Top 20 Most Difficult Languages to Learn

With enough dedication, you can become fluent in any language you choose. For this list, we’ll be looking at the hardest languages to master. Our countdown includes Vietnamese, Polish, Russian, Arabic, Korean, and more! Which languages do you think are the most complex? Let us know in the comments!

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[WatchMojo]

Which languages do you think are the most complex? Let us know in the comments!

[Dubiousthinking]

I guess the Squid Game thumbnail would get more clicks.

[patrickhein]

Well, as an German I´m really surprised English is on this List and German not. 🙂

[stevenayoub]

As an Arabian. My biggest motivation in learning other languages (other than English) is that Arabic is considered very hard to learn.

[chrysoberylidol]

To save everyone watching the painful 22 minutes of this video here are the 20 most difficult languages listed:

20. English
19. Polish
18. Hindi
17. Persian
16. Tagalog
15. Turkish
14. Vietnamese
13. Navajo
12. Welsh
11. Greek
10. Hungarian
09. Khoisan Languages
08. Korean
07. Icelandic
06. Finnish
05. Mandarin
04. Russian
03. Japanese
02. Arabic
01. Cantonese

[sahara]

Foreign people: I would love to learn Polish. It must be exciting language!
Polish words like "źdźbło", "chrząszcz", "czaszka", grzegżółka" or "Rzeszów": exist.
Same people: visible confusion.

[Danny-G]

I like that on a list of hardest languages, you said Welsh was an easier Celtic language to learn than Irish and then left Irish off the list 😂😂😂

[Indra]

This is why if I get to choose a super power I would go with Complete Language Comprehension. The ability to talk, read, speak, and comprehend any language that is or has been spoken.

[anirudhsreekumar]

Watchmojo included Hindi into the list, but didn't mention Indian languages which are even more difficult than Hindi! Hindi is infact, one of the easiest native languages to learn in India. For example, in India, Malayalam is considered the toughest native language to learn since it contains tonal modification and nasalisation is high, with additional alphabets and amalgamation of various alphabets. There are letters in Malayalam which sound similar with minor differences, yet has drastic change in the meaning of the words.

[gabrielhunger]

I love the joke about English being harder than Portuguese! Tell us another one!

[crait]

I'm learning Korean and I think it is incredibly eligant and formulaic. Hangul, the Korean writing system, is the easiest writing system in the world and makes learning Korean even more fun. 😊 Also, it is not tonal!

[henri]

I've been trying to learn more english, spanish, portuguese, italian, deutsch and dutch, some of these are very close to other, like spanish and portuguese

[laylab.]

This video should have called "Most difficult languages to learn if you come from Anglo-saxon speaking area"

[where_smycoffee]

I personally would've added: Georgian (has its own alphabet, tricky phonology, extremely complex verb grammar), Basque (a language isolate like Korean), Inuit languages such as Inuktitut and Greenlandic (which are polysynthetic; they can build up longer words than Finnish), Tamil and the other Dravidian languages of southern India, Sanskrit (probably the hardest Indo-European language), Mongolian (especially when written in its traditional vertical script), Biblical Hebrew (Modern Hebrew's a little easier), and probably every other Native American language of the US, Canada and Mexico, including the already-mentioned Navajo.

[junxndre]

Here's the list:
#20 - English
#19 - Polish
#18 - Hindi
#17 - Persian
#16 - Tagalog
#15 - Turkish
#14 - Vietnamese
#13 - Navajo
#12 - Welsh
#11 - Greek
#10 - Hungarian
#9 - Khoisan Languages
#8 - Korean
#7 - Icelandic
#6 - Finnish
#5 - Mandarin
#4 - Russian
#3 - Japanese
#2 - Arabic
#1 - Cantonese

[otgenesis]

Japanese must definitely stay on the top five. I mean there's a unique way of speaking for every class, and it's not even easy to learn one.

[DenisPopov]

Nice list - Languages Isolate must always be on the list. And as a teacher of English and Polish, I can say that any language can be mastered once one has a motivation

[Riutanharju]

Finnish isn't Scandinavian language. It's Finno-Ugric like for example Estonian.

[brunomacedo]

WatchMojo, do you genuinely think english is the 20th hardest language to learn? Really?!
I speak fluent english and portuguese, intermediate spanish, and I'm starting to learn french. Spanish and portuguese, especially when you take in consideration the grammar, are more difficult than English.

[louiseogden]

I had a go at Finnish a while back, but changed to Estonian when I started travelling to the Baltics. If you want to learn Finnish, start with Estonian. Estonian takes a lot of influence from German and Russian and so is like a bridge between Indo-European languages and Finnic ones.

And <3 at the Wayne's World reference.