26 February 2018, 02:32

Recently there was a blog post about who knows how many and what languages. And then I began to wonder what languages ​​are considered difficult to learn and what this difficulty depends on.

What does complexity depend on?

You can find the tables presented different sources, in which languages ​​will be presented from easy to difficult in terms of the time it will take to study, for example, the American Foreign Service Institute at the State Department (FSI) has created a table of five categories (how many hours it takes to study them somewhere up to level C1. In the first categories (600 hours) are Danish, Dutch, Swedish. In the most difficult, fifth (2200 hours), Arabic, Chinese, Japanese and Korean are in the fourth category, according to the State Department, you can speak it well after 1100 hours of training. .)

But in reality, this table has nothing to do with us, because it is only suitable for those people whose native language is English. According to linguists, no matter what language you are a native speaker of, it will be easiest to learn a related one.

The difficulty in learning can be anything - are the words read the same way as they are written, how many tenses, is there any logic in changing words, what is the alphabet, etc.

Thus, every language has its easy and difficult sides. For example, in the Estonian language you will find 12 cases and many exceptions, but there is a complete absence of future tense and changes in words by gender.

COMPLEX LANGUAGES

Arabic, Chinese and Japanese are considered the most difficult languages ​​according to the Foreign Service Institute. US Department. Finnish, Hungarian and Estonian are also among the most difficult languages ​​due to the huge number of cases. Pronunciation in them is more difficult than even in Asian languages, since they have a set of long, mind-boggling consonants.

Chinese

The hieroglyphs used in writing are very complex and ancient. Each word is represented by a separate symbol - and not phonetically, so it doesn't give you the slightest idea how to pronounce the word. If you want to understand and be able to express a thought simple sentences, you need to learn about 170 characters, whereas if you plan to work or get an education in Chinese, you have to memorize 2000-3000 characters. The tonal system does not make life easier either, because Chinese has four tones. The number of tones can vary from 3 to 10 (depending on dialect and counting method). Often it is not enough just to be able to distinguish tones. In many cases, the meaning of a word can only be understood from the context and the specific phrase.

Basque

In this unique, unlike any other European language, very ancient concepts have been preserved. For example, the word “knife” literally means “a stone that cuts,” and “ceiling” means “the roof of a cave.” We are talking about a language that its speakers call Euskara, and we call the Basque language. This is a so-called isolated language: it does not belong to any of the known language families. Now it is spoken and written by approximately 700 thousand people, living mostly on a 50-kilometer-wide coastal strip from the Spanish city of Bilbao to the city of Bayonne in France. The Basque language is classified as an agglutinative language - this is what linguists call languages ​​in which suffixes and prefixes are used to form new words, and each of them carries only one meaning. There are about half a million words in the Basque language dictionary - approximately the same as in our great and mighty one.

Arab

The first difficulty is in writing. Many letters have four different spellings, depending on their position in the word. Vowels are not included in the letter. Sounds are complex, but words are even more complex. The verb has three numbers, so nouns and verbs must be taught in singular, dual and plural. The present tense has 13 forms. The noun has three cases and two genders.

Hungarian

Hungarian has 35 cases or forms of nouns. This alone puts Hungarian on the list of the most difficult languages ​​to learn. Hungarian has a lot of expressive idioms, a lot of suffixes. The large number of vowels and the way they are pronounced (deep in the throat) make this language difficult to pronounce. You will need more effort to learn and maintain this language at a decent level than many other languages.

Estonian

Estonian has a very strict case system. Case is a grammatical class that affects the behavior of words in a sentence. Estonian has 12 cases, which is twice as many as many Slavic languages. In addition, there are many exceptions to the rules; many words can mean several different concepts. Despite the fact that Estonian is spoken by less than two million people, most of whom live in an area half the size Novosibirsk region, it presents two dialects - northern and southern. Also difficult is the number of vowels. There are nine vowels and thirty-six diphthongs (a combination of two vowel sounds). For comparison: there are only eight to ten diphthongs in English. That is, for an English speaker, speaking Estonian is the same as yodelling.

Etc., there are many languages ​​in the world and each of them is complex in its own way, that’s why it’s interesting to study them and become smarter :)

Which language have you learned or are studying that you found most difficult and why? What language would you like to know?

Many people ask which language is the hardest to learn. What can we say - today there are about 6,000 different languages ​​in the world. Some of them are simple, some are complex. And there are those that for foreigners are more like a cryptographic code than a language of communication.

3. Russian

Russian is one of the top three complex languages peace. The main difficulty with “great and mighty” is the free stress. For example, in French The stress is always placed on the last syllable of the word. In Russian, the strong position can be anywhere: in the first or last syllable, or in the middle of a word. The meaning of many lexical units is determined by the place of stress, for example: flour - flour; organ – Organ. Also, the meaning of polysemantic words that are written and pronounced the same is determined only in the context of the sentence.

Other linguistic units may differ in writing, but are pronounced the same and have a completely different meaning, for example: meadow - onion, etc. Our language is one of the richest in synonyms: one word can have up to a dozen similar meanings linguistic units. Punctuation also carries a large semantic load: the absence of one comma completely changes the meaning of the phrase. Remember the hackneyed phrase from school: “Execution cannot be pardoned”?

2. Arabic

Arabic is one of the most complex sign systems in the world. One letter has up to 4 different spellings: it all depends on the location of the symbol in the word. Not found in the Arabic vocabulary system lowercase letters, word breaks for hyphenation are prohibited, and vowel symbols are not displayed on the letter. One of the individual features of the language is the way words are written - from right to left. In Arabic, instead of the two numbers familiar to the Russian language, there are three numbers: singular, plural and dual. It is impossible to find identically pronounced words here, since each sound has 4 different tones, which will depend on its location.

1. Chinese

Chinese is an incredibly difficult language. The first difficulty, if you want to study it, is total number hieroglyphs in the language. The modern Chinese dictionary contains about 87 thousand characters. The difficulty lies not only in the sign system of the language, but also in the correct spelling. A single incorrectly depicted line in one hieroglyph completely distorts the meaning of the word. One Chinese "letter" can mean an entire word or even a sentence.

A graphic symbol does not reflect the phonetic essence of a word - a person who does not know all the intricacies of this language will not be able to understand how to correctly pronounce a written word. Phonetics is quite complex: it has numerous homophones and contains 4 tones in the system. Learning Chinese is one of the most complex tasks, which a foreigner can set before himself.

Instructions

In terms of proximity, the most difficult language in the world can be called Basque, which does not belong to any language group. Basque has 24 cases and is considered the oldest in Europe. This language uses suffixes, infixes and prefixes to form new words. Here, to indicate connections between words, we use case endings. The Basque language is very complex system marking the subject, indirect and direct object. Today, approximately 700,000 people speak and write Basque.

Scientists from the American Institute of Foreign Languages ​​have created a unique list of the most difficult languages ​​to learn (for native English speakers). The most difficult languages ​​for them were: Bengali, Burmese, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Finnish, Hebrew, Hungarian, Czech, Khmer, Lao, Nepali, Polish, Thai, Tamil, Vietnamese, Arabic, Chinese, Korean and Japanese And.

From the point of view of writing, the most difficult languages Chinese, Korean and Japanese are considered. For example, the newest Chinese language, compiled in 1994, contains 85,568 characters. In Japan, children go to school for 12 years. To successfully pass the exam, a Japanese student must learn 1850 characters.

Russian is considered one of the most difficult languages ​​in the world, but it will be quite accessible for a Serb, Pole or Ukrainian to learn, but for a Turk or Japanese, Russian will seem very difficult.

The number of languages ​​spoken by the peoples of Dagestan cannot be accurately counted. The Tabasaran language was included in the Guinness Book of Records as containing the most large number cases - from 44 to 52. The Tabasaran language has 54 and 10 parts of speech.

The Eskimo language also became a record holder. There are 63 present tense forms. Native speakers of the Eskimo language think very figuratively. For example, the word “Internet” is expressed by the unpronounceable term “ikiaqqivik,” which literally means “travel through layers.”

Israeli scientists conducted an interesting experiment among speakers of Hebrew, Arabic and English. The results turned out to be very interesting. Native speakers of Hebrew and English were able to easily read words using only one hemisphere of the brain independently of the other. Native speakers actively used both hemispheres of the brain at the same time when reading. Scientists' conclusion: when reading Arabic writing, the work of the cognitive systems of the brain is activated. So, if you want to develop your mind, then studying Arabic.

Video on the topic

Please note

Oddly enough, Chinese grammar is one of the simplest in the world.

Sources:

• Which language is the most difficult - the eternal battles of linguists
• 10 most difficult languages

Tip 2: Which language is the most difficult and which is the easiest to learn?

Studying foreign languages ​​opens up new career prospects, gives you the opportunity to watch films and read books in the original, understand the meaning of songs, and simply trains your memory. However, not all languages ​​are learned with equal ease - among them there are some that are very simple and those that are extremely difficult to learn.

One of the most difficult languages ​​is Chinese. Each word is designated in it by a separate symbol, which, once you know it, you will still have no idea how to pronounce it. Another challenge is the huge number of homophones - words that are pronounced the same, but are spelled differently and mean different concepts. The tonal system in Chinese also does not make things easier for the learner. In addition to the general intonation of the sentence, each syllable is also pronounced with a different tonality, which determines the meaning of the word.

The Japanese language is not much inferior to Chinese in its complexity. Knowing the symbols also does not give an idea of ​​their pronunciation. Japanese has three writing systems: Kanji, which uses Chinese characters, hiragana used to write grammatical particles and suffixes, and katakana to represent loanwords.

It is estimated that students learning Japanese spend three times as much time studying as those learning English or French.

Arabic also poses a lot of difficulties. Vowels are not used when writing, but consonants have four spelling options depending on their position in the word. Nouns and verbs have to be studied in singular, dual and plural. The nouns themselves have three cases and two genders, and the verb in a sentence is placed before the predicate.

The dialects of Arabic are also of greater complexity, as they can vary as much as modern European languages ​​differ from each other.

The easiest languages

Despite the fact that in English there are a lot of nuances (for example, words are often read differently from how they are written, and a lot of verbs are conjugated incorrectly), and it has simple grammar. In addition, in everyday life people often encounter English in songs, films, brands and products on supermarket shelves. Getting to know this language better will not be so difficult.

Spanish is also quite easy to learn. The pronunciation is very similar to English, however, unlike the language of the UK and the USA, in Spanish the spelling of words coincides with their pronunciation. The sentence structure in this language is also easy to learn.

For a Russian-speaking person, learning other languages ​​of the Slavic group will not be very difficult, and the closer they are to their native language, the easier the learning will be. You can learn Ukrainian and Belarusian the fastest; Bulgarian and Czech are somewhat more difficult. Polish is not considered simple - it has seven cases, and the grammar is replete with exceptions to the rules.

Many people ask which language is the hardest to learn. Well what can we say? Many languages ​​are difficult. Below is a list of some of the hardest languages ​​to learn. But you must remember that some language may be difficult for you for certain reasons. So after reading the article, you can make your own list of the most difficult languages ​​to learn.

What is the most difficult language in the world?

Many people ask what is the hardest language to learn. Well what can we say? Many languages ​​are difficult. Below is a list of some of the hardest languages ​​to learn. But you must remember that some language may be difficult for you for certain reasons. So after reading the article, you can make your own ranking of the most difficult languages ​​to learn.

Rating: 10 most difficult languages

Arabic, Chinese and Japanese are considered the most difficult languages according to the Institute of Foreign Service of the State. US Department. Finnish, Hungarian and Estonian are also among the most difficult languages ​​due to the huge number of cases. Pronunciation in them is more difficult than even in Asian languages, since they have a set of long, mind-boggling consonants. But our list is not limited to these languages. Here's our list of ten candidate languages, with explanations of why each language made the list. Your personal list may differ from this.

1. Chinese. This language made the list for many reasons. For example, the hieroglyphs used in writing are very complex and ancient. Each word is represented by a different symbol - and not phonetically, so it doesn't give you any idea how to pronounce the word. The tonal system doesn't make life easier either, because Chinese has four tones. Here's another reason: Chinese has a huge number of homophones. For example, the word "shi" is associated with thirty different morphemes. Some people try to learn Chinese just because it is so different from other languages ​​and so difficult.

2. Arabic. The first difficulty is in writing. Many letters have four different spellings, depending on their position in the word. Vowels are not included in the letter. Sounds are complex, but words are even more complex. English speaking student studying European language, comes across a lot of words that look familiar. But the same student studying Arabic will no longer encounter a single familiar word. The verb in Arabic usually comes before the predicate and object. The verb has three numbers, so nouns and verbs must be taught in singular, dual and plural. The present tense has 13 forms. The noun has three cases and two genders. Another problem is dialects. In Morocco, Arabic is as different from Arabic in Egypt and from literary Arabic as French is from Spanish and Latin.

3. Tuyuka- the language of the eastern Amazon. Its sound system is not overly complex: simple consonants and a few nasal vowels. But here is agglutination!!! For example, the word "hóabãsiriga" means "I don't know how to write." It has two words for “we”, inclusive and exclusive. The classes of nouns (gender) in the languages ​​of the Tuyuca family number from 50 to 140. And the most surprising thing about this language is that you need to use special verb endings that make it clear how the speaker knows what he is talking about. For example, “Diga ape-wi” means “the boy played football (I know because I saw it).” In English we may or may not talk about it, but in Tuyuka these endings are obligatory. Such languages ​​force their speakers to think carefully about how they learned what they are talking about.

4. Hungarian. Firstly, Hungarian has 35 cases or forms of nouns. This alone puts Hungarian on the list of the most difficult languages ​​to learn. Hungarian has a lot of expressive idioms, a lot of suffixes. The large number of vowels and the way they are pronounced (deep in the throat) make this language difficult to pronounce. You will need more effort to learn and maintain this language at a decent level than many other languages.

5. Japanese. It is difficult primarily because writing is different from pronunciation. That is, you cannot learn to speak this language by learning to read it - and vice versa. Moreover, there are three various systems letters. The Kanji system uses Chinese characters. Students must learn from 10 to 15 thousand hieroglyphs (cramming, no mnemonic techniques will help). Additionally, written Japanese uses two syllabaries: katakana for loanwords and hiragana for writing suffixes and grammatical particles. The State Department allocates Japanese students three times as much time as Spanish or French students.

6. Navajo. This amazing language also claims a place on the list of the most difficult languages. During World War II, this language was used as a code to send messages over the radio (radio operators were bilingual Navajo speakers). The advantage of this method was that information could be encrypted very quickly. The Japanese couldn't figure out this code. Navajo was chosen not only because it is very difficult, but also because there were no published dictionaries or grammars of this language, but there were native speakers of the language. This language does almost everything differently from English. For example, in English we highlight only the third person in a verb singular(present tense) suffix. And in Navajo, all persons are distinguished by prefixes in the verb.

7. Estonian. Estonian has a very strict case system. Case is a grammatical class that affects the behavior of words in a sentence. Estonian has 12 cases, which is twice as many as many Slavic languages. In addition, there are many exceptions to the rules; many words can mean several different concepts.

8. Basque is also one of the top ten most difficult languages ​​according to the British Foreign Office. It has 24 cases. It is impossible to associate British with any Indo-European language. Perhaps this is the most old language in Europe. It belongs to agglutinative languages, that is, it uses suffixes, prefixes and infixes to form new words. It's more likely synthetic language, not analytical. In other words, the language uses case endings to indicate connections between words. It changes not only the ending of the verb, but also the beginning. In addition to the usual moods of Indo-European languages, Basque has some other moods (for example, potential). The language has a complex system of designating the subject, direct and indirect object- and they are all part of the verb.

9. Polish. The language has 7 cases, and its grammar has more exceptions than rules. For example, German has 4 cases and they are all logical. To study the same Polish cases It will take more time and effort to learn (and discover) the logic and rules, and may require learning the entire language first. In addition, Poles rarely communicate with foreigners who speak their language, so you will have to be very careful about your pronunciation, otherwise you will not be understood.

10. Icelandic very difficult to learn due to its archaic vocabulary and complex grammar. It preserves all the ancient declensions of nouns and verb conjugations. Many Icelandic phonemes do not have exact equivalents in English. You can only learn them by listening to original recordings or talking to Icelanders.

Learning foreign languages ​​is an important, exciting, but difficult activity. Nevertheless, some people turn it into a hobby, practically “collecting” mastered foreign languages. Why do they do this, what difficulties accompany this process, as well as what is the rating of the most difficult and difficult languages ​​to learn in the world - you will learn all this from the article.

Why do people love to learn languages?

It would seem that this is such a difficult, time-consuming activity that requires enormous motivation and concentration. Why do people voluntarily agree to learn a foreign language, and more than one, and often do it with pleasure? And there are those who do not stop at one or two languages, but increase the number of languages ​​mastered to four, five or more. What is so exciting and necessary about this?

In general, the motives that motivate people to learn languages ​​can be divided into two categories:

• for pleasure;
• to achieve the goal.

The first group includes a passion for foreign languages ​​as a hobby, as well as the purposeful study of the culture of another country. Knowing the language, you can better understand the mentality of the people, their values ​​and humor.

The second group includes the study of foreign languages ​​for the purpose of emigration, improving professional status, communication and travel.

In general, we can say that people learn other languages ​​for pleasure and benefit. Now let's talk about the difficulties that accompany this activity.

What is the difficulty of learning foreign languages?

For each case, the difficulties will be different. Let's list the most significant ones.

1.There is a big difference between your native language and a foreign one. So each person has their own hardest languages ​​to learn. For example, most Dutch people find it easier to learn German or English than Russian or Serbian. Not to mention the languages ​​of the peoples of Africa or Oceania. By the way, speakers of Slavic languages ​​will have no less problems with the latter. But the reason is still the same - significant differences

2.Lack of a unified grammar. For example, it will not be easy for a native English speaker to master cases, conjugations and other forms in German, French, Estonian, Russian, etc. The difficulty of learning a language is also affected by the presence of exceptions and variations in it, which make it difficult to understand the general logic of the language.

3.Selected aspects: pronunciation, writing. For example, if the oral side of the Chinese language is not difficult to master, then you will have to tinker with the written side, namely, learn a huge number of hieroglyphs. The same can be said about the Japanese language, where there are three forms of writing, as well as various speech cliches, similar in meaning, but used in different situations. The English language, despite the simplicity of its grammatical structure, has complicated reading rules with many exceptions.

A few words about the great and mighty

Almost all of us have heard this maxim: “The Russian language is the most difficult.” And we, as schoolchildren, were proud that he was our family. But is it true that Russian is the most difficult language to learn?

As can be understood from the above, the complexity depends on a number of circumstances, among which the most prominent are individual characteristics studying. In other words, the Russian language is difficult to master for those people whose native language differs significantly in grammatical structure, pronunciation and writing.

The most difficult of the European and Slavic

The languages ​​of the peoples of the Earth are so different from each other and have their own characteristics that it is possible to determine the most complex language in the world only within one or another large group. Another important factor is the individuality of the student - his abilities and native language.

Thus, among the European and Slavic languages ​​the most difficult are considered to be:

• Estonian, Polish, Hungarian, Icelandic - in terms of grammar;
• Greek, Russian - in terms of graphics and spelling.
• English, Polish, Hungarian, Georgian - in terms of pronunciation.

The most difficult of the Eastern and Asian

If your native language is Slavic or European, then you will experience the most difficulties in learning Arabic, Turkish, Chinese, Sanskrit, Hindi, Japanese, and Korean. And all because their writing, pronunciation or grammatical structure are significantly different from the one to which other peoples are accustomed.

Arabic may not be the most difficult language in the world, but it has nevertheless been found that its writing requires more effort than reading Latin, Cyrillic, or even hieroglyphs. And the large number of hieroglyphic icons - 87 thousand - is the main obstacle in learning Chinese. The other listed languages ​​are characterized by difficulties in pronunciation and a larger number of grammatical classes: genders, cases, persons, conjugations, tense forms, etc.

Rating of the most difficult languages

As you can already understand, compiling such a list is not an easy task. After all, the difficulty of learning a particular language for a foreigner lies in what language this person has as his native language, as well as what languages ​​he already speaks and what his individual abilities are.

1. The most difficult language in the world is Basque, spoken by people living in southwestern France and northern Spain. It is characterized by an extremely complex grammatical structure and low prevalence, which made it possible to use the Basque language for encryption during the Second World War.

2. Tuyuca is the language of the small peoples of Brazil and Colombia. Its grammatical structure is quite complex, and the same can be said about spelling.

3. The Eskimo language has 252 noun endings, as well as 63 present tense forms of verbs. This is quite enough to make you suffer from studying it.

4. The language of the African Suaya tribe has no genders, verbs or nouns, but its grammar contains 15 forms of past and future tenses. In the vocabulary you can find 108 different words to indicate yellow, but none for water.

5. The language of the Nivkhs (a small people living on Northern Sakhalin) is notable for its special counting system, which changes depending on what items are being counted. There are a total of 26 methods that anyone who decides to learn this rare language will have to master.

6. Indian tribe Chippewa boasts a native language containing 6,000 verb forms—a world record.

7. The Abaza language (belongs to the languages ​​of the peoples of the Caucasus, is one of the official languages ​​in Karachay-Cherkessia) is distinguished by such complex phonetics that it is almost impossible for a person for whom it is not native to master it.

What's the best way to learn any language?

Even the most difficult language in the world can be mastered if you approach this process purposefully and consciously. Create a lesson plan that includes goals for the day, week, month, and then follow it. It will take a lot of patience and constant practice.

In the case of common European and Slavic languages Watching videos with foreign subtitles helps a lot: this way you will not only hear pronunciation samples, but also learn to understand speech. Another valuable source when learning languages ​​is communication in them.

Conclusion

Surely you have already realized that there is no one answer to the question of what foreign language the most difficult. Each has its own nuances: be it pronunciation, graphic system, rules of grammar and spelling, lexical features, and so on. Whether a language is complex or simple - the answer often lies in the personality of the person studying it.