When it comes to learning a language, some languages are harder to learn than others. Whilst some languages may be easy, others can be one of the hardest languages to learn.
10 hardest languages to learn
10. Estonian
According to Estonian World, Estonian is the hardest language to learn when it comes to Latin alphabet languages. Estonian has around 14 cases that make Estonian incredibly complicated.
Whereas, English has all, or most of its cases, it makes it quite the shock when an English speaker tries to learn Estonian.
For example, English uses personal pronouns: forms such as I, he and we are used in the role of subject (‘I touch the book’), while forms such as me, him and us are used in the role of object (‘Marcus touched me’).”
Estonian currently has around 1.1 million native speakers: 922,000 people in Estonia and 160,000 outside Estonia.
9. Welsh
Welsh is quite famous for being one of the hardest languages to learn. Welsh is a celtic language whivh ,eams oy jas very little need for vowels.
Welsh is known for some stupidly log words, such as: Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, whicg is a town on the island of Anglesey, it is usually shortened to Llanfair PG.
Welsh is spoken by 200,000 people, mainly in Wales but also in small towns across the world.
8. Hebrew
The Foreign Service Institute classifies Hebrew as a Category IV language. Hebrew has remained reatively unchanged as to keep it as holy as possible.
Hebrew is a Semitic language, just like Arabic meaning pronunciation is quite similar. Hebrew is written in the Hebrew Script, which reads eight to left which always makes translation difficult.
Hebrew is spoken by 9 million people, mainly in Israel but also in the US and UK.
7. Basque
The Basque language s defined as a language isolate– meaning that it hasn’t had much contact with other languages. This doesn’t mean it hasn’t got some romance language vocabulary, it just hasn’t been too exposed to them.
Understanding with Unbabel said regarding Basque ” While it has borrowed vocabulary from the romance languages, the way it’s written and spoken is distinct from any other language.”
Basque currently has 700,000 native speakers, and surprisingly for a language of its size, there are 5 distinct dialects!
6. Korean
Korean has long been considered a difficult language to learn, despite this, its alphabet is actually quite straight forward. Korean is quite similar to Basque in the fact that it is a language isolate, and has no languages close to it.
Korean also has a complex grammatical structure, the subject goes first, then the object, and finally the sentence ends with the action. This means that translation too is hard, to say I eat bread in Korean is ‘나는 빵을 먹는다’ literally meaning ‘I bread eat’.
There are currently 75 million speakers of Korean spread out among, North and South Korea, Japan, China and the United States. However, North Korea speaks a northern dialect of Korean called ‘ P’yŏng’an’.
5. Icelandic
Icelandic is quite complicated by the fact that it hasn’t changed much since Iceland was settled. When new words are invented, Icelandic doesn’t adopt them, preferring to make up its own!
Many people have tried learning Icelandic remotely, and have never grasped the language unless they’re in Iceland themselves.
Icelandic is spoken by 400,000 people and is only prevalent in Iceland, although there are small pockets of Icelandic speaker on nearby islands.
4. Japanese
Japanese is considered to be a character-based language, as well as one of the most sophisticated languages! This means that each character is different.
This means that each character you see is a different word, much like with Chinese.
Japanese also has one of the most complex writing systems- or three to be exact. Japanese has three independent writing systems —hiragana,katakana, and kanji. Hiragana is derived from the Chinese writing system. which means anyone who speaks Chinese has an advantage!
Japanese is spoken by 128 million people, mainly in Japan, although there are minorities in the US and China.
3. Arabic
Arabic is famous for being quite difficult to learn, most letters have 4 different forms depending on where they are in the sentence.
If you thought that was bad, there are no vowels written in Arabic. This makes translation of Arabic to English very difficult.
On top of this, there are hundreds of dialects of Arabic. the most famous of such a dialect is Moroccan Arabic, however, there are thousands of other dialects.
This means that the Arabic spoken in Sudan is different to the Arabic in Iraq or Saudi Arabia or Tunisia…
Arabic is spoken by 420 million people throughout the world. Arabic is mainly spoken in the Middle East, although there are speakers spread throughout the world.
2. Finnish
Finnish is famous for being an extremely difficult language, one of the hardest languages to learn in the world. Finnish is famous for being a tonal language meaning the word it is, depends on how the other speaker says the world
Kunsi Palaa is one of the most famous Finnish phrases, mostly a it has 9 separate meanings!
Kuusi palaa = The spruce is on fire
“Kuusi” is a common tree in Finland known in English as a “spruce”. “Palaa” means “to burn/be on fire”. In this sentence it’s in the “hän/se” form which happens to be the same as the basic form in this case.
2. Kuusi palaa = The spruce is returning.
“Palata” is a Finnish verb meaning “to return/come back”. It’s verb-type 4 so we remove the letter “t” and the “hän/se” form becomes “palaa”.
3. Kuusi palaa = The number six is on fire.
“Kuusi” also means “the number 6″… which means you can also make the sentence…
4. Kuusi palaa = The number six is returning.
It sounds silly but remember, you could be referring to a sports player who wears the number 6 who has been injured for some time and is now returning. All of these sentences can be used in context.
5. Kuusi palaa = Six of them are on fire.
Kuusi doesn’t always mean “the number 6”. If there is a street containing 10 houses and six of them are on fire, you might say “kuusi palaa”.
6. Kuusi palaa = Six of them are returning.
Ten of them walked into the forest. Six will return. “Kymmenen käveli metsään. Kuusi palaa”
7. Kuusi palaa = Your moon is on fire.
Kuu = moon. si = suffix that replaces the word “sinun”. Kuusi = Sinun kuu = Your moon. I can’t think when you’d use this, maybe in a sappy poem.
8. Kuusi palaa = You’re moon is returning.
Even more ridiculous but a completely valid sentence.
9. Kuusi palaa = Six pieces.
Well, this is the only one that’s not a complete sentence but it still is a translation of “kuusi palaa”.
“Pala” means “piece” or “part” and because “kuusi” is a number, it becomes partitive so we add an “a”.
Finnish is spoken by 5 million speakers, and is spoken in Finland, although, there are sizable minorities in Sweden, Norway, Russia, Estonia, Brazil, Canada, and the US.
1. Chinese (Mandarin)
Chinese is generally considered the hardest language to learn, not only is it a tonal language, but it has no alphabet. This means that when you see a Chinese text, each character is its own word, ie. bus, train, man, dog etc.
Mandarin is famous for being one of the hardest languages to learn. It has no alphabet, and is a tonal language. This means that two words can sound the same, but it’s how you say it that tells you what word it is.
Mandarin is in fact, the most spoken language in the world, it has 1.3 billion speakers. However, this is mainly in China as a primary language, and as a minority language in neighbouring countries.
I hope you enjoyed this article, I hope that this has helped you answer the question as to the hardest languages to learn. Have you ever tried to ‘learn one of the hardest languages to learn’? If so, share your experience in the comments.