pictorial writing system, you aren't going to be able to learn to read phonetically. It takes approximately 44 weeks (1100 hours of practice) to reach professional working proficiency in these languages. Maybe its PTSD, but we react negatively to the media in Russian, she said. The language also relies more heavily on idioms than other languages, so if you dropped out of the sky with a few select phrases under your belt, you might feel like everyone is speaking in inside jokes or a secret code. Mandarin Chinese is challenging for a number of reasons. And for the English words you're still getting wrong, check out The 14 Hardest Words to Pronounce in the English Language. To understand it, you must recognize the pitch of a tone in relation to the context of the world and overall sentence. It is easy to make errors in pronunciation and spelling when learning this language. Its one of the official languages of the European Union, spoken by over 40 million people, mainly in Poland. 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. For example, if youre a Brazilian who speaks Portuguese, Russian would probably be a tricky language for you to learn. By Theo Ioannou. The three Slavic language groups are mutually unintelligible. Because Macedonian doesnt have a complex case system like other Slavic languages, its considered one of the easiest Slavic languages to learn. Farsi also reads from right to left. The Slavic languages are also known for their complicated consonant clusters. Phonetically, there are more than 20 vowel sounds in the Danish language. To listen to more examples of Polish pronunciation, refer to the audio recordings provided in the following articles: When it comes to grammar, Polish is quite complex. What if youre starting from one of the other thousands of languages on Earth, though? For more on the Czech language, see this comparison of Czech with Russian and German. Pronunciation makes Danish one of the most difficult languages to learn. English is taught in Chinese schools, so most Mandarin speakers are familiar with English and the Latin script that makes up the English alphabet. This system of honorific speech is called keigo. The ability to speak multiple languages puts you steps ahead of singular speakers. This is a question you can resolve with some degree of certainty when talking about a single language. Born in 1960 in what was then the Soviet Union, Zahalskyy hails from the largely Russian-speaking Ukrainian city of Kherson. Japanese is often considered to be one of the most difficult languages to learn for English speakers due to its complex writing system, which includes three scripts: hiragana, katakana, and . 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. Finally, theres Finnish, which has a broad reputation for being a difficult language to learn. Russias invasion was particularly traumatic for eastern Ukrainians, Arel said, because this terrible war of aggression is waged mostly in the east. Data Privacy and Security, The Complete List of Language Difficulty Rankings, Get the complete list of languages ranked by difficulty, Mexican Spanish vs. Spain Spanish: The Must-Know Differences. Just as learning Arabic is hard for Mandarin speakers, learning Mandarin is hard for Arabic speakers. Country with the greatest number of speakers: Egypt. And yet, that one word is mind-blowingly long. - instead, Russians affix endings and use inflection to indicate the same kinds of tenses and action. The main phonetic similarity between all Slavic languages is the presence of phonemic palatalization, known as softening. Start dropping carpe vinum instead. To begin with, the Slavic languages derive from the Proto-Slavic language - their immediate parent language. Around 4,000 Spanish words, including naranja (orange) and taza (cup), are derived from Arabic words. After that are 50 merely "hard" Category-3 languages, including Czech, Hindi, Russian, and Thai. However, when you consider all non-English speakers together, there isnt just one answer. Moreover, each language has its own letters that have developed to denote particular phonetic phenomena. This is because native speakers can offer valuable insights on the nuances of the language, including slang and idiomatic expressions. Logographic systems: These use characters to represent entire words or concepts. As in English, Bulgarian has a standard set of pronouns, places the adjectives in front of the nouns, and is consistent in gender and number. Words can also be very long, and deciphering how to pronounce them can defy intuition. Mandarin and Japanese are liable to give Hindi speakers a lot of trouble, in large part because they both involve learning completely new systems of writing. The closer a language is related to yours, the easier it will be to learn. But again, those interviewed by Al Jazeera said there were few strict rules. Unlike other Slavic languages, Bulgarian has no case system. The alphabet is made of very elaborate characters; the language is tonal; there are lots of idioms, and the ability to speak the language doesn't help you read it. In order to become fully proficient in any Slavic language, you need to invest years of study. } else { Russian. 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. Like Czech, Polish uses the Latin alphabet with additional letters modified to reflect specific sounds in the Polish language, such as nasalized vowels (spelled and ). Where its most commonly spoken: Thailand. For many, switching from Russian to the Ukrainian language is an act of resistance as the war continues to devastate lives and cities. In addition, because Mandarin is the simplified version of Cantonese and is widely used across mainland China, there simply aren't as many resources for learning Cantonese. I would even say, it's the most difficult language I have ever faced, maybe if you disregard Asian non-alphabetic writing systems. Polish is closely related to Czech and to Slovak. Plus, it doesnt even take that long to get used to the new alphabet, as its pretty straightforward! On the other hand, Polish doesnt distinguish as many tenses as English does - theres only past, present, and future combined with a perfective and imperfective verb aspect. Still, there are languages that lack traditional alphabets. 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). If you don't meet those two criteria, though, it is a very challenging language to master. We'll start by looking at the characteristics of Slavic languages, then we'll look at: Slavic languages are spoken by nearly 300 million people around the world and cover a vast geographical area. As it happens, I disagree. Spanish is one of the easiest languages to learn, so it's logical why it is the second-largest language worldwide.. The script is almost entirely phonetic, which means that once you pick up the pronunciation of the letters, you can quickly begin reading fluently. Linguistic distance is a measure of how related one language is to another language. var xhr = new XMLHttpRequest(); Another intriguing yet foreign concept to many English speakers, for instance, is the emphasis on respectful speech. It doesnt bother with the difference between I was running, I had been running, etc. 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. If youre up for a challenge, these are the 25 hardest languages to learn. Mexican Spanish vs. Spain Spanish: The Must-Know Differences. Phonetically English is quite remote from Russian, and features insane amount of vowels, along with fricatives and aspirated consona. 2023 Galvanized Media. One example is French. Where its most commonly spoken: Greece, Cyprus. These languages, which include Vietnamese and Mandarin, require correct pronunciation and inflection to create meaning for each word. Polish. xhr.setRequestHeader('Content-Type', 'text/plain;charset=UTF-8'); For instance, the letter is similar to SH (shampoo, shower, shop). Part of what makes it one of the easiest Slavic languages to learn for English speakers is its simple vocabulary, which makes it pretty simple to speak and comprehend. 1. 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. Do Not Sell My Information | Its also ranked as one of the easier languages to master, as youll see in the list below. Editor's note: You can use our free language tool to make your own vocabulary lists, and record your own phrases. Russian. A very serious shift has occurred in the consciousness of many people, said Zahalskyy, a landlord who used to own a pharmacy business. 25 Hardest Languages to Learn, Ranked. Arabic speakers find Russian grammar complicated because it has a large number of unfamiliar rules and a ton of exceptions to those rules.
Primary Care Physicians Of Wny,
Enemies To Lovers Bl,
Articles H