What makes languages difficult to learn?
It is not that easy to learn a new language. There are around 6500 languages in the world. Most of them are difficult languages to learn. English the among the easiest and the most common language in the world. Pretty much the whole world is trying to learn English.
Moreover, there are large parts of the world that have not yet fully succeeded in the endeavor, they are well on the way. So this takes the pressure off as native English speakers to learn a new language, which might be seen as a good thing. However, there are a number of hard languages to learn for non- English speakers as well.
Learning a difficult language opens more doors for business, employment and personal relationships. In order to expand your business, all your documents need to be in the target language, therefore you may need to learn the target language or seek translation. However, it differs from person to person as to how difficult it is for him/ her to learn a new language. There are a few factors that determines that languages are difficult to learn:
- The similarity between the target and the native language also plays a very important role. For instance, it’ll be easier for a English speaker to learn Spanish than a non- English speaker. We face less difficulties while learning languages that are close in origin to our native language.
- Some languages contain many of the same Phonetics as that of our native language. That is to say, person learning a second language different from his native language will have to put in a lots of efforts to get a grasp on the accent as well. Moreover, you’ll need a lot of practice to learn the right pronunciations and the tones. A slight variation in tone can completely change the meaning of a sentence.
- In addition to the pronunciations, another factors that determines that it is a difficult language to learn, is the grammatical structure. Some languages have much more complex grammar structures than others. However, there are languages that adds to the level of difficulty because we not only have to worry about sentence construction, but also word construction.
- Last but not the least writing. However, in order to learn a foreign language, one may avoid learning writing. However, it adds to the difficulties to learn a foreign language!
TOP 10 MOST DIFFICULT LANGUAGES TO LEARN IN THE WORLD
Whether you are a person with English- speaking background or not, you will find these the top 10 hardest languages to learn-
MANDARIN
Mandarin, a part of Chinese language the most widely spoken language in the world, is however the hardest language in the world. It is very different from other languages in the world. In addition to the Chinese language’s rich homophones, idioms and aphorisms, every sound in Mandarin’s phonetic transcription system pinyin has four distinct pronunciations. Therefore, considering all the factors, Mandarin becomes the top among the most difficult languages to learn.
ARABIC
Arabic is a hard language to learn because of its vocabulary. Moreover, they don’t include any vowels in the writing that makes it hard to provide Arabic translations. Arabic has different dialects, that is to say, Saudi Arabia and Egypt speak different types of Arabic.
JAPANESE
Japanese is the single language that takes English people the longest to learn. A learner has to memorize the immense number of Kanji or individual characters. However, it is easier than Mandarin to learn, so that’s a win.
POLISH
English speaker may face a lot of difficulties while learning the Polish spelling and grammar. However, Polish uses a Latin alphabets, so they are easier to learn for English speaker.
HUNGARIAN
It is a language that has some of the most complex grammar rules. Hungarian might be among the most difficult languages to learn that you will find in Eastern Europe.
KOREAN
Korean is an isolated language that is quite different from other languages in the world. Moreover, in Korean, a sentence is framed as subject- object-action. For example, i write book.
URDU
For a English speaker, Urdu is a very complex language to learn. Urdu is written from right to left, and also has flavors of Arabic and Persian.
FINNISH
Finnish also has a complicated set of rules for grammar. Moreover, it is the most hard language to learn in the Nordic region of the world.
ICELANDIC
Icelandic is a language spoken by a very small community in Iceland. However, instead of innovating new words, they focus of giving new meanings to the old words. Moreover, some of the words are almost impossible to pronounce, and they are some of the longest in the world.
VIETNAMESE
It is not an easy language to learn for an English speaker. It however has similarities to Thai or Khmer, but it can be difficult to learn this foreign language.
So, these are the world’s most difficult languages to learn. If you face difficulties to learn these or any other foreign language you always have the option of language translation, transcription or interpretation.