The Top 30 Hardest Languages to Learn In the World

What is the hardest language in the world? Is it English, French, Mandarin, Spanish or Igbo?

For many, learning a new language is easy for people like Pope John Paul II and Shahab Ahmed, both of whom are referred to as Polygots for speaking 5 languages or more (or HyperPolygots if they speak 12 languages or more), but may not be easy for some especially people traveling to a new country.

Learning a new language?

Then you need to check out the criteria listed on this school's website.

So having known that, the following are the 30 hardest languages to learn in the world, arranged in no particular order…

• Mandarin. Mandarin is a form of Chinese language and is actually the most spoken language in the world. Statistics show it’s spoken by over 1 billion people in China. The mandarin language is similar to Japanese. Mandarin has over 50,000 characters.
• Arabic. In Arabic, most letters are written in 4 different forms depending on where they’re placed in a word. Arabic has many different dialects and vowels are not included when writing. The language is spoken by over 200 million people in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. It’s worth noting that a present tense verb in Arabic has 13 forms.
• Japanese. This is the language of Japan and is spoken by over 125 million people. Japanese has 3 independent writing systems each with a different alphabet. Many believe Japanese is easier to speak than Mandarin. It’s considered among the most difficult languages in the world because of its close relationship to Chinese and because of its complex system of honorifics as well as thousands of characters that must be learned before being able to write in Japanese. The Foreign Service Institute declared Japanese the most difficult language to learn for a native English speaker. More so, Japanese is a highly contextual language. The form spoken with family, with friends, with seniors, by women, men and children are different, so speakers must select words carefully to avoid being rude or appearing inappropriately childlike, feminine or masculine. It’s worthy to note that the highest number of Japanese speakers outside Japan are found in Brazil.
• Hungarian. Linguistics believe the Hungarian language has some of the most difficult grammar rules that anyone can ever come across. Cultural elements from the Hungarian culture makes the language somewhat difficult to learn.
• Korean. Korean language is a unique language and is regarded as the most spoken isolated language. It is the official language of North and South Korea, but is also spoken by some people in China. The Korean language has seven different speech levels, which manifesting as verbal endings. The Korean language is spoken by over 66 million people and it has two different numerical systems. More so, it is a contextual language just like Japanese. A single sentence in Korean can be said in three different ways based in the context where it is used.
• Finnish. The lettering and pronunciation of Finnish language are somewhat similar but the grammar is different. Due to its agglutinative language, words in Finnish can also become absurdly long and mean an entirely different thing than the English speakers will find natural. The Finnish language is spoken by about 5 million people. It’s also similar to the Estonian language. Barry Farber, the Author of “How To Learn Any Language” said that in the course of his studying 25 languages, Finnish and Korean were the hardest. The longest Finnish word consists of 61 letters. ‘Lentokonesuihkuturbiinimoottoriapumekaanikkoaliupseerioppilas’ means ‘aeroplane jet turbine motor assistant mechanic, non-commissioned officer, in training’.
• Basque. Like the Korean language, the Basque language is isolate. It has five dialects and is spoken by about 700,000 people. The different dialects makes it not only tough to learn, but gives you sleepless nights as to which one you’d like to learn as well. The Basque language is the ancestral language of the Basque country, a part of northeastern Spain.
• Navajo. The Navajo language is a Southern Athabaskan languages that are spoken in the southwestern part of the United States and is spoken by about 170,000. The Navajo is a verb centered language.
• Icelandic. Remember, the Icelandic naming system? The Icelandic language is one of the most difficult languages in the world. It is spoken by over 400,000 people on Iceland. The language coins new words from old ones. To learn the language, one needs to be resident in the country since its learning requires the use of resources.
• Tagalog. This language is spoken by about a quarter of the total population of the Philippines. It’s an Austronesian language and is regarded as one of the most difficult and hardest languages to learn in the world.

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