This means that, rather than containing individual prepositions, prefixes and suffixes are added onto words. Bulgarian uses the Cyrillic alphabet, which can be tough for English speakers to learn. Navajo is hard enough to figure out that code talkers in World War II used the language to develop a code for communicating that the Germans wouldn't be able to track. Mandarin is tough to learn because its a tonal language and uses a logographic script, hnz. The trickiest part of Mongolian is the pronunciation. For instance, Arabic has complex grammar and a different alphabet . The Cyrillic alphabet that Russian uses can be especially confusing for Chinese learners because it has letters that look similar to English letters, but are pronounced completely differently. The default vowel sound of those letters is changed by using a secondary symbol. With over 70 years of experience teaching languages to US government employees, theyve compiled a comprehensive and widely accepted list of language rankings. Thats German for ice skating. German is often preceded by its hard-to-master accent and enthusiastically long vocabulary. Unusual grammar, difficult pronunciation, and six different tones make Vietnamese a challenge for English speakers. Language difficulty rankings exist so you can set the fluency goal posts at a realistic distance. However, learning them can be more difficult since there are very scarce learning resources available for Bulgarian and Macedonian online. Some languages, such as Arabic and Russian, are notoriously difficult to learn for English speakers. It takes time, discipline, and a well of motivation that youll need to refill. An Austronesian language, Tagalog features a complicated grammar and sentence structure that make it hard to learn. . Though German is in the same family as English, its nuanced pronunciation gives it a higher difficulty level than other Germanic languages. Korean uses an alphabet, but unlike Spanish or French, its letters combine to form syllabic blocks. Were grouping Spanish and French (which are the worlds fourth and fifth most widely spoken languages, respectively) because they are both Romance languages, and theyre similar enough that both Spanish and French speakers will find the same languages difficult for largely the same reasons. February 8, 2022. Haitian Creole. After hearing their stories, I decided to stop speaking Russian too.. Despite the fact that Greek roots are found throughout the English language, Greek is among the hardest languages for English speakers to learn, according to . In theory, pronunciation is also fairly straightforward, but it can be easy to get hung up on long vowel and consonant sounds. Although both Bulgarian and Macedonian have been recognized Category IV languages in terms of difficulty for English speakers, they are relatively easy to learn compared to other Slavic languages. For instance, lina means "linen" in Estonian, but linna means city., Where its most commonly spoken: Turkey, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Greece. brzcze. When it comes to everyday communication, Russian remains even amid war one of Ukraines two main languages. New: Russian Names - Learn the history of Russian names. Slavic languages: which are the easiest, which are the hardest? A professional translator, she now works as a cultural and language liaison for the Rubizh brigade, a part of the national armed forces engaged in fighting around Bakhmut. To understand it, you must recognize the pitch of a tone in relation to the context of the world and overall sentence. Greek in particular is a highly inflected language, which means its words often change based on grammatical categories such as tense, number, and gender. comparison of Czech with Russian and German, The grammar, pronunciation, and general structure of a language, The alphabet (as mentioned in the article, some Slavic languages use the Cyliric alphabet, which means more things to learn). But did you know that there are more than 10 different Slavic languages? 500 Hours Need to learn complete Swedish. Croatian has seven cases, while English only has three. English is taught in Chinese schools, so most Mandarin speakers are familiar with English and the Latin script that makes up the English alphabet. Theyre all Germanic languages. Take a look at the word suka. If you emphasize the first syllable ("SU-ka"), then youre saying "vomit." In fact, the further the languages are classified from each other, the fewer similarities they have. Russia announced similar plans for other regions it controls, though some of the proposals, like introducing the Russian currency rouble in the Kherson region, are in flux. Japanese is often considered to be one of the most difficult languages to learn for English speakers due to its complex writing system, which includes three scripts: hiragana, katakana, and .
