What's the 2nd hardest language to learn in the world?

2. Arabic. Arabic is the queen of poetic languages, the 6th official language of the UN and second on our list of toughest languages to learn.
Takedown request   |   View complete answer on leverageedu.com


What is the 5 hardest language to learn?

5 of the most hardest languages to learn in the world
  • Mandarin.
  • Japanese.
  • Arabic.
  • Xhosa.
  • Russian.
Takedown request   |   View complete answer on edvoy.com


What is the 3rd hardest language?

Polish got the number three spot on our list. Spelling and grammar are a couple of areas in which Polish can give English speakers a hard time. Words are loaded with consonants, which makes them difficult to spell and pronounce.
Takedown request   |   View complete answer on babbel.com


What are the top 4 hardest languages to learn?

15 of the hardest languages to learn, for English speakers -...
  • Russian.
  • Hindi.
  • Vietnamese.
  • Thai.
  • Korean.
  • Japanese.
  • Mandarin Chinese.
  • Arabic.
Takedown request   |   View complete answer on berlitz.com


What is the 7 hardest language to learn?

Which is the most difficult language for English Speakers?
  • 1 – Chinese (Mandarin)
  • 2 – Arabic.
  • 3 – Japanese.
  • 4 – Korean.
  • 5 – Hungarian.
  • 6 – Finnish.
  • 7 – Xhosa.
Takedown request   |   View complete answer on translateday.com


Comparison: Hardest Languages To Learn



What is Mandarin called in China?

The official dialect of China is Mandarin, also call “Putonghua”. More than 70% of the Chinese population speaks Mandarin, but there are also several other major dialects in use in China: Yue (Cantonese), Xiang (Hunanese), Min dialect, Gan dialect, Wu dialect, and Kejia or Hakka dialect.
Takedown request   |   View complete answer on ethnomed.org


What is the 10 hardest language?

Let's explore the 10 hardest languages for English speakers to learn, and the challenges they deliver:
  1. Mandarin. Mandarin is spoken by 70% of the Chinese population, and is the most spoken language in the world. ...
  2. Arabic. ...
  3. Japanese. ...
  4. Hungarian. ...
  5. Korean. ...
  6. Finnish. ...
  7. Basque. ...
  8. Navajo.
Takedown request   |   View complete answer on resources.unbabel.com


Why is it so hard to learn Chinese?

It's all about the tones!

Mandarin operates with four different tones, meaning that the way that you say a word can give it four different meanings! It is this tonality – this pronunciation – that causes most trouble for nearly all new speakers and makes Chinese a difficult language to master.
Takedown request   |   View complete answer on taiwanese-secrets.com


What is the 1 hardest language?

Across multiple sources, Mandarin Chinese is the number one language listed as the most challenging to learn. The Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center puts Mandarin in Category IV, which is the list of the most difficult languages to learn for English speakers.
Takedown request   |   View complete answer on usatoday.com


How long does it take to learn Chinese?

According to the Foreign Service Institute (FSI) scale, it will take English speakers 88 weeks (2,200 hours of active learning) to reach native/bilingual Chinese proficiency. Chinese is one of the 5 languages which is most challenging to learn for native English speakers.
Takedown request   |   View complete answer on china-admissions.com


Does it take longer to write in Chinese?

Indeed, many students start learning Chinese because of the characters! Chinese characters can also be frustratingly difficult and, compared with any other major language, extremely time-consuming to learn. This is particularly true for writing characters by hand, which takes many times longer than learning to read.
Takedown request   |   View complete answer on hackingchinese.com


Can you learn 2 languages at once?

Answer: Thankfully, your brain can definitely handle learning two (or more!) languages at once! (Two down, 6,998 to go.) But there are also some ways you can make this linguistic task easier on yourself.
Takedown request   |   View complete answer on blog.duolingo.com


Who speaks Mandarin Chinese?

Mandarin is the official state language of China and the most widely spoken Chinese dialect in the country. It is spoken in many of the largest cities in China, including Beijing and Shanghai. Mandarin is spoken widely in Singapore and Taiwan.
Takedown request   |   View complete answer on lingualinx.com


Is Arabic or Chinese harder?

Although the script of the two languages is very foreign to western languages, Mandarin Chinese is significantly harder than the Arabic writing system due to the complexity and multitude of its characters.
Takedown request   |   View complete answer on arabicgoals.com


What is the world's easiest language?

15 of the easiest languages to learn for English speakers -...
  • 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.
Takedown request   |   View complete answer on berlitz.com


How do you read Chinese?

First, know that modern Chinese texts are read left to right, top to bottom, just like English. But note that the ancient Chinese texts were written in columns, right to left. To answer the question “How to read Chinese?”, you might also find it useful to first head to this article about simplified Chinese characters.
Takedown request   |   View complete answer on fluentin3months.com


Is English hard for Chinese speakers?

Chinese learners have particular difficulty when it comes to the English sounds /l/ and /r/. This is because in Chinese languages there are no sounds which directly correspond to these sounds.
Takedown request   |   View complete answer on theteflacademy.com


Is English the hardest language?

The Difficulty of Learning to Speak English

English is one of the most difficult languages to learn, especially compared to many of the Romance languages like Spanish and French.
Takedown request   |   View complete answer on languageconfidence.ai


What is the hardest language for Chinese speakers?

Japanese. Japanese is the language that English, Spanish, and probably other European native speakers consider as one of the hardest languages to learn. The set of characters, kanji, and kana gives a headache to most of the language learner. Most learners, yes, but no to Chinese learners.
Takedown request   |   View complete answer on justlearn.com


Is Chinese very easy?

The language is actually easier to acquire than romance tongues like Spanish or French because Mandarin Chinese shares a similar grammatical system with fewer commonly-used words. There is no conjugation in whatever form. The widely-held view that tones are inscrutable to Westerner ears is a myth.
Takedown request   |   View complete answer on forbes.com


Is it hard to speak Chinese?

Widely regarded as one of the world's toughest languages to learn, Mandarin is considered by many as impossible. Anyone who's learnt this notoriously difficult language is bound to be met with gasps of surprise and admiration when speaking of their accomplishment.
Takedown request   |   View complete answer on teach-english-in-china.co.uk


Is Chinese easier than Korean?

Relatively, Korean would be an easier language to learn. 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.
Takedown request   |   View complete answer on optilingo.com


What is the top 20 hardest language to learn?

25 Hardest Languages to Learn, Ranked
  1. Mandarin. No. of speakers: 1.3 billion.
  2. Arabic. No. of speakers: 274 million. ...
  3. Japanese. No. of speakers: 126 million. ...
  4. Korean. No. of speakers: 80 million. ...
  5. Thai. No. of speakers: 60 million. ...
  6. Vietnamese. No. of speakers: 77 million. ...
  7. Hindi. No. of speakers: 615 million. ...
  8. Icelandic. No. ...
Takedown request   |   View complete answer on farandwide.com


What's the hardest language list?

8 Hardest Languages to Learn In The World For English Speakers
  1. Mandarin. Number of native speakers: 1.2 billion. ...
  2. Icelandic. Number of native speakers: 330,000. ...
  3. 3. Japanese. Number of native speakers: 122 million. ...
  4. Hungarian. Number of native speakers: 13 million. ...
  5. Korean. ...
  6. Arabic. ...
  7. Finnish. ...
  8. Polish.
Takedown request   |   View complete answer on jumpspeak.com


Is it easy to learn Russian?

Russian is widely believed to be one of the most difficult languages to learn. This is mostly true, if you have no knowledge of other Slavic languages (e.g. Bulgarian or Czech). The grammar rules in Russian are very complex and have numerous exceptions.
Takedown request   |   View complete answer on worddive.com