by Les Zsoldos

Created on: December 14, 2006   Last Updated: August 13, 2011

It is not easy to say which is the hardest language to learn. The reason is that the answer is relative. For example, a tone language such as Vietnamese is probably easier for a speaker of Cantonese to learn than for a speaker of English. When it comes to writing, the Chinese characters are certainly very challenging.

With respect to pronunciation, languages such as Georgian and Armenian have many sounds, so that presents the learner with difficulties. Another language that is classified by many as difficult is Korean because it has a complex grammar with many levels of politeness and a word order very different from that of European languages.

In Europe, Finnish, Hungarian and Estonian are considered challenging because they have a very different vocabulary from that of other languages and a complex grammar.

Which is the most difficult language to learn? It truly depends on many factors such as the languages which the learner is familiar with and the strengths and weaknesses of the language learner.

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