Top 10 Difficult Languages to Learn

foreign we didn't catch that can we hear it again okay one more time that's better eruption eruption yes welcome to watchmojo.com and today we're counting down our picks for the top 10 difficult languages to learn what was that it means come in it's taking forever to load the new operating system on my computer I disinfected the kitchen and the bathroom and now I thought I'd learned finish for this list we've rummaged through the world's languages and have selected those we deem the hardest to master we've excluded English because if you're watching this you've probably got a handle on it but then there's the comment section couldn't say yeah number 10 Hungarian there can be someone who could speak Hungarian can you imagine what pop culture would be without all our favorite famous hungarians probably exactly the same phrase four are you familiar with Houdini is Houdini aside there's a pretty large disconnect between the English and Hungarian speaking worlds most likely because Hungarian is just so darn difficult to learn he's speaking Hungarian I don't speak Hungarian okay answer what do you know experts experts it has some of the strangest grammar rules in the world which includes 14 vowels and 18 language cases or up to 35 if you consider the cases that apply to prepositions this is massive compared to English which has zero language cases you guys want the junior suite or the high rollers Garian is also expressive relying heavily on idioms perhaps hardest to grasp Hungarian sentence structure is completely different to most languages with suffixes indicating tense and not word order sleep is essential for every healthy Hungarian girl saliva this language at least to English-speaking years is a bit of an unusual one the Constitution doesn't recognize us there's no land for us everybody's talking land everybody's talking recognition referring to a collection of indigenous languages that consist of clicking patterns of consonants and phonemes koisan is only a verbal language not a written one koisan languages have the most consonants in the world and as such rely heavily on manipulation of sound with most of these languages lacking a written record you have to learn them by immersing yourself in the incredibly small populations that speak it soon they could be gone entirely I'm arriving not a moment too soon number eight Korean does it look like I speak Korean the trouble most Learners have with Korean is with its relatability it is a language isolate meaning that it lacks any common ancestors or genealogical links with other languages in short the Korean language is only native to South and North Korea which when totaled make up a relatively small portion of the planet couple the Rarity of the language with a wholly self-contained unique alphabet system and you have a pretty steep learning curve only get trickier as Korean opposes classic language structure confusing Learners sentence structure is equally troubling action sentences place the subject first then the object and finally the verb or action number seven Icelandic I'm sorry I I don't speak Icelandic as a language Icelandic is Rife with conundrums on the one hand the language is out of sync with modern times in that it's steadfastly refuses to Encompass loan words or words from other languages to explain new terms items or concepts what's going on where is everybody and of course command course what does that mean instead these new Concepts are bestowed with a brand new word the volcano known as otherwise however Icelandic remains mostly unchanged since its conception centuries ago and still abides by its unique sentence and letter structures established way back when good luck finding a tutor though as less than 400 000 people speak Icelandic today number six Sanskrit Nick you know what that says no I don't read Sanskrit make reasonable choices that's an odd thing to get tattooed on your neck while most have probably heard of this language it's still entirely possible to not know what it is hundreds of years old is that some kind of riding yeah it sounds great Sanskrit is the primary sacred language of Hinduism and is a philosophical language of Buddhism Sikhism and Jainism it's also one of the 22 scheduled languages of India which means it's represented in the Indian constitution those who try to learn this classical language struggle because of its incredible unique grammar rules they give some brilliant linguistic training they use all parts of their mouth and the Sanskrit scriptures are inspiring they're full of very inspiring philosophical Concepts and this is why we teach it for example Sanskrit includes three gender nouns masculine feminine and neuter and has eight cases on top of that Sanskrit requires a very high inflection bottom line this one's hard even the word video is based on the Sanskrit word Veda which means to see or reveal number five finish grapes here is why finishes so hard the trouble lies in Translation Finnish grammar rules are well frankly crazy to English speakers in both structure and pronunciation he's really funny I can't even translate that it takes a lot to translate from English and even when that's done the end product probably won't work but as you know in the hotel Gardens working on to finish first I can tell finish that's because the language is so colloquial and expressive that native language speakers don't always rely on the rules they do what they want and it makes sense to them at least number four Japanese you should learn Japanese very easy no kidding I heard it was kind of hard this is a language that requires immense preparation and intense studying before you can accomplish the slightest success to be able to write Japanese somewhat adequately Learners must first Master thousands of characters most of those characters have multiple pronunciations and meanings which are then made more difficult when considering the rules of how those characters can be combined the Japanese writing system has several components hiragana Katakana and kanji and rules change depending on the use of scripts once you've figured all this out you can finally put yourself through the hardship of speaking Japanese foreign okay is that everything I mean it seemed like you said quite a bit more than that number three Arabic and the combinations of some letters with others are very hard there are there are names in Arabic or words in Arabic which are very hard to write most English speakers would describe Arabic as unlike anything they've ever seen before most words vary between four different forms depending on placement short vowels are not part of the Arabic alphabet words derived from base roots and to accommodate grammar and structure there are many different dialects That Vary so much that often two forms of Arabic are completely foreign to one another let's also remember that Arabic has several sounds that aren't found in English so luck and hard work are definitely required to teach your vocal cords to imitate them When You Wish and with your permission of course where did you learn to speak Arabic number two Russian as a comedy accent Russian seems fairly easy to mimic let's go let go turn the way and slam bar but to actually learn and respect the language that's a whole new ball game the written language uses the Cyrillic alphabet meaning it's far different from the alphabet English speakers no like Arabic Russian is comprised of sounds that are very different than those known to English speakers and mastering them takes years of practice Russian now to be Russian get it translated additionally Russia's history of cool to strained relations with the Western World means finding help can be harder than you might think before we unveil our number one pick here are some honorable mentions we did in the Netherlands WWE do you know your colors in Welsh um cork is red um well it's called the afternoon but I'm not sure it's the correct one okay go back it's a long shot but that's all I can do without learning ancient Hebrew but I am not gonna learn ancient Hebrew number one Chinese it would be unfair to ignore the wide reach the Chinese as a general language has had on many of the world's difficult languages with that in mind we're including Mandarin and Cantonese under this Chinese umbrella both are tonal languages with mandarin using four tones and one neutral tone and Cantonese using six or more Chinese languages are also chock full of homophones idioms and Proverbs so even knowing the language may not mean you understand it the Chinese character system is pretty much endless meaning that learning is an ongoing process flat out there is no end in sight when learning Chinese so press on or give up early foreign foreign do you agree with our list which language do you think is the hardest to learn for more interesting top tens published every day be sure to subscribe to watchmojo.com

Channel: WatchMojo.com

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Keywords: lifestyle, language, difficult languages to learn, korean, khoisan, hungarian, finnish, sanskrit, icelandic, chinese, russian, arabic, japanese, top 10, watchmojo

Id: MEmAGJac7Is

Length: 11min 41sec (701 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 22 2016