Folium: What Are The Hardest Languages To Learn via Voxy

Posted by LEAF Architect on Monday, October 20, 2014 · Leave a Comment

Folium: What Are The Hardest Languages To Learn via Voxy

Have you ever wanted to learn a new language, but you were too overwhelmed with the thought of it being too difficult? What about time consuming? I have definitely thought this when I wanted to learn American Sign Language, German, and Japanese. Although I have currently put American Sign Language on the back burner for now, I still do appreciate Germany and Japan for their languages and would like to potentially become (at least) semi-fluent in them.

But, of course, other individuals might not be so keen on learning the languages that I have mentioned although they might set their sights on others around the globe. Some individuals might even want to learn a new language, but are unsure of which language to choose from (probably dependent on their level of difficulty). Clearly the infographic titled “What Are The Hardest Languages To Learn?” would be beneficial to these individuals because it blocks of specific languages according to how easy or hard it would be to become fluent in that language.

Two small notes need to be addressed before I continue:

Not all languages are mentioned in the infographic because, for example, German is not acknowledged (even though I feel as if it is a very important language that should be recognized).

Also, this article was not meant to scare you out of learning a language, just realistically showing you that one must have true dedication to a language. One must especially have a dedication and appreciation for the languages that are deemed to be “very difficult” if one wants to master it.

Via: Voxy Blog

The infographic is broken up into three distinguished categories: easy, medium, and hard. This is dependent on the language’s difficulty rating with having the perspective of a native English speaker in mind. But what makes a language become rated as being easy, medium, or hard? These categories were divided based on a five particular ideas which encompass one’s ability to effectively learn a language:

How alike the new language is to that of the English language.
How intricate the new language is.
How many hours should be set aside in order to learn the new language.
The resources available to learning the new language.
One’s motivation to learn the new language.

The EASY category consists of nine different languages in which are deemed to be the closest in relation to the English language. It should statistically take about twenty-three to twenty-four weeks to become fluent in the language with an allotted time of 575 to 600 class hours. These languages are statistically proven to be in the easy category:

Spanish
Portuguese
French
Italian
Romanian
Dutch
Swedish
Afrikaans
Norwegian

The MEDIUM category is made up of ten unique languages that have a significant level of difference from that of the English language. With these languages it should take about forty-four weeks to master as well as 1,110 class hours dedicated to the language. These languages are considered to be in the medium category:

Hindi
Russian
Vietnamese
Turkish
Polish
Thai
Serbian
Greek
Hebrew
Finnish

The HARD category entails only four languages but they are the farthest away from the English language. The main reasons as to why these languages are the most difficult to learn is because some have very few vowels and others have multiple writing systems as opposed to English. It would take approximately eighty-eight weeks and 2,200 class hours in order to become fluent in these languages. These languages are shown to be in the hard category:

Arabic
Chinese
Japanese
Korean

This goes to show that not all languages are created equal and one must have a true appreciation for them if one were to want to speak fluently in them. And even though the infographic blocks these languages out so easily, it does not automatically meant that it would be impossible to learn, for example, Korean. With true passion for languages, anything is possible. So which one will you dedicate time to?

Yaneczka Flores
LEAF Contributor