The Macedonian language lost the traditional (Slavic) grammatical cases during its development, and it became an analytic language. The best time to start learning a language is today. Japanese. Arabic. One of the most intriguing aspects is that emphasis can completely change the meaning of certain words. The main phonetic similarity between all Slavic languages is the presence of phonemic palatalization, known as softening. Determining language difficulty requires a birds eye view of how languages relate to each other. Known as keigo, how you say a word depends on the formality of a situation. And for words you should cut out of your vocabulary right this second, check out Stop Using These Phrases to Sound Instantly Smarter. Some friends in Central Asia are also trying to avoid it. Each Slavic language developed under the influence of others, which makes them all slightly similar. The ability to speak multiple languages puts you steps ahead of singular speakers. In terms of learning to read, Korean has a relatively straightforward alphabet that doesn't take too long to learn, unlike the characters used in Chinese and Japanese writing systems, so you can start sounding out words pretty quickly. Meanwhile, case endings are added to word stems as suffixes. Words can also be very long, and deciphering how to pronounce them can defy intuition. For one, Russian has six grammatical cases whereas German only has four. The language requires the memorization of thousands of special characters. Chinese , Cantonese, Japanese, Korean, and Arabic are some of the most difficult languages to learn. The pronunciation is what will get you. Theyre all Germanic languages. When we talk about linguistic distance, were referring to the fundamental differences between languages and how or where theyve evolved from. The language also has a high number of vowel sounds considered difficult for most English speakers to master. New: Russian Names - Learn the history of Russian names. Polish also has seven different grammatical cases that are affected by gender. The language also has a large number of regional dialects and the pronunciation can be particularly difficult for non-native speakers to master. Some languages, such as Arabic and Russian, are notoriously difficult to learn for English speakers. The language is in the Finno-Urgic language family, so it doesn't have any Latin or German influence to help you guess what something means. This system of honorific speech is called keigo. For instance, the letter is similar to SH (shampoo, shower, shop). With Russian, they used the expression back then [in the Soviet Union] of [it being the] language that opens perspectives of life, or a language of perspectives., So the project of making Ukrainian the state language, which began with independence, was the project of making Ukrainian relevant.. But again, those interviewed by Al Jazeera said there were few strict rules. However, when you consider all non-English speakers together, there isnt just one answer. But being able to speak is a completely different can of worms, thanks to grammar that is totally different from English and pronunciation that is laden with difficult-to-master rules. The 5 Hardest Languages to Learn For Spanish Speakers (or Not?) Russian can only be taught as a first language in primary school, and thats it, he said. Each language has its own distinct set of these rules. Russian is the most widely spoken Slavic language, with 155 million native Russian speakers. The script is almost entirely phonetic, which means that once you pick up the pronunciation of the letters, you can quickly begin reading fluently. It means that an average person takes up to 600 hours, or about 24 weeks . See what you can accomplish in just one lesson at www.rosettastone.com! Around 4,000 Spanish words, including naranja (orange) and taza (cup), are derived from Arabic words. Karolina Assi is an English and Polish teacher on iTalki.com. Over time, the Proto-Slavic language separated into three branches: East Slavic, West Slavic, and South Slavic. In Spanish, for example, verbs are conjugated differently depending on the sentences subject. On the other hand, tvrtek means Thursday, and mastering the way each of those sounds works together is going to take you a while. Czech and Polish are often considered the most difficult Slavic languages to learn for English speakers. The 28 Easiest and Hardest Languages to Learn for English Speakers Croatian has seven cases, while English only has three. However, Russian has fewer tenses than English. Chinese. Easiest languages for English speakers - closely-related languages like Romance language (French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Romanian, Galician, Catalan), and other languages with historical influence in English (Afrikaans, Danish, Dutch, Swedish, and Norwegian). Russian grammar and phonetics would sound more familiar to you, and some Polish and Russian vocabulary is related. When it comes to the similarities between the Slavic languages, their kinship lies in the fact that they all derive from a common ancestor the Proto-Slavic language. Generally speaking, difference equals difficulty when it comes to learning a new language. German. The most often sounds like the E in women, and to the O in rope. The has no exact equivalent in most English accents. A professional translator, she now works as a cultural and language liaison for the Rubizh brigade, a part of the national armed forces engaged in fighting around Bakhmut. The Slavic languages are also known for their complicated consonant clusters. Dont let their place on this list deter you from diving right in, thoughweve built courses to help you learn quickly and effectively! Where its most commonly spoken: Iran, Afghanistan. A big reason for this is that languages that are related usually share a high number of cognates, or words with a similar appearance and meaning. FSI language-learning categories are numbered like hurricaneshigher number, scarier language. Meanwhile, the written version of Hindi, which is written in Devanagari script, lacks certain phonetic markings that would help learners better comprehend how to pronounce words. It takes time, discipline, and a well of motivation that youll need to refill. Great job defending the Russian language and Russian speakers, Putin! After the events of 2014, some eastern students moved to Kyiv and started learning the Ukrainian language, because they did not want to associate with anything Russian, any more, said Tarasiuk, who met several Donbas natives at university. There are also Bulgarian speakers in some of the neighboring countries. So, what are the origins of the Slavic languages, and what are they? The Korean language doesnt have an equivalent phoneme. It's helpful if you speak another Slavic language, but otherwise, it's going to be a challenge. What Are the Hardest Languages to Learn? | Dive into Language - WordDive Just as learning Arabic is hard for Mandarin speakers, learning Mandarin is hard for Arabic speakers. As with learning Russian, becoming fluent will depend highly on the learner. Whether youre interested in learning an easy or hard language, Rosetta Stone can help you achieve your language goals. Thai is a tonal language. They also have a relatively easy noun system. Where its most commonly spoken: India, Fiji, Pakistan. We would like to show you a description here but the site won't allow us. These languages are deeply nuanced, with complex grammar and pronunciation rules. By the way, if you guessed that Dutch, Swedish, German, and Danish are part of the same language family, youre right! It consists of some extinct languages, including Thracian, Illyrian and Dacian, while also featuring some grammar rules and vocabulary from Greek and Latin. Often, one word in Hungarian equals a whole sentence. Mandarin is tough to learn because its a tonal language and uses a logographic script, hnz. These complex grammatical structures that dont exist in the English language, combined with a challenging pronunciation, make Czech one of the hardest Slavic languages to learn for English speakers. } You can work at your own pace, or generate a custom plan based on your goals to meet the timeline you have in mind. Because Russian culture dominated the days of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, most Ukrainians can speak Russian. What is the hardest language to learn? - zmescience.com In the wars early days, their apartment block was hit twice by artillery fire from the nearby town of Bucha, where Russians are accused of many atrocities. This is because native speakers can offer valuable insights on the nuances of the language, including slang and idiomatic expressions. Where its most commonly spoken: Hungary, Romania, Slovakia. 4. Part of what makes it one of the easiest Slavic languages to learn for English speakers is its simple vocabulary, which makes it pretty simple to speak and comprehend. Nouns have 15 different cases, while in English, they have only three: subjective, objective, possessive. 12 Easiest & Hardest Languages to Learn for English Speakers This makes Russian actually far easier to learn than many have been led to believe! Indeed, Slavic languages (unlike Romance languages) often appear on the lists of the hardest languages to learn. There are a number of ways that a language can differ from your own. Where its most commonly spoken: Thailand. To help you understand what you're getting into, we've compiled this list of the hardest languages to learn. 500 Hours Need to learn complete Swedish. This means that, rather than containing individual prepositions, prefixes and suffixes are added onto words. The Foreign Service Institute includes time estimates alongside their difficulty rankings, but its important to note that everyones language goals are different. 1. In theory, pronunciation is also fairly straightforward, but it can be easy to get hung up on long vowel and consonant sounds. Vietnamese is also difficult for Hindi speakers due to its sentence structure and tones, though its writing system is easier to learn than that of either Japanese or Mandarin because it uses a phonetic alphabet instead of characters. For instance, its 15 grammatical cases mean that even the slightest change in the end of a word can alter its meaning. Mandarin, for example, has a logosyllabic writing system in which characters match distinct syllables in each word. German and English belong to the same Germanic language family, so their linguistic closeness wins out. This can be done by adding a prefix or suffix or modifying the word. The longest word in Hungarian, megszentsgtelenthetetlensgeskedseitekrt, means for your [plural] continued behavior as if you could not be desecrated in English. Additionally, some languages such as Mandarin, Thai, and Punjabi are tonal languages, where tone and pronunciation work together to communicate meaning. However, there are some definite roadblocks to becoming fluent in Russian, among them being that spelling isn't always straightforward, it's full of vowel sounds unfamiliar to the average English speaker, and it requires learning an entirely new alphabet to master. Pinyin is a phonetic alphabet for Mandarin, and is much easier to grasp since it uses the same letters as English's alphabet. Mandarins four distinct tones give the same word ma four very different meanings. But, said Arel, the legislation affected education as it essentially eliminates Russian from high schools.