Recently there was a blog post about who knows how many and what languages. And then I began to wonder what languages are considered difficult to learn and what this difficulty depends on.
What does complexity depend on?
You can find tables presented by different sources, which will present languages from easy to difficult in terms of time it will take to study, for example, the American Foreign Service Institute at the State Department (FSI) created a table of five categories (how many hours it takes to study them somewhere - then up to level C1. In the first category (600 hours) are Danish, Dutch, Swedish. In the most difficult, fifth (2200 hours), Arabic, Chinese, Japanese and Korean are in the fourth category, according to the State Department; you can speak well after 1100 hours of training.)
But in reality, this table has nothing to do with us, because it is only suitable for those people whose native language is English. According to linguists, no matter what language you are a native speaker of, it will be easiest to learn a related one.
The difficulty in learning can be anything - are the words read the same way as they are written, how many tenses, is there any logic in changing words, what is the alphabet, etc.
Thus, every language has its easy and difficult sides. For example, in the Estonian language you will find 12 cases and many exceptions, but there is a complete absence of future tense and changes in words by gender.
COMPLEX LANGUAGES
Arabic, Chinese and Japanese are considered the most difficult languages according to the Foreign Service Institute. US Department. Finnish, Hungarian and Estonian are also among the most difficult languages due to the huge number of cases. Pronunciation is more difficult than even in Asian languages, since they have a set of long, mind-boggling consonants.
Chinese
The hieroglyphs used in writing are very complex and ancient. Each word is represented by a separate symbol - and not phonetically, so it gives you no idea how to pronounce the word. If you want to understand and be able to express thoughts in simple sentences, you need to learn about 170 characters, whereas if you plan to work or to receive education in Chinese, you have to memorize 2000-3000 characters. The tonal system also does not make life easier, because Chinese has four tones. The number of tones can vary from 3 to 10 (depending on the dialect and counting method). Often it is not enough just to be able to distinguish tones. In many cases, the meaning of a word can only be understood from the context and the specific phrase.
Basque
In this unique, unlike any other European language, very ancient concepts have been preserved. For example, the word “knife” literally means “a stone that cuts,” and “ceiling” means “the roof of a cave.” We are talking about a language that its speakers call Euskara, and we call the Basque language. It is a so-called isolated language: it does not belong to any known language family. Now it is spoken and written by approximately 700 thousand people, living mostly on a coastal strip 50 kilometers wide from the Spanish city of Bilbao to the city of Bayonne in France. The Basque language is classified as an agglutinative language - this is what linguists call languages in which suffixes and prefixes are used to form new words, and each of them carries only one meaning. There are about half a million words in the Basque language dictionary - approximately the same as in our great and mighty one.
Arab
The first difficulty is in writing. Many letters have four different spellings, depending on their position in the word. Vowels are not included in the letter. Sounds are complex, but words are even more complex. The verb has three numbers, so nouns and verbs must be taught in singular, dual and plural. The present tense has 13 forms. The noun has three cases and two genders.
Hungarian
Hungarian has 35 cases or forms of nouns. This alone puts Hungarian on the list of the most difficult languages to learn. Hungarian has a lot of expressive idioms, a lot of suffixes. The large number of vowels and the way they are pronounced (deep in the throat) make this language difficult to pronounce. You will need more effort to learn and maintain this language at a decent level than many other languages.
Estonian
Estonian has a very strict case system. Case is a grammatical class that affects the behavior of words in a sentence. Estonian has 12 cases, which is twice as many as many Slavic languages. In addition, there are many exceptions to the rules; many words can mean several different concepts. Despite the fact that Estonian is spoken by less than two million people, most of whom live in an area half the size of the Novosibirsk region, it has two dialects - northern and southern. Also difficult is the number of vowels. There are a total of nine vowels and thirty-six diphthongs (a combination of two vowel sounds). For comparison: there are only eight to ten diphthongs in English. That is, for an English speaker, speaking Estonian is the same as yodelling.
Etc., there are many languages in the world and each of them is complex in its own way, that’s why it’s interesting to study them and become smarter :)
Which language have you learned or are studying that you found most difficult and why? What language would you like to know?
I, like any teacher, am often asked: “What is the most difficult language in the world?”, “What is more difficult: French or Spanish?”, “Which language is the easiest to learn?” or “Why is English so difficult?” All these questions indicate that people have an intuitive sense that languages differ in complexity, but they are unable to construct a consistent “scale.”
Generally speaking, such scales exist. For example, the American Foreign Service Institute at the State Department (FSI) divides all languages into 5 categories depending on how many hours it takes to study them somewhere up to level C1 (Upper-Intermediate / Advanced). In the first, easiest category (600 hours) are Danish, Dutch, French, Norwegian, Portuguese, Romanian, Italian and Swedish. The most difficult, the fifth (2200 hours), includes Arabic, Chinese, Japanese and Korean. Russian fell into the fourth category; According to the State Department, it can be spoken well after 1,100 hours of training. The entire plaque can be viewed in its entirety.
From this, for example, it should follow that the Russian language is 1.83 times more complex than Romanian, but twice as simple as Arabic. Is this really true? Alas, no. Firstly, these data are provided only for native English speakers. Therefore, Danish, which is related to English, is in the first group. Secondly, FSI is a very conservative educational institution where they teach languages according to university programs - that is, slow and aimed at in-depth study of language culture - programs. If you need the language for everyday communication on simple topics, this classification is not for you.
I’ll say right away: there is no universal “gradation of languages” according to the difficulty of learning. All living languages are used by their native speakers and mastered by foreigners (even if we are talking about two neighboring tribes in the Amazon forests - there are always some kind of interpreters). All languages can be described by linguists. All languages serve the needs of native speakers well. Therefore, compare languages entirely- a thankless task. But in some individual aspects, languages can indeed differ significantly in complexity. This is what I want to write about below.
THE COMPLEXITY OF A NEW LANGUAGE IS DETERMINED BY THE LANGUAGES YOU ALREADY KNOW
Each of us has a native language. If this language is Russian, then we can easily cope with learning another Slavic language. This ease, of course, is relative. Due to the similarities with Russian, you will most likely sometimes replace foreign words and forms with native ones. In addition, closely related languages always look and sound a little “funny.” A Russian will find many funny words in Bulgarian, a Czech in Polish, a German in Dutch, and an Azerbaijani in Turkish.
If you already know a foreign language, then other languages of the same group will seem easier to you. For example, Dutch is easiest to learn if you speak English and German. Another thing is that this task, due to its ease, may seem uninteresting (for example, I read Dutch, but I don’t want to learn it: it’s boring).
THE COMPLEXITY OF A LANGUAGE DEPENDS ON THE CULTURE
Almost any language reflects the cultural ties of the people speaking it. This is especially true for writing and “high”, “abstract” vocabulary. For example, the Russian language, like many other Orthodox nations, uses the Cyrillic alphabet. The source of book and scientific vocabulary for the Russian language was the closely related Church Slavonic and Latin. Thanks to this last fact, we can easily detect “similar” words in almost all European languages. The Russian “revolution” is easily recognized in the Polish “rewolucja”, Romanian “revoluție”, English “revolution” or Spanish “revolución”. But there are also European languages that prefer to create “native” equivalents of such concepts. The same “revolution” in Irish will be “réabhlóid”, and in Hungarian “forradalom”.
Things are even “worse” for us in languages belonging to completely different linguistic “civilizations.” For example, in all languages associated with Islamic culture (Turkic, Iranian, etc.), “high” vocabulary is borrowed from classical Arabic. Arabic turns out to be “easier” for speakers of these languages than for us. In Southeast Asia, classical Chinese performed a similar function. We will not find any Latinisms that make life easier, much less Church Slavonicisms.
COMMON LANGUAGES EASIER
Answering the question “which language is the easiest?”, it is worth paying attention to the fact that languages that are spoken by a large number of people and that are actively studied (or even completely borrowed) by other peoples often turn out to be easier in some respects than those , which are limited to one small area. This is especially true for grammar. There are two reasons for this: firstly, foreigners or new speakers of such languages intuitively “simplify” them for ease of use. This is exactly what happened with Latin. For example, having forgotten their Celtic language, the ancestors of the French, the Gauls, switched not to classical, but to a significantly simplified (folk) Latin. In the end, the matter ended with the fact that the declension of nouns disappeared in modern French. Secondly, the lighter the language, the more likely it is to spread faster.
EVERY LANGUAGE HAS SOMETHING EASYAND PLEASANT
Comparing languages in general is, as I already wrote, a thankless task. But in certain aspects one language can easily be easier than another. Moreover: every language has some kind of easy-to-learn pleasantness (at least from the point of view of a Russian speaker).
For example, in Italian or Spanish the pronunciation is very easy from the Russian point of view. In Chinese - surprise, surprise! - very easy grammar (that is, there is almost none). In modern literary Arabic, the grammar is also not very complex. The Turkic and Finno-Ugric languages have a very transparent word structure (the endings do not “merge” with each other, but are clearly separated from each other and unambiguous in meaning). German has a simple and consistent spelling, and the pronunciation is quite simple. From the point of view of a foreigner who is a native speaker of a Western European language, Russian has a fairly simple system of tenses.
In short, there is no language that doesn't have a pleasant surprise waiting for you!
IN ANY LANGUAGE THERE IS SOME FUCKING COMPLEXITY
You can’t say about any particular language that it is the most difficult language in the world. Each of them has its own characteristics. But, alas, in any natural language there are some unpleasant features for a foreigner (or even a native speaker!).
In the case of Chinese, these problem areas are obvious: tones and characters. Moreover, the latter also cause difficulties for native speakers, significantly delaying school literacy education. This is why it is considered one of the most difficult languages in the world. Arabic is also difficult in terms of phonetics and writing (although much easier than Chinese). Italian, Spanish and French have a huge number of tenses, irregular verbs and rules for using verbal moods that are not entirely natural for Russians. There are really few tenses in the Russian language, but there is a verb form (did / made), the rules of use of which can easily drive foreigners crazy.
The English language is relatively simple in everything... Almost. The fact is that due to the huge number of regional variants and dialects, learning to understand natural English speech by ear is not easy. Although many people believe that it is the easiest language to learn.
SIMPLE DOESN'T MEAN EASY
It turns out that in any language there are “easier” and “harder” things. Therefore, in my opinion, in general, all languages are quite well “balanced” and in this they are not too different from each other. If suddenly you are faced with the need to learn some “difficult” language in your opinion (Japanese or Arabic, for example), do not despair: for every difficulty encountered, they will always reveal some pleasant and easy phenomenon.
But here I would like to make one reservation: systemic “simplicity” does not always mean “ease” of assimilation. Let's take as an example the English times that set everyone's teeth on edge. Formally, they are extremely simple: there are four auxiliary verbs (be, have, do, will), four forms of the verb (infinitive, present participle of –ing, past participle of –ed and simple past tense –ed) and one miserable ending -s. All times are built from combinations of these elementary “bricks” (and not even all of them). But it is precisely because of the small number of “building blocks” and the variety of their combinations that the confusion so familiar to many occurs.
Andrey Logutov
October 25, 2013
World languages
There are about 5 - 6 thousand different languages on our planet; approximately 40 from this list are spoken by two-thirds of the population of the entire globe. The most popular of them are: English, Chinese, Spanish, etc.
Among all this diversity, there are languages that are spoken by billions of people, and there are also those that are known by a small number of people. Each language uses its own letters, rules for writing words and phrases, rules of pronunciation, and much more. This is what distinguishes them all from each other. Some of them are very complex. Let's take a closer look at the language complexity rating.
Language for encryption
So, the well-known Icelandic language opens the top ten. It is characterized by its complex grammar and pronunciation. Some sounds have no analogues in other languages, even in English, so it will be very difficult for a beginner trying to learn it. In addition, Icelandic has many very old declensions and conjugations.
Polish is in ninth position. Despite the fact that not many countries speak it, the language has as many as 7 cases. It should also be noted that it does not lend itself well to any grammatical rules and words - there are a lot of exceptions. All of them have to be memorized, otherwise there is no other way. Pronunciation itself is also of great importance. Only true Poles can speak without an accent, while foreigners cannot fully learn the pronunciation of words. All this makes Polish difficult to learn.
In eighth place is the Basque language. It has 24 cases and is very, very old. Its distinctive feature is that the connection between words lies in the designation of case endings. Some well-known moods are also present here, for example, potential. In general, this indicates complex grammar and word formation.
The Estonian language is in seventh place. It also has a lot of cases - 12. In addition to all this, words can have several meanings at once. The Estonian language also has a large number of exceptions, which makes it difficult to remember.
Sixth place rightfully belongs to the Navajo language. During World War II, this language was used by radio operators to encrypt messages. A very interesting fact is that there have never been any official textbooks or aids for its study. Its grammar is also complex. For example, if we compare it with many Slavic languages, then in it persons differ not by suffix, but by prefix. There are many similar examples that can be given.
Top five
The top five is opened by Japanese. It is very interesting because children have to master writing and pronunciation separately, since the pronunciation and spelling of words are different. In addition to all this, you need to learn 10 - 15 thousand hieroglyphs, a bunch of borrowed words and all the grammar. There are practically no rules in it.
The fourth position is occupied by Hungarian. It has 35 cases, which already says a lot. The alphabet has many vowels, which makes it difficult to learn.
Another little-known language was in the top three - Tuyuka. It has many classes of nouns, and one word can mean an entire phrase. This is the language of the Amazon. Another peculiarity is that here it is necessary to use special verb endings, which make it clear where the speaker learned about this fact.
Arabic and Chinese
Arabic takes second place.
Here, many letters can be written in different ways, in four different versions. There are more numbers here; another dual number is added. The present tense has 13 forms. Pronunciation is also important here. Therefore, in some countries, speaking the same Arabic may look different.
The first place undoubtedly goes to the Chinese language. There are no other languages like them in terms of complexity. It contains many very ancient and complex hieroglyphs that cannot be read, but you can only remember their meanings. There are also 4 tones here. All this makes the Chinese language unique. Despite its features, there are many people in the world who are trying to comprehend it, but not everyone succeeds.
As for the Russian language, it is not among the ten most difficult languages, but stands slightly behind. But nevertheless, thanks to its complex grammar, Russian is not an easy language.
Based on all of the above, we can conclude that Chinese has been the most difficult language for many years. It is followed by Arabic, which is spoken by many Muslims.
Are you wondering which language is the most difficult? Linguists believe that a clear answer to this question has not yet been found.
It all depends on three key criteria:
- 1. The learner’s native language is that foreign languages are as complex as they differ from their native language.
- 2. Qualification An experienced linguist can cope with any language much easier than a person who has nothing to do with linguistics.
- 3. Language environment - people learn much faster in a language environment than outside it. Therefore, the best way to learn a language is to regularly communicate with native speakers. Well, the most effective method is to learn a language while living in a country where it is widely used.
Native speakers of Russian usually have a very difficult time mastering languages that do not belong to the Indo-European language family: Uralic (Estonian, Finnish, Hungarian), Turkic (Yakut, Turkish, Uzbek), Dravidian (Tamil, Telugu), Afroasiatic (Hebrew, Arabic, Somalia) . The highest degree of complexity is represented by the languages of the North Caucasus (Chechen, Kabardian, Abkhazian), languages of Southeast Asia (Thai, Chinese, Khmer), languages of “Black” Africa (Zulu, Swahili, Wolof), languages of Oceania (Maori, Hawaiian), languages American Indians (Quechua, Cherokee, Maya).
The most difficult common languages are Chinese, Korean, Japanese and Arabic. It has been proven that the human brain perceives Chinese and Arabic differently from other languages. For native speakers of these languages, both hemispheres are active when reading and writing, while for other people, only one hemisphere works in this situation. Therefore, learning these unique languages helps develop the brain.
Korean, Japanese and Chinese are difficult even for native speakers. In Japan, for example, school lasts 12 years and half of this time is spent on mathematics and Japanese. To pass the exams, a student must learn about 1850 hieroglyphs, and about 3000 to understand a newspaper article.
Rating of the most difficult languages in the world
In this list we have included common languages, as well as less common ones spoken only by small, isolated tribes.
Chinese
Writing is based on very ancient hieroglyphs. There are more than 85 thousand of them in total, but not all of them are actively used. Many of them are found only in ancient literature. Among them is the hieroglyph “se”, which means “chatty” and consists of 64 lines. But modern Chinese characters cannot be called simple. For example, the hieroglyph “nan” means “stuffy nose” and is represented by 36 lines. Chinese has practically no words in common with European languages. However, many people who have mastered and fallen in love with the Chinese language consider the characters not complex, but logical and incredibly beautiful.
Arab
Many letters have 4 different spellings. The present tense has as many as 13 forms. Another difficulty is dialects. In Egypt they speak a language that is as different from Moroccan and literary Arabic as Spanish is from French and Latin.
Japanese
There are as many as three writing systems. In addition, 2 syllabic alphabet are used: for borrowed words - katana, and for suffixes and grammatical particles hiragana.
Tuyuka
This unusual language is spoken by Indians in the Amazon basin. One word here can mean an entire phrase. Special verb endings give the listener information about how the speaker learned what he is talking about. That is, if you say “Mom cooked dinner,” you should add “I know it because I saw it.” As you can see, in the Amazon basin they are very sensitive to the reliability of the source of information.
Hungarian
It is included in the list of the most difficult languages in the world because it has 35 cases. Vowels are pronounced in a specific way - deep in the throat. Therefore, Hungarian is also difficult to pronounce.
Basque
It preserves very ancient concepts. For example, the word “ceiling” literally means “roof of a cave.” Suffixes and prefixes are used here to form new words. Not only the verb ending changes, but also the beginning. There are a lot of dialect options. Due to this, the Basque language dictionary contains about 500 thousand words.
Finnish
It has 15 cases, and there are more than a hundred conjugations and personal forms of the verb. Add to this the variety of suffixes, alternating consonants and mysterious aftersyllables - and the confused beginner begins to feel that he has taken on the most difficult language in the world. But there are also many pleasant aspects to learning Finnish: the stress falls only on the first syllable, words are written as they are heard, and there is no concept of gender at all.
Estonian
In this language there are as many as 12 cases, in addition, many words mean several different concepts.
Polish
In grammar there are even more exceptions than rules. There are only 7 cases, but it’s hard to figure them out. Usually people first learn to understand spoken Polish and only then delve into cases. Also, Poles practically do not understand those who speak their language with an accent. By the way, if some Polish word seems very familiar to you, be careful - most likely, it means something completely different from what you first thought.
And then there is Eskimo with its 63 present tense forms, Haida with 70 prefixes, Chippewa with 6,000 verb forms. They all challenge each other for the title of “the most difficult language in the world.”
In fact, any difficulty ratings are quite arbitrary. For example, English is considered relatively simple, but many people study it all their lives and still cannot boast of impressive results. There are cases when people easily mastered Chinese, but experienced difficulties with “easy” Spanish. They admire Chinese, which has no tenses or conjugations, but Spanish grammar causes them confusion. Experienced teachers say: it all depends on how passionate you are about learning a particular language. To master it, you will have to make it an important part of your life, get used to thinking in it and feeling it. If you are very interested, then any language will be within your grasp.
Language is a sign system consisting of sounds and words. Each nation has its own unique sign system due to its phonetic, grammatical, morphological and linguistic features. Moreover, there are no simple languages. Each of them has its own difficulties, which are immediately revealed during the study process. Below are the most complex languages on the planet, the rating of which includes ten sign systems.
# 10 #
Finnish
Finnish It is considered one of the most difficult sign systems in the world and deservedly so. It has up to 16 cases and several hundred verb forms and conjugations.
Here, graphic signs convey the phonetics of the word in full (everything is pronounced as it is written). This simplifies the language a bit. Finnish grammar contains several past tense forms and no future tense forms at all.
# 9 #
Icelandic
Icelandic is one of the most difficult languages to pronounce. Its sign system is considered to be associated with one of the oldest languages in the world. It contains linguistic units that are used only by native speakers themselves.
Phonetics is a big challenge for learning the Icelandic language. Only native speakers can accurately convey it.
# 8 #
Hungarian
Hungarian It is one of the top ten most difficult languages to learn in the world. It has 35 case forms and a lot of vowel sounds, which are quite difficult due to their long pronunciation.
The sign system of the Hungarian language has a complex grammar. It contains an innumerable number of suffixes and fixed expressions that are characteristic only of this language. The vocabulary system of this language is distinguished by the presence of only two tense forms of the verb: past and present.
