{"id":2268,"date":"2020-01-20T11:56:28","date_gmt":"2020-01-20T10:56:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eurotrad.com\/blog\/hardest-languages-to-learn\/"},"modified":"2024-01-23T12:25:11","modified_gmt":"2024-01-23T11:25:11","slug":"hardest-languages-to-learn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eurotrad.com\/en\/magazine\/hardest-languages-to-learn\/","title":{"rendered":"Which languages are the hardest to learn?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Learning languages<\/strong>\u00a0is never easy, especially if you want to become fluent. However, it\u2019s widely believed that some languages are harder to learn than others.<\/p>\n

Although there may be a grain of truth in this statement, it is worth pointing out that it\u2019s impossible to objectively and unambiguously ascertain which\u00a0languages are the hardest to master<\/strong>, despite some of them being seemingly impossible to learn.<\/p>\n

How do you determine how hard a language is to learn?<\/h2>\n

When creating a\u00a0ranking of the hardest languages in the world to learn<\/strong>, it might make sense to start with a\u00a0universal language\u00a0<\/strong>that we could use as a base with which to\u00a0compare\u00a0<\/strong>a second language.<\/p>\n

The problem is that no such\u00a0universal language\u00a0<\/strong>exists. Each and every one of us was born into\u00a0a specific language context\u00a0<\/strong>and can only approach language learning from our own unique perspective.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why attempting to ascertain which language is the hardest to learn doesn\u2019t make much sense. From a methodological point of view, it might be better to ask which language is most difficult to learn depending on your native tongue.<\/p>\n

The easy option: learn a language that is similar to your mother tongue<\/h2>\n

As a concrete example, it is very easy for\u00a0Italian native speakers to learn Spanish<\/strong>, which shares a lot in common with Italian from an etymological, grammatical and syntactic point of view.<\/p>\n

Of course, the reverse is also true: it\u2019s relatively easy for Spanish speakers to understand and learn Italian.<\/p>\n

How difficult is it to learn a distant language?<\/h2>\n

After the easy option comes a much more difficult one, i.e., trying to\u00a0learn a very distant language<\/strong>. Using Italian as a reference point, it is very difficult for Italian native speakers to learn\u00a0Chinese Mandarin<\/strong>. In fact, the language is so distant from Italian that it uses a writing method that is entirely different to our alphabetical system.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, Chinese Mandarin uses\u00a0tonal pronunciation<\/strong>. This means that you can completely alter the meaning of a word depending on the tone you use to pronounce it. A famous example is the word \u2018ma\u2019 which can mean either\u00a0mother\u00a0<\/strong>or\u00a0horse<\/strong>\u00a0depending on the tonal accent used to pronounce the vowel. Since tonal pronunciation is entirely irrelevant in the Italian language, this can be a huge obstacle when learning the spoken language.<\/p>\n

The five hardest languages to learn<\/h2>\n

Despite the aforementioned issues, there are a few\u00a0objective parameters\u00a0<\/strong>we can use to create a\u00a0general ranking of the hardest languages to learn<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Chinese Mandarin:<\/strong>\u00a0often considered the hardest language to learn due to its complex ideogrammatic writing system and the aforementioned pronunciation difficulties. Things are made even more complex by the fact that ideograms do not offer any clues on how to pronounce words.<\/li>\n
  2. Greek:\u00a0<\/strong>a complex language due to its\u00a0unique alphabet\u00a0<\/strong>and\u00a0tricky accent rules,\u00a0<\/strong>which make pronunciation very difficult.<\/li>\n
  3. Arabic:\u00a0<\/strong>along with Hebrew, this language is written\u00a0from right to left \u2013 the opposite way\u00a0<\/strong>to most languages. It also only contains\u00a0two vowels\u00a0<\/strong>and has several\u00a0guttural sounds\u00a0<\/strong>that are difficult to replicate.<\/li>\n
  4. Icelandic:\u00a0<\/strong>each Icelandic word can take on more than\u00a070 different forms<\/strong>\u00a0and the pronunciation of vowels changes radically according to the letters that precede or follow them.<\/li>\n
  5. Japanese:\u00a0<\/strong>in addition to the inherent difficulty of\u00a0ideograms,\u00a0<\/strong>Japan has also incorporated many\u00a0English words\u00a0<\/strong>into its language following WWII. The huge\u00a0difference in register\u00a0<\/strong>between formal and colloquial language makes this one particularly difficult to master.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Learning languages\u00a0is never easy, especially if you want to become fluent. However, it\u2019s widely believed that some languages are harder to learn than others.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":760,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Five Hardest Languages to Learn | Eurotrad<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Which languages are the hardest to learn? 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