Noam Chomsky once rightly said, language etches the grooves through which your thoughts must flow. Learning a new language is not about learning a few words or the fluency that you will attain when you master the language, but with language comes the history, culture, and socio-political backdrop of a region.
So, if you are someone who loves the idea of linguistics and learning new languages, then this would be of interest to you. Today we will look at the hardest languages in the world to learn, and where you can master these languages.
If you have considered English to be one of the hardest languages to learn because it is made up of many parts, then you have reached the wrong conclusion. It is Mandarin Chinese that tops our list of hardest languages to learn. This is followed by Arabic, Japanese, Hungarian, Korean, and Finnish.
- Mandarin Chinese. With more than 1.28 billion speakers, Mandarin is considered to be one of the most challenging languages to master in the world. Interestingly, Mandarin is also the most widely spoken native language in the world. This language is currently the official language of China, Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, and the script of this particular language is in Chinese characters. Mandarin can be an extremely difficult language for non-native speakers as it is a tonal language with thousands of characters and a really unique writing style. It is also not a phonetic language that can be memorised and easily written. What makes this language even more difficult is the tones associated with it. Mandarin Chinese has four different tones, which means one word can be pronounced in four different ways. Each of these pronunciations will have a different meaning.Here are the top universities to master Mandarin
- Chinese Language Institute (Guilin)
- Beijing International Studies University
- Keats School (Kunming)
- Hanbridge Mandarin School (Shenzhen)
- Hutong School (Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, or Chengdu)
- Aston Language School (Anhui)
- Arabic. Next on our hardest language to learn list is Arabic. Currently, there are more than 300 million people who speak this language, and Arabic is also among the top five most spoken languages in the world. This is also the official language of 26 countries like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Yemen, and it is written in Arabic script. Arabic is considered the queen of poetic languages, and it is also the sixth official language of the UN. According to the Foreign Services Institute, anyone who is interested in learning this language will take around two years to master the language for a number of reasons. Arabic is a language that is written from right to left, and it has numerous dialects and a long list of vocabulary. Moreover, this is a language that lacks vowels. Arabic is a language with a non-Latin alphabet, and verbs come before the subject in this language, and there are dual forms of words in addition to the singular and plural forms.The top universities to master Arabic
- King Saud University
- King Abdulaziz University
- The American University in Cairo
- American University of Beirut
- Qatar University
- Cairo University
- King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals
- King Abdullah University of Science and Technology
- Mansoura University
- University of Jordan
- Japanese. Japanese is a language with three independent writing systems: hiragana, katakana, and kanji. This is the official language of Japan, and currently, it has over 120 million speakers. Japanese has a wide range of alphabets that need to be learned before writing the language, and that is one reason why this is considered one of the most challenging languages to master. These writing systems in Japanese have thousands of alphabets and characters, which will be a bit difficult for a non-native person to learn. It is also a language with no plural and with dozens of dialects and thousands of kanji characters.The top universities to master Japanese
- Kanda University of International Studies
- Kyoto University of Foreign Studies
- Kobe International University
- SOKA University
- Tokyo University of Social Welfare
- Nagoya Gakuin University
- Mejiro University
- Osaka International University
So, if you are ready to take up the challenge of conquering the hardest languages in the world and if the world of languages has your attention, then it is time you take a shot at it.
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