The 20 Easiest and Hardest Languages ​​to Learn

Many of us are fascinated by the idea of ​​learning new languages, and it is that being able to interact with other cultures and communicate with people from other countries enriches us enormously. But learning languages ​​is not easy, and although there are individuals who absorb new languages ​​as if they had a gift For this, most of us mortals must work hard to be able to master a language that is not our language. native.

If you want some tips for learning languages, in this article You can find a list that will be very useful, but it will also be useful to know What are the easiest and most difficult languages ​​to learn?.

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The difficulty of being a polyglot

Not all languages ​​are equally easy to learn, and it can be said that when it comes to acquiring a new language the difficulty is relative. On the one hand, the motivation of the person and the desire to learn are a determining factor, as is living in the country where speak that language natively and, logically, it will always be easier to learn a new language if it is similar to our language maternal. For example, if we speak Spanish and want to learn Italian or Romanian.

Assuming that our reference language is Spanish, below you can find out which of the languages ​​with a well-established and cohesive number of speakers and more than 5 million speakers are easier and more difficult for you.

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Easier languages ​​to learn

For Spanish speakers, The following languages ​​are the least difficult:

1. Catalan

Catalan is a language spoken in a large part of the Mediterranean coast of the Iberian Peninsula, as well as in the Balearic Islands and some areas of France. Curiously, the family of languages ​​from which it comes, the Occitan-Romance languages, is more widespread in the latter country than in Spain. However, the influence of the official language in the entire kingdom of Spain has made it very easy for all Spanish speakers to learn.

2. Italian

Italian is a relatively easy language to learn for Spanish speakers, and not only because of the great influence that its culture has had on the Mediterranean countries. Italian is also rooted in Latin, providing great ease in learning vocabulary, as it is familiar to Spanish speakers. This language is easy to read by those of us who speak Spanish, except for some phonemes and double letters.. The similarities are also evident in the construction of the sentences.

3. Portuguese

Portuguese is spoken mainly in Portugal and Brazil. This language is a first cousin of the Spanish language, and we must not forget that the territory of Portugal shares a peninsula with Spain. That is why they share great similarities and, in fact, it is similar to some languages ​​such as Galician, spoken by the inhabitants of Spain.

4. French

French is a language widely used both in France and in many other countries worldwide. This beautiful language shares an alphabet and many words with Spanish. Spanish-speakers find great facilities in learning French, and great utility because it is an important and widely used language in Europe.

5. English

Although English is not the easiest language to learn for some people, it is one of the languages more accessible and that is why it is the most widely used language in the world and is spoken by more nationalities. One of the reasons why English is easy to learn is because there is a great training offer to train in this language and the British and American influence is very large around the balloon.

On the other hand, a large amount of their vocabulary is based on Latin root words, something that does not happen in other Germanic languages, such as German.

6. Romanian

Romanian is, like Spanish, a romance languageSo both are related. However, the latter has acquired many everyday words from Slavic and Hungarian languages. It retains much of the grammatical structure of Latin, although the articles can be tricky to learn.

7. Greek

Historically we have always been influenced by the Greeks, and although today the Greek civilization is very far from the context in which people like Aristotle, Socrates or Plato, we share many terms of our vocabulary with the Greek. We may have serious difficulties when reading or writing it, but when speaking it the sounds of the vowels and consonants are similar to those of Spanish.

8. Afrikaans

Afrikaans is known to be something of an easy version of Dutch, and is a language spoken in South Africa and Namibia. It actually has many words that are similar in spelling and meaning to English and Dutch. Although from the point of view of job opportunities it will not interest many people, it is a relatively easy language to learn.

9. Russian

Russian is one of the most widely spoken languages ​​in Europe, and there are so many cultural elements generated in this language that finding material to learn it is easy. In addition, the sounds on which its pronunciation is based are similar to those of Spanish, and its vocabulary is heavily influenced by Latin.

10. Malay

Although most of its speakers are concentrated in a place on the planet far away from Spain, oddly the Malay language is easy to learn. The reasons for this is that its grammar is relatively simple, its sounds are easy to reproduce and, being a agglutinative language, part of the vocabulary can be memorized simply by adding suffixes and prefixes to others that are already known. know.

more difficult languages

Regarding the difficulty, The most difficult languages ​​to learn are:

1. Hindi

This is the fifth most spoken language in the world due to its spread through the societies of India, a highly populated territory. In addition, it is capable of bringing anyone who has Spanish as their mother tongue to their heads. Not only is its structure totally different from the Latin alphabet; In addition, the pronunciation is not at all similar to that of Spanish.

2. Yoruba

This language is spoken by some 22 million people, mainly in Nigeria, Togo and Benin. Its relationship with Spanish is practically nil, since is part of the Niger Congolese languages.

3. Korean

Korean is the official language of North and South Korea and is spoken by more than 80 million people around the world. One of the most difficult languages ​​to learn.

4. Arab

The Arabic language was first spoken during the 6th century. This language, which is used in a wide range of territories, extends from the Middle East to the extreme West of the Maghreb. Most of its spoken varieties are unintelligible and are said to constitute a sociolinguistic language.

5. Zulu

Zulu is spoken by about 9 million people, especially in South Africa. One of its most striking features is the use of tongue "clicks" used as consonants, something that also happens in other languages ​​of the African continent.

6. Tamil

In a similar way to Hindi, this language is so different from Spanish in all aspects that it is difficult to find useful elements in Spanish in order to learn it: neither pronunciation, vocabulary nor grammar have much to do with see.

7. Thai

The Thai language is the official language of Thailand, and belongs to the Tai-Kadai language family, where almost half of its words derive from the Pali or Sanskrit language. the thai it is basically tonal and analytical and is known for its complex orography.

8. Purposes

Finnish is one of the most difficult European languages ​​to learn for a Spanish speaker, among other things because it does not even belong to the group of Indo-European languages. That means our language is more closely related to Persian than to what is spoken in Finland.

9. Hungarian

Hungarian is the official language of Hungary, which is spoken not only in this country, but also in Slovakia, Ukraine, Serbia and Romania. It belongs to the family of Uralic languages, just like Finnish.

10. Chinese (Mandarin)

It is the most widely spoken language in the world as Chinese is spoken by nearly a fifth of the world's total population, mainly in the People's Republic of China, Taiwan and Singapore. This language is considered one of the most difficult to learn, since the alphabet is completely different from ours and their writing system is fundamentally based on memorization of thousands of items.