Almost all languages have asserted to be the hardest languages to learn. But which language is actually the toughest?

Many attributes play a part in the determination of the complexity of a particular language. Factors such as how similar the language is to your native tongue?

Studies have concluded that languages that are similar in grammar and structure to your native tongue are more often than not, easier to grasp. The fact of the matter is that different languages have different degrees of difficulty. No one language is easy to learn.

The following is a list of 5 hardest languages to learn:

Arabic

 Arabic has very few words that come close to those of the European languages. Written Arabic too uses fewer vowels, which makes it harder for those who are keen on learning to read the language.

The sounds are tough, but the words are tougher!


 
Chinese

Chinese is a tonal language, in which the meaning of a word changes as you change the tone. Further, all the thousands of characters and a complicated writing system makes learning the Chinese language a dreadful task.

People try to learn this language for the specific reason, being difficult and different!

Hungarian

 

This is one of the hardest as it has separate masculine, feminine and neuter genders, as well as about 7 different verb conjugations. The language is full of very expressive, idiomatic words, and suffixes.

It is also one of a handful of self-regulating languages, meaning no one really knows the origin of the language and they are not linked to any base language set, such as Latin (French, Spanish and Italian)

It takes more effort to learn it and maintain what you learned!


Japanese

 
Similar as it is to the Chinese language, Japanese language learners need to memorize thousands of characters. It consists of 3 different writing systems and 2 syllabary systems, i.e. sets of written symbols that approximate syllables. This adds greatly to the difficulty.

Certain institutes allow its students three times as long to learn Japanese as it does for languages like Spanish or French!



Navajo

his is a fascinating language which can be the most difficult as well. Its complexity was proven during the World War II, as the language was used as code to send secure military messages over radio. The codes were never broken by the Japanese who were puzzled by the sounds they came across.

Nearly everything that a language must do is done differently by Navajo!

But one thing is for certain, no matter how hard a language is, you need to possess the 3 fundamentals that are essential for learning : Adequate & Appropriate Learning Resources, Understanding the way you Learn and the Passion of Learning

By Shirantha W.G.