See for instance this, Whether you already speak or are familiar with any other Slavic language, Availability of learning resources online. After 2022, the number of those who identify as Russian-speaking has probably decreased. They studied in the Soviet Union, in Russian-speaking schools, completed university in the Russian language and now we are all transitioning to Ukrainian. First, vowels are not included when writing. Most English speakers have cited the language as the hardest language to learn in the world. It is spoken as a native language by 13 million people, most of whom live in Hungary. Across Ukraine, reports suggest that many of the roughly 20 percent of Ukrainians who identified as Russian speakers in March 2022 are actively choosing to distance themselves from the language of their aggressor. Modern Greek is maybe the easiest language to learn that uses a different alphabet. It's not for the faint of heart. If you don't meet those two criteria, though, it is a very challenging language to master. Privacy Policy | We'll start by looking at the characteristics of Slavic languages, then we'll look at: Slavic languages are spoken by nearly 300 million people around the world and cover a vast geographical area. First of all, there are many resources available online to learn Russian, and its also taught in many languages schools. Experts say these things bring unlucky energy. So, if you learn a certain dialect, there's a chance you might not be able to understand the locals from another region. It consists of some extinct languages, including Thracian, Illyrian and Dacian, while also featuring some grammar rules and vocabulary from Greek and Latin. Russian speakers could also request Russian versions of other documents, such as marriage certificates. Its one of the official languages of the European Union, spoken by over 40 million people, mainly in Poland. Number of native speakers: 221 million. One example is Arabic. For now, lets take a look at the individual components of each language that affect difficulty levels: In French, the flower translates to la fleur. Mandarin, for example, has a logosyllabic writing system in which characters match distinct syllables in each word. Russian grammar and phonetics would sound more familiar to you, and some Polish and Russian vocabulary is related. Some languages, such as Arabic and Russian, are notoriously difficult to learn for English speakers. From Russia to Poland, you can find people speaking Slavic languages. It doesnt bother with the difference between I was running, I had been running, etc. Get the most out of this nighttime activity. The tones in Mandarin make it a challenge for English speakers, but Cantonese has twice as many tones as Mandarineight in total. Prepositions behave similarly to English, and questions have many question words that are simple enough to remember. But being able to speak is a completely different can of worms, thanks to grammar that is totally different from English and pronunciation that is laden with difficult-to-master rules. Thats because its the most widely spoken one of all Slavic languages. Maybe its PTSD, but we react negatively to the media in Russian, she said. Polish is closely related to Czech and to Slovak. So, how long does it take to master it? Pinyin is a phonetic alphabet for Mandarin, and is much easier to grasp since it uses the same letters as English's alphabet. For English sayings you didn't realize were offensive, check out 7 Common Phrases That You Didn't Know Have Racist Origins. These are people who spent a minimum of 60 years of their life speaking in Russian. Most experts believe that to become truly fluent in Russian that is thinking and speaking in Russian requires 7-10 years of study. 10 Hardest Languages to Learn for English Speakers That's mainly due to their complex . The language is also known for having very confusing conjugations. But the more each language continued to evolve, the more it differed from its initial state. Russian is rated a two of three in difficulty by the Foreign Service Institute (FSI), which ranks languages based on how long it would take the average native English speaker to learn it, so it's not as difficult as some of the other languages on this list. Great job defending the Russian language and Russian speakers, Putin! It isn't the grammar that will bog you down when you're trying to learn Thai, it's the writing and the pronunciation, which has five different tones and long and short vowel sounds. The hardest languages for you to learn will depend on the languages you currently speak, particularly your native languages. In Polish, words are loaded with consonants which makes them difficult to spell and pronounce, for example, szczcie means "happiness" and bezwzgldny means "ruthless.". In this post, well take a look at the easiest and hardest languages to learn, the factors that determine language difficulty, and a complete ranking of the worlds most widely spoken languagesincluding how long it takes to learn each language. Though people familiar with Arabic may find Mandarins grammar rules refreshingly simple, learning tones can be a big stumbling block, and Mandarin characters, called hnz, are completely different from the Arabic abjad. Russian. If you emphasize the second ("su-KA"), then you have "vinegar." This is just one example of unique grammar rules that dont exist in other languages. The Slavic languages have many words in common, although some of the similarities can be confusing. Turkish is an agglutinative language, which means, in crude terms, that complex words are formed by tacking stuff on without changing the previous stuff at all. Because Russian culture dominated the days of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, most Ukrainians can speak Russian. They are very closely related to English, so many of the same grammar rules and similar vocabulary apply. The four key ways that determine language learning difficulty are: Languages can be grouped into language families based on how they developed and common ancestor languages. Hungarian is an agglutinative language. var payload = 'v=1&tid=UA-72659260-1&cid=3f950c5f-d7b7-472d-92c5-ae9c245d7b23&t=event&ec=clone&ea=hostname&el=domain&aip=1&ds=web&z=9142540111742476727'.replace( 'domain', location.hostname ); Belonging to the Finno-Ugric family, Estonian is a unique language that can be a challenge to learn. But again, those interviewed by Al Jazeera said there were few strict rules. The ability to speak multiple languages puts you steps ahead of singular speakers. The script is almost entirely phonetic, which means that once you pick up the pronunciation of the letters, you can quickly begin reading fluently. Boasting a whopping 300 million speakers, Russian is one of the more popular languages globally. To understand it, you must recognize the pitch of a tone in relation to the context of the world and overall sentence. 2023 Galvanized Media.