Worst Languages in the World

When you hear someone speaking an odd foreign language in the street you feel like laughing, but which is the worst and most useless language in the world.
The Top Ten
1 Chinese

A billion people in search of more sounds. They have very few. But they do have those goofy tones, unfortunately. This is not a language for learning. This is a language for laying down and avoiding.

Perhaps I have a biased opinion because the people who speak it (usually mandarin, the cantonese folks are actually ok) are usually noisy women who talk INCREDIBLY loud. In a high-school environment, it is the most annoying thing to try to take a test with a couple of people screaming something you can't understand down the hallway. Is my experience just an outlier? Please inform me.
Now, though I don't speak Chinese, I have frequently picked up this phrase (something I typed into Google Translate because of the absurd frequency at which I have heard it): chongfu yibian. I don't know what I expected it to mean, but I sure didn't expect it to mean "Repeat". Usually I don't trust Google Translate, especially for non-Romantic or non-Germanic languages, but for whatever reason I'm inclined to believe it this time. Seriously, what kind of language is this that you have to constantly ask others to reapeat something?
Also, am I alone in thinking that the language seems super unrefind and generally ugly? No, it isn't because I only speak Romantic languages; I think that the Mali language sounds beautiful, and I am fine listening to other Asian languages like Korean and Japanese, but there is something unbearable about Mandarin.
Again, maybe this is just my personal experiences, but these are not just one time occurrences -similar things happen nearlly every other week. Is it just the area I live in?

2 Hindi

Don't kid yourselves, Hindi is a really ugly language. Almost every consonant (and vowel) is pronounced in an unaesthetic and sloppy way. You guys need to fix your language. Make it sound crisper and it will be fine. Also, so what if it "spans cultures and dialects"? That doesn't take away from the fact that it is an absolutely ugly language. It's definitely not a graceful language. The sounds of the language remind one of the dirtiness of some places in India.
Indians themselves are the only people with the power to fix their language. So if you want Hindi off this list, make it sound more beautiful. Languages can change.

3 Italian

All the people around the world will be getting horny about Italy because of its stereotype that there are only hot people that sound hot speaking Italian...no comment. I've been there- it's nothing like that, actually in reverse. People should actually start to appreciate their own country and have some dignity cause Spanish & Italian people in their beauty and attractivity are far away behind Slavic people, especially women. Trust me, when I've been hearing for years people in village/smaller cities talking chaotically Italian through screams or slang- it...didn't sound hot nor beautiful, It sounded horrendous. In addition, when you'll notice how much Italian are in love with themselves and how they consider everything in Italy the best in the world- just lol. They are so egocentric to the point they don't see what's going on outside their little closed world. In comparison to Spanish, they have also annoying accent. Don't recommend at all. Still 100% better than French, maybe Portuguese. But if you are about to learn any Romance language you never can go wrong with Spanish, especially Latin variant.

4 Arabic

I love the sound of Farsi, but for some reason I don't like Arabic for reasons I don't understand.
Anyway, I just wanted to say how ironic it is for there to be comments defending various languages but that just means you had to vote for that country!

Arabic is my first language (although I'm better at English, to be honest), and reading some of these rude and hurtful comments, I feel like CRYING. They kept on saying how it's the language of terrorists and people who got to Hell, and these awful and mean stereotypes are so wrong...I don't know where to begin!
I'm only a little girl, but you people are making me feel that I'm so awful I should go commit suicide or be slaughtered or something! Yes, there are children who know this language! Yes, INNOCENT CHILDREN, and imagine how they'd react after reading this. I'm not kidding, saying this to someone about their language and religion will prompt them to kill themselves! I know this site is about sharing opinions, but not tarnishing others' beliefs! There are billions of Muslims out there, and VERY FEW are actually terrorists. I may be one, and even I am ashamed about what they done at 9/11! We Muslims would never, EVER dream of doing this and we hate the people who did those things! What did you think, that we celebrated this day? Of course not! We're not that heartless!

5 American English

First off, this is not a language. It's just a series of dialects and accents that is prevalent through various parts of the US. Sure, people may look at the "valley girl" California accent or thick Southern accents as examples of "bad" accents, but it's literally just how people speak in the States. You can't judge a language or accent for how it sounds. Plus, some US accents can be funny or pleasant to listen to, such as the New York/New Jersey accent, the Southern accent if it isn't over-exaggerated, the Minnesota accent, etc... it's no elegant British accent, but it's just how we speak. Some British dialects, such as the Liverpool accent and West Country English sound entertaining to listen to, but that's another story.

I hate this language because it's hard to hear what people are saying, speak clearly! Other languages are spoken so clearly that you can easily hear what sounds are being made even if you don't understand the language, English on the other even you do understand the language it's still hard to understand what people are saying because English speakers often omit words or speak too softly that you can't even hear what is being said! This problem also applies to American movies! I ALWAYS need subtitles because the actors mostly don't speak clearly or speak too quietly, it's so annoying.

6 Old English

Let's get something straight. Old English does NOT mean Shakespeare English or King James Bible English. Shakespeare could not understand Old English. The term "Old English" does NOT mean "English that is old"; it refers to the language that English originated from, which is often called "Anglo-Saxon", as it was spoken by the Angles and the Saxons. Shakespeare spoke early modern English, which was spoken many hundreds of years after Old English had died. If you want to see Old English, Google an untranslated version of Beowulf.

Please educate yourselves.

Haha shakespeare isn't old English! He transformed the English language! You should read works by christopher marlowe who wrote dr faustus, who was a peer and rival of shakespeare. both lived at the same time but wrote in completely different ways. Now marlowe is old English. shakespeare invented over 2000 words including crocodile! In fact tolkein who was a professor of anglo saxon at oxford hated shakespeare because he thought he ruined the English language.

7 German

I don't hate German, I kinda like it even though I think French and Italian sounds way better.
I think there's nothing wrong with disliking or hating a language because of the way it sounds. Some people don't like German as they find it guttural.
But to anyone hating on German because of what happened in Germany from 1933-1945, please get a life and grow up. For real.
Germany isn't the only country in the world to mess up in history. Other countries have messed up in the past or are currently messed up.
Same goes to the people who hate Arabic because of terrorism.
There's nothing wrong with disliking or hating Arabic because of its sounds, but disliking or hating a language because of some awful people is just wrong.
As someone in this comment section has said, many Germans aren't Nazis and many Muslims aren't terrorists.
I know that this list is for expressing opinions and I know that some opinions here can be expressed quite strongly.
But promoting hate towards people for their race, ethnicity, religion and nationality is just wrong.

8 French

There are words in French that do not translate into any other language that explicitly express situation of love. For example. Retrouvailles: the feeling you get when you see someone after a long physical separation. Surely one of the less annoying language.

And when saying that 40% of French words are English, you must learn that it's the contrary, 40% (even 45% depending of sources) of English words have French origins. With around 80,000 words, and here we count only words imported directly from French. By searching correctly, you will find these facts on internet.

All the rest is just voting French annoying language because of uncultivated way of acting.

French sounds fine. It's the spelling that messes me up.

I've learned French for many years now, and I still mess up the conjugation. The verbs end differently for different subjects. For example, "jump". In French, "We jump" is "Nous sautons". "They jump" is "Ils/Elles sautent". "I jump" is "Je sautes"... I think. Conjugation for "I" confuses me. I had a teacher who says "I" should have a verb that ends with "s". Then, this year, a teacher (who I don't trust too much) says it shouldn't. Way too confusing. Plus future and past tense are different for almost each verb.

And the accents! I won't even begin with the accents.

9 Latin

Now this is a language I can get all the hate for. There are no native speakers so you're not offending anyone by insulting it, a lot of people are forced to learn it when there's little to no motivation since there's no use for it in day to day life, and it's really complicated. This should be number one since it's the most useless language on this list, not Chinese, that one is very useful and beautiful.

I LOVE LATIN! When I was in 6th grade I'd speak in Latin and nobody would understand, I learned by myself, I have near photographic memory.

Soulless and dead language. I took a class back in high school and kicked it after roughly a month. I don't get people who want to learn it in high school instead of Spanish or French, especially for reasons like "it's logical" or "it's the mother of all languages". If you don't intend to study history or medicine it's absolutely pointless.

10 Tamil

Tamil is unpleasant to the ear. It is not a language one can easily relate to. Most Tamil people now speak slang which is a terrible adulteration of a language - often with swear words spoken in bad taste. Many literary works in Tamil have been recognised and taught in Indian schools today, unfortunately not the same quality exists today. Tamil movie songs sound like noise. Being half Tamil myself I feel embarrassed when a Tamil person speaks of Tamil as though no other language exists in this world. People from tamilnadu must be more welcoming to other Indian states and stop being narrow minded.

It is very old and great languages in the world, if we go through history we can understand easily. So we have to give first place always in the world for Tamil languages olny. Everyone has to be proud to be give first place to Tamil. Who speaks Tamil in the world like Tamilnadu in India, Tamileelam in srilanka, Singapore, malaysiya, malathivu etc.
We have to encourage to others to learn Tamil.

The Contenders
11 Korean

Korean writing system is very easy to learn. It is brilliant. Korean as a spoken language isn't tonal like Chinese so that makes it much easier than Chinese. The fact that Korea has very high literacy says something about Korean being a good language. Korean is pleasant to listen to.

The problem I have had learning Korean is just me. For some reason I have trouble with it.

Seriously I don't understand how anyone could like Korean language.

It sounds harsh, rude, and angry not to mention super whinny.

I feel like slapping them every time I hear them. And they have no manner and don't really mind their environment when they talk with this barbaric language. So annoying

Everything sounds so weird, and instead of separate consonants, everything seems to be stringed into one word. They also have to add these suffixes to everything. Practically everyone's name has "Kim" or "Un" in it. Instead of stuff like "ham yung bin chow", it's more like "hamyungbinchow-un". It sounds unpleasant too. They also speak very quick, and I am not fond of their "K-pop". Japan's Japanese J-pop is much better.

12 Hungarian

Strange language, not very useful. Very unusual as well. Hungary is a goulash bowl in the middle of Europe, kind of the odd one out.

The best word to describe Hungarian is gurgling, but not the pleasant river-like gurgling -more like the kind of a sound you'd hear a frog make before choking on its own saliva. The language also has an annoying, whining tone to it, and that makes it sound like the people speaking it would be constantly complaining. Hungarian speakers tend to spit a lot while speaking too, and that's really not a miracle considering all the frog-like croaks they have to produce all day long. Hungarian is a lot worse than Finnish or Korean or the other languages rated higher on this list - just try sitting in a bus full of gurgling and whining Hungarian speakers, and see if you come back sane.

As far as I am concerned? All Slavic languages are positively ugly... Exception; Romanian, which is a close cousin of Italian... All Asian languages are just as ugly... French may sound sophisticated but it sounds as harsh and barbaric as German... Japanese is scary-sounding and Chinese gives me the creeps... Then again, I am very one-sided... Forza Italia.

13 Mandarin

Chinese is already on the list and to the normal person, there is no difference between the two, when Chinese is actually 2-3 different languages and Mandarin is the "official" language of the country.
The grammar is actually common sense and is not hard to pick up on
The characters are near impossible and the tones are hard, but really, with practice it gets quite easy.

I can't even watch chinese anime because it sounds like someone is just yelling up my ears whenever I hear the audio. the tone and flow of the language just feels like an alarm clock, I guess that is the best way I can say it. it feels like I'm listening to an alarm clock that wont stop.

Didn't realize there's a specific Mandarin option. As mentioned in the Chinese option, it has terrible structure, no base letters to form words and very unrefined altogether. It sounds horrible to the ears as well.

14 Punjabi

Punjabi is hilarious and an awesome language! By the way, WHO THE HELL started this list. None of the languages are ugly or "THE WORST". Every language is beautiful in their own way. Every language has its own swear words. Every language is written gracefully. Every language has beauty and grace. Every language is spoken by us. I am realyy disappointed in humanity. We have that much narrow brains to go on making a list about the worst languages in the world. As if there wasn't sadness and violence and hatred in this world already. Stop trying to make more hatred and violence and sadness. Alright?!

Uggg, it sounds like someone made this language by bashing a feral cat around by the tail inside of a barrel fire.

The only thing that can make it worse is if a high pitched young woman is talking to other high pitched young women and they get all excited about something stupid. Then it's like they are summoning Alvin and the Chipmunks.

15 Swedish

The best word to describe Swedish is gurgling, but not the pleasant river-like gurgling -more like the kind of a sound you'd hear a frog make before choking on its own saliva. The language also has an annoying, whining tone to it, and that makes it sound like the people speaking it would be constantly complaining. Swedish speakers tend to spit a lot while speaking too, and that's really not a miracle considering all the frog-like croaks they have to produce all day long. Swedish is a lot worse than Finnish or Korean or the other languages rated higher on this list - just try sitting in a bus full of gurgling and whining Swedish speakers, and see if you come back sane.

An ancient leftover from danish "colonial" time, swedes have developed the manly viking language to a something that sounds like a bad musical.. Their ancestors should be turning in their graves..

Indeed! I am 1/4 Swedish and I can agree----it's pretty worthless. My cousin R studied it extensively and lived there for a year...when she got back to the states she thought she was God. Unless you're into Abba and shopping at Ikea, I can't think of any place such language would come in handy. I'm proud to say that my majority of ancestry comes from England and Wales. I would visit those two places anytime.

16 Dutch

Take an English speaker, make them try to speak German and then remove everything good about the German language and you're left with Dutch. While terrible in pretty much every regard, it is probably the funniest language in the world, so props to it on that, I guess.

Flemish sounds very nice, the whole "Netherlandish" language is very interesting to me, but Dutch pronounciation makes the Dutch one of the most horrible language for me (maybe Arabic of Hebrew sound worse). I know that Flemish and Dutch are technically dialects of the same language, but for differences in speaking I would rather tell them apart.

Dutch is what happens when you bastardize a perfectly good language (German) and make it sound ugly. Dutch is easily the worst sounding language in the world. The only sound that is worse is a Dutch person speaking English. I have no issues with the Dutch, but you all should learn sign language.

17 Vietnamese

The best word to describe Vietnamese is gurgling, but not the pleasant river-like gurgling -more like the kind of a sound you'd hear a frog make before choking on its own saliva. The language also has an annoying, whining tone to it, and that makes it sound like the people speaking it would be constantly complaining. Vietnamese speakers tend to spit a lot while speaking too, and that's really not a miracle considering all the frog-like croaks they have to produce all day long. Vietnamese is a lot worse than Finnish or Korean or the other languages rated higher on this list - just try sitting in a bus full of gurgling and whining Vietnamese speakers, and see if you come back sane.

I recently reacted terribly towards the Vietnamese because of something this Vietnamese customer did to me at work. When I served this Vietnamese customer at work, he didn't even say a single 'hi'. He continued speaking Vietnamese on his mobile which totally pissed me off. But in hindsight I now see this guy lacking the common sense to simply put his mobile away and saying hi. Like how hard would it be to excuse himself to his chat buddy that he is being served so that he can return to his phone conversation a minute later. It's shown me that manners matter a lot. If you act badly in public, it just becomes so much easier for people to form prejudices or judgements against your race no matter how inaccurate it might be.

18 Polish

Unphonetic orthography, usage of silent letters, overlapping sounds, exceptions to rules, and obscure pronounciations. Basically, if Polish can't have a phonetic orthography where every letter represents one sound and no two combos or letters represent the same sound, it's going to be a very challenging language for foreigners

The best word to describe Polish is gurgling, but not the pleasant river-like gurgling -more like the kind of a sound you'd hear a frog make before choking on its own saliva. The language also has an annoying, whining tone to it, and that makes it sound like the people speaking it would be constantly complaining. Polish speakers tend to spit a lot while speaking too, and that's really not a miracle considering all the frog-like croaks they have to produce all day long. Polish is a lot worse than Finnish or Korean or the other languages rated higher on this list - just try sitting in a bus full of gurgling and whining Polishspeakers, and see if you come back sane.

19 Klingon

Klingon is an awesome concept, very good idea from the Star Trek writers, makes the series more immersive, props to them. It certainly wouldn't have been easy to implement a fictional language, and to pull it off so well.
But unless you're a Star Trek actor then learning Klingon is insane, say what you will about the other languages on this list but at least they all serve some kind of purpose!
You might think Mandarin or Tamil sound bad, but they give you a lot of different business opportunities, literature, film, TV, and most importantly, more people to connect with!
Even something like Latin or Old English is very useful if you're studying history, or just want to read classical literature. Certainly can't blame someone for being interested in that.
Klingon, however, spend your time however you wish, but I just don't see the point in it. You'll be able to access the odd Klingon media here and there sure, but chances are that's already available in English. And all of the other Klingon speakers... well, just communicate to them in a different language.

20 Bulgarian

Bulgarian should not even be a language. It is your basic Slav language that became simple due to Greek and Tatar/Turk influences. So it became more simple because too many people that these Slavs absorbed can't speak the proper Slavic language so this is now Bulgarian.

You now try to steal Bulgarian language too. Good job my brainwashed slavo-Bulgarian friends.

21 Urdu

I don't even think that Urdu is the worse language at all I think it must be deleted for #top20.. it doesn't have more than 8 or 9 abuses.. or I am adding one thing more that it is gentlemen speaking decent language which doesn't have commen with any other language even Hindi..
I think if Urdu became the an inter-national language no can ever think abut the jackass English language whatsoever. because there is no chance of misguidance on this beautiful language it is religious language with no hurting word in it.. yeah it is lil difficult for learning the accent and grammar

Urdu is horrible. It sounds like the speakers are clearing their throats half the time. And the speakers of the language also tend to be elitists. Urdu speakers are the reason why so many East Pakistanis died during the creation of Bangladesh.
Most amusing part though is that Pakistan stole Urdu from India (for example the language's roots are in Khadi Boli from Delhi much more than Persian)

22 Filipino

Work with mostly Filipinos. The people themselves are great and have a very good work ethic (especially in comparison to Americans, which I am). The accent/language is fine if only one Filipino is speaking, but get 2 or more of them talking at once, it's absolute cacophony. They invariably talk over each other, rapidly and without pauses. It really is head-splitting after a few minutes. Just a loud jumble. Might be that they do talk all at the same time as much as anything.

Literally THE ugliest language, worst than chinese and vietnamise combined. I would cut my ears off rather than listen to the constant monkey noises PAK PAK MAK MAK yall deserved to be colonized just for that reason.

The worst sounding language ever. Truly the language of the uncivilised. Even their English sounds agonisingly bizarre. There's too much emphasis on the 'r' in English. And their Tagalog sounds like a conversation between two monkeys and an aborigine arguing over a banana. There's really nothing good about Philippines. The men there are feminine and gay, and the language is just the cherry on top.

23 African American Vernacular English

First allow me to say that I am part black myself, but I truly abhor the way many of them, us, speak. Often I have been berated by black Americans the moment they find out I am mixed since I do not speak 'like a black person'. I despise this form of English and often cringe when I hear it. Ebonics indeed. Utter nonsense.

This is barely a language. It's like saying American English and British English are two different languages, they are not. Anyone who speaks any kind of English can understand American English, British English, AAVE. They are all one language, English. You don't take classes for AAVE. This "language" is mostly glorified by social justice warriors on tumblr who will defend anything that black people do or say even if some black person starts killing every living thing in sight (yes, social justice warriors are "against" racism by allowing dark skinned people get away with anything while shaming the light skinned for existing. No one that I know likes social justice warriors). I am not against black people, almost all that I know are completely normal people. AND NONE OF THEM THAT I KNOW SPEAK THIS "LANGUAGE".

24 Slovak

The best word to describe Slovak is gurgling, but not the pleasant river-like gurgling -more like the kind of a sound you'd hear a frog make before choking on its own saliva. The language also has an annoying, whining tone to it, and that makes it sound like the people speaking it would be constantly complaining. Slovak speakers tend to spit a lot while speaking too, and that's really not a miracle considering all the frog-like croaks they have to produce all day long. Vietnamese is a lot worse than Finnish or Korean or the other languages rated higher on this list - just try sitting in a bus full of gurgling and whining Slovak speakers, and see if you come back sane.

Most dusgusting language in the world. Slovaks did the impossible: they stole czech language and made it even more annoying and ugly.

Between czech, without the singing and super terrible accent in any other attempted language - and polish, without the "shshshshshsh"

25 Spanish

The best word to describe Spanish is gurgling, but not the pleasant river-like gurgling -more like the kind of a sound you'd hear a frog make before choking on its own saliva. The language also has an annoying, whining tone to it, and that makes it sound like the people speaking it would be constantly complaining. Spanish speakers tend to spit a lot while speaking too, and that's really not a miracle considering all the frog-like croaks they have to produce all day long. Spanish is a lot worse than Finnish or Korean or the other languages rated higher on this list - just try sitting in a bus full of gurgling and whining Spanish speakers, and see if you come back sane.

Spanish from Spain can sound classy and romantic sometimes. Spanish from Mexico sounds like a low class cholo from the hood. Sorry, only sometimes.

Wow, Spanish is one of the most beautiful languages in the world! European Spanish culture (I've never been lucky enough to visit South America) is so interesting, traditional, vibrant and exciting! I'm English but I'm studying Spanish and Arabic at Univeristy. I'm shocked at the sheer ignorance and hatred of some people towards this highly passionate language and its people. To say that it is 'trashy' is pure naïvety. Every language has an idiomatic slant, but as someone who has studied formal Spanish to degree level, there is NOTHING 'trashy' about the Spanish language. I'm shocked and saddened by some of the offensive comments posted here. Learn some manners and go and get an education, for goodness sake.

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