Languages That Are Incredibly Hard to Learn

Many people actually dream of learning another language but never end up doing so due to how intimidating it seems. Those who stick it out often start off with an easier language such as French or Spanish, but others require a bit more patience and dedication. You see, not all languages are created equal, and some are a bit of a headache to learn, especially for us native English speakers. So, in no particular order, here are five languages that are incredibly hard to learn.\r \r 1. Arabic (Study Time: 2,200 Hours)\r \r First of all, the Arabic script is pretty confusing yet fascinating to look at, especially for those whose language utilizes a Latin alphabet. But its difficulty lies in the fact that it has a flexible word order, meaning that you can pretty much mix up your sentences however you wish and it would still make sense. It also doesn’t help that there are 12 forms of personal pronouns to choose from. Even science agrees that learning Arabic is hard: one study proved that learning to read this language is unusually taxing on our brains.\r \r 2. Japanese (Study Time: 2,200 Hours)\r \r Japanese, like Korean, is one of those Asian languages that has an honorific for just about every person and your relation to them. It’s basically considered impolite to use someone’s first name, unless you’re really close to them. Just prepare yourself for death stares if you use the wrong one. Now speaking Japanese has the same level of difficulty as other Asian languages—the real struggle is in the written part. There’s a total of five different systems that you’ll have to learn, namely kanji, hiragana, katakana, Arabic numerals and of course, the Latin alphabet.\r \r 3. Georgian (Study Time: 1,100 Hours )\r \r Learning Georgian is just as intimidating as it appears due to its non-Latin alphabet—it’ll make you quit before you even begin. Not to mention that there’s plenty of Georgian words and phrases with not a single vowel sound in sight, which is a foreign concept in most languages. You also need to keep in mind that it’s highly dependent on stress, intonation and rhythm, and changing any of these three can give your words and sentences a whole new meaning. On the flipside, the sounds are consistent when you string them together, which makes learning it just a tad bit easier.\r \r 4. Mandarin & Cantonese (Study Time: 2,200 Hours)\r \r Like Georgian, Mandarin places a lot of importance on tone, and pronouncing a word slightly differently leads to something else entirely. Let’s see, there’s also the fact that it’s totally void of tenses; the past, present and future is indicated by a single syllable in a long sentence to suggest time has passed. Then there’s Cantonese, which is also quite tonal, and you already know the problems that come with that. Lastly, both languages, similar to the Japanese due to their very specific ways to address people based on their relationship to you.\r \r 5. Finnish (Study Time: 1,100 Hours )\r \r Unlike the other languages on this list, Finnish primarily uses a Latin alphabet but that doesn’t make it any easier to learn. This is because it has a couple of tricky aspects that will leave English speakers totally stumped and clueless, such the fact that they combine words into gigantic compound nouns, much like Germans do, but way worse. Also, one word can have multiple meanings, as seen in the sentence “Vihdoin vihdoin vihdoin,” which means “I finally whipped myself with a birch branch.”