Which languages are generally regarded as among the most difficult to pick up by speakers worldwide? Learning a new language might be difficult, but if the language you want to know is already widely considered one of the most sophisticated and complicated types, you are in for a proper mental exercise!
Even while it is generally agreed that Mandarin is one of the most challenging languages to learn, there are numerous other competitors on this list that are frequently underrated. One of these languages is Japanese. For language aficionados and polyglots who always want to learn a new and exciting language.
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Without further ado, here is a list of the top ten languages that are the most challenging to learn but also the most rewarding.
1. Mandarin
Regarding native speakers, Mandarin is the world’s most widely spoken language. It is a member of the Chinese language family. However, it’s a tall order for an English speaker to learn Mandarin. Every sound in the phonetic transcription method of mandarin has four different pronunciations in Mandarin due to its tonal nature.
To complicate things even more difficult for an English speaker, Mandarin is a language filled with idioms and epigrams gathered up by the end of its long history, making it one of the hardest to acquire.
2. Arabic
In Arabic, most letters can be written in one of four ways based on where they are located inside a word. To make matters even more confusing, vowels are omitted from written Arabic. Because of this, they are translating from Arabic to almost any other language is a significantly more challenging endeavor.
On top of this, there are wide different varieties of Arabic dialects; for example, the Arabic spoken in Egypt is not the same as that spoken in Saudi Arabia.
3. Japanese
The fact that thousands of characters need to be learned before one can write in Japanese to any significant level is one of the factors that makes the Japanese writing system more complex than other character-based writing systems:
There are three different writing systems for the Japanese language: hiragana, katakana, and kanji. Each of these writing systems uses a unique alphabet. One advantage is that it is a language that is somewhat simpler to learn than Mandarin. Every victory counts.
4. Hungarian
Hungarian features some of the most challenging grammatical rules you’ll encounter, as evidenced by the fact that it made a list with 26 cases. In Hungarian, tense and possession are indicated not by the word order as is the case in the majority of European languages but rather by suffixes added to the end of verbs.
In addition, the complex cultural underpinnings of the Hungarian language make it an exceptionally challenging language to master.
5. Korean
Korean is an unusually singular language due to the fact that it is the most widely used language isolate, which is defined as a language that has no observable genealogical link to any other languages. For instance, in Korean, when describing an action, the topic goes before, then the objective, and finally, the move comes at the end of the phrase.
When put into practice, this implies that the sentence “I water to drink” is given complete as “I water to drink” rather than the English phrase “I drink water.”
6. Finnish
Like Hungarian, Finnish has complicated grammar. While the alphabet and sound are comparable to English, the grammar better than makes up for it.
Let’s use the Finnish version of “I like you” as an example. English is simple since you place one phrase after another without changing the bare nouns or verbs. In Finnish, this is “Minä pidän sinusta.” To correctly translate this statement into Finnish, you must first understand.
7. Basque
Basque, like Korean, is an isolated language. It borrows terminology from the wording, but the manner it’s recorded and spoken is unique to the language. This is true even when it comes to the various dialects of Basque that are being told today.
There are at least five distinctive dialects of Basque spoken by less than 700,000 people, so learning the language isn’t easy, but you also need to know which one you’d like to learn.
8. Navajo
Most English adjectives do not have a literal equivalent in Navajo since Navajo is primarily a verb-based language, and descriptions are conveyed through verbs. In addition, because the Navajo language has a variety of sounds for which there is no English counterpart, pronouncing Navajo correctly can be a particularly challenging endeavor.
9. Icelandic
Icelandic is not the most complicated language. It’s intricate, and while it’s not an isolated language, less than 400,000 people on one island have left it with anomalies. Instead of adopting foreign words for new notions, Icelandic coined new terms or gave old words new meanings.
To become fluent, you must go to Iceland and use the resources there rather than learn remotely.
10. Polish
Even though it comes in at 10th place on the ranking, it is by no means an easy task. There are seven different instances in Polish. The incredible thing is that this language uses an alphabet comparable to English’s and has fewer sounds overall, especially for vowels, compared to the English language.
It is challenging to master the language, but it is definitely not as mind-boggling as it formerly was. Despite this, you are still required to navigate an excessively convoluted gender system.
Conclusion
Since none of these languages are related to English, mastering any of them is one of the most demanding tasks. Moreover, to become fluent in any of these languages, you must integrate into a tight-knit and exclusive community.
However, if you can interpret two languages and cultures that couldn’t be more different from one another, you unquestionably have something to be proud of. If you are interested in working a career as a translator and are ready to make an effort to become proficient in both languages, you will be in a great position to do so.