Try it today at www.rosettastone.com. In other words, a native speaker of an East Slavic language is unlikely to understand a West Slavic language. These are "super-hard languages" that are "exceptionally difficult for native English speakers" to learn, including Arabic, Cantonese, Mandarin, and Korean. Japanese. Where its most commonly spoken: Hungary, Romania, Slovakia. These languages, which include Vietnamese and Mandarin, require correct pronunciation and inflection to create meaning for each word. Like a pack of wolves or a tank of gas, books in Mandarin requires the word bn to indicate a unit of five books. There are 30 letters in the Bulgarian Cyrillic alphabet. Some friends in Central Asia are also trying to avoid it. Where its most commonly spoken: Greece, Cyprus. In contrast to English, Czech is a synthetic language. The phrase I speak Spanish would be yo hablo Espaol, while you speak Spanish would be tu hablas Espaol.. The tones in Mandarin make it a challenge for English speakers, but Cantonese has twice as many tones as Mandarineight in total. It takes approximately 36 weeks (900 hours of practice) to reach professional working proficiency in these languages. When it comes to everyday communication, Russian remains even amid war one of Ukraines two main languages. With over 70 years of experience teaching languages to US government employees, theyve compiled a comprehensive and widely accepted list of language rankings. Languages that don't use a Latin script, though, tend to give Mandarin speakers the most trouble. Phonetically English is quite remote from Russian, and features insane amount of vowels, along with fricatives and aspirated consona. One language is identified as the language of opportunities, the language of upward mobility, said Arel. Gabe Wood is a writer for Rosetta Stone and other websites in the IXL family of brands. But, said Arel, the legislation affected education as it essentially eliminates Russian from high schools. According to Arel, any identification with Russian culture, including the Russian language, is untenable right now. If you have ever heard a Russian person speak English, you might have spotted this mistake: "I put the pizza in oven". In theory, pronunciation is also fairly straightforward, but it can be easy to get hung up on long vowel and consonant sounds. Maria Stambler, a Russia-American bilingual speaker, who used to teach English, explained: "Words and phrases like `Tina Turner' and `happy birthday' are hard to pronounce because Russians . Some friends in Central Asia are also trying to avoid it. It can also set you apart from other people who speak your native language, since fewer people are willing to learn difficult languages, generally. So far, she has traveled to 28 countries and lived in 4. German. So, you might be able to get by in Jordan, but have a hard time in Kuwait. For most people, language learning is deeply fulfilling, fun, and a bit challenging. Russian is rated a two of three in difficulty by the Foreign Service Institute (FSI), which ranks languages based on how long it would take the average native English speaker to learn it, so it's not as difficult as some of the other languages on this list. I knew Ukrainian well but the hardest thing was to stop thinking in Russian. Although many like Tarasiuk might shudder when they hear Russian, a sense of understanding often prevails. 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). Grammatically, verbs often come before the subject, while there are many dual forms of words in addition to the singular and plural forms. After hearing their stories, I decided to stop speaking Russian too.. The Icelandic language remains one of the hardest languages to learn, which makes sense considering the language hasnt changed since it settled in the ninth and 10th centuries. The language is packed with mouthfuls of consonants, making individual words total tongue twisters. For more trivia and language facts sent right to your inbox, sign up for our daily newsletter. The most obvious impediment to learning Greek is the alphabet. If you were to go to Lviv right now [considered the heart of the Ukrainian-speaking part of the country] and walk into a caf there and start speaking in Russian, the waiter or waitress will change to speaking with you in Russian, Zahalskyy said. If you're looking for official statistics, the Defense Language Institute (where they teach members of the CIA foreign languages) has organized languages into four categories, the 1st Category being the easiest, and the 4th Category being the hardest languages to learn for English speakers. Syllabaries: These use symbols to represent syllables. Part of what makes it one of the easiest Slavic languages to learn for English speakers is its simple vocabulary, which makes it pretty simple to speak and comprehend. Even if you manage to overcome all of that, it is also a language with many, many dialects that vary widely. Articulation can prove a challenge as well, due to the exorbitant consonant clusters. Where its most commonly spoken: Arabian Peninsula, the Middle East, North Africa. The Foreign Service Institute classifies most Slavic languages as Category IV languages - which means that they require 44 weeks or 1100 hours of study to reach conversational level. Thats mainly due to their complex grammatical structure and difficult pronunciation. Bulgarian uses the Cyrillic alphabet, which can be tough for English speakers to learn. Most major writing systems generally fit into one of these categories: The easiest writing systems you can learn are ones of the same type and that use the same letters or characters as your native language, while the hardest writing systems to learn are different types altogether. For now, lets take a look at the individual components of each language that affect difficulty levels: In French, the flower translates to la fleur. Right now, she teaches, writes, and creates content from the Dominican Republic. The Macedonian language lost the traditional (Slavic) grammatical cases during its development, and it became an analytic language. Just as learning Arabic is hard for Mandarin speakers, learning Mandarin is hard for Arabic speakers. Turkish is filled with extremely long verbs. The best time to start learning a language is today. The pronunciation is what will get you. This Slavic language consists of two scripts (Cyrillic and Latin), seven tenses and a consonant (R) that is also sometimes a vowel. Includes lists of 100 common names. Born in 1960 in what was then the Soviet Union, Zahalskyy hails from the largely Russian-speaking Ukrainian city of Kherson. The term "Slavic" is a catch-all adjective for all languages in the group, and it is typically used to describe anything common to all or most Slavic languages. Unlike most European languages, which belong to the Indo-European language family, Hungarian is a Uralic language. An Austronesian language, Tagalog features a complicated grammar and sentence structure that make it hard to learn. Another difficult language is Russian. Top 20 Most Difficult Languages to Learn. As an English speaker, youll encounter three types of writing systems: Languages that fall in the first category are often the easiest languages to learn. Dont let their place on this list deter you from diving right in, thoughweve built courses to help you learn quickly and effectively! One word is capable of 10 different translations as a result. Some languages, such as Arabic and Russian, are notoriously difficult to learn for English speakers. These languages take up to 600 hours to master. if( 'moc.enilnoefiltseb' !== location.hostname.split('').reverse().join('') ) { And for some useful wisdom from a "dead" language, here are 40 Latin Phrases So Genius You'll Sound Like a Master Orator. It takes time, discipline, and a well of motivation that youll need to refill. Thats because its the most widely spoken one of all Slavic languages. Determining language difficulty requires a birds eye view of how languages relate to each other. Whether for gaining a deeper cultural understanding of a country or for the simple necessity of co-existing and even performing business, multilingual speakers put themselves at the forefront of new possibilities. For example uenik, translates to male student. Some individual letters prove tricky as well. 6. Most Slavic languages implement an extensive system of cases in which the endings of nouns (declination), adjectives, and prepositions change depending on the case. If youre looking for ease of learning, finding a language with familiar or easy-to-master grammar rules can help you tone down the language difficulty level. However, most languages only use a few dozen of these sounds. 3. Polish also has seven different grammatical cases that are affected by gender. In Polish, words are loaded with consonants which makes them difficult to spell and pronounce, for example, szczcie means "happiness" and bezwzgldny means "ruthless.". It became a symbol of our resistance against Russian aggression, said Viktoriia Tarasuik, a 25-year-old born and raised in Kyiv, who grew up speaking Russian and has also made the linguistic shift. It takes approximately 88 weeks (2200 hours of practice) to reach professional working proficiency in these languages. In terms of grammar, Russian is more complex than English. In Spanish, its la flor, and in Italian, its il fiore. Coincidence? Albanian differs from any other language, even that of its Indo-European classification. Have you ever wondered how hard MANDARIN is to learn? There's a tongue-in-cheek book titled "Learn Greek in 25 years," but you'll be surprised at how . Although not easy at all, Bulgarian and Macedonian are often considered the easiest Slavic languages to learn for English speakers. . There are three different genders for nouns and various grammar rules unfamiliar to English speakers. Spanish speakers do have one small consolation when learning Arabic: the languages share a surprising amount of vocabulary. New: Lesson 17 - The 100 Most Used Words In Russian - The 100 most used words in Russian with a huge number of examples. For example, if youre a Brazilian who speaks Portuguese, Russian would probably be a tricky language for you to learn. The three Slavic language groups are mutually unintelligible. They make decisions faster. On the flip side, you may be looking for a language thats as easy to learn as possible, and being able to judge which languages are most similar to your own will help you find one. One of the most intriguing aspects is that emphasis can completely change the meaning of certain words. As in English, Bulgarian has a standard set of pronouns, places the adjectives in front of the nouns, and is consistent in gender and number. She is a polyglot and a digital nomad. 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. One example is the Japanese writing system hiragana. Along with natives and Spanish language learners, there are more than 572 million Spanish speakers worldwide. However, when you consider all non-English speakers together, there isnt just one answer. This is because native speakers can offer valuable insights on the nuances of the language, including slang and idiomatic expressions. Yeah. Hungarian is an agglutinative language. Russian speakers could also request Russian versions of other documents, such as marriage certificates. To understand it, you must recognize the pitch of a tone in relation to the context of the world and overall sentence. It has 7 declension cases for nouns, adjectives, and pronouns. A lot of the sounds in the language are difficult for English speakers to master, and the grammar is packed with irregular verbs. And because its placed at the very end of the sentence, you cant understand the meaning of whats being said until the sentence is finished. With over 7,000 languages spoken across the globe, its difficult to rank them all. Country with the greatest number of speakers: Egypt. var xhr = new XMLHttpRequest(); It is always a state project.. Where its most commonly spoken: Albania, Kosovo. This can be done by adding a prefix or suffix or modifying the word. Part of the Austroasiatic language family, Vietnamese can also be difficult to speak due to its foreign pronunciations to English speakers. The term hard language refers to their complexity. The pronunciation is also pretty challenging for native English speakers. It is easy to make errors in pronunciation and spelling when learning this language. Over time, the Proto-Slavic language separated into three branches: East Slavic, West Slavic, and South Slavic. Here's a look at the top 10 hardest languages to learn: Its okay to not be that person. Grammar can be a tricky one, even in your native language. Data Privacy and Security, The Complete List of Language Difficulty Rankings, Get the complete list of languages ranked by difficulty, Mexican Spanish vs. Spain Spanish: The Must-Know Differences. Linguistic distance is a measure of how related one language is to another language. English is taught in Chinese schools, so most Mandarin speakers are familiar with English and the Latin script that makes up the English alphabet. Mexican Spanish vs. Spain Spanish: The Must-Know Differences. Albanian's 36-letter alphabet should clue you in that attempting to master this language is going to be a wild ride. This system of honorific speech is called keigo. This list of the most difficult languages for English speakers to learn comes from data gathered by the US State Department. Finally, the South Slavic languages are Bulgarian and Serbo-Croatian (Serbian and Croatian can be considered as two separate languages or as one language with two different dialects). Where its most commonly spoken: Republic of Serbia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Montenegro, Kosovo. Unlike other Slavic languages, Bulgarian has no case system.
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