There is a heated debate here regarding, “what is the hardest language“. As Mr. Spock would say ‘fascinating’. However, one of my commenter left a particularly good comment and it supports my argument that Polish is by far the hardest language to learn. This language is a linguistic nightmare, it is even harder than Chinese or Japanese (which have very little grammar) or Arabic (which has only three baby cases).
Please consider the exhibit below. It is only one word, but contains many forms.
This is clearly the most difficult language to learn
What are you kidding me? There are like over 100 forms, you can count them. This is one Polish word. It is the word ‘to read’. Every word in Polish must agree with the other words in the sentence, therefore, there are almost an infinite number of combinations in one sentence.
The pronunciation is very hard and people in this central European country speak very soft. I would say to learn the Polish language it is equivalent to learning several other European languages. This especially goes for English speakers.
The language can be studied and spoken but only if you have the right attitude. The right attitude is, you do not have to speak it perfectly to communicate, rather focus on vocabulary and you have to be patient.
Please add your comments about or your experiences with language learning and what you think are the determinate criteria for learning and language and the factors that make any language hard or easy to learn.
46 responses to Most difficult language to learn
I completely disagree with that.
Not with that some Polish words have many forms because they do but with that “Polish language it is equivalent to learning several other European languages.”
First of all, forms mean nothing. Let’s look at a language declared as very easy: Spanish. I’ll list its forms for the same word to read – ler that you have written here for Polish:
yo lo
tú les
él/usted le
nosotros lemos
vosotros léis
ellos/ustedes len
yo lía
tú lías
él/usted lía
nosotros líamos
vosotros líais
ellos/ustedes lían
yo lí
tú liste
él/usted lió
nosotros limos
vosotros listeis
ellos/ustedes lieron
yo leré
tú lerás
él/usted lerá
nosotros leremos
vosotros leréis
ellos/ustedes lerán
yo lería
tú lerías
él/usted lería
nosotros leríamos
vosotros leríais
ellos/ustedes lerían
tú le
él/usted la
nosotros lamos
vosotros led
ellos/ustedes lan
yo la
tú las
él/usted la
nosotros lamos
vosotros láis
ellos/ustedes lan
yo liera
tú lieras
él/usted liera
nosotros liéramos
vosotros lierais
ellos/ustedes lieran
liendo
lido
I think that is not all the forms and it does not include the negative forms like the list includes for Polish (nieczytani, nieczytana – unread, unread (fem.), etc.) because if it did, that would expand the list a lot. It does not include all of the possible tenses too (ha lido, has lido, havia lido… LOTS AND LOTS OF possibilities). Spanish has a lot of words too. If you think about languages like Lithuanian, it has a lot of forms too (perhaps even more for words like “two”). Still, it’s not that hard once you come to terms with it.
Even if other languages don’t have so many wordforms, they still have to express these concepts somehow and you have to memorize those ways.
I’d say that the number of forms is nowhere near a fair criterion for language difficulty and you have provided no evidence why it should be.
Second, I call BS on that “Average English speaker is fluent at about the age 12; the average Polish speaker is fluent in their language not until age 16.”
This seems a completely arbitrary claim with no source at all. To the best of my knowledge, It is not true as well because all children in the world speak well at a certain same age. If your claim was true then Polish children until 16 would have major problems speaking and and that’s simply not how it works.
Polish is not very much harder than any other language in Europe.
Most difficult language to learn
Spanish/Español
I’m a native Spanish speaker, but I don’t understand what does lyzazel mean….
To read (in Spanish: Leer)
The different forms are:
yo leo
tú lees
él/ella/ usted lee
nosotros leemos
vosotros leeis
ellos/ustedes leen
yo /ella / él /usted leía
tú leías
nosotros leíamos
vosotros leíais
ellos/ustedes leían
yo leí
tú leíste
él/usted /ella leyó
nosotros leímos
vosotros leísteis
ellos/ustedes leyeron
yo leeré
tú leerás
él/usted / ella leerá
nosotros leeremos
vosotros leeréis
ellos/ustedes leerán
yo leería
tú leerías
él/usted leería
nosotros leeríamos
vosotros leeríais
ellos/ustedes leerían
tú lee
usted lea
nosotros leamos
ellos/ustedes lean
leyendo
leído
All languages have many diffucult words and phrases, but you can express yourself looking for other ways to communicate the idea
First of all, I would not agree with this list. Most of this words are the forms of the verb “to read”, but some of them derive from the noun “czytanie” (czytania, czytaniu, czytaniom, czytań and same with nie-). It is not like reading in English
Then, the negative forms don’t count and the word “czytajmyż” is no longer in use (but still you can find it in old Polish literature).
But, what I really want to say, is that not the NUMBER of forms makes Polish the hardest language in Europe (maybe not in the whole world, but I agree that it is in Europe) – it is the difficulty of this forms.
Take tables with a French or a Spanish verb – 94 forms for the former and ~110 for the latter (but many of them are not in use or are created with only 1 form of this verb).
Its almost the same for the Polish verbs and nouns.
BUT when learning Spanish, for instance, you have to learn only the endings, and some irregular verbs. While in Polish you have different groups of endings and you have to know which noun goes with which. And something extra, called “oboczność” – sometimes, not only the ending in the given word change, but also a letter in the middle of the word.
for instance, there is the declination of the “river”:
sing., plural
rzeka, rzeki
rzeki, rzek
rzece, rzekom
widzę rzekę, rzeki (I see a river/rivers)
z rzeką, rzekami (with a river/rivers)
o rzece, rzekach (about a river/rivers)
rzeko!, rzeki!
other examples, whithout the whole declination:
noga – the leg can take the forms: nodze, nóg
miasto – mieście (town)
woda – wodzie – wód (water)
igła – igle – igieł (needle)
cukier – cukru – cukrze (sugar)
grudzień – grudnia (december)
gwiazda – gwieździe (star)
gra – grze – gier (game)
pies – psa – psie (dog)
Polska – Polsce (Poland)
Kraków – Krakowie
And you can see that these are basic words!
What else? In Polish not only ch and h, ó and u, rz and ż sound in the same way, but often also si and ś, ni and ń, ci and ć, ę and en and em, ą and on and om, or even b and p, especially for a foreigner.
Example: the pronounciation of dąb (correct) and domp (x) is the same
This is a big problem, cause for instance może and morze both exist. Same with lud (ludu, ludy, ludem…) and lód (lodu, lody, lodami…).
I can talk and talk about this and I guess there are much more things that makes Polish so difficult.
Most difficult language to learn
One thing more: czytałom/czytałobyś/czytałobym/czytałoś do not exist. There should be an “a” instead of the “o”.
Finnish comes a close second in my opinion…
Finnish is pretty hard yeah, but I’d still say Polish seems lil harder. English is really easy compared to Finnish imo.
Micoco : Where are you from ?
At the moment I live in France, but I used to live in Poland a few years.
But isnt the Chinese language more difficult than Polish?
Chinese has no tenses, cases, verb changes, articles, etc I do not think it is that hard at all. Try to learn some, with the exception of the writing you can the language up pretty easy.
those form do exist : czytałobyś, czytałobym e.g.. Dziecko, czytałobyś już gdybyś się uczyło. ( Kid, you would be able to read already if you have studied.
but believe me it is hard even for us.
And I would agree that spanish and italian are very easy, whereas polish is definitely the hardest language of Europe (maybe hungarian counts too) and for sure is more complicated than chinese is claimed to be the hardest language.
I am 25 years old polish graduate, that can speak very good english, chinese and german, but sadly do not consider myself fluent in polish by what I mean writing without spelling mistakes and speaking without grammar mistakes not mention usage of “high” vocabulary
And of course there might be difficult languages that I do not know
Over the past 40 years I lived nearly a dozen countries and everywhere I go people claim their language is the hardest to speak. Almost as common is the statement, “I can speak X, Y and Z but I cannot speak my own language well”: often combined with the caveat “of course it’s easy to speak it a little, but hard to speak it well”.
There is a certain pride in difficulty and inscrutability. Europeans argue over which language has the most verb tenses, Japanese know that Keigo is difficult even for native speakers, English has the largest vocabulary, Polish is impossible to pronounce, Chinese impossible to write, but everyone agrees that Thai is easy – unless you want to use the Rhetorical, Royal, Religious or Elegant registers.
It appears we are most aware of our limitations in the language with which we are most familiar. I always enjoy listening to arguments over which language is the hardest and it amazes me that I hear the same argument in every country I have lived.
One thing more: czytałom/czytałobyś/czytałobym/czytałoś do not exist. There should be an “a” instead of the “o”.
They do exist! These are forms of the third person, neutral gender in different tenses and conditionals.
You can imagine a poetic dialogue with the Sun
A: Słońce! Dlaczego dzisiaj nie świeciłoś?
B: Nie świeciłom, bo chmury przysłoniły niebo.
Etc.
Ok, let’s say that these forms do exist, but only in old Polish. It’s no longer in use neighter in the spoken language, nor in the written. Still, I agree that we can find them in old poetic texts (I can’t imagine someone writing this dialogue in XXI century ^^).
“Dziecko, czytałobyś już gdybyś się uczyło” – nobody speaks to a child in a neutral form! Polish people would say: “Dziecko, czytałbyś już gdybyś się uczył.”
For the noun “dziecko” we use the neutral only while speaking in the third person: “Gdyby nasze dzicko się uczyło, to już umiałoby czytać.”
Mico: Sorry, but in my opinion, You wrong. First to sentences with world child are bad examples, cos parents now exactly theirs kids s_x and apply male or female gender. They talk to him (her)! I think, that this weird forms are exit in modern Polish, as well as they exited in XIX or XX century, and they are correct. They are just not common use (I’m 50 and never be force to use them). Wow is me, know myself about this subtlety from this thread, this very day. Another proof how complex my mother tong is
Sorry for my bad English, but I,m still learning
AA: that is what I am talking about. I agreed that these forms exist, sorry for saying the opposite at first. But Polish people no longer use them for a very long time, because there is no situation in which we could do it. The neutral form only applies to some unamitaded things, like chair and bed (to krzesło, to łóżko). And these are thing that normal people dont talk to. (“Drogie krzesło! Czemu nie byłobyś wygodne?”
).”Dziecko” – the child is the only exception (as far as I know), and, as I have said in the previous comment, even if the child is a neutral noun, we don’t talk to him/her in the neutral form.
hey guys u must not heard of Lithuanian language. and if u know lets say russian then it’s easy to understand polish even if u never heard polish before. acctualy all eastern europe has similar language. not the same but similar. i know russian and got no problems with understanding polish slovakian and check ( check was mix of some slavic and german as i found it). so u beter find out bout lithuanian language and tell me how is it for u. we live in da eastern europe and have no similarities exept latvian. but we call them brothers so…
I think the most difficult language to learn is Arabic based on deep studies due to the alphabet.
I hope someday you try to learn it.
@keenan,
Arabic is a fairly simply language with a minor inflection and an “alphabet” that has approximately 50 chars. It actually takes a month to learn the script.
I would say Japan, And then Danish…
I don’t speak neither russian nor polish,arabic or whatever but I do believe that Albanian it’s pretty hard with 36 letters where nine of them are double letters spelled together to form a sound e.x. ll,dh, sh,th,xh zh etc,there are five cases a lot of conjuction and alot of of other sttufs….it’s only one thing easy there in Albanian language words are read exactly like they ar written….
@Lyzazel, at first I thought you had made a ´typo´ but your entire example is completely wrong.
To read in Spanish is Leer, not Ler and therefore all your conjugations are incorrect!
Albanian is pretty hard!!!
Only one foreign person has reached to learn it well
Arabic has only 29 letters not 50 , and it has “STANDARD” grammatical system .. i think it is a wounderful language , and any one who learned that language got addicted to its beauty ..read an arabic poem .. and you will see that no other language is expressive as this one
What about Polish vs. other Slavic languages like Czech or Bulgarian? Anybody have any insights on how those stack up in terms of difficulty??
Primarily those suffering declension nouns that does not mean that a language It is difficult or not. it must analyze many aspects, not only declinations (this language has six cases, 14 cases Estonian and so on). I’ ve been analyzing and I arrived at a conclusion.
the 5 hardest languages to learn are: (I did not consider the oriental languages):
1: Hungarian
2: Portuguese
3: Polish
4: Finnish
5: German
look, Latin languages, Portuguese is the most complicated, there is no doubt. the language is full of tenses, if I am not mistaken are 6 tenses (the verb changes its form, besides having many irregular verbs), there are languages which we can live with only three tenses! the Finnish language has no future time (god of heaven, how they can survive).
I can say that Hungarian and Portuguese respectively are tied for first place.
that’s all I can say: I’ ve been studying Polish, it is really very difficult, but not impossible to learn, if you want to speak hungarian or portuguese.
Actually, here are the hardest language to learn…
It all depends on your native language, but these are the top four universal hardest languages;
Chinese ( Over 25,000 Letters in Alphabet )
English ( Complex Grammar )
Korean ( Fuse between Chinese and Japanese )
Japanese ( Large Alphabet )
For native American English users, the hardest without universal hard languages as stated above would be Eastern European languages.
English has easy to no grammar. Chinese basically has not grammar. 100 years ago 90% of the people in the world did not read, so you define a language by your ability to read. Language is first and foremost spoken. I think people stress written language too much when evaluating this.
Bah, your right, I keep thinking it has a complex grammar, but English is strict no?
Chinese has over 25,000 letters, and if you get one letter wrong in a conversation then the entire conversation is messed up…
Samething with Japanese…
Korean is a blend of Japanese and Chinese…
English ( More Specifically American English ), it is strict no?
I am not an expert. But I do teach English and I would say that English is flexible compared to a language like Polish which has very formal grammar rules. The reason English is flexible is so many people use the language from so many places that there is a level of acceptance when grammar and pronunciation varies from region to region. On the other hand there is only one Polish language.
English really does not have cases and verbs are all the same except in the third person, English does not have genders or aspects. The only thing it has is verb tenses, but that is really British English. If you give an American an advanced English book full of British verb tenses they can not do it. So English has almost no grammar. What it does have is many words and idioms and people use the language in such a crazy slangy idiomatic way that it is very hard for learners to really ever speak like a native unless they study.
It is easy to get to the intermediate level in English. But once you are there you get stuck there.
In Polish to speak at the intermediate level is hard, and few people do, but after that it gets easier.
variations for ” to read ” in hungarian
olvasni –
olvasok – olvasom
olvasol – olvasod
olvas – olvassa
olvasunk – olvassuk
olvastok – olvassátok
olvasnak – olvassák
olvastam
olvastál – olvastad
olvasott -olvasta
olvastunk – olvastuk
olvastatok – olvastátok
olvastak – olvasták
olvasnék – olvasnám
olvasnál- olvasnád
olvasna – olvasná
olvasnánk –
olvasnátok –
olvasnának – olvasnák
olvashatnék – olvashatnám
olvashatnál – olvashatnád
olvashatna – olvashatná
olvashatnánk -
olvashatnátok
olvashatnának – olvashatnák
olvashatok – olvashatom
olvashatsz – olvashatod
olvashat – olvashatja
olvashatunk – olvashatjuk
olvashattok – olvashatjátok
olvashatnak – olvashatják
olvashattam
olvashattál
olvashatott
olvashattunk
olvashattátok
olvashattak
olvasandó
olvasható
olvashatóak
olvashatatlan
olvashatatlanok
felolvasni –
felolvasok – felolvasom
felolvasol – felolvasod
felolvas – felolvassa
felolvasunk – felolvassuk
felolvastok – felolvassátok
felolvasnak – felolvassák
felolvastam
felolvastál – felolvastad
felolvasott -felolvasta
felolvastunk – felolvastuk
felolvastatok – felolvastátok
felolvastak – felolvasták
felolvasnék – felolvasnám
felolvasnál- felolvasnád
felolvasna – felolvasná
felolvasnánk –
felolvasnátok –
felolvasnának – felolvasnák
felolvashatnék – felolvashatnám
felolvashatnál – felolvashatnád
felolvashatna – felolvashatná
felolvashatnánk -
felolvashatnátok
felolvashatnának – felolvashatnák
felolvashatok – felolvashatom
felolvashatsz – felolvashatod
felolvashat – felolvashatja
felolvashatunk – felolvashatjuk
felolvashattok – felolvashatjátok
felolvashatnak – felolvashatják
felolvashattam
felolvashattál
felolvashatott
felolvashattunk
felolvashattátok
felolvashattak
felolvasandó
felolvasható
felolvashatóak
felolvashatatlan
felolvashatatlanok
kiolvasni –
kiolvasok – kiolvasom
kiolvasol – kiolvasod
kiolvas – kiolvassa
kiolvasunk – kiolvassuk
kiolvastok – kiolvassátok
kiolvasnak – kiolvassák
kiolvastam
kiolvastál – kiolvastad
kiolvasott -kiolvasta
kiolvastunk – kiolvastuk
kiolvastatok – kiolvastátok
kiolvastak – kiolvasták
kiolvasnék – kiolvasnám
kiolvasnál- kiolvasnád
kiolvasna – kiolvasná
kiolvasnánk –
kiolvasnátok –
kiolvasnának – kiolvasnák
kiolvashatnék – kiolvashatnám
kiolvashatnál – kiolvashatnád
kiolvashatna – kiolvashatná
kiolvashatnánk -
kiolvashatnátok
kiolvashatnának – kiolvashatnák
kiolvashatok – kiolvashatom
kiolvashatsz – kiolvashatod
kiolvashat – kiolvashatja
kiolvashatunk – kiolvashatjuk
kiolvashattok – kiolvashatjátok
kiolvashatnak – kiolvashatják
kiolvashattam
kiolvashattál
kiolvashatott
kiolvashattunk
kiolvashattátok
kiolvashattak
kiolvasandó
kiolvasható
kiolvashatóak
kiolvashatatlan
kiolvashatatlanok
leolvasni –
leolvasok – leolvasom
leolvasol – leolvasod
leolvas – leolvassa
leolvasunk – leolvassuk
leolvastok – leolvassátok
leolvasnak – leolvassák
leolvastam
leolvastál – leolvastad
leolvasott -leolvasta
leolvastunk – leolvastuk
leolvastatok – leolvastátok
leolvastak – leolvasták
leolvasnék – leolvasnám
leolvasnál- leolvasnád
leolvasna – leolvasná
leolvasnánk –
leolvasnátok –
leolvasnának – leolvasnák
leolvashatnék – leolvashatnám
leolvashatnál – leolvashatnád
leolvashatna – leolvashatná
leolvashatnánk -
leolvashatnátok
leolvashatnának – leolvashatnák
leolvashatok – leolvashatom
leolvashatsz – leolvashatod
leolvashat – leolvashatja
leolvashatunk – leolvashatjuk
leolvashattok – leolvashatjátok
leolvashatnak – leolvashatják
leolvashattam
leolvashattál
leolvashatott
leolvashattunk
leolvashattátok
leolvashattak
leolvasandó
leolvasható
leolvashatóak
leolvashatatlan
leolvashatatlanok
beolvas …etc etc
i didnt write down all of them coz i was tooo lazy for that ….:D
Most difficult language to learn
And people think English or Spanish is hard. Thank you, as I can not tell you how many people I know learning English complain it is so hard.
megy, dülöngél, lépdel, botorkál, gyalogol,
kódorog, andalog, rohan, üget, csörtet, törtet,
lohol, vágtat, tipeg, libeg, biceg, hebeg, rebeg, poroszkál, somfordál, bóklászik, halad,őgyeleg, slattyog…etc
It’s obvious. HUNGARIAN is the hardest language in the world. I’m sure.
Above this comment you can see only a few of those verbs that express the same action in Hungarian – the verb “to go”. As you can see the words are not the same just the meaning is, and they should be used in appropriate situations. For example: Hungarians wouldn’t say that “slattyogunk – we are going” in usual shoes only in slippers…
Hungarian language has the most voluminous vocabulary. A verb can have more than hundred forms (special thanks to “adriana”). Nevertheless the pronounciation is really easy according to other languages – the letters are not changing their pronounciation like in English. Hungarian language has the ability to express many informations only in one word. Here is an example:
fi – son
fia – someone’s son
fiai – someone’s sons
And now focus, the English form will sound really weird,but I’m not misleading anybody.
fiaié – someone’s sons’ something
fiaiéi – someone’s sons’ somethings
So let me correct the original question:
Which is the 2nd hardest language in the world?
The British FCO (Foreign Office) has produced, rated in levels of difficulty, a list for the most difficult languages for their overseas staff ( native English speakers) to learn. The ratings are important as staff can spend up to 1 year studying the language in London before transfer to the their post overseas. Unfortunately , I have the seen the list on the internet but right now cannot find it ! Basically, the more exotic the language compared to English , the harder it is to learn.
The most difficult are:
Chinese, Japanese, Korean
However, I’ve heard that some operatives do struggle with Hungarian , amongst the ‘European’ languages and I have seen it being said that Basque is the most difficult, although most , if not all, staff do use Spanish to communicate in the Basque country.
Here’s another difficult language :Tuyuca neatorama.com/2010/01/02/what-is-the-most-complex-language-in-the-world/
I believe the following European languages are quite hard:
Europe:
-Polish and most other Slavic languages
- Hungarian, Finnish – grammar and also the amount of unrelated vocabulary you come across
- Romanian – due to the many features it shares with Slavic languages.
In my opinion, there is only one “European” language that is the hardest and that’s… drum-roll……BASQUE!!! An absolutely intimidating language with over thousands of declensions and tons of cases (a lot like Hungarian and Finnish in this regard.)
Unfortunately few people know arabic language .
Most of arabs don’t speak the right arabic , they speak with their accent only and the arabic accent is not like the official , and if they try to talk official they make a lot of mistakes while their talking and writing .
What I want to say is that arabic language (official) has the most difficult grammer and syntax in the world .
only people who really know arabic will agree with me .
Do you know that arabic grammer book called ( al-nahu al-wahi)(النحو الوافي) contans 2,807 pages it’s just for explaining the grammer and syntax.
and the arabic – arabic dictionary (taj al-arus)(تاج العروس)contains up tp 22,000 pages.
Do u know that arabic eloquence books contains about 600 pages.
do you know that I gave you a very small example about arabic books , I mean there are longer books and there are many other books which are sources.
But only educated people about Arabic know that .
English is Esperanto
The most difficult language for native speakers is English I guess.Because all words are borrowed from everywhere and no roots and no logical sense.
Serbian or Japansese or Polish as the hardest language to learn
Enough with the Polish, I have studied Japanese for 7 years and it is difficult because of the writing and simply the language is completely different in the way of thinking, so the psychology of the Japanese language is different. Arabic is not really that difficult, the script can be learned in a week or so. But the irregularities when it comes to conjugating and plurals, English is inferno when it comes to the phonetics, reading rules and writing. Chinese…ok everyone talks about writing which by itself is hard to learn but the tones are the problem so it is not that easy when you know that the syllable MA pronounced in 4 different tones can mean mother, question particle, a type of plant and to curse, Spanish IMHO is a rather easy language to learn. French and german are difficult because of so many irregularities, Now, Serbian(Croatian, bosnian…it is all one and the same, as a native i know this) in my opinion is not easy. Yes, it does have 7 cases, 4 types of declensions and 4 conjugations. The problem with my language is that there are so many vocal changes which are especially easily noticed when changing a noun through the cases. However, if you devote yourself and discover the psychology of a language, it comes very easy, So, Polish is not more difficult than Russian or Swahili,Each language has sth that makes it difficult… And one more thing, don’t want to sound cocky, but in order to answer this question, one must really have tried to learn languages from several language families in order to be qualified to answer, And, in the end, it all sums up to personal view, peace
Polish girl's comment on Most difficult language to learn
Będzie po polsku
Mówienie po polsku to jak mówienie płynnie po łacinie tylko z większą ilością przypadków – w łacinie jest 6 a w polskim 7.
I would say that Basque, Finish and Hungarian are probably among the most difficult languages in Europe to learn for native English speakers because of very different grammatical structures.
In the world, Japanese is supposedly very difficult in grammar and also in the writing system. The Japanese writing system is more complex than the Chinese one, because they combine Kanji radicals with additional Japanese symbols. In Chinese, there are only the radicals.
However, Australian Aboriginal languages are probably very difficult, too. They have sounds which most other languages de not have and have syllables that look quite confusing.
Depends on the learner
And we haven’t even touched the African click languages or Native American languages with their own specific grammar…
How difficult a language is considered is 90% subjective.
Of course one can look at such things as the number of phonemes, conjugations and declensions and other such things, and say that the more of these a language has, the more difficult it is to learn, but it is still every learner’s own, individual and specific experience that decides.
We experience a language that is linguistically related or similar to the languages we already know easy. The more similarities there are in the grammar to the languages we already know, the easier the language appears to be.
The objective number of words, phonemes, inclinations etc. is irrelevant in the personal experience, it’s the amount that is foreign to us that matters.
Also, the media supply also matters. Most of the people living in Western world would appreciate English very easy language to learn, because there’s plenty of English around us. We watch a lot of English movies and tv shows now-a-days. If I have understood correctly, German is quite strongly present in Eastern Europe. An Eastern Canadian would consider French easier to learn than Spanish, while for a Texan it would be the other way around.
One more thing to consider: I don’t feel comfortable to express my opinion on the languages I haven’t studied… I cannot say if Navajo is a difficult language to learn or not. I assume it would be harder for me to learn than Polish.
Hardest to learn language in Europe for me was Hungarian
I agree with Ketutar. The more similarities in the languages we already know, the easier the language appears to be. I am trilingual and could easily learn Bulgarian, Check, Polish and other Slavic based languages. I also speak Romanian, which would be very helpful in learning the Roman languages. I studied German for a few years at the same time majoring in English. English is my third language and I’ve been speaking it the same amount as my mother tongues and I spell better than most Americans. English makes so much sense to me. It is very simple, compared to Russian or Asian language. As far as European languages go, I’d add my vote for Hungarian. When living short-term in Hungary though, I was totally lost and hated not being able to communicate even on the basic level. Granted, I wasn’t there long enough to give it a good try, but my Eastern European friends (bilingual already) who tried to make a living in Hungary the language was extremely complicated and it took them many years. It really helps to be at least bilingual, and be willing to work hard at a new language if one doesn’t have the linguistic talents. It pays one day. Years ago, while waiting in the check in line at an airline counter I heard an announcement on the loudspeaker for a Czech speaker to the lost and found. My husbanded grabbed me and dragged me there while I protested I spoke not a lick of Czech. But, surprise, I helped the guy file a claim for his lost luggage speaking Russian. We got 2 meal certificates at the airport restaurant as a thank you gift. Languages are power, y’all.
Three in One - Languages
Chinese has the 4 pillars, its writing is easy to learn but pronunciation is another matter. I would never be able to speak chinese because the spoken language is based on sound.
Written Japanese is the most difficult language to learn because of its use of Kanji, Hiragana, and Katagana. As we all know Kanji characters are similar to the chinese characters of which there are 50,000.
However, what makes the Japanese language so difficult is the coupling of Kanji with Hiragana or Katagana characters. Even a learned person will use a dictionary to check for proper spelling.
The spoken Japanese is quite easy to learn and pronounce for anyone who can speak Spanish, Italian, German, Dutch, and some more — its pronunciation is not so easy for those whose mother tongue is French or English.
Polish similar to Russian, try speak in Lithuanian, its more difficult.
As far as English is concerned
English is the only language that I speak. In high school I completed two courses in French but I cannot speak French. This is probably because I only applied myself to the process of learning it enough to pass the classes. As a Catholic I understand and know how to speak a handful of phrases in Latin. I consider myself to be very fluent in my English language.
It seems to me that many people believe English to be overly flexible. I myself know very few fellow English speakers that speak it well. Yes English is a very adaptable language in the aspect that when you hear these adaptations spoken you can understand what the speaker is trying to say even though it is often times extremely full of grammatical errors. I have read every comment in this thread and have found that over 95 percent of them contain at least one or more (more being the majority) examples of grammatical error.
Also it seems that some people believe there to be differences in the way English can be correctly spoken. For one example the correct way to speak English in England is the same as in America. English has a correct or “proper” form no matter who is speaking it in any part of the world. Then there is what I call the casual form of speaking English which contains slang words and use of different predominant synonyms in different places etc.. Even this casual form containing slang words can be spoken with or without grammatical error as many of these slang words are found in modern dictionaries.
I find that in the English language even though something can be said correctly there is often an even “more correct” way to say it. Then there are what I call cultural forms of speaking English. These cultural forms are often incorrect and should only be spoken to other people that are familiar with them. I have never really thought that English would be an incredibly hard language to learn. However I do think that many people find it to be a hard language to master. Also many people that think they have mastered it are mistaken. When it comes to advice on any other language I of course have no advise to give.
Most difficult language to learn
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