7+ Hardest Languages to Learn for English Speakers (Updated 2024)
Learning a second language means opening up of lot of opportunities. However, when you are learning a new language you may want to know if it is hard or not. Of course, every language has its own level of hardship and thus you may want to know which is harder to learn. Thus here I will guide you about the Hardest languages to learn.
Quick Takeaways
1. Mandarin Chinese
- The following are the hardest languages to learn-
2. Turkish
3. Russian
4. Serbian
5. Hindi
6. Polish language
7. Somali
8. Hungarian
9. Korean
However, you must read till the end so that you get a better understanding of the hardest languages to learn.
What are the hardest languages to learn?
Just like the easiest languages to learn, there are a lot of the hardest languages to learn. Then, following are the hardest languages to learn-
1. Mandarin Chinese
One of the most interesting facts about this language is that it is not only one of the hardest languages to learn but is also the most widely spoken language in the world. There are a lot of reasons which make it out of language learning including the writing system. The writing system of this language is very difficult as it is totally different from the English writing script. Also when you are learning this language you will need to remember thousands of special characters which is the most difficult part.
Not only the writing but the tonal nature of this language makes it difficult to pronounce. There are a lot of Chinese dialects which have different writing characters and pronunciations. One of the common dialects used in this language is Cantonese which is spoken in southeastern China and also in some parts of southeast Asia. There are four types of bones that you have to learn within this language.
- Native speakers: 940 million
2. Turkish
Turkish is one of the most common languages in Turkey, Iraq, and Syria and is also a widely known language in the Turkic language family. It is also one of the most complicated languages for you if you are or native English speaker. The best part of this language is that it uses the Latin script alphabet with some modifications in it. It also uses words from other languages like Arabic, Persian, etc.
The biggest aspect of this language is that it can be challenging as it needs a lot of memory to remember the grammatical rules. Also how to use them can be a tough thing to understand as all the rules use suffixes and the word order is also more complicated than the English language. However, the best part of this language is that it is a phonetic language which makes pronunciation an easy task.
- Native speakers: 80 million people
3. Russian
This language is a tough language to learn because there is a different writing style of it and is widely spoken in Europe. Not only the writing style is different but the pronunciation and the grammar are also difficult. This language uses the Cyrillic alphabetic system which further has few similarities with the Latin alphabetic system. There are around 33 letters in this language out of which only six letters are common which are – A, O, E, M, T, and K. Along with this it also has tricky pronunciation which makes it a tough language.
One of the common examples is ‘B’ in this type of writing system is pronounced as ‘V’. In addition to that, there is a lot of vocabulary that is different from the English language and can be difficult to understand. You may also find words that are similar to the English language. The rules of pronunciation are also different and can be tricky at one time.
However, you must remember that these rules are regularly used in daily life. There are also many unfamiliar sounds in this language which you will need to learn. The grammatical rules of this language are the hardest part. Some of the hardest challenges of the grammatical rules are based on cases, verbs of motion, and nouns, and also there are no articles in it.
- Native speakers: 154 million
4. Serbian
Serbian is one of the languages that is mostly spoken in Serbia and as again and difficult language to learn. It is only the Slavic language that can be used in either the Latin or the Cyrillic script. You may get some letters that are added to the specific sounds of this language. The spellings of the words using this language are consistent and each letter has one sound. In total, there are five vowels and 25 constants. Although the pronunciation of this language is not that hard.
The vocabulary of this language is mainly of Slavic words and therefore is difficult for English speakers. However, there are some words that are taken from languages including English, Turkish, Greek, etc. Just like Russian, there are no articles and tenses and also it has a case system.
- Native speakers: 12 million
5. Hindi
Just like Mandarin Chinese, Hindi is one of the most widely spoken languages in all over the world. Although it is the official language of India but is also spoken in countries including Nepal and Pakistan. It is taken from the Sanskrit language and can be traced back thousands of years ago. The script used in this language is Devanagari which can take a considerable time for you to learn. The pronunciation of this language uses phonetic language but there are many sounds which you may not be familiar with.
Also, a lot of words have different sounds which can be difficult for you to learn easily. If we do not consider the obstacles in the learning part, Hindi is one of the most beautiful languages that has a rich history. If you are able to learn this language it will help you to open opportunities for work and study especially in India.
- Native speakers: 344 million
6. Polish language
The spelling of this language is very simple compared to other features of this language. There are 32 letters in the alphabet of this language and it uses the Latin script. It may also have some letters which you may not be familiar with. All these new letters are from Latin script letters which have diacritics. The hardest part of this language is the Pronunciation of the language. The pronunciation of this language is so hard that the people pronouncing this language believe that the sounds of the words used in this language are like birds tweeting. Polish is again a Slavic language and therefore there are very less similarities with the English words.
However, there are many words that have similar pronunciations in the English language. Although it is different from the Russian language, the grammatical rules are quite similar. It has more verb forms and also there are no articles just like in Russian. However the main difference between both the languages is number of cases. Poland has seven cases where as Russia only has six cases.
- Native speakers: 35.94 million
7. Somali
Somali is a language that has nothing in common with the English language. There are two pitch accents in this language and there is no tonal language of it. This language is commonly spoken in Somalia and follows Latin alphabetic scripts. There are two genders in this language but also has gender polarity. It means that the words can switch their gender when they are made plural. There are many complex rules around the irregular plurals. As you are new to this language you will also need to master tones of colloquialism.
Although at present it uses a Latin alphabetic system earlier it was either Arabic or the uncommon writing system which was known as Osmamya. Of course, it does not mean that these two writing styles are not used in the language. There are still many areas where you can see these writing styles in the language.
- Native speakers: 24 million
8. Hungarian
Hungarian uses the Latin alphabetic scripts which have added scripts. This language is widely spoken and used in the areas like Hungary, Serbia, etc. In this language, instead of getting individual prepositions and prefixes, they are added to the words. It also shows that much of sentences are being expressed in a single verb. There are 26 delightful cases which will make it more than grammatically challenging.
This is the vowel harmony language which means that you may see extra vowels that are added at the end to make the word sound right. If you are also interested in learning this language you may want to use Duolingo. Unfortunately, Duolingo does not provide a Hungarian course but there are many alternatives to use to learn this language.
- Native speakers: 14 million
9. Korean
Korean is the East Asian language that is spoken in both North and South Korea. Although it is not widely studied as Chinese but is a very beautiful language that has the most logical system of writing. As Korean dramas are getting popular in the present time, the Korean language has gained a lot of popularity in the past few years. The Korean alphabet was actually created by a king named Sejong in 1443.
The main aim behind this writing style was that he wanted to develop or simplify the writing system. He then set up a committee of scholars to develop the alphabet which is still used and is known as Hangul. Hangul is a language which contest of 24 symbols of which 10 are vowels and 14 are constants.
- Native speakers: 51.58 million
Conclusion
Learning a new language opens up a lot of opportunities for an individual. You will be able to get in contact with a lot of people all over the world. However, before learning a new language you may want to know if the language you are learning is hard or not. Although learning a new language is a hard task many languages are very hard to learn. Starting with Chinese and Korean are two such languages that are too hard to learn. Along with that, there are languages like Polish, Russian, and Serbian which have fewer grammatical rules. Another most common language used worldwide which is also too hard to learn is the Hindi language.
