10 Most Difficult Languages in the World

Most difficult language in the world: The official language of Mainland China, Taiwan, and Singapore, Mandarin has consistently been ranked as the hardest language in the world. Mandarin is spoken by over 1.118 billion people and is the second most spoken language in the world only second to English.

There are close to 6,900 different languages in the world of which 2,197 are spoken in Asia and 230 are spoken in Europe. Popular universities abroad and in India promote learning a third language which simply speaks of the importance of languages in a lifetime.

The hardest language in the world is extremely subjective and depends from one individual to another and also on the grasping abilities of the individual. When we talk about the most difficult language in the world, we are talking about a language that is hard to learn for an English language speaker.

Top 10 Hardest Languages in the World

Hardest language in the world: In this section, we are going to be talking about the 10 most difficult languages in the world. 

1. Mandarin
2. Arabic
3. Japanese
4. Korean
5. Telugu
6. Cantonese
7. Polish
8. Finnish
9. Russian
10. Icelandic

Hardest language in the world – Mandarin (Chinese Simplified)

Unanimously speaking, Mandarin Chinese is considered to be the hardest language in the world. One of the most widely spoken languages in the world, Mandarin is the official language of the People's Republic of China and Taiwan, as well as one of the four official languages of Singapore. Mandarin Chinese is considered to be one of the most difficult languages in the world as it is a tonal language with thousands of characters and a mysterious writing system.

• Say Hello in Mandarin - 你好 (Nǐ hǎo)

Most Difficult Language in the World

Toughest language in the world: In this section, we are going to be talking about the toughest language in the world for native English speakers to learn. Candidates should note that this is only a suggestive list of the most difficult languages in the world. In the end, the hardest language in the world would be based on an individual's difficulty in learning the new language. 

Arabic

Extensively spoken across Arab and Africa – Arabic is one of the most difficult languages in the world to learn. Arabic is considered one of the toughest languages to learn as it has numerous dialects, a huge vocabulary, tough pronunciations, a lack of vowels and a right-to-left writing style. According to the US Foreign Service Institute (FSI), candidates looking to learn the Arabic language would take 88 weeks to reach Professional Working Proficiency.

• Say Hello in Arabic -      مرحب (mrhban)

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Japanese

The official language of Japan, Japanese is considered one of the toughest languages for English speakers to learn. The Japanese language is considered one of the hardest to learn as it involves three separate writing systems, an opposite sentence structure to English, and a complicated hierarchy of politeness making it decidedly complex. According to the FSI, learning the Japanese language falls under Category V and would take native English speakers 88 weeks to reach Professional Working Proficiency.

• Say Hello in Japanese - こんにちは (Kon'nichiwa)

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Korean

Derived from Mandarin, Korean also falls under the category of one of the toughest languages to learn as it follows a unique writing system, Hangul - which consists of characters that represent 19 consonants and 21 vowels. The grammar followed in the Korean language is very different from English as it has various verb endings to indicate politeness, anxiety, mood and also subject-object-verb order. The Korean language also falls under category V in the learning difficulty.

• Say Hello in Korean - 안녕하세요 (annyeonghaseyo)

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Telugu

One of the toughest languages in the world - Telugu is the official language of the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and the union territory of Puducherry. Telugu is often considered one of the hardest languages in the world because the language has its unique script and grammar and is a challenge to individuals unfamiliar with other Dravidian languages like Tamil, Kannada, and Malayalam.

• Say Hello in Telugu - హలో (Halō)

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Cantonese (Chinese Traditional)

Spoken by close to 85.5 million people worldwide including in cities like Canton, Hong Kong and Macau, Cantonese is another tough language to muster. Learning Cantonese is considered an uphill task due to its tonal nature and complex usage of grammar. And for those wondering, Mandarin and Cantonese are not similar and are regarded as two different languages.

• Say Hello in Cantonese - 你好 (Nǐ hǎo)

Polish

Widely spoken across Poland and parts of eastern Germany, northern Czech Republic and Slovakia, and western parts of Belarus and Ukraine. Polish is also regarded as one of the toughest languages to learn for the native English speaker as it uses difficult grammar that includes a system of cases and verb aspects. The Polish alphabet has been derived from the Latin script and includes certain additional letters formed using diacritics.

• Say Hello in Polish - Witam

Finnish

Spoken mainly in Finland and parts of Sweden and Norway, the Finnish language also falls under the toughest language category as the language follows a complex grammar which includes 15 cases for nouns and a rich system of verb conjugation. Students looking to learn one of the toughest languages – Finish would need 44 weeks or 1100 class hours to reach Professional Working Proficiency as mentioned by FSI.

• Say Hello in Finnish - Hei

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Russian

Official languages for Russia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, the Russian language is again part of the toughest languages in the world. While most European languages follow the Latin alphabet system, the Russian alphabet is Cyrillic. The main difficulty the Russian language poses for English speakers is that it is an inflected language meaning the words change their ending depending on what they are doing in a sentence. So candidates looking to learn Russian would have to not only learn the word but also what to do with it. 

• Say Hello in Russian - привет (privet)

Icelandic

Spoken by 97% of Iceland, the Icelandic language is also considered one of the toughest languages for native English speakers simply because of its complex grammar including four cases, three grammatical genders, and verb conjugations. When we talk about the position of the Icelandic language in the FSI Language difficulty scale – the Icelandic language belongs to Category IV, where people would require 44 weeks or 1100 class hours to reach Professional Working Proficiency.

• Say Hello in Icelandic - Halló

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The toughest language in the world - Extended

While the languages mentioned above are a few of the world's toughest languages. An extended list of the most difficult languages includes, Danish, Hindi, Hungarian, Navajo, Somali, Turkish and Vietnamese among others. 

What is FSI Language Difficulty?

Toughest language in the world: The US Foreign Service Institute (FSI) has been teaching a wide range of languages to thousands of students for over 70 years and through this research they have been able to categorize languages according to the average amount of time it takes students to reach “Professional Working Proficiency”.

Category	Time to Learn	Hardest Language in the World
Category I (Languages closely related to English)	24-30 weeks or 600-750 class hours	Afrikaans, Danish, Dutch, French, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish, Swedish
Category II (Languages similar to English)	30 weeks	German
Category III (Languages with linguistic/ or cultural differences from English)	36 weeks or 900 class hours	Indonesian, Malaysian, Swahili
Category IV (Languages with significant linguistic and/ or cultural differences from English)	44 weeks or 1100 class hours	Albanian, Amharic, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Bengali, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Burmese, Croatian, Czech, Estonian, Finnish, Georgian, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Khmer, Lao, Latvia, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Mongolian, Nepali, Pashto, Persian, Polish, Russian, Serbian, Sinhala, Slovak, Slovenian, Tagalog, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu, Uzbek, Vietnamese, Xhosa, Zulu
Category V (Languages which are exceptionally difficult for English speakers)	88 weeks or 2200 class hours	Arabic, Cantonese, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean

Related Read: Top 10 Easiest Languages to Learn

Indian students looking to learn any of the above-mentioned hardest languages in the world are advised to check out the respective embassies and consulates of the countries where the language is officially spoken. They would not only offer courses on learning the language but also other tools to practice the language such as movies, literature and coursework.

Candidates can get in touch with us with their queries in the comments section below. Indian students looking for guidance with university admissions can get in touch with our Shiksha Counselling team for free.