The 5 Hardest Languages for English Speakers to Learn

Learning a new language is always a challenge, but some languages are more difficult for English speakers to learn than others. Here are some of the hardest languages for English speakers:

1. Mandarin Chinese

Mandarin Chinese is one of the hardest languages to learn for English speakers because it has a completely different writing system. The characters are not phonetic, which means they don't represent sounds. Instead, each character represents a syllable or a word, and there are thousands of characters to memorize.

2. Arabic

Arabic is another challenging language for English speakers because it has a complex grammar system and a completely different script. The written language is written from right to left, and the letters can change shape depending on their position in a word.

3. Japanese

Japanese is a difficult language for English speakers because it has three writing systems: hiragana, katakana, and kanji. Kanji, the writing system borrowed from Chinese, has over 2,000 characters to memorize.

4. Finnish

Finnish is a challenging language for English speakers because it has complex grammar rules. It has a large number of cases, and the cases change the endings of nouns, adjectives, and other words. For example, the word for "cat" can have up to 15 different forms depending on its grammatical case.

5. Hungarian

Hungarian is another language that has complex grammar rules. It has 18 cases, and it is agglutinative, which means that words are formed by attaching suffixes to the root word. This makes it difficult to learn and understand.

Learning any new language requires dedication, persistence, and lots of practice. By understanding the challenges of these difficult languages, you can better prepare yourself for the journey of learning a new language.

Text in Japanese