20 Oct 5 Languages That Are Extremely Difficult to Learn

Learning a new language is not an easy task, especially when there are some that are much more difficult than the others. There are so many languages in the world (over 6.500 total) that are spoken around the globe, and each of those languages has a unique story of origin. History, culture and geography have played a major part in forming these languages, and made them unique in their own special way.

When it comes to learning languages, there is a simple rule – if (linguistically speaking) a language is similar to your mother tongue – it will be easier to learn. A study done by the U.S. Foreign Institute gathered participants who are native English speakers (30 to 40 years old) and set a schedule of 25 hours per week and 3 hours daily for independent studying.

Their results were measured with something that is known as the Interagency Language Roundtable Scale, with a set goal of calculating the length of time students needed to reach higher levels of professional proficiency. The results were interesting and took place in ideal learning conditions, but most of us do not have that much time on our hands to dedicate to learning a foreign language.

It is important to remember that language difficulty is relative, but let’s take a look at the languages that are extremely hard for English speakers and why we should give them a try.

Japanese

The learners of the Japanese language need to memorize thousands of characters and contend with three different writing systems: Katakana, Kanji and Hiragana. Besides that, the Japanese language has a numerical system with two different pronunciations. This language is also highly contextual; the form that is spoken with friends, family, seniors, by men, women and children is different, so speakers must choose their words carefully to avoid being rude.

Arabic

The number of Arabic letters is way smaller, for example, from what Japanese can offer, but it can be quite scary for new learners. Arabic cursive script contains 28 letters with three vowels, and most of those letter take four different forms. This depends on the fact whether those letters stand alone, are at the start, middle, or at the end of the sentence. The pronunciation of Arabic can also be quite hard for learners, especially the “ayn” sound also known as “voiced pharyngeal fricative”. The present verb tense of Arabic has 13 different forms that combine a person, number and even the gender.

Estonian

Estonian is also considered a difficult language. Why? Mostly because it has 14 different noun cases. When it comes to vowels and consonants in Estonian language they come with three different lengths: short, long and very long, and in most cases, the length can influence the meaning of the word. We are sure that you are now aware just how difficult English Estonian translations can get. Moreover, the Estonian language has 25 diphthongs and many and is characterized by many different exceptions that will have to be learned by heart.

Hungarian

In Hungarian language tense, possession and number are shown by 18 different case suffixes, and usually, when a language is this phonologically strict, word order (syntax) is not that important (and vice versa), which means that a a single sentence can have multiple meanings only if endings are slightly changed. Hungarian has some special vowel sounds like ú,ü,ű,é,ö,ő,ó,í,á, and even some consonants that make it extremely difficult for foreign speakers to pronounce and read the language, no matter the fact that it uses the Roman (Latin) alphabet at its core.

Chinese

Much like the Japanese language, Chinese requires the understanding of thousands of characters. It is said that knowing 3.000 characters will enable you to read the newspaper and a person who is highly educated might learn around 8.000 characters, where in total there are over 50.000. Learners are struggling with the fact that Chinese is a tonal language, and the meaning of the word changes depending on the tone in which the word is pronounced.

By now you must be thinking, why do I even need to learn a new language? But, you have to have in mind that every learner is different, and what is difficult for one person does not have to be difficult for you. So, with enough time, the right resources and proper motivation, any language can be within your reach; the more difficult it seems, the more rewarding it will feel to master it.