What is the hardest language to learn for foreigners?

Japanese is ranked by the U.S. Foreign Services Institute as the most difficult language for native English speakers to learn. The institute uses the time it takes to learn a language to determine its difficulty 23-24 weeks for the easiest and 88 weeks for the hardest.
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Is English the hardest language to learn for foreigners?

Is it really the hardest language? As we've seen, then, English is pretty challenging. But it's not the only contender for the World's Most Difficult Language. Other notoriously tricky languages include Finnish, Russian, Japanese and Mandarin.
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What is the easiest language to learn for foreigners?

15 of the easiest languages to learn for English speakers - ranked
  • Frisian. Frisian is thought to be one of the languages most closely related to English, and therefore also the easiest for English-speakers to pick up. ...
  • Dutch. ...
  • Norwegian. ...
  • Spanish. ...
  • Portuguese. ...
  • Italian. ...
  • French. ...
  • Swedish.
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Which is the toughest language in world?

1. Mandarin Chinese. Interestingly, the hardest language to learn is also the most widely spoken native language in the world. Mandarin Chinese is challenging for a number of reasons.
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What is best 2nd language to learn?

The best foreign language to learn in 2019
  • Spanish.
  • French.
  • 3. Japanese.
  • Italian.
  • Mandarin.
  • Portuguese.
  • Arabic.
  • Korean.
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Comparison: Hardest Languages To Learn



Is Chinese or English harder?

It's official: Chinese is more difficult than English. The Chinese need both sides of the brain to grapple with challenges of Mandarin, but English speakers listen with only half their minds on the job.
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Is French or Spanish harder?

All in all, neither language is definitively more or less difficult than the other. Spanish is arguably somewhat easier for the first year or so of learning, in large part because beginners may struggle less with pronunciation than their French-studying colleagues.
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How hard is learning Korean?

With only twenty-four letters in the Korean alphabet, it doesn't take long to learn. While some writing systems look impossible to scribe, Korean is easy. One of the letters is a circle, one is a square, and two are straight lines! Hangul has another huge advantage over Chinese characters in that it's phonetic.
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Is Japanese or Korean easier?

Some parts are harder for Korean while other parts are harder for Japanese. However, considering the larger number of sounds and the different particles in Korean, Japanese is definitely the easier language to start in.
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Is Chinese harder than Korean?

Thanks to its phonetic alphabet and more simplistic grammar rules, Korean is not the most challenging Asian language to learn. Chinese on the other hand is much more widely spoken. This means that finding study materials and practice partners would be easier.
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How do you say hi in Korean?

안녕 (Annyeong) – “Hi”
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What harder Spanish or Italian?

Though arguably for Spanish may be a tad easier. Italian has far more irregular verbs to memorise, and the symbols you see on Spanish words actually tell you how a word is pronounced, whereas Italian pronunciation can be more of a guessing game.
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Is German harder than Spanish?

No, in the end Spanish is not easier or harder to learn than German for English speakers. German starts out with a bit more of a learning curve with its complex grammar, but Spanish has increasing difficulty in the later stages. German and Spanish end up being fairly similar to master.
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What Harder French or Italian?

The main difference is in pronunciation: French pronunciation is considered to be the most difficult among the Romance languages, because it has some very unusual sounds we don't have in English. The Italian “r” and the French “r” are very, very different: they are both difficult for a native-English speaker.
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Is Filipino hard to learn?

Like in any language, there are factors that can make Filipino hard to learn. That said, it's actually one of the easiest languages to study and master. That doesn't mean that you can become fluent overnight, but compared to other languages, Filipino is a bit more straightforward.
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What's the easiest language in the world?

And The Easiest Language To Learn Is…
  1. Norwegian. This may come as a surprise, but we have ranked Norwegian as the easiest language to learn for English speakers. ...
  2. Swedish. ...
  3. Spanish. ...
  4. Dutch. ...
  5. Portuguese. ...
  6. Indonesian. ...
  7. Italian. ...
  8. French.
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Is Korean the hardest language to learn?

The short answer: Korean is not too difficult. But nor is Korean “easy”. On a difficulty scale, I'd say the difficulty of Korean is 4/5 or “Moderately Difficult” — harder to get to fluency for an English speaker than French or German, but easier than Chinese or Arabic.
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Is French better or Spanish?

If you live in the United States or plan to travel throughout Latin America, Spanish is probably going to be much more useful to you. However, if you're in Canada, or planning to travel or do business there, knowing French is going to be more helpful — it's an official language of the country, after all.
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Is Russian harder than Spanish?

Russian is more difficult, in that the grammar is more complex, although verb tenses in Spanish are no piece of cake, and there other tricky elements. It is also true that having to read in a less familiar alphabet also makes the language more difficult, and more tiring to read.
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Why Spanish is so fast?

A Spanish speaker would almost always link the vowel sounds and pronounce the whole thing as a single word: Todoestoestaquí (To-does-toes-ta-quí). This is another factor that makes Spanish seem faster than English. The sooner you embrace this reality, the better you'll get at teasing words apart.
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What are Level 5 languages?

0-5 Language Proficiency Levels
  • 0 – No Proficiency. At this lowest level, there is basically no knowledge of the language. ...
  • 1 – Elementary Proficiency. ...
  • 2 – Limited Working Proficiency. ...
  • 3 – Professional Working Proficiency. ...
  • 4 – Full Professional Proficiency. ...
  • 5 – Native / Bilingual Proficiency.
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Should I learn Italian or German?

In short: Despite German being closely related to English, Italian actually is a great deal less complicated to learn for an English speaker. So if your main concern is the difficulty, go with Italian!
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Is it rude to say Annyeong?

It's respectful and can be used in any context, from greeting an employee at a shop to meeting a friend's grandparents. If speaking to a close friend or someone significantly younger, you might use the more informal annyeong (애영).
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What do you reply to Annyeong?

For example, an older man or woman may say “hello” to you by saying the more casual and informal version of “hello,” which is 안녕 (annyeong). In that case, you should still reply with 안녕하세요 (annyeonghaseyo).
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