Almost everyone has studied a foreign language on a certain level, but even the most trained polyglots can be confused by a language that does not look familiar to their eyes and ears. Let’s figure out which languages are the hardest for most people.
1.Japanese. Japanese is one of the most popular languages to learn, but also one of the most difficult. Many people who begin to learn this language are stopped by a large number of hieroglyphs, because there are tens of thousands of them in Japanese. Grammar and phonetics also cause difficulties, since the arrangement of words in the Japanese is different, and pronunciation should be taken seriously. The pronunciation of vowels, stress and other phonological processes are all extremely important for understanding speech.
However, don’t think that it’s almost impossible to learn Japanese. Indeed, in order to understand, you need to know only two thousand hieroglyphs. However, there are a number of tools to help you learn fast and with fun. For example, a language learning app like Encore helps to study even the most difficult languages for English-speakers. It is very customizable to memorize words and phrases as long as you need. Its My Entries feature allows adding custom content such as songs, poems, exam tests, anything else. The app uses L1-L2 method for studying where all the content is available in 2 languages: English and your target language. This creates an immersion experience even without going to your target country and communicating with native speakers. Immersive learning is considered to be the most effective method of studying something fast.
According to ComboApp digital agency, there are more than 500,000 educational apps available on both iOS and Android marketplaces. Distance learning becomes highly popular when most of us have to stay at home and can’t visit language courses offline. In the digital age, we have more ways for learning than before, so you just need to start and move to your goal. Make sure to read user reviews to find out what the weak and strong product’s sides are to choose the best one for yourself.
2.Arabic. First of all, Arabic language is difficult to learn because of its written manner. Words are written from right to left, and punctuation marks are reversed. Also, Arabic does not use capital letters. Moreover, pronunciation is just as difficult. Many people give up learning it, but the good side is that its alphabet has only 28 letters. The spelling and pronunciation of words in this language is absolutely the same.
3.Korean. Korean language is part of the group of oriental languages, which means that learning it a priori will be difficult. It has quite difficult grammar because of the order of the words. Also, the vocabulary of the language should be given special attention, because the pronunciation and spelling of one word can be radically different due to the three types of vocabulary that are present in Korean. However, every time you want to leave learning it, think of all the opportunities, which Korea provides, for example: cooperation with Korea, broadening your horizons, working and studying in Korea, wonderful vacation in this country.
4.Chinese. The Chinese language is also part of the oriental languages. Moreover, Chinese is one of the most ancient languages in the world. There are over 80,000 characters in Chinese. Also, one of the main difficulties in learning this language is the large number of dialects. Among other things, do not forget that Chinese is the language of tonalities. Correct pronunciation plays a very important role here, because the wrong tone can completely change the meaning of the sentence. But despite all the difficulties, knowledge of the Chinese language is very useful in life. And the language itself is not as difficult as it seems. Indeed, in order to understand Chinese speech, it is enough to know only 500 hieroglyphs. The grammar is also not that difficult. In addition, there are no gender changes in Chinese.
5.Hungarian. The Hungarian alphabet has 40 letters (of which 14 are vowels), and more than 20 cases, which causes many difficulties for people who learn it. When forming a phrase, several different formants are attached to the main form of the keyword – prefixes and suffixes that carry the function of the plural, pronouns and other forms or parts of speech. As a result, the original word becomes almost unrecognizable – difficult to pronounce, difficult to understand and translate.
The above mentioned languages are considered to be the most difficult to learn for English speakers. However, nowadays, there are a lot of online resources you can use for studying such as language learning websites, podcasts, videos, apps, etc. And the most important part is that you can access these resources from any place and at any time.
