Top 10 Hardest Languages to Learn

I'm fully Arabic, and I have no family that doesn't speak Arabic. I really find it difficult. I'm labeled as an English first-language student, and everyone (my family) expects me to be the greatest in Arabic.

In fact, I can speak in my accent (informal Arabic), but I will never be able to speak formal Arabic with anyone in any situation. I strongly agree with your opinion about the letters and their pronunciation. As someone who was taught Arabic and is surrounded by people who speak Arabic since I was a young child, I still don't know how to pronounce some of them.

I've spent countless years and thousands of hours completely dedicated to learning Mandarin Chinese. The people who don't think it's very hard are English speakers who have never attempted to learn a new language.

With all my countless hours of practice, I literally can't even understand natives. If you think Chinese can't be that bad, take ten entire years out of your life to learn it, and you'll see it's much harder than you think. Although the tones and grammar are logical and easy, the writing system is so tedious to learn (even with simplified characters) that it takes years to learn even a basic sentence, let alone write one.

It takes forever to write a single character, and many characters have different things in common but can have completely different pronunciations. Plus, the speaking can be very difficult because sometimes the meaning of the sentence depends on tones, and there aren't many sounds that can be made in Chinese. So many words sound nearly identical, which makes not only learning the writing system extremely challenging but also the speaking system.

Learning one is hard enough, but learning both at the same time will take years out of your life. If you want to learn Chinese, go ahead. But be warned, unless you are immersed in the language, it will take you years to master.

Currently learning Japanese. Pronouncing the words themselves isn't that hard, but the writing is a killer. Hiragana isn't too bad. There are 46 basic symbols, and depending on the words you're writing, you sometimes add little symbols at the top or write a normal symbol but smaller next to a bigger symbol to change the pronunciation slightly.

But once you try to learn Katakana, it gets so much harder. It's similar to Hiragana, except many Katakana symbols look exactly like Hiragana symbols but are pronounced completely differently. Plus, you don't even know when to use Hiragana and when to use Katakana. And don't even get me started on kanji...

There are too many characters in this language. It's really hard to memorize. There are a lot of tones. It really takes years to master it.

Hungarians are considered the worst in foreign languages within the EU. This is primarily due to the fact that learning foreign languages for Hungarians is as challenging as it is for foreigners to learn Hungarian.

Please note that while Hungarian is widely regarded as one of the most difficult official languages in Europe, it is not the most difficult when compared to numerous isolated languages.

As an English speaker, this language defies everything that makes sense to me. There are so many noun cases, and it's difficult to learn to pronounce. Sentence structures seem to have a mind of their own, at least as far as I can tell as a beginner.

I really want to learn Finnish. My family tells me there is no use because almost no one speaks Finnish, and the ones that do speak English as well. Finnish is very hard, however. I can sing a couple of songs in Finnish, but only because I've listened to them so many times.

The songs are called Kuolema Tekee Taiteilijan (Death Makes an Artist), Taikatalvi (Enchanted Winter), and Erämaan Viimeinen (The Last of the Wilds). All come from the Finnish symphonic metal band Nightwish.

Finland is totally beautiful and has a much better climate than more southern regions. It is really cold but hot in the summer. I wish to move to Helsinki. Though the language, Finnish, that they speak there is incredibly hard and very advanced.

I am from Austria, but I can speak Polish because my parents are from Poland. When I compare Polish and German, I have to say that Polish is really more difficult. However, I love the moment when my friends try to read a Polish sentence. It sounds so funny.

Also, it sounds so beautiful when you know how to pronounce everything. And when you can speak Polish, you understand more languages than when you speak German. In the end, I can just say that German is easy and cool, Polish is a little bit difficult but beautiful and very useful!

Russian is one of the hardest languages in the world. Its irregular, unmarked stress and how the pronunciation changes depending on stress make it the hardest Slavic language.

There are literally hundreds of different forms a word can take. Adjectives, nouns, pronouns, gender, and more must change and conform to the six or seven cases. No other language can claim this, not even agglutinative languages like Finnish and Hungarian, where most noun cases are simply prepositions turned into postpositions, making no changes to agree with other words.

It is simply one of the few languages with the most word forms, thereby increasing the room for error. Not many other languages can claim this.

I'm learning German right now. It may not be as hard as other languages because it's very straightforward, but it can be difficult. It's probably harder for me than for other people because I know a lot of Spanish, and Spanish is really simple compared to German.

I agree! I am from Germany, and even many people whose native language is German have problems with it.

Masculine, feminine, and neutral switching all over again, and huge words impossible to pronounce.

Amharic is kind of similar to Arabic, but it's still baffling to learn.

This is the language from which the Romance languages came. It is hard because there are accusative, genitive, ablative, and dative forms. The plurals are really complex since it has 5 declensions.

The lack of resources makes the language hard, although it depends on your determination.

Not many really speak it, but it's a little complex for the average Germanic language as this language is really old.

The language sounds really ancient, especially when...

I find Icelandic a very interesting language, as it rejects loanwords from other languages. People who speak it can understand Old Norse and Old Icelandic.

That being said, the archaic grammar makes this 50 times more difficult.

It is very difficult, and people who think they can speak it just think so...

Who learns this language? People just study the mythology. I only know how to say, I love you.

The script is super hard. There are so many consonant and vowel repeats, and you have to remember how to use each. The pronunciation of the tones and the vowel length is just very hard as it requires a unique pitch.

The grammar may be simple, but it is extremely irregular. The sentence structure changes a lot in each topic. I'm Thai, and I think this is a very hard language. It is near impossible to master unless Thai is your first language.

I have really experienced the Thai language. It has a hard script and romanization.

How are French and German harder than Korean? I tried learning it once, and the pronunciations and letters are too difficult.

I'm trying to learn Korean, but the person saying it on Google speaks the words too fast, so I can't really learn it. There are a lot of words that become confusing for me.

I'm half Korean. I think Korean grammar is too complex and it has too many irregular forms.

The tones are what's hard because, unlike Chinese, where they have tone character symbols alone and a total of five tone characters, Vietnamese has six. What is even weirder is that it has a tone mark on top of another accent, which is very confusing and difficult to pronounce with that letter.

Vietnamese is hard. This should be number 2 because there are a lot of accents. They even have two different accents on one letter, and it is very tricky to pronounce it. Even spelling it in the Vietnamese language is hard. Too hard.

As a native speaker, Latvian is one of the most ridiculous languages ever with its massive list of grammar rules and sometimes just nonsensical reasoning behind why things are like this or that. Oh, and don't forget the few words that have drastically different meanings, or some kid is gonna make fun of you across the street. But otherwise, it's quite a pretty language.

It's like Lithuanian if it were more simple, and it's still difficult.

There is literally no way it can be down at 54 at the time of writing. This language is kind of like Chinese except they added an additional 5 tones, more characters, and what's written doesn't even match what's said sometimes.

Cantonese is even more difficult than Mandarin Chinese since it has 9 tones instead of 4. In Cantonese, the written word may not match what is said.

I'm Chinese, and I don't know how to read and write it in traditional yet! I'm never gonna learn it.

My native language is Persian. I really love Hindi, especially because of the cultural interaction with Iran and between our nations, but it's a really hard language.

You might get used to the writing system, but Hindi has a lot of grammar, harsh pronunciation, and three genders. Although I already knew many words because they originated from English, Persian, or Arabic, learning this language has become really frustrating. I just don't recommend learning Hindi.

It's interesting to know that many Indians don't speak Hindi either because it's hard to learn. I have five Indian friends, and none of them speak Hindi. Hindi isn't the only official language of India.

Basque is the only European language not related to another language. It's hard.

I am Canadian with Japanese origins. I really enjoyed learning French. Yes, it's a difficult language to start learning, but once you speak a bit, you always progress. I don't really know if I have any accent, but when I've been in Paris, everyone was kind to me. French people adore when you speak their language, and they do love accents. Now in Montreal, I fell in love with such a pretty and charming French girl.

I know French is definitely not the hardest, but its spelling and pronunciation are very demanding. I just want to say that it is the hardest Romance language. The majority of the words you say have loads of silent letters and such. However, French doesn't compare to Arabic!

Never heard of it before. Usually, mainly unknown languages are harder, and according to the first page, it is easier than English.

Albanian is way harder than most of these languages, probably top 15.

I'm also a native speaker who lives in Turkey. However, sometimes my mind can be confused because of the Turkish words! I've learned how to speak English one year ago, and it was really easier.

Why do they bother with the Latin alphabet? It would have been better if it switched to Arabic script instead.

Brazilian Portuguese is much easier to learn than European Portuguese.

European Portuguese has a lot of vowel reductions, and their S at the end of words sounds like Sh, which is comparable to Polish and Russian. Brazilian Portuguese, on the other hand, has clearly pronounced vowels, and they don't drop them.

The verbs in Portuguese are actually harder (at least in my version, European Portuguese) than in any other Romance language.

Portuguese has a double level of difficulty compared to Spanish.