Language is a sign system consisting of sounds, words and sentences. The sign system of each people is unique due to its grammatical, morphological, phonetic and linguistic features. Simple languages does not exist, since each of them has its own difficulties, which are discovered during the study.
Below are the most complex languages of the world, the rating of which consists of 10 sign systems.
- This is one of the most difficult to pronounce. The sign system is also considered one of the most ancient languages. It contains linguistic units, used only by native speakers. One of the biggest difficulties in learning Icelandic is its phonetics, which only native speakers can convey accurately.
Finnish
Finnish deservedly considered one of the most complex sign systems in the world. It has 15 cases, as well as several hundred personal verb forms and conjugations. In it, graphic signs fully convey sound form words (both written and pronounced), which simplifies the language. The grammar contains several past tense forms, but no future tense forms.
Navajo
Navajo- the language of the Indians, the peculiarity of which is considered verb forms, formed and changed by persons using prefixes. It is the verbs that carry the main semantic information. The Navajos were used by the US military during World War II to transmit encrypted information.
In addition to vowels and consonants, the language contains 4 tones, which are called ascending - descending; high – low. IN present moment The fate of the Navajo is in jeopardy as linguistic dictionaries are absent, and the younger generation of Indians is switching exclusively to English.
Among the top ten difficult languages for study. It has 35 case forms and is replete with vowel sounds, which are quite difficult to pronounce due to their length. The sign system has quite complex grammar, in which there is an uncountable number of suffixes, as well as set expressions characteristic only of this language. A feature of the dictionary system is the presence of only 2 tense forms of the verb: present and past.
Eskimo
Eskimo and is considered one of the most complex in the world due to its numerous tense forms, of which there are up to 63 in the present tense alone. The case form of words has more than 200 inflections (word changes using endings, prefixes, suffixes). The Eskimo language is a language of images. For example, the meaning of the word “Internet” among the Eskimos would be “a journey through layers.” The Eskimo sign system is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as one of the most difficult.
One of the few languages listed in the Book due to its complexity. Its peculiarity lies in its numerous cases, of which there are 46. This is one of state languages residents of Dagestan, which has no prepositions. Postpositions are used instead. There are three types of dialects in the language, and each of them unites a certain group of dialects. IN sign system a lot of borrowings from different languages: Persian, Azerbaijani, Arabic, Russian and others.
One of the oldest in Europe. It is owned by some residents of Southern France and Northern Spain. Basque contains 24 case forms, and does not belong to any branch language families. Dictionaries contain about half a million words, including dialects. Prefixes and suffixes are used to form new linguistic units.
The connection between words in a sentence is traced through changes in endings. Verb tense is indicated by changing the endings and beginnings of the word. Due to the not widespread use of the language, it was used by the American military during World War II to transmit classified information. Basque is rightfully considered one of the most difficult languages to learn.
Russian
Russian one of the three most difficult languages in the world. The main difficulty with “great and mighty” is the free stress. For example, in French The stress is always placed on the last syllable of the word. In Russian strong position can be located anywhere: both in the first and in last syllable, or in the middle of a word. The meaning of many lexical units determined by the place of emphasis, for example: flour - flour; organ – Organ. Also meaning polysemantic words, which are written and pronounced the same, are determined only in the context of the sentence.
Other linguistic units may differ in writing, but are pronounced the same and have a completely different meaning, for example: meadow - onion, etc. Our language is one of the richest in synonyms: one word can have up to a dozen similar meanings linguistic units. Punctuation also carries a large semantic load: the absence of one comma completely changes the meaning of the phrase. Remember hackneyed phrase from school: “Execution cannot be pardoned”?
Arabic
Arabic– one of the most complex sign systems in the whole world. One letter has up to 4 different spellings: It all depends on the location of the symbol in the word. Not found in the Arabic vocabulary system lowercase letters, word breaks for hyphenation are prohibited, and vowel symbols are not displayed on the letter. One of individual characteristics language lies in the way words are written - from right to left.
In Arabic, instead of the two numbers familiar to the Russian language, there are three numbers: singular, plural and dual. It is impossible to find identically pronounced words here, since each sound has 4 different tones, which will depend on its location.
Chinese
Chinese is an incredibly complex language. The first difficulty, if you want to study it, is total number hieroglyphs in the language. Modern Chinese dictionary has about 87 thousand hieroglyphs. The complexity lies not only in the sign system of the language, but also in correct spelling. A single incorrectly depicted line in one hieroglyph completely distorts the meaning of the word.
One Chinese "letter" can mean an entire word or even a sentence. A graphic symbol does not reflect the phonetic essence of a word - a person who does not know all the intricacies of this language will not be able to understand how to correctly pronounce a written word. Phonetics is quite complex: it has numerous homophones and contains 4 tones in the system. Learning Chinese is one of the most complex tasks, which a foreigner can set before himself.
On at the moment there are about 6000 in the world different languages. Some of them are simple, some are complex. And there are those that for foreigners are more like a cryptographic code than a language of communication. Here are the 10 most difficult languages to learn.
10. Tuyuka
“Think before you speak,” we were often told as children. But in the Tuyuca language, spoken by Indians living in the Amazon basin, they always think about what they are talking about. After all, in the Tuyuka language there are special verb endings that allow the listener to understand how the speaker knows what he is talking about. And there is no way to do without them: the language demands it! So when you say something like “a woman is washing clothes,” you must add, “I know because I saw it myself.” In addition, there are from 50 to 140 classes of nouns in this language. The Tuyuk language is agglutinative, which means that one word can mean an entire phrase. And two whole words meaning the pronoun “we” - inclusive and exclusive.
9. Abkhazian
The Abkhaz language has only three vowel sounds - a, ы and aa. Other vowels indicated in writing in separate letters- e, o, and, u, are obtained from a combination of other vowels and consonants. The Abkhaz language compensates for its vocal poverty with an abundance of consonants: in literary language there are 58 of them, and in the Bzyb dialect there are as many as 67. By the way, the Abkhaz alphabet based on the Cyrillic alphabet was created in 1862, and three years later the Abkhaz primer was released. The manner of Abkhazians starting a word with the letter “a” has been repeatedly joked about. But this prefix, or in common parlance a prefix, performs the same function in the Abkhaz language that the in English is definite article. It is placed before all nouns, and according to the rules Abkhaz language it is added to borrowed words too. So “the death of the air squadron” is not a joke.
8. Khoisan
Some Khoisan languages are endangered, and many have already become extinct. But still, approximately 370 thousand people speak these very unusual dialects. The fact is that in the languages spoken in southern Africa around the Kalahari Desert, there are so-called clicks or clicking consonants. The term “Khoisan” itself was constructed from words in the Khoisan Nama language: “Khoi” in it means man, and “San” means “Bushman”. Initially, this term was used to designate the physical-racial type of these peoples, and only much later the American linguist Joseph Greenberg applied the term to the macrofamily of languages that use clicking sounds. Recently, geneticists confirmed the ancient isolation of the Khoisan people from the rest of humanity and discovered that the tribes living north and south of the Kalahari have been isolated from each other for at least 30 thousand years.
7. Finnish
Anyone who has tried to learn all fifteen Finnish cases and more than a hundred conjugations and personal forms of the verb will agree that the Finnish language is difficult. Finns don't just burn their hearts with verbs - they inflect the verb like a noun! Add to this the alternation of consonants, an abundance of suffixes and mysterious postpositions, and verb control that is difficult for a foreigner - and it seems like it’s time to fall into despair. But don't rush: Finnish a lot of comfort for a diligent student. Words are heard, written and read exactly the same - no unpronounceable letters not here. The stress always falls on the first syllable, and the category of gender is completely absent, which is quite capable of warming the soul of a supporter of equality. Finnish has several past tenses, but no future tense. Connoisseurs national character They claim that this is because Finns are accustomed to being responsible for the words spoken, and if a Finn has promised, he will definitely do it.
6. Chinese
Newest dictionary Chinese language "Zhonghua Zihai", compiled in 1994, contains - are you sitting? - 85,568 hieroglyphs. It would be more correct, however, to speak not about Chinese, but about the Chinese branch of languages, which unites many dialects, but there are still no easy ones among them. Take the hieroglyphs: as a consolation, we can immediately say that not all of the 85-odd thousand are actively used in modern language: the lion's share of them is found only in memorable literature of various Chinese dynasties and are no longer used in practice. For example, the hieroglyph "se", meaning "chatty", which consists of 64 strokes. However, today’s hieroglyphs are not so simple: for example, the hieroglyph “nan”, which means “stuffy nose”, is represented by 36 lines. Unlike happy Europeans who learn a few dozen letters, a resident of the Celestial Empire, in order to even begin to read, must memorize, at worst, at least 1,500 hieroglyphs. But you also have to learn how to draw each hieroglyph. Oh, you are heavy, Chinese letter!
5. Chippewa
The champion in verb forms is, of course, the language of the American Indians Chippewa, or, as they are more often called, Ojibwe. Linguists call the Chippewa language the southwestern dialect of the Ojibway language itself. So, in this language there are as many as 6 thousand verb forms! But even with all the complexity of this language, you, of course, know a couple of words from it: these are, for example, the words “wigwam” or “totem”. Based on the legends of the Ojibwe people, written epic poem Henry Longfellow. The American classic used myths, place names and even words from the Ojibwe language, but like any outsider he was not able to take everything into account. So the error is right there on the cover: legendary hero The Ojibwe name is Nanobozho, because Hiawatha is a character from Iroquois mythology.
4. Eskimo
Are you familiar with the word “igloo”, which means the Eskimos’ winter home, built from blocks of snow or ice? Then congratulations: you know a word from the Eskimo language. It also rightfully takes its place of honor among the most difficult languages in the world: the Guinness Book of Records claims that it has 63 present tense forms, and simple nouns in it have 252 inflections. The term “inflection” in linguistics refers to different types changes to words or roots. Let’s just correct the Guinness Book: modern linguists do not distinguish the Eskimo language. Apparently, we are talking about the entire Eskimo branch of the Eskimo-Aleut languages. But the world record registrar is not mistaken about the main thing: all Eskimo languages are extremely complex: for example, up to 12 can be expressed in one verb form with the help of suffixes. grammatical categories. Speakers of this language think figuratively: the word “Internet” in it is expressed by the term “ikiaqqivik”, which means “journey through layers.”
3. Tabasaran
The number of languages spoken by the indigenous peoples of Dagestan cannot be accurately counted. We can only say that 14 of them have writing. The most complex of them and, according to the Guinness Book of Records, one of the most complex in the world is Tabasaran. The language of the Lezgin branch of the Nakh-Dagestan family of languages holds the world record for the number of cases - they are distinguished from 44 to 52 in the Tabasaran language! It has 54 letters and 10 parts of speech, and there are no prepositions, but postpositions are used instead. So that life does not seem like honey to a student of the Tabasaran language, there are as many as three dialects in the language. But the Tabasaran dictionary contains a lot of borrowings. The mountain residents borrowed ancient household, military and craft terminology from the Farsi language. Tabasarans borrowed religious and scientific terms. And the Russian language shared modern socio-political, scientific and technical vocabulary with Tabasaran. Just don't forget. that all these words change in more than 50 cases!
2. Navajo
The idea of using complex languages to transmit encrypted messages came to the Americans back in the First World War. world war: At that time, Choctaw Indians served in the US Army. During World War II they took advantage of this experience. And besides the complicated Basque language began to transmit messages in the Navajo language. Fortunately, there were enough native speakers of this complex language, who also spoke English, but there was no written language in the language, and therefore no dictionaries at all. “Windtalkers,” that is, “speakers with the wind,” as the Navajo code talkers called themselves, were even forced to invent new words that were previously absent in their language. For example, the plane was called “ne-akhs-ya”, that is, “owl”, submarine- “besh-lo”, literally - “iron fish”. And the Navajo signalmen called Hitler “posa-tai-wo,” that is, “crazy white man" In addition to vowels and consonants, this language has four more tones - high, low, rising and falling. Particularly complex in the Navajo language are verb forms, which consist of a stem to which derivational and inflectional prefixes are added. The fascist himself will break his head!
1. 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 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, each of them carrying 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. This is explained a large number synonyms and dialect variants. The obscurity and complexity of the Basque language played a positive role: during the Second World War, it was used by radio operators in the US Army.
Today there are about 6,000 languages in the world. Some are simple, some are more complex. And there are those that for foreigners are more like a cryptographic code than a language of communication. Here are the 10 most difficult languages to learn.
10. Tuyuka
“Think before you speak,” we were often told as children. But in the Tuyuca language, spoken by Indians living in the Amazon basin, they always think about what they are talking about. After all, in the Tuyuka language there are special verb endings that allow the listener to understand how the speaker knows what he is talking about. And there is no way to do without them: the language demands it! So when you say something like “a woman is washing clothes,” you must add, “I know because I saw it myself.” In addition, there are from 50 to 140 classes of nouns in this language. The Tuyuka language is agglutinative, which means that one word can mean an entire phrase. And two whole words meaning the pronoun “we” - inclusive and exclusive.
The Abkhaz language has only three vowel sounds - a, ы and aa. The remaining vowels, denoted in writing by separate letters - e, o, i, u, are obtained from a combination of other vowels and consonants. The Abkhaz language compensates for its vocal poverty with an abundance of consonants: there are 58 of them in the literary language, and as many as 67 in the Bzyb dialect. By the way, the Abkhaz alphabet based on the Cyrillic alphabet was created in 1862, and three years later the Abkhaz primer was released. The manner of Abkhazians starting a word with the letter “a” has been repeatedly joked about. But this prefix, or in common parlance a prefix, performs the same function in the Abkhaz language as the definite article in English. It is placed before all nouns, and according to the rules of the Abkhaz language, it is added to borrowed words too. So “the death of the air squadron” is not a joke.
Some Khoisan languages are endangered, and many have already become extinct. But still, approximately 370 thousand people speak these very unusual dialects. The fact is that in the languages spoken in southern Africa around the Kalahari Desert, there are so-called clicks or clicking consonants. The term “Khoisan” itself was constructed from words in the Khoisan Nama language: “Khoi” in it means person, and “San” means “Bushman”. Initially, this term was used to designate the physical-racial type of these peoples, and only much later the American linguist Joseph Greenberg applied the term to the macrofamily of languages that use clicking sounds. Recently, geneticists confirmed the ancient isolation of the Khoisan people from the rest of humanity and discovered that the tribes living north and south of the Kalahari have been isolated from each other for at least 30 thousand years.
7. Finnish
Anyone who has tried to learn all fifteen Finnish cases and more than a hundred conjugations and personal forms of the verb will agree that the Finnish language is difficult. The Finns don't just burn their hearts with verbs - they inflect the verb like a noun! Add to this the alternation of consonants, an abundance of suffixes and mysterious postpositions, and verb control that is difficult for a foreigner - and it seems like it’s time to fall into despair. But don’t rush: the Finnish language has a lot of comfort for a diligent student. Words are heard, written, and read exactly the same - there are no unpronounceable letters here. The stress always falls on the first syllable, and the category of gender is completely absent, which is quite capable of warming the soul of a supporter of equality. Finnish has several past tenses, but no future tense. Experts on national character claim that this is because Finns are accustomed to answering for the words spoken, and if a Finn has promised, he will definitely do it.
6. Chinese
The newest dictionary of the Chinese language, Zhonghua Zihai, compiled in 1994, contains - are you sitting? — 85,568 hieroglyphs. It would be more correct, however, to speak not about the Chinese language, but about the Chinese branch of languages, which unites many dialects, but there are still no easy ones among them. Take the hieroglyphs: as a consolation, we can immediately say that not all of the more than 85 thousand are actively used in the modern language: the lion’s share of them is found only in the commemorative literature of various Chinese dynasties and is no longer used in practice. For example, the hieroglyph "se", meaning "chatty", which consists of 64 strokes. However, today’s hieroglyphs are not so simple: for example, the hieroglyph “nan”, which means “stuffy nose”, is represented by 36 lines. Unlike happy Europeans who learn a few dozen letters, a resident of the Celestial Empire, in order to even begin to read, must memorize, at worst, at least 1,500 hieroglyphs. But you also have to learn how to draw each hieroglyph. Oh, you are heavy, Chinese letter!
The champion in verb forms is, of course, the language of the American Indians Chippewa, or, as they are more often called, Ojibwe. Linguists call the Chippewa language the southwestern dialect of the Ojibway language itself. So, in this language there are as many as 6 thousand verb forms! But even with all the complexity of this language, you, of course, know a couple of words from it: these are, for example, the words “wigwam” or “totem”. Henry Longfellow's epic poem is based on the legends of the Ojibwe people. The American classic used myths, place names and even words from the Ojibwe language, but like any outsider he was not able to take everything into account. So the mistake is right there on the cover: the legendary Ojibwe hero is called Nanobozho, because Hiawatha is a character from Iroquois mythology.
4. Eskimo
Are you familiar with the word “igloo”, which means the Eskimos’ winter home, built from blocks of snow or ice? Then congratulations: you know a word from the Eskimo language. It also rightfully takes its place of honor among the most difficult languages in the world: the Guinness Book of Records claims that it has 63 present tense forms, and simple nouns in it have 252 inflections. The term “inflection” in linguistics refers to different types of changes in words or roots. Let’s just correct the Guinness Book: modern linguists do not distinguish the Eskimo language. Apparently, we are talking about the entire Eskimo branch of the Eskimo-Aleut languages. But the world record registrar is not mistaken about the main thing: all Eskimo languages are extremely complex: for example, up to 12 grammatical categories can be expressed in one verbal form using suffixes. Speakers of this language think figuratively: the word “Internet” in it is expressed by the term “ikiaqqivik”, which means “journey through layers.”
The number of languages spoken by the indigenous peoples of Dagestan cannot be accurately counted. We can only say that 14 of them have writing. The most complex of them and, according to the Guinness Book of Records, one of the most complex in the world is Tabasaran. The language of the Lezgin branch of the Nakh-Dagestan family of languages holds the world record for the number of cases - there are from 44 to 52 of them in the Tabasaran language! It has 54 letters and 10 parts of speech, and there are no prepositions, but postpositions are used instead. So that life does not seem like honey to a student of the Tabasaran language, there are as many as three dialects in the language. But the Tabasaran dictionary contains a lot of borrowings. The mountain residents borrowed ancient household, military and craft terminology from the Farsi language. The Tabasarans borrowed religious and scientific terms from Arabic. And the Russian language shared modern socio-political, scientific and technical vocabulary with Tabasaran. Just don't forget. that all these words change in more than 50 cases!
2. Navajo
The idea of using complex languages to transmit encrypted messages came to the Americans back in World War I: then the Choctaw Indians served in the US Army. During World War II they took advantage of this experience. And in addition to the complex Basque language, they began to transmit messages in the Navajo language. Fortunately, there were enough native speakers of this complex language, who also spoke English, but there was no written language in the language, and therefore no dictionaries at all. “Windtalkers,” that is, “speakers with the wind,” as the Navajo code talkers called themselves, were even forced to invent new words that were previously absent in their language. For example, the plane was called “ne-akhs-ya”, that is, “owl”, the submarine was called “besh-lo”, literally “iron fish”. And the Navajo signalmen called Hitler “posa-tai-wo,” that is, “crazy white man.” In addition to vowels and consonants, this language has four more tones - high, low, rising and falling. Particularly complex in the Navajo language are verb forms, which consist of a stem to which derivational and inflectional prefixes are added. The fascist himself will break his head!
1. 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 50-kilometer-wide coastal strip 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 that use suffixes and prefixes to form new words, each of them carrying 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. This is explained by the large number of synonyms and dialect variants. The obscurity and complexity of the Basque language played a positive role: during the Second World War, it was used by radio operators in the US Army.
Let's talk about languages today. You’re not a stupid guy and you understand exactly what languages we’re talking about now. You probably remember how at university they told you about the importance of language in the lives and history of people. We cannot argue with the statements of the teachers; on the contrary, we subscribe to their words.
We want to tell you about the most difficult languages not only for Russian speakers, but also for English speakers. Damn, sorry, but this word is difficult to replace with anything, so you have to constantly use it. Learning a language is best way to contact a person from another part of the world. If you know at least the basics of the local dialect, you will feel many times more confident than that guy for whom spoken speech is incomprehensible nonsense.
So, back to enlightenment: today you will learn about some of the most difficult languages. Let's get started.
1. Arabic
Compared to English, this is truly a living hell. Are you having trouble learning a language that has been taught since school? Then you won't be able to master Arabic. In addition to a completely incomprehensible alphabet for you, consisting of unfamiliar symbols, you will encounter opposite direction reading and complex model pronunciation.
2. Japanese
Various Asian dialects have a certain level of difficulty for Russian speakers. Besides the new alphabet, they all have one feature that makes them difficult to understand. unprecedented man. In case Japanese language you must master thousands of symbols in order to express yourself more or less normally. This is because Japanese has three separate systems written form, each of which has its own alphabet. In addition to these complexities, the Japanese language includes a structure that is responsible for addressing peers and older people, who are usually addressed with due respect, therefore, you need to talk to them differently.
3. Chinese
Chinese – unique language, because it has a lot to do with the grammatical structure and tone of the speaker. In some languages, having basic knowledge grammatical structure, you could very well get out. However, with the Chinese, confusion in grammar can put you in an awkward position. In addition, the writing system and language system differ from reading and writing systems. So it will be quite difficult to survive in China if you don't end up in an area with at least English speakers.
4. Greek
We hasten to please you: Greek is less difficult for Russian speakers than the top three languages that we have already mentioned. But there are other aspects that may be a problem for you if you decide to learn this language. Not everyone has difficulties with the alphabet. However, what confuses many people is the tension required for the other person to understand what you are saying. Incorrect placement of tension in the voice changes the meaning of the word and phrase entirely.
5. Estonian
Estonian language ranks fifth on our list due to its complex structure what is big problem in many other European countries that have their own language system. All this depends on the influence of other neighboring languages.
6. Finnish
Like many European languages, Finnish persists within the country itself, influencing the growth of the corresponding manner of the language. In addition, for many people Finnish and Estonian can be perceived as close relatives in their speech and grammatical patterns. Of course, Finnish is a little easier to learn, unlike Estonian.
7. Thai
Taking a short detour from European languages, we find ourselves in Thailand. Thai can be described as having medium difficulty compared to top part our list. When learning Thai, you will encounter difficulties in pronunciation. Grammar rules Similar to the rules in English, but the pronunciation and tone of the speaker are the most important and most difficult for beginners.
8. Norwegian
At the end of our list, let's return to Europe, or more precisely, to Norway. Norwegian– last on our list for this reason. It is a language that is easy to learn in various group courses and in formal settings. However, the fact that Norwegian is primarily spoken only in Norway makes it the final language on our list because Norwegian speakers use a less formal form of communication than what is taught to you in classes. By the way, this is a problem with any course. Because of this, not every guy in Norway will understand what you are talking about. It’s the same thing if someone addressed you on the street in Old Russian.
Learning languages has long ceased to be fashion trend and has turned into a necessity - today a highly paid job will be given to the applicant who can speak two, three or even four foreign languages. Therefore one of current issues among students and ordinary people - which ones to study.
What is the difference between an easy language and a difficult one?
It is almost impossible to say which languages are the easiest to learn, because speakers of languages of the same group can easily learn each other's language, since they have similar vocabulary and grammar. And, conversely, it will be more difficult for them to learn the language of another group, since it will have many differences. But there are a number of characteristics that make it possible to distinguish easy language from complex:
in complex languages and in easy ones - short;
the more rules a language has, the easier it is to learn and, conversely, the fewer, the more difficult it is;
the more homonyms a language has, the more difficult it is;
languages with Latin or Cyrillic alphabet easier to learn than those that have their own alphabet;
it is easier to learn the spelling of a language in which all words are written as they are heard;
The fewer dialects a language has, the easier it is to learn.
Thus, the easiest languages to learn are those based on the Cyrillic or Latin alphabet with the largest number rules and the smallest number of homonyms.
Language difficulty levels
How ordinary people, and professional linguists wonder what is the easiest language to learn. Research has led to the fact that all the languages of the world were divided into three groups based on complexity parameters.
Most easy foreign the language to be studied is any language from the Latin and Germanic groups; training will require from 600 to 750 hours.
Languages of average complexity are Indo-European, Turkic and the study of which will take from 900 to 1100 hours.
The most difficult foreign language- this is any language that has its own alphabet and dictionary - Japanese, Chinese, Arabic, Hebrew, Georgian and other languages. The training will require at least 2200 hours.
Top 6 easy to learn languages
What is the easiest language to learn? As the US State Department notes, this is a language that will require no more than 600 hours to learn. This is how long it will take to speak the language passably. unknown language. Thus, the easiest languages to learn in are the following Indo-European languages:
English - due to the lack of gender, cases, and word agreement. In addition, his grammar is simple, verbs change only in the third person, and the words are short. A nice bonus is that native speakers easily perceive the speech of those learning their language and are tolerant of language errors, since today many people are learning English. In the UK, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India and some African countries it is official.
French - Some words of this language are similar to English and it is easy to learn as it is one of the most popular languages in the world. In France, Belgium, Switzerland, Canada and some African countries it is the official language.
Italian has a simple pronunciation, no cases, and vocabulary goes back to Latin language. The area of Italian-speaking countries is small - Italy, Vatican City, San Marino, Switzerland and Argentina.
Spanish has simple grammar and spelling, vocabulary similar to Italian and English languages. In terms of the number of speakers, it is not far from the most popular languages- only 4th place after English, Chinese and Hindi. Distribution area: Spain, Mexico and Argentina.
Portuguese is similar to Spanish, but it is not easy for their speakers to understand each other due to the fact that the first language is a sibilant. The distribution area is African countries, Brazil and Portugal itself.
Esperanto is the easiest language, as you can master it in a month. In terms of similarity, it is close to Spanish. Esperanto is not official in any country, but it may be recognized as official in the European Union.
Which language is suitable for Russian speakers to learn?
It is suitable for a person to study the language that is in one language group with his family. For example, it is easy for an Italian to learn Spanish or Portuguese. What is the easiest language to learn for Russians? Since Russian is one of them, it will be easiest to learn Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Czech or any other Slavic language. Of the European ones, the easiest to learn are those whose culture and sound are closest to the student - for example, expressive Italian or Spanish is suitable for temperamental people, and French for romantics. The same applies to languages of the 3rd complexity group. This is explained by the lack of similarity with the native language, so learning them will require the same amount of time and effort.
