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There is no single definitive list of the five most complex languages to learn. Ultimately it is a matter of opinion, since everyone learns differently. In addition, the ease with which you can learn an extra language depends on your first language. An English person learning Chinese would have to learn an entirely new alphabet as well as the vocabulary and grammar, which is inevitably harder than if they were to learn French, for example, which uses the same alphabet as their mother tongue.

For those whose first language uses the Western alphabet, Chinese is arguably one of the most complex languages to learn. Although many people are fascinated by Chinese script and the beauty of its lettering, learning enough of the ideograms to become practically literate proves very challenging, because of the sheer number of characters. It has been suggested that a Mandarin speaker takes seven or eight years to be able to write and read 3,000 characters, while Spanish and French speakers can achieve this in half the time. Additionally, Chinese does not have an alphabet in the Western sense. Instead, it is made up of components, which combine in countless different ways to form characters. They can also be distorted to mean different things. In short, learning the language simply requires a great deal of patience and hard work.

Another language that has developed from a different language family to English and is, therefore, difficult for English speakers to learn, is Polish. This language contains a lot of subtle differences in pronunciation which English speakers usually find impossible to hear initially, never mind actually pronounce themselves. Additionally, the grammar system in Polish is extremely complex, since it has a case system, meaning that in many instances, the meaning of adjectives and nouns is determined by their declension. For example, if an object is behind a door, in English, the relationship between the two objects would be determined by the preposition "behind", where as in Polish there would be several different words for "door", depending on the relationship in the statement.

Similarly, although German comes from the same language family as English, it is complicated by its case system, which means that there are sixteen different words for "the". There are also three different genders which nouns can take, for which there are unfortunately no solid rules, meaning that they mostly have to be learnt individually.

The main thing that makes English so hard to learn for foreigners is the discrepancies in spelling and pronunciation. For example, the word "wound" has two completely different meanings and pronunciations depending on the context. It takes a lot of experience and exposure to the language to be able to distinguish between the different meanings easily.

Arguably, however, the hardest languages to learn are those which are only spoken by a few people, such as dialects of Eskimo, or Tuyuca, a language spoken in the Eastern Amazon. This is simply because there is no readily available teaching for them and not very many concrete rules, since there is not a real need for them to be heavily standardised.

However, this topic remains a matter of opinion and, since all languages are continually changing, conclusions could easily fluctuate.

Article by Linguarama:

Linguarama is the right partner for your Language Training and Cross Cultural Training, offering a range of language courses in centres across Europe.