10 Most Difficult Languages in the World
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Most difficult language in the world: The official language of Mainland China, Taiwan, and Singapore, Mandarin is officially the hardest language in the world. Mandarin is spoken by over 1.118 billion people and is the second most spoken language in the world only second to English.
There are close to 6,900 different languages in the world of which 2,197 are spoken in Asia and 230 are spoken in Europe. Popular universities abroad and in India promote learning a third language which simply speaks of the importance of languages in a lifetime.
Students have queries and think, What is the hardest language to learn? Some languages might be harder to understand than the others. For example, Mandarin Chinese is one of hardest language in the world because of its complicated writing style and tones. Many people think Chinese and Mandarin are the same but for the fact it is not. Yes, Mandarin is a form of the Chinese language which varies with the dialects.
Arabic is another difficult language in the world due to its different dialects and unique letters. Other languages, like Japanese and Korean are in the list of the hardest languages to learn. Even some regional languages, such as Telugu are also considered as the hardest language in India. The hardest language in the world is extremely subjective and depends from one individual to another and also on the grasping abilities of the individual.
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Top 10 Hardest Languages in the World
| Rank |
Language |
|---|---|
| 1 |
Mandarin Chinese |
| 2 |
Arabic |
| 3 |
Japanese |
| 4 |
Korean |
| 5 |
Telugu |
| 6 |
Cantonese |
| 7 |
Polish |
| 8 |
Finnish |
| 9 |
Russian |
| 10 |
Icelandic |
Most Difficult Language in the World
Learning languages can be hard work. There are some language which might be harder for one but easy for others.
Mandarin
The language Mandarin Chinese is the hardest language in the world. The meaning of words vary on the basis of how yoy speak (tone). The same word changes meaning based on how your voice goes up or down. Take "ma" for example. Say it one way and it means mother. Say it different and it could mean horse, hemp, or even to yell at someone. Get the tone wrong and you might say something you never meant to.
Writing it is no joke either. You have to learn thousands of different characters. Just to read a simple book, you need to know tons of these little pictures.
Why Mandarin is considered so difficult: Example
| Pinyin | Tone mark | Character | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| mā | high | 妈 | mother |
| má | rising | 麻 | hemp |
| mǎ | dipping | 马 | horse |
| mà | falling | 骂 | to scold |
Arabic
Arabic language is one of the oldest and hardest languages in the world. Many people speak it in Middle East and North Africa. It is also one of the official languages of UN. Arabic is written from right to left. It have 28 letters.
Different countries speak Arabic differently. Arabic is not only for religion. It is used in trade, culture, education and literature. Learning Arabic language can help to get jobs in Gulf countries. Many students and professionals from India learn it for better work and more opportunities abroad.
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Japanese
The official language of Japan, Japanese is considered one of the toughest languages for English speakers to learn. The Japanese language is considered one of the hardest to learn as it involves three separate writing systems (hiragana, katakana, and kanji), an opposite sentence structure to English, and a complicated hierarchy of politeness making it decidedly complex.
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Korean
Derived from Mandarin, Korean also falls under the category of one of the toughest languages to learn as it follows a unique writing system, Hangul - which consists of characters that represent 19 consonants and 21 vowels. The grammar followed in the Korean language is very different from English as it has various verb endings to indicate politeness, anxiety, mood and also subject-object-verb order. The Korean language also falls under category V in the learning difficulty.
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Telugu
Telugu is the official language of the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and the union territory of Puducherry. Telugu is often considered one of the hardest languages in the world because the language has its unique script and grammar and is a challenge to individuals unfamiliar with other Dravidian languages like Tamil, Kannada, and Malayalam.
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Cantonese (Chinese Traditional)
Spoken by close to 85.5 million people worldwide including in cities like Canton, Hong Kong and Macau, Cantonese is another tough language to muster. Learning Cantonese is considered an uphill task due to its tonal nature and complex usage of grammar. And for those wondering, Mandarin and Cantonese are not similar and are regarded as two different languages.
Polish
Widely spoken across Poland and parts of eastern Germany, northern Czech Republic and Slovakia, and western parts of Belarus and Ukraine. Polish is also regarded as one of the toughest languages to learn for the native English speaker as it uses difficult grammar that includes a system of cases and verb aspects. The Polish alphabet has been derived from the Latin script and includes certain additional letters formed using diacritics.
Finnish
Spoken mainly in Finland and parts of Sweden and Norway, the Finnish language also falls under the toughest language category as the language follows a complex grammar which includes 15 cases for nouns and a rich system of verb conjugation. Students looking to learn one of the toughest languages – Finish would need 44 weeks or 1100 class hours to reach Professional Working Proficiency as mentioned by FSI.
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Russian
The Russian language is also the toughest languages in the world. The Russian alphabet is Cyrillic. And this is very hard to understand. The main difficulty the Russian language is that it is an inflected language. This means the words change their ending depending on what they are doing in a sentence. So candidates looking to learn Russian would have to not only learn the word but also what to do with it.
Icelandic is hard language to learn
Almost 97% of people in Iceland speak Icelandic. The language is quite hard for English speakers. Its grammar is very complex: there are four cases, three genders, and many verb changes. On the FSI difficulty scale, Icelandic is in Category IV. People may need around 44 weeks or about 1100 hours of classes to be able to use Icelandic at work.
English speaking countries like the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia make it easier for people to learn English, which is why many choose to study it for international communication.
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The most spoken languages are:
Language | Total Speakers |
|---|---|
English | 1.5 billion |
Mandarin | 1.1 billion |
Hindi | 609 million |
Spanish | 559 million |
French | 309 million |
Standard Arabic | 274 million |
Bengali | 272 million |
Portuguese | 263 million |
Russian | 255 million |
Urdu | 231 million |
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The hardest languages to learn are Mandarin Chinese, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. They have tough writing systems and pronunciation.