{"id":5995,"date":"2018-08-08T09:59:05","date_gmt":"2018-08-08T08:59:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.eurideastranslation.com\/?p=5995"},"modified":"2018-08-08T09:59:05","modified_gmt":"2018-08-08T08:59:05","slug":"9-of-the-hardest-languages-for-english-speakers-to-learn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eurideas.com\/de\/9-of-the-hardest-languages-for-english-speakers-to-learn\/","title":{"rendered":"9 of the hardest languages for English speakers to learn"},"content":{"rendered":"

For English speakers, it is especially difficult to learn languages like Japanese, Arabic, and Hungarian.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Learning a new language can be a rewarding experience, but as with any new skill it takes a lot of practice and hard work.<\/p>\n

Naturally, some languages will take longer than others to learn. The Foreign Service Institute of the US Department of State classifies the world’s most popular languages into five categories based on how long it takes for a typical English speaker to achieve proficiency.<\/p>\n

We compiled a list of nine of the toughest major languages to learn, according to the Foreign Service Institute standards. If you’re going to tackle one of these, be prepared to invest at least 1,000 study hours and, in some cases, as many as 2,200 to become proficient.<\/p>\n

These are nine of the hardest languages in the world to learn for English speakers:<\/p>\n

Indonesisch\"\"<\/h2>\n

Native speakers:<\/strong> 128 million<\/p>\n

Where it’s spoken:<\/strong> Japan<\/p>\n

Why it’s hard:<\/strong> Japanese is difficult for English speakers because, among other reasons, it has more than one set of written characters, and readers need to memorize thousands of characters to achieve fluency.<\/p>\n

Japanese is also a highly contextual language that requires different forms depending on the formality of the social situation. Even a pronoun like “you” could have more than 10 different translations depending on the person you’re talking to.<\/p>\n

Arabisch\"\"<\/h2>\n

Native speakers:<\/strong> 315 million<\/p>\n

Where it’s spoken:<\/strong> Throughout the Middle East and northern and northeast Africa<\/p>\n

Why it’s hard:<\/strong> Reading Arabic can be immensely difficult for English speakers: It’s written in a different alphabet, usually omits vowels, and has very few words in common with English.<\/p>\n

Mandarin\"\"<\/h2>\n

Native speakers:<\/strong> 909 million<\/p>\n

Where it’s spoken:<\/strong> Northern and southwestern China<\/p>\n

Why it’s hard:<\/strong> Mandarin is a tonal language, meaning the intonation you put on a word can change its meaning. For example, the syllable “ba” could mean either “eight,” “pull out,” “hold,” or “dad” depending on which tone you use.<\/p>\n

Mandarin also has a complex writing system with thousands of characters. For the world’s most spoken language, there’s a high barrier to entry to achieve competency.<\/p>\n

Cantonese\"\"<\/h2>\n

Native speakers:<\/strong> 59 million<\/p>\n

Where it’s spoken:<\/strong> South China, Hong Kong, Macau<\/p>\n

Why it’s hard:<\/strong> Like Mandarin, Cantonese is also a tonal language. Except in Cantonese, there are eight different tones you can use to pronounce a word \u2014 double the amount in Mandarin.<\/p>\n

Korean<\/h2>\n

Native speakers:<\/strong> 77 million<\/p>\n

Where it’s spoken:<\/strong> South Korea, North Korea\"\"<\/p>\n

Why it’s hard:<\/strong> One aspect of Korean that is difficult for English speakers is the pronunciation \u2014 double consonants are pronounced differently than single consonants, for example. On top of that, Korean has a complex grammar system that requires formal or informal markers, and a different word order that places verbs at the end of the sentence.<\/p>\n

Ungarisch\"\"<\/h2>\n

Native speakers:<\/strong> 13 million<\/p>\n

Where it’s spoken:<\/strong> Hungary<\/p>\n

Why it’s hard:<\/strong> Hungarian grammar is built around the case system \u2014 there are 18 noun cases that dictate how to certain words are combined and inflected. On top of that, the language has several vowels (\u00e1, \u00e9, \u00ed, \u00f3, \u00f6, \u0151, \u00fa, \u00fc, \u0171) and consonants (cs, gy, ly, ny, ty, sz, zs) that canprove tricky for English speakers to articulate.<\/p>\n

amerikanisches Englisch\"\"<\/h2>\n

Native speakers:<\/strong> 68 million<\/p>\n

Where it’s spoken:<\/strong> Vietnam<\/p>\n

Why it’s hard:<\/strong> Vietnamese is a tonal language with six different tones that dictate the meaning of a word. The high number of vowel sounds also prove difficult for English speakers to nail down.<\/p>\n

As for the grammar, Vietnamese has more pronouns than English and uses a system of “classifiers” \u2014 special words that modify nouns in certain contexts \u2014 that English speakers would not have exposure to. As the saying goes, “The hardships of struggling with a violent storm don’t compare to the hardships of mastering Vietnamese grammar.”<\/p>\n

Xhosa\"\"<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Native speakers:<\/strong> 8 million<\/p>\n

Where it’s spoken:<\/strong> South Africa, Zimbabwe, Lesotho<\/p>\n

Why it’s hard:<\/strong> Xhosa is one of many African languages that uses click consonants. It has 18 clicks that get articulated in three different places: the back of the teeth, the roof of the mouth, and the side of the mouth.<\/p>\n

Additionally, Xhosa is a tonal language with two tones, high and low. Speakers must indicate one of 15 noun cases that must agree with the noun’s gender. And Xhosa is what linguists call an “agglutinative” language \u2014 it has tons of prefixes and suffixes that get attached to words in certain contexts.<\/p>\n

Isl\u00e4ndisch\"\"<\/h2>\n

Native speakers:<\/strong> 350,000<\/p>\n

Where it’s spoken:<\/strong> Iceland<\/p>\n

Why it’s hard:<\/strong> Like other languages on this list, Icelandic has a case system that assigns different word endings to express the grammatical role of a word. For example, according to Quora user Atli Geir L\u00e1russon, “here is a horse,” “about a horse,” “from a horse,” and “to a horse” are translated as “h\u00e9r er hestur,” “um hest,” “fr\u00e1 hesti,” and “til hests,” respectively.<\/em><\/p>\n

Source: Business Insider<\/em><\/p>\n

Photo credits:<\/em>
\nJapanese: Getty Images<\/em>
\nArabic:\u00a0By anirvan on Flickr<\/em>
\nCantonese: Cameron Spencer\/Getty Images<\/em>
\nHungarian: Jeff Gross\/Getty Images<\/em>
\nVietnamese:\u00a0Thomson Reuters<\/em>
\nXhosa:\u00a0Dan Kitwood\/Getty Images<\/em>
\nIcelandic:\u00a0Clive Rose\/Getty Images<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For English speakers, it is especially difficult to learn languages like Japanese, Arabic, and Hungarian. Learning a new language can be a rewarding experience, but as with any new skill it takes a lot of practice and hard work. Naturally, some languages will take longer than others to learn. The Foreign Service Institute of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6016,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eurideas.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eurideas.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eurideas.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eurideas.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eurideas.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5995"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.eurideas.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5995\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eurideas.com\/de\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eurideas.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eurideas.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eurideas.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}