Learning new languages ​​opens up a huge number of additional opportunities and prospects. Some languages ​​are easier to learn, while others you have to sweat.

And there are those who can only be mastered by a very purposeful, patient and diligent person. Are you exactly like that? Well, then here are 25 languages ​​that are ready to challenge you and put your nerves to the test!

25. Tagalog

The Austronesian language Tagalog is spoken by about a quarter of the Filipino population. Due to complex grammatical rules and unconventional sentence structure, it is rather difficult to master.

24. Navajo

It is one of the southern Athabaskan languages. Navajo is common in the southwestern United States. It speaks from 120 to 170 thousand people. Navajo has nothing to do with either Romano-Germanic or Latin languages. The lack of points of contact also makes it difficult to study. Navajo is usually written in the Latin alphabet.

23. Norwegian

Norway's national language is one of the main languages ​​in the Nordic Council. Norwegian belongs to the North Germanic language group and is mutually intelligible with Swedish, Danish and other Scandinavian dialects (such as Icelandic or Faroese, for example).

22. Persian

Refers to the Indo-Iranian offshoot of the Indo-European languages. It is used mainly in Afghanistan and Iran, Tajikistan and other countries under Persian influence. In total, about 110 million people communicate on it around the world.

21. Indonesian

For many centuries, it has been considered the main business language in the entire Indonesian archipelago. Indonesian is one of the most widely spoken languages ​​in the world. Indonesia is the fourth most populous country in the world.

20. Dutch

This West Germanic language is spoken by people in the Netherlands, Suriname and Belgium, parts of Europe and the United States. Today Dutch has official status in Curacao, Aruba, Sint Maarten. The language is closely related to English and German, but Dutch does not use the latter's umlauts as grammatical markers.

19. Slovenian

Belongs to the group of South Slavic languages. More than 2.5 million people around the world speak Slovene, most of whom still live in Slovenia. This language is one of 24 official workers recognized in the European Union.

18. Afrikaans

Natives of Namibia, South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe communicate in Afrikaans. It is considered to be an offshoot of several different Dutch dialects. So Afrikaans can deservedly be considered a daughter of the Dutch language.

17. Danish

The official language of Denmark. More than 6 million people communicate on it. Danish belongs to the North Germanic language group and derives from Old Norse. It is used by 15 - 20% of the population of Greenland. Danish is mutually intelligible with Swedish and Norwegian.

16. Basque

The language of the Basque Country, stretching from northeastern Spain to southwestern France. It is spoken by about 27% of the total population of the Basque territories.

15. Welsh

One of the offshoots of the Celtic languages, used in Wales. The Welsh language is also called Cambrian.

14. Urdu

Better known as modern Standard Urdu, which is associated with the Muslim population of Hindustan. Urdu - National language Pakistan. It is mutually intelligible with traditional Hindi, with which even his grammar is similar.

13. Hebrew

Hebrew belongs to the group of Afro-Asian languages. It was first used by ancient Jews and Israelites in the 10th century BC. NS. Despite their venerable age, people still communicate in Yiddish. It is official in Israel.

12. Korean

The official language of North and South Korea. More than 80 million people communicate on it. It is not easy for an amateur to decipher the grammatical structure and understand all the rules for constructing sentences. As a rule, Koreans do not have any problems with this.

The main language of adherents of Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism. It is a dialect of the ancient Indo-Aryan language. Sanskrit is one of the 22 planned languages ​​of India.

10. Croatian

One of the official languages ​​of the European Union. Croatian is derived from Serbo-Croatian and is based on the East Herzegovinian dialect, which is also the basis for Serbian and Bosnian.

9. Hungarian

One of the official languages ​​of the European Union. It is used by members of Hungarian communities in Slovakia, Ukraine, Serbia, Romania. Belongs to the Uralic family of languages.

8. Gaelic

Also known as Scottish Gaelic. It is the Celtic language spoken by many of the natives of Scotland.

7. Japanese

This East Asian language is the national language in Japan. More than 125 million people all over the world communicate on it. Japanese is similar to Chinese in many ways and is considered one of the hardest to learn.

6. Albanian

Indo-European language spoken by the inhabitants of Kosovo, Bulgaria, Macedonia. Albanian has a lot in common with German and Greek, but its vocabulary is much more extensive and varied.

5. Icelandic

Belongs to the Indo-European group of languages. Developed in conditions of minimal contact with other languages ​​and dialects.

4. Thai

Better known as Siamese. Belongs to the Thai-Canadian group of languages. Almost half of the Thai vocabulary is taken from Pali, ancient Khmer or Sanskrit. Thai has a complex written alphabet.

3. Vietnamese

Officially recognized in Vietnam. The Vietnamese language borrows a lot from Chinese.

2. Arabic

He is a descendant of the ancient Arabic language. Learning Arabic doesn't mean being able to communicate freely with native speakers. The point is that in Arabic a lot of dialects, and they differ from each other almost as much as different languages! Because of this, a person from Morocco, for example, can find it difficult to understand an interlocutor from Egypt, although they communicate in the same language.

1. Chinese

It is spoken by a fifth of the world's population, although it is considered the most difficult language to learn.

Learning a new language is fun, memory-enhancing and flexible thinking. However, you cannot call it easy. And it can become even more difficult if you intend to master one of the most difficult languages ​​in the world... After all, this will have to take into account not only the laws of the functioning of words and sentences, but also the cultural characteristics of native speakers.

Introducing the Top 10 Most Difficult Languages ​​in the World to Throw Up Even the Experienced Linguist. It is based on the study of specialized linguistic resources, as well as language records from the Guinness Book of Records.

Spelling and grammar are two areas that will pose a lot of challenges for the Polish language learner. Polish words are loaded with consonants, making them difficult to pronounce and write. For example, szczęście means happiness, and bezwzględny means ruthless.

Polish grammar has seven cases in the declension system of nouns. Plus there is one more - vocative. As one linguist put it: “It looks like German on steroids ".

But the good news is that the Polish language uses the Latin alphabet, so the letters will be familiar to those who are familiar with the English language.

Has a reputation for being a difficult language to learn, and for good reason. Nouns in it have 15 cases. Finnish is part of the Finno-Ugric language family, so it has no Latin or German influence to help you guess what a word means. In theory, the pronunciation of Finnish words is fairly straightforward, but they have long vowels and consonants.

And if you are intrigued by a place with such a complex language, then we recommend visiting Helsinki, recognized as one of the.

This language is so little known and unusual that during the Second World War, the US Air Force called for the service of the Navajo cryptographers. They used their native language to communicate by telephone and walkie-talkie. If you are interested in the history of these ransomware, we recommend watching the film by John Woo, "Windwalkers," filmed in 2002.

There are only 4 vowel sounds in the Navajo language, but there are many consonants. Moreover, one word can contain either only sibilant consonants, or only sibilant consonants. This is called "consonant harmony."

In addition to all the complexities, the Navajo language has sounds that have no counterpart in European languages.

Thai language is not complicated by its grammar, but pronunciation, in which there are five different tones, as well as long and short vowel sounds. The Thai alphabet has a staggering 44 consonants, 28 vowel forms, and 4 diacritics for tones.

The Thai alphabet does not use letters of the Latin alphabet. It comes from the Khmer alphabet and has a peculiar rounded appearance. Moreover, unlike the Cyrillic or Latin alphabet, in Thai there is no difference between lowercase and capital letters... The sentences are separated from each other by a space.

Still not impressed? Then here's another fact for you: Thai has several registers of speech.

• Street or colloquial - it is spoken with friends.
• Elegant or formal - it is spoken to strangers.
• Rhetorical - for public speaking.
• Religious - used to address clergy.
• Royal - to discuss actions or appeal to the royal family. The royal family in Thailand is deeply respected and there is a very large difference between royal and colloquial speech styles.

The Eskimo language, which got into the Guinness Book of Records, probably means the Eskimo branch of the Eskimo-Aleutian languages.

Those who decide to learn the language of the "children of the frost" (as Jack London called the Eskimos) will have to learn sixty-three forms of the present tense. But these are still flowers. And berries are 252 endings (inflections) for simple nouns.

Eskimo speakers think figuratively. And this imagery is clearly demonstrated by the word "ikiaqqivik". It translates as "travel through the layers" and stands for the Internet.

Learning the language of the Chippewa (Ojibwe) Indian people living in the United States will bring real pleasure to the lover of "burn with a verb." After all, there are about 6 thousand verb forms in it.

The Chippewa language does not have a uniform standardization, since it exists as a chain of interconnected local varieties, usually called dialects. However, a couple of words are known to every lover of stories about cowboys and Indians - these are "wigwam" and "totem".

Due to its complexity, the Chippewa language got into the Guinness Book of Records.

This endangered language is used by representatives of the Haida people living in America and Canada.

The complexity of this language (entered in the Guinness Book of Records) is due to the fact that it has seventy prefixes. At one time, the Haida language had over 30 different dialects. Today only three of them remain. The tone system used depends on the dialect.

The Haida language is surprisingly detailed and varied. For example, there are approximately 50 different ways to describe how someone falls, depending on how they landed and what caused the fall.

This is the hardest of state languages Dagestan. A significant difficulty for those who decide to study the Tabasaran language is presented by the cases of nouns. There are, according to various estimates, from 44 to 52.

Add to this ten more parts of speech, among which there are no prepositions (their place was taken by postpositions) and three dialects, and you will understand why Tabasaran is included in the Guinness Book of Records as one of the most difficult languages ​​in the world.

There are dozens of varieties of the Arabic language, usually classified by region or country. Moreover, these varieties can be radically different from each other. So, the first step is to choose the dialect you want to learn, but this is the easy part.

Arabic is a language with a non-Latin alphabet. Its 28 letters are easier to understand than thousands of Chinese characters, but it still takes some getting used to. new system writing - from right to left.

What makes reading and writing in Arabic especially difficult for beginners is the elimination of most vowels in words. There are also characteristics of spoken Arabic that make it difficult to learn. Some of the sounds used are simply unfamiliar to Russian speakers.

1. Chinese Mandarin

When asked what is the most difficult language in the world, many linguists and the Guinness Book of Records give the answer: "Chinese". We are talking about the Northern Chinese language (aka Putonghua, aka Mandarin in Western literature), which includes Chinese dialects that are close to each other. They are spoken by the population of most of North and West China.

Mandarin Chinese is a real challenge for polyglots for a number of reasons:

• First of all, China's writing system is extremely difficult for people accustomed to the Latin and Cyrillic alphabets. Chinese learners have to memorize many characters that resemble complex drawings. Moreover, hieroglyphs are not words, but concepts.
• The lighter writing system (pinyin) makes it easier to write characters. But this is just another system that will have to be learned for those who want to read and write in Chinese.
• Writing is not the only difficult part of learning Mandarin. The tonal nature of the language is also very important. Mandarin Chinese has four tones, so one word can be pronounced in four different ways and each pronunciation has a different meaning. For example, ma can mean “mother,” “horse,” an interrogative particle, or “swear,” depending on how you say it.

However, for many Chinese (and other foreigners as well) it is just as difficult to learn Russian as it is for a Russian person to learn Chinese.

When it comes to learning a foreign language, its difficulty mainly depends on how different it is from the languages ​​in which you are already fluent. However, any of the languages ​​mentioned in this list can be learned without much difficulty. The main thing is to draw up a lesson plan and find good teacher(ideally a native speaker). In addition, motivation plays a huge role in language learning, as in any other endeavor. Lack of interest will make any language incredibly difficult and it doesn't depend on your native language and the differences between it and what you are learning.

According to the largest catalog of languages, in 2019 there are about 7100 original sign systems in the world. Of these, only 40 are the most common. Each of the languages ​​is unique and has a lot of features that make it difficult or easier to learn. In this article, we will look at the TOP 10 most difficult languages ​​in the world. The rating was made by highly qualified linguists of the S polslova agency.

1. Chinese.
2. Arab.
3. Russian.
4. Tabasaran.
5. Basque.
6. Eskimo.
7. Navajo.
8. Hungarian.
9. Icelandic.
10. Finnish.

When compiling the TOP rating, linguists were guided by the unique phonetic, morphological, grammatical and other features of languages, as well as their own experience. Let's take a closer look at the nuances of each sign system that influenced its position in the list.

Chinese is the most difficult language according to linguists around the world

This solidarity of opinion is due to a number of features.

• About 87,000 hieroglyphs in the modern dictionary. No other known language has so many characters that need to be remembered.
• Each hieroglyph carries the meaning of a single word, and sometimes a whole sentence.
• The image of the hieroglyph determines the meaning of the word. At the slightest deviation from the desired outline, the essence of the phrase is distorted.
• Phonetics and spelling in Chinese do not correlate with each other. It is impossible to correctly pronounce a word or phrase depicted in the form of a hieroglyph without knowing the nuances of the sign system.
• Phonetics is characterized by numerous homophones. When pronouncing, 4 tones are used.

Linguists agree that Chinese is the most difficult language in the world to learn. It is almost impossible to successfully master this sign system without the help of a carrier.

Arabic is the language backwards

Arabic is no less difficult for foreigners. It is also characterized by a unique script called Arabic script.

• Unlike other sign systems, words in Arabic are written from right to left.
• Each character can have up to 4 shapes. The desired shape is determined by the location of the letter in the word.
• Each sound is pronounced differently depending on the location of the corresponding letter in the word. There are 4 tones.
• Vowels are pronounced but not displayed in writing.
• For hyphenation, words are not broken.
• There are no lowercase letters.
• The language uses 3 numbers: plural, singular, dual.

Russian is the most confusing language

Our compatriots may be surprised, but for foreign citizens, the Russian language is in the top three most difficult. And that's why.

• Any syllable can be accentuated. For comparison - in other languages ​​the stress is often fixed, for example, it always falls on the last syllable, as in French.
• The meaning of many words changes depending on the stress.
• In the Russian language there are many homonyms that are pronounced and spelled the same, but have different meanings.
• The meaning of consonant words in speech is often determined solely by context, although there are differences in writing.
• Each word can have up to a dozen synonyms - similar in meaning, but radically different in sound and spelling of lexical units.
• The correct placement of punctuation marks not only determines intonation, but can also change the meaning of a sentence. A striking example is the famous phrase "You cannot be pardoned to execute."

Tabasaran language - record number of cases

The complexity of the Tabasaran language is not simply confirmed by linguists. This fact is confirmed even in the Guinness Book of Records.

• The sign system has 46 cases. For comparison, there are only 6 of them in Russian.
• Instead of prepositions that are absent at all, postpositions are used in sentences.
• The language has a huge number of words borrowed from Russian, Azerbaijani, Persian, Arabic, etc.
• There are 3 dialects. Each dialect has several dialects, combined into groups.

Basque - the secret language of the US Army

This isolated sign system does not belong to any language family and is one of the most ancient in Europe. Basque is now spoken in northern Spain and southern France.

• Language learning is complicated by 24 cases.
• The dictionaries contain about 500,000 different words, including dialects and dialects.
• New words are formed by adding suffixes and prefixes.
• The tense of the verbs determines how the word begins and ends.
• The endings of words show their connection in a sentence.

An interesting fact: during the Second World War, the Basque language served as a kind of code for transmitting secret information in the ranks of the American army.

Eskimo - the language of images

The complexity of the Eskimo sign system is primarily due to the figurative interpretation of words. This became one of the reasons why the language entered the Guinness Book of Records.

1. More than 200 forms of one word are possible, which are formed by using prefixes, suffixes, endings.
2. There are 63 temporary forms, and this is only in the present tense.
3. Many words are not literally translated into Eskimo, only their meaning is conveyed.

Navajo is a verb-based language

Navajo is a rare, endangered language of the native Indians. Like Basque, it was used to convey strategically important information by the US Army during World War II.

• The basis of the language is verb forms that convey the entire meaning of the sentence.
• Verbs are formed by adding prefixes and change by person.
• In speech, 4 tones are used: low, high, descending, ascending.

There are no dictionaries for the Navajo language, and young Indians are increasingly switching to English. In view of this, the sign system is gradually disappearing.

Hungarian - the language of long vowels

It is almost impossible to learn Hungarian without the help of a good linguist, because it is one of the most complex sign systems. If a foreigner needs to prepare important papers, it is recommended to complete.

• There are 35 cases in the sign system.
• There is no future tense, only the past and the present are used.
• A large number of vowel sounds that differ in length.
• Many suffixes with which new words are formed.
• Fixed expressions that are used only in Hungarian.

Icelandic is beyond competition in pronunciation complexity

A rare language can compare with Icelandic in pronunciation complexity. In addition, it is one of the oldest sign systems.

• Some words can be heard exclusively from the lips of indigenous Icelanders.
• Only those people for whom Icelandic is their native language can correctly convey phonetics.

Finnish is the record holder for the number of personal verbs

Speaking and writing and vice versa is simplified by the fact that words are pronounced in the same way as they are written. This is the only mitigating circumstance. The rest of the sign system is deservedly included in the top ten most complex languages.

• The characters in the letter correspond to their sound form.
• The language has 15 cases.
• There are several hundred personal verbs and conjugations.
• There is no future tense.

If you decide to master a language and find that it is one of the ten most difficult ones according to our statistics, do not rush to get upset. A separate sign system may seem incredibly difficult to study for one person, and extremely simple to another.

It is interesting to know which language is more difficult to learn - Spanish, English or some other. One of the most difficult is the Russian language, and the most common is English.

Is English difficult?

Very often we hear about the emergence of the question of the difficulty of learning English. Admittedly, English is far from the hardest language in the world. When compared to Polish, Chinese, Arabic or Russian, it is lightweight.

Why is it so difficult for Russian-speaking people to learn English? This is due to the fact that the Russian language is inflectional, that is, words can be put in a sentence as you like, while in English each word is in its specific place.

Some words turn out to be known to us due to the fact that they are used in Russian, as borrowed from English. These are words such as lift, rails, manager, finish, as well as jeans, content, and so on. In addition to such words, there are international words that sound the same in many languages. These are the words satellite, microscope, republic, police, etc.

If you believe the conclusions that researchers in Great Britain made at one time, English is the most positive and simple language in comparison with other world languages.

As you know, the skeleton of every language is grammar. From the point of view of grammar, English is one of the most logical and simple European languages. Due to the fact that there are practically no personal endings in English, it can be classified as an analytical language. Due to the lack of personal endings, it has a wide structure of grammatical tenses.

The main thing when studying is to understand that knowing the times does not mean knowing the language. Many have a fear of the times, which makes it impossible to continue studying.

The real difficulty in learning English is the many prepositions. You have to learn them for a long time and conscientiously, they have noticeable sense-separating functions, prepositions are used very actively in the language.

However, learning a language of any complexity will take both time and effort. It is impossible to learn any language both well and quickly. By the way, according to the site, the longest word in the world is in English language... You can read more about the longest words in the world.

Difficult Russian language

All those who have made the decision to learn Russian say about considerable difficulties. Comparing Russian with other languages, we can confidently say that it has features that are absent in many other languages. Most often, in Russian, the order of the arrangement of words in a sentence is confusing, this is due to the fact that it is not fixed. So, words can go in completely different sequences, the most important thing is that the meaning and logic of what is said do not change.

Difficulty in learning Russian for foreigners is the case declension. Another difficulty lies in the very long spelling of some words. Difficulties are also caused by the fact that in Russian there are a considerable number of rules and an even greater number of exceptions to them. This language is difficult not only for foreigners, but also for ordinary students for whom it is native.

Is Spanish difficult?

There is often a question about the complexity of the Spanish language, as it is taught in many countries in universities and schools. As a Romance language, it is similar to Portuguese, Italian, Romanian and French. They have a lot common features... This melodic language is not considered difficult to learn.

If we compare the grammar of Spanish with the grammar of the Russian language, then it is simpler. To master it, with persistent studies, one month will be enough. In the same month, it is quite possible to learn a thousand words. This will be enough for simple communication.

It is believed that learning Spanish is much easier for native speakers of the Indo-European language, for example, Russian or Icelandic. When communicating with Spanish speakers, it is difficult to get used to the fact that they do not pronounce consonants clearly. Having mastered basic grammar and possessing some vocabulary, it is often recommended to start communicating with a Spanish speaker, which will significantly speed up the learning of Spanish.

The most difficult foreign language in the world

Studying any foreign language do not take into account many myths. One often hears that the language must be learned without fail from early childhood. There is also a myth that a teacher must certainly be a native speaker of the target language. Another myth is that the language must be learned in the country where it is the state language.

It is known that, according to conservative estimates, there are no less than forty thousand languages ​​and dialects in the world. Eastern groups of languages ​​are considered to be one of the most difficult. Arabic script and hieroglyphs cause problems in the study. However, it is impossible to say unequivocally which language is the most difficult. This is influenced by several factors, including the degree of complexity also depends on what language is the native language of a person who has started learning a foreign language.

Neurophysiologists report that the most difficult language to learn is the one that is difficult for the brain of the native speaker of this language. They call the languages ​​Chinese and Arabic the most difficult.

We can confidently say that the Russian language is very difficult for the majority, it is easier for Czechs and Ukrainians to learn, but for the Japanese it can be too difficult. If we talk about the complexity of the language, evaluating its writing, then the most difficult languages ​​are Chinese, as well as Japanese and Korean.

Many agree that Basque is the hardest language, since it is not connected and does not resemble any other known language, this applies not only to the languages ​​of the living, but also to the dead. Its carriers are approximately six hundred and sixty thousand people. Basque has an extremely complex verbal structure. Scientists conclude that it arose even before the emergence of the Indo-European language group. The conclusion suggests itself that no matter what language a person is native, it will be extremely difficult for him to master Basque. The Eskimo, Chippewa, Tabasaran and Haida languages ​​are also recognized as the most difficult.
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Many people ask which language is the hardest to learn. What can I say? Many languages ​​are complex. Below is a list of some of the hardest languages ​​to learn. But you must remember that a certain language may be difficult for you for certain reasons. So after reading this 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 which language is the hardest to learn... What can I say? Many languages ​​are complex. Below is a list of some of the hardest languages ​​to learn. But you must remember that a certain 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.

Ranking: 10 most difficult languages

Arabic, Chinese and Japanese are considered the most difficult languages according to the Institute of the Diplomatic Service of the State. Department of the United States. Finnish, Hungarian and Estonian are also among the most difficult ones due to the huge number of cases. Their pronunciation is more difficult than even in Asian languages, since they have a set of long mind-blowing consonants. But our list is not limited to these languages. Here is our list of ten candidate languages ​​with an explanation of why a particular language made it to the list. Your personal list may be different 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 denoted by a separate symbol - and not phonetic, so it doesn't give you the slightest idea of ​​how the word is pronounced. The tonal system doesn't make life easier either, because Chinese has four tones. And 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. The sounds are difficult, but the words are even more difficult. An English speaking European language student will come across a ton of words that look familiar. But the same student studying Arabic will no longer come across 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. 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's the agglutination !!! For example, the word “hóabãsiriga” means “I don’t know how to write”. It has two words for "we", inclusive and exclusive. Classes of nouns (gender) in the languages ​​of the Tuyuka family range from 50 to 140. And the most amazing thing in 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 he saw)”. In English we may or may not speak about it, but in tuyuka these endings are required. Languages ​​like these make their speakers think hard about how they learned what they are talking about.

4. Hungarian... First, there are 35 cases or noun forms in Hungarian. That alone puts Hungarian on the list of the hardest languages ​​to learn. Hungarian has many expressive idioms, many 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 the writing is different from the pronunciation. That is, you cannot learn to speak this language by learning to read in it - and vice versa. Moreover, there are three different writing systems. The kanji system uses Chinese characters. Students must learn from 10 to 15 thousand hieroglyphs (cramming, no mnemonic techniques will help). In addition, written Japanese uses two syllabic alphabets: katakana for loan words and hiragana for writing suffixes and grammatical particles. State Department devotes three times as much time to Japanese students as Spanish or French students.

6. Navajo... This amazing language also claims to be on the list of the most difficult languages. During World War II, this language was used as a code for sending messages on the radio (radio operators were bilingual Navajo speakers). The advantage of this method was that information could be encrypted very quickly. The Japanese were unable to make sense of 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. In this language, almost everything is done differently from in English. For example, in English in a verb, we select only the third person singular (in the present tense) with a suffix. And in Navajo, all faces are distinguished in the verb by prefixes.

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

8. Basque is also in the top ten most difficult languages ​​according to the British Foreign Office. It has 24 cases. It is not possible to associate British with any Indo-European language. It is possibly the oldest language in Europe. It belongs to agglutinative languages, that is, it uses suffixes, prefixes and infixes to form new words. It is a synthetic language rather than an analytical one. In other words, the language uses case endings to indicate relationships 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, in German there are 4 cases and they are all logical. Learning Polish cases will take more time and effort to learn (and discover) the logic and rules, you may have to first learn the entire language. In addition, Poles rarely communicate with foreigners who speak their language, so you 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. All ancient declensions of nouns and conjugations of verbs have been preserved in it. Many Icelandic phonemes do not have exact counterparts in English. You can only learn them by listening to the original tapes or talking to the Icelanders.