Of course, it is impossible to say for sure which language is the most difficult. From a domestic point of view, the most complex language– the one that is least similar in grammar and phonetics to your native one. However, linguists can use certain characteristics to indicate the complexity of a particular language. Let's look at the rating published on the website mylanguages.org

What is the hardest language to learn?

Most non-native languages ​​are difficult. But you must remember that some language may be difficult for you for certain reasons. In the comments after the article you can add your opinion and make your own rating :)

Rating of the ten most difficult languages

The most difficult languages Arabic, Chinese and Japanese are considered. By at least– this is what the Institute of State Diplomatic Service writes. US Department. Also among the most difficult are Finnish, Hungarian and Estonian. This is due to the huge number of cases. Pronunciation is also more difficult in them than even in Asian languages, since the languages ​​of this group have a huge set of completely unpronounceable consonants.

So, the list:

1. Chinese. There were many reasons to add this language to the list. Chinese is a hieroglyphic language. Each word of the language is indicated by a separate symbol - and not phonetic (sound), so you cannot understand the sound of the word by writing it. The tonal system doesn't help much because Chinese only has four tones. There are also a huge number of homophones in Chinese. For example, the word "shi" is associated with three dozen different morphemes. There is even a poem in classical Chinese that consists of 192 words of Shi spoken in different keys, but still makes sense. You can easily find it on Google :)
2. Arab. First in difficulty of writing. Many letters have up to four spelling options, depending on their position in the word. Vowels are not included in the letter, but may be indicated. Sounds are complex, but words are even more complex. 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. (By the way, this is also true for Chinese, but it is in first place anyway)
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. Large quantity The 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. I must say that Hungarian It belongs to the Finno-Ugric group of languages ​​and in Europe its relatives (albeit distant) are the Finnish and Estonian languages. And Estonian is also (bingo!) in our ranking :)
5. Japanese. This language is difficult primarily because the writing is different from the 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. 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 US 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, the 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 cases. 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. 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). In language complex system designation of 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. However, for Ukrainians Polish not as scary as for residents Western Europe, so this is the case when the rating can be adjusted :)
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.

And to summarize, we must say that even the most complex language can be made native if you do not learn it, but immerse yourself in the language environment. This is exactly the approach we use in our studio. Come to us and let the most difficult languages ​​become your friends and helpers!

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, which will present languages ​​from easy to difficult in terms of the time it takes 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 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 also does not make life easier, 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 anything else 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. The Basque language dictionary contains about half a million words - 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 a total of 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?

Linguists from the University of Oslo have named the most difficult language to master in the world, which has the most complex phonetics. According to scientists, this is the dialect of the Pirahã people living in the Amazon jungle of Brazil. The researchers explained that the reason for the complexity of the Pirahãs is due to the many whistling sounds.

Sign language. How to find out the secret thoughts of your interlocutor?

As Izvestia writes, representatives of this tribe whistle words and entire sentences to each other. In this case, sounds travel over a long distance. With the help of the language, the Pirahans navigate in space, making their way through the jungle or crossing a river. It is also used for hunting.

It is interesting that the verbs here are used only in the future and past tense. Also, the language does not have singular or singular nouns. plural. Speech, based on one consonant and one vowel, can sound in different keys.

Let us note, according to neurophysiologists, that even the wearer’s brain has difficulty perceiving them. For example, Chinese and Arabic.

In response to the favorite question of everyone who has encountered the study foreign language- What is the most difficult language on Earth? - linguists chuckle: it is impossible to give a definite answer. In their opinion, the difficulties depend primarily on the student himself, namely on what dialect is native to him. The rather difficult Russian language will not be so difficult for a Czech or Ukrainian, but a Turk or Japanese may not be able to handle it.

From the point of view of “relatedness”, the Basque language (Euskara) is called one of the most difficult to learn - it is not related to any of the currently known groups of languages, living or dead. Everyone is equal in the face of the difficulties of mastering Euskara. The Guinness Book of World Records names the Chippewa languages ​​as the most difficult languages. Indian people Ojibwe in Canada and the USA), Haida (the language of the Haida Indian people living in the northwest North America), Tabasaran (spoken by one of the indigenous peoples of Dagestan), Eskimo and Chinese.

The most difficult in terms of writing are Chinese, Japanese and Korean languages. They are difficult even for the native speakers themselves. For example, in Japan school education lasts as much as 12 years, and half of this time is devoted to just two subjects - the native language and mathematics. More from preschool age Developmental activities are conducted with Japanese children to train their memory. To pass the final exams, they need to learn about 1850 hieroglyphs, and to understand a note printed in a newspaper - about 3 thousand.

In the group of the lightest (again, for carriers English language) included Danish, Dutch, French, Haitian, Creole, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish, Swahili and Swedish. The second most difficult languages ​​were Bulgarian, Dari, Farsi (Persian), German, Modern Greek, Hindi-Urdu, Indonesian and Malay.

Amharic, Bengali, and Burmese are considered even more challenging by American teachers and students, as are Czech, Finnish, Modern Hebrew, Hungarian, Lao, Nepali, Polish, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Sinhala, Thai, Tamil, Turkish, and Vietnamese. The most difficult languages ​​for English-speaking students were Arabic, Chinese, Japanese and Korean.

It is curious that despite the relationship and obvious similarity in spelling, Hebrew and Arabic belonging to the Semitic group turned out to be on the same page. different levels complexity. This pattern is also true for speakers of both languages. As a study by scientists from the University of Haifa has shown, it is more difficult for Arabs to read texts in their native language than for Jews and the British (or Americans). The reason is simple but surprising: the brain processes the graphic characters of these languages ​​differently.

As you know, the functions of the left and right hemispheres are different. The right one, for example, “specializes” in solving spatial problems and patterned information processing, while the left one is responsible for speech recognition and detailed processing of text messages. In this case, the right hemisphere is responsible for intuition and is able to “understand” metaphors, that is, words and phrases with a veiled meaning, while the left hemisphere is responsible for understanding only the literal meaning.

Israeli scientists analyzed brain activity during reading and word recognition in people whose native language was English, Arabic or Hebrew. Volunteers were offered two experiments. In the first, they were shown words or meaningless combinations of letters in their native language on a screen. The subject had to determine whether given word meaning, and the researchers recorded the speed and accuracy of the response.

In the second test, volunteers were shown words simultaneously on the left and right sides of the screen—either on one or both. Thus, the brain was faced with the task of processing the shown symbols with the left or right hemisphere separately.

The resulting picture turned out to be interesting. English-speaking volunteers and those whose native language was Hebrew easily “read” words in one hemisphere independently of the other. But the Arabs had it worse: when reading in Arabic the right hemisphere cannot function without using the resources of the left. Reading Arabic characters uniquely activates the cognitive systems of the brain, scientists conclude. If you want to develop your mind, learn Arabic!

By the way, the same pattern was previously discovered for the Chinese language compared to English. In the study, scientists observed the brain activity of Chinese and English speakers, respectively, while they listened to their native speech. In English-speaking subjects, only the left hemisphere was activated, while in Chinese, both were activated.

Today there are about 6,000 languages ​​in the world. Some are simple, some are more complex. And there are those that for foreigners are more like a cryptographic code than a language of communication. Here are the 10 most difficult languages ​​to learn.

10. Tuyuka

“Think before you speak,” we were often told as children. But in the Tuyuca language, spoken by the Indians living in the Amazon, they always think about what they are talking about. After all, in the Tuyuka language there are special verb endings that allow the listener to understand how the speaker knows what he is talking about. And there is no way to do without them: the language demands it! So when you say something like “a woman is washing clothes,” you must add, “I know because I saw it myself.” In addition, there are from 50 to 140 classes of nouns in this language. The Tuyuka language is agglutinative, which means that one word can mean an entire phrase. And two whole words meaning the pronoun “we” - inclusive and exclusive.

The Abkhaz language has only three vowel sounds - a, ы and aa. The remaining vowels, denoted in writing by separate letters - e, o, i, u, are obtained from a combination of other vowels and consonants. The Abkhaz language compensates for its vocal poverty with an abundance of consonants: in literary language there are 58 of them, and in the Bzyb dialect there are as many as 67. By the way, the Abkhaz alphabet based on the Cyrillic alphabet was created in 1862, and three years later the Abkhaz primer was released. The manner of Abkhazians starting a word with the letter “a” has been joked about many times. But this prefix, or in common parlance a prefix, performs the same function in the Abkhaz language that the in English is definite article. It is placed before all nouns, and according to the rules of the Abkhaz language, it is added to borrowed words too. So “the death of the air squadron” is not a joke.

Some Khoisan languages ​​are endangered, and many have already become extinct. But still, approximately 370 thousand people speak these very unusual dialects. The fact is that in the languages ​​spoken in southern Africa around the Kalahari Desert, there are so-called clicks or clicking consonants. The term “Khoisan” itself was constructed from words in the Khoisan Nama language: “Khoi” in it means person, and “San” means “Bushman”. Initially, this term was used to designate the physical-racial type of these peoples, and only much later the American linguist Joseph Greenberg applied the term to the macrofamily of languages ​​that use clicking sounds. Recently, geneticists confirmed the ancient isolation of the Khoisan people from the rest of humanity and discovered that the tribes living north and south of the Kalahari have been isolated from each other for at least 30 thousand years.

7. Finnish

Anyone who has tried to learn all fifteen Finnish cases and more than a hundred conjugations and personal forms of the verb will agree that the Finnish language is difficult. Finns don't just burn their hearts with verbs - they inflect the verb like a noun! Add to this the alternation of consonants, an abundance of suffixes and mysterious postpositions, and verb control that is difficult for a foreigner - and it seems like it’s time to fall into despair. But don't rush: Finnish a lot of comfort for a diligent student. Words are heard, written and read exactly the same - there are no unpronounceable letters here. The stress always falls on the first syllable, and the category of gender is completely absent, which is quite capable of warming the soul of a supporter of equality. Finnish has several past tenses, but no future tense at all. Connoisseurs national character They claim that this is because Finns are accustomed to being responsible for the words spoken, and if a Finn has promised, he will definitely do it.

6. Chinese

The newest dictionary of the Chinese language, Zhonghua Zihai, compiled in 1994, contains - are you sitting? — 85,568 hieroglyphs. It would be more correct, however, to speak not about the Chinese language, but about the Chinese branch of languages, which unites many dialects, but there are still no easy ones among them. Take the hieroglyphs: as a consolation, we can immediately say that not all of the more than 85 thousand are actively used in modern language: the lion's share of them is found only in the commemorative literature of various Chinese dynasties and is no longer used in practice. For example, the hieroglyph "se", meaning "chatty", which consists of 64 strokes. However, today’s hieroglyphs are not so simple: for example, the hieroglyph “nan”, which means “stuffy nose”, is represented by 36 lines. Unlike happy Europeans who learn a few dozen letters, a resident of the Celestial Empire, in order to even begin to read, must memorize, at worst, at least 1,500 hieroglyphs. But you also have to learn how to draw each hieroglyph. Oh, you are heavy, Chinese letter!

The champion in verb forms is, of course, the language of the American Indians Chippewa, or, as they are more often called, Ojibwe. Linguists call the Chippewa language the southwestern dialect of the Ojibway language itself. So, in this language there are as many as 6 thousand verb forms! But even with all the complexity of this language, you, of course, know a couple of words from it: these are, for example, the words “wigwam” or “totem”. Henry Longfellow's epic poem is based on the legends of the Ojibwe people. The American classic used myths, place names and even words from the Ojibwe language, but like any outsider he was not able to take everything into account. So the mistake is right there on the cover: the legendary Ojibwe hero is called Nanobozho, because Hiawatha is a character from Iroquois mythology.

4. Eskimo

Are you familiar with the word “igloo”, which means the Eskimos’ winter home, built from blocks of snow or ice? Then congratulations: you know a word from the Eskimo language. It also rightfully takes its place of honor among the most difficult languages ​​in the world: the Guinness Book of Records claims that it has 63 present tense forms, and simple nouns it has 252 inflections. The term “inflection” in linguistics refers to different types changes to words or roots. Let’s just correct the Guinness Book: modern linguists do not distinguish the Eskimo language. Apparently, we are talking about the entire Eskimo branch of the Eskimo-Aleut languages. But the world record registrar is not mistaken about the main thing: all Eskimo languages ​​are extremely complex: for example, up to 12 can be expressed in one verb form with the help of suffixes. grammatical categories. Speakers of this language think figuratively: the word “Internet” in it is expressed by the term “ikiaqqivik”, which means “journey through layers.”

The number of languages ​​spoken by the indigenous peoples of Dagestan cannot be accurately counted. We can only say that 14 of them have writing. The most complex of them and, according to the Guinness Book of Records, one of the most complex in the world is Tabasaran. The language of the Lezgin branch of the Nakh-Dagestan family of languages ​​holds the world record for the number of cases - there are from 44 to 52 of them in the Tabasaran language! It has 54 letters and 10 parts of speech, and there are no prepositions, but postpositions are used instead. So that life does not seem like honey to a student of the Tabasaran language, there are as many as three dialects in the language. But the Tabasaran dictionary contains a lot of borrowings. The mountain residents borrowed ancient household, military and craft terminology from the Farsi language. The Tabasarans borrowed religious and scientific terms from Arabic. And the Russian language shared modern socio-political, scientific and technical vocabulary with Tabasaran. Just don't forget. that all these words change in more than 50 cases!

2. Navajo

The idea of ​​using complex languages ​​to transmit encrypted messages came to the Americans back in the First World War. world war: At that time, Choctaw Indians served in the US Army. During World War II they took advantage of this experience. And in addition to the complex Basque language, they began to transmit messages in the Navajo language. Fortunately, there were enough native speakers of this complex language, who also spoke English, but there was no written language in the language, and therefore no dictionaries at all. “Windtalkers,” that is, “speakers with the wind,” as the Navajo code talkers called themselves, were even forced to invent new words that were previously absent in their language. For example, the plane was called “ne-ahs-ya”, that is, “owl”, the submarine was called “besh-lo”, literally “iron fish”. And the Navajo signalmen called Hitler “posa-tai-wo,” that is, “crazy white man" In addition to vowels and consonants, this language has four more tones - high, low, rising and falling. Particularly complex in the Navajo language are verb forms, which consist of a stem to which derivational and inflectional prefixes are added. The fascist himself will break his head!

1. 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. It is a so-called isolated language: it does not belong to any known language family. 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 ​​that use suffixes and prefixes to form new words, each of them carrying 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. This is explained by the large number of synonyms and dialect variants. The obscurity and complexity of the Basque language played a positive role: during the Second World War, it was used by radio operators in the US Army.

Language is a sign system consisting of sounds, words and sentences. The sign system of each nation is unique due to its grammatical, morphological, phonetic and linguistic features. Simple languages does not exist, since each of them has its own difficulties, which are discovered during the study.

Below are the most complex languages ​​of the world, the rating of which consists of 10 sign systems.

- This is one of the most difficult to pronounce. The sign system is also considered one of the most ancient languages. It contains linguistic units used only by native speakers. One of the biggest challenges in learning Icelandic is its phonetics, which only native speakers can convey accurately.

Finnish

Finnish deservedly considered one of the most complex sign systems in the world. It has 15 cases, as well as several hundred personal verb forms and conjugations. In it, graphic signs completely convey the sound form of a word (both written and pronounced), which simplifies the language. The grammar contains several past tense forms, but no future tense forms.

Navajo

Navajo- the language of the Indians, the peculiarity of which is considered to be verb forms formed and changed by persons with the help of prefixes. It is verbs that carry the main semantic information. The Navajos were used by the US military during World War II to transmit encrypted information.

In addition to vowels and consonants, the language contains 4 tones, which are called ascending - descending; high – low. IN present moment The fate of the Navajo is in jeopardy as linguistic dictionaries are absent, and the younger generation of Indians is switching exclusively to English.

It is one of the ten most difficult languages ​​to learn. It has 35 case forms and is replete with vowel sounds, which are quite difficult to pronounce due to their length. The sign system has quite complex grammar, in which there is an innumerable number of suffixes, as well as stable expressions characteristic only of this language. A feature of the dictionary system is the presence of only 2 tense forms of the verb: present and past.

Eskimo

Eskimo and is considered one of the most complex in the world due to its numerous tense forms, of which there are up to 63 in the present tense alone. The case form of words has more than 200 inflections (word changes using endings, prefixes, suffixes). The Eskimo language is a language of images. For example, the meaning of the word “Internet” among the Eskimos would sound like “a journey through layers.” The Eskimo sign system is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as one of the most difficult.

One of the few languages ​​listed in the Book due to its complexity. Its peculiarity lies in its numerous cases, of which there are 46. This is one of state languages residents of Dagestan, which has no prepositions. Postpositions are used instead. There are three types of dialects in the language, and each of them unites a certain group of dialects. The sign system borrows a lot from different languages: Persian, Azerbaijani, Arabic, Russian and others.

One of the oldest in Europe. It is owned by some residents of Southern France and Northern Spain. Basque contains 24 case forms, and does not belong to any branch of language families. Dictionaries contain about half a million words, including dialects. Prefixes and suffixes are used to form new linguistic units.

The connection between words in a sentence is traced through changes in endings. Verb tense is indicated by changing the endings and beginnings of the word. Due to the low prevalence of the language, it was used by the American military during World War II to convey classified information. Basque is rightfully considered one of the most difficult languages ​​to learn.

Russian

Russian one of the three most difficult languages ​​in the world. 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”?

Arabic

Arabic– one of the most complex sign systems in the whole 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 individual characteristics language lies in 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.

Chinese

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