The Most Difficult Languages in the World

To determine which language is the most difficult to learn, we can evaluate various aspects, such as grammar. Grammar concerns the structure and arrangement of words and the alphabet, as some languages modify the graphic symbols of the writing system. For this reason, we provide an overview of the 5 most difficult languages in the world.

1. Hungarian

This language is one of those few known languages and belongs to the Uralic languages (along with Mari, Estonian, and Finnish, and 27 other languages). It is spoken in Hungary and in parts of Romania, Slovakia, Ukraine, Serbia, Croatia, Austria, and Slovenia. It has no gender and is not widely spoken in many countries.

It also has two conjugations for each verb and is an agglutinative language, meaning it uses prefixes and suffixes extensively to indicate different meanings of the same word, and the letters q, w, x, and y are not used.

2. Arabic

Arabic is a language spoken in several countries in the Middle East and Africa. Unlike Spanish, English, and other languages, Arabic is written and read from right to left, making it one of the most difficult languages to learn.

One of the first texts written in Arabic was the Quran, as it is the religious language of Islam. Approximately 530 million people worldwide speak Arabic, of which 280 million have it as their native language. It is a macrolanguage of the Semitic family, which includes Aramaic, Hebrew, Akkadian, Maltese, and other similar languages. Despite its complexity, it is the fifth most spoken language in the world and one of the six official languages of the United Nations.

Generally, the dozens of Arabic dialects are divided into two main dialects: Mashreqi (eastern) and Maghrebi (western). The Arabic alphabet is completely different. There are 27 letters that change their position within a word to convey different meanings. The same letter at the beginning, middle, or end of a word completely changes the meaning, even if it comes from the same lexical area.

Arabic takes a lot of time and practice because it's a completely new language in its grammar and structure. Understanding the culture and its importance in the world will make it much easier to understand this language. So, immersing yourself in daily life through an Arabic course will help you improve your language skills.

3. Russian

Russian is an Indo-European language of the East Slavic branch. It is the official language of Russia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan, and is widely used in eastern Ukraine. It is also one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Despite being one of the most difficult languages in the world, it is one of the most sought-after languages in language schools. Unlike Hungarian, it is the fourth most spoken language in the world in terms of number of speakers.

The Russian alphabet has a total of 33 letters, was invented by a missionary from the Byzantine Empire in the 10th century, and is based on the Greek alphabet. The current literary vocabulary is more similar to Bulgarian than Ukrainian or Belarusian. The advantage of this language, unlike other difficult languages to learn, is that it can be both read and written, you just have to learn the sounds of the letters of the alphabet and you will be able to read and understand different words for your growth in this language.

4. Polish

Polish is a Slavic language of the Western group, spoken primarily in Poland. It is written with the Latin alphabet, with extensive use of bigrams and additional diacritics. Polish has six oral vowels and two nasals. The oral vowels are /i/ (written i), /ɨ/ (written y), /ɛ/ (written e), /a/ (written a), /ɔ/ (written o), and /u/ (written u or ó).

The nasal vowels are /ɛ̃/ (written ę) and /ɔ̃/ (written ą). As a general rule, the vast majority of Polish words are stressed on the penultimate syllable. The reason we consider Polish one of the most difficult languages to learn is that the verbs have four different conjugations, and while the vowel system is relatively simple, the consonant system can become quite complex.

Moreover, native speakers themselves do not master their own language until they are 15 or 16 years old.

5.Mandarin Chinese

Mandarin is the set of mutually intelligible dialects of Chinese spoken in northern, central, and southwestern China. It has over 1.1 billion speakers (primarily native speakers) and is the main spoken form of Chinese, as well as the language with the largest number of native speakers and total speakers in the world. This language is also spoken in other countries due to the large number of Chinese immigrants.

In this language, there are four distinct tones in pronunciation, which can be almost imperceptible, so it's crucial to achieve perfect intonation when speaking, as these differences can completely change a word's meaning.

The complexity of this language comes from the characters, which can change their meaning with just a simple stroke. As if that weren't enough, the dialects within this country are so diverse that they can be difficult to understand.

The great advantage of this language is that it's one of the most widely spoken languages in the world, so you won't have any complications practicing it. Did you know that this language has no gender, no plurals, and no verb conjugation? There must be something good about Chinese.

Tips to make language learning much easier

Here are a few tips for learning languages, especially if you're starting with one of the world's most challenging languages. Be confident and immerse yourself in language learning.

Knowing other languages beforehand is a huge advantage when learning languages, because your brain is already trained to recognize patterns that play a role in language learning. If your motivation is constant, no difficult language will resist you.

If your dream is to live a gap year abroad , or even just a few weeks, you're in the right place. There's no better way to learn a language than by immersing yourself in the country where it's spoken. You'll understand a new culture and be able to participate in it.