How Long Does It REALLY Take To Learn a Language?

⏰ 📆 Can you really learn a language to fluency in a few months? If you want to know how long it REALLY takes to learn a language, stick around. You won't want to miss this!
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🕰️ TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 - How long does it REALLY take to learn a language?
0:23 - Category I
7:07 - Category II
10:45 - Category III
14:29 - Category IV
20:22 - Category V
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[@storylearning]

What's your language level right now? 👉🏼 kzbin.info/www/bejne/r3O3m56PpLadaqcsi=JhFAPhzQqm1BDZNC

[@darktheme2192]

Mystery language is Tagalog at cat 4 if I remember correctly. I have B2 Tagalog, C2 English, A1 Hungarian + currently learning German.

[@AmethystsArePretty]

Im learning turkish and i think im between A2 and B1 level

[@3lmodfz]

Very low lol. Not even A1 in Hungarian. Could probably scrape A1 in German if I get my brain into gear.

[@user-bs8pi5pd3c]

I am dying with Swahili it's 5 category because it has no content at all

[@user-D3p4_m6k89]

C2 English C2 Bulgarian B2 Spanish A1 Greek and Italian and Portuguese

[@antonboludo8886]

Once you have learned a few you know what to look for in a new language, even if it is completely different from the ones you know already.

[@Joshua-w5hJ77]

I've been studying Finnish every day for hours for 5 months and I'm barely A2...

[@nsevv]

Focus on high frequency vocabulary and grammar only.

[@onechildsband]

A2 in Finnish is not even remotely bad if you've only studied for 5 months. Keep going, you have this native speaker's support. :)

[@OzkAltBldgCo-bv8tt]

Babadum Clozemaster Busuu Drops Duolingo

[@OzkAltBldgCo-bv8tt]

Babadum Clozemaster Busuu Drops Duolingo

[@travisjacobson2334]

I’ve been studying Hebrew for slightly over a year, and I am probably at a mid-A2 level. Some people learn languages more slowly, and some languages are naturally much more difficult to learn.

[@VeroraOra]

Currently learning Japanese and I'm having a blast! It's a journey, not a rush :)

[@Bmonkeygurl]

Wanikani is awesome for Kanji if you didn't already know

[@antonboludo8886]

So desu ne?

[@dethswurl117]

Same man, I had no idea it would be this hard but 3 years later I'm still having so much fun and it's one of the most rewarding experiences I've ever had 頑張ってください！

[@antonboludo8886]

Good. It is supposed to be fun. @@dethswurl117

[@ridleyroid9060]

Same, although at times that journey can feel like having your tires stuck in a mud in the middle of nowhere and having to call emergency help.

[@AmethystsArePretty]

Im a native arabic speaker and i can confirm that even us arabs face difficulties in our language 😂

[@antonboludo8886]

We Arabs, ;-)

[@rollizle]

I've been studying Arabic for a little over a year and can only do basic conversations in Fusha.

[@antonboludo8886]

Spend time with native Arabic speakers as they live their daily lives. @@rollizle

[@m_ron2742]

@@antonboludo8886but the don’t really live their daily lives completely in fusha, mostly dialects

[@antonboludo8886]

Yes. I suppose you are wanting to learn Classical Arabic and not one of the dialects. @@m_ron2742

[@bonesawmcgraw9728]

I think they should create a category VI just for Navajo. That language is completely insane.

[@nHans]

Then again, as Olly said, US diplomats don't need to learn the Navajo language, because they speak to the Navajo people in English. Hence they don't teach it at the FSI, nor have they assigned a category to it. The US government has left it entirely up to the Navajo people to preserve their language, population, and way of life-like it has with all indigenous Americans who've managed to survive till now.

[@alanguages]

@@nHans Unfortunately many indigenous groups don't see preserving their language as much of a priority. In Canada it was proposed in one province that anyone, including non indigenous people had to learn an indigenous language to work at an indigenous owned casino. The people who rejected the idea was non other than the indigenous elders. The big contributing factor was those very elders did not speak any other language aside from English.

[@Matt-jc2ml]

Lots of languages would be level 6 but they aren't major languages. Bantu languages, North Caucasian etc

[@alanguages]

@@Matt-jc2ml The languages with an Asterix could technically be put in their own category of difficulty. The level 4 languages such as: Estonian, Hungarian, Finnish, Mongolian, Georgian, Thai and Vietnamese. They should be labelled as level 5. Level 6 should be Cantonese, Mandarin, Arabic, Korean. Level 7 Japanese.

[@hijackbyejack1729]

"Do you recognize... THIS language?" *says "easy Italian" in the upper right hand corner*

[@alphonsoelm5652]

But did you recognise it?

[@Alfrisssss]

When I started studying Russian, I thought the cyrillic alphabet was hard. Then I thought it was the six cases. But boy, oh boy, I was not ready for the verbs: those are probably the real beast 😂

[@erturtemirbaev5207]

Как долго вы учите русский?

[@Alfrisssss]

@@erturtemirbaev5207 я начал изучать русский язык шесть месяцев назад, I’m just a beginner 🤣

[@watermelon3679]

I tried to learn Russian once but gave up it s really really hard I don't understand how people learn this language they must be a genius.

[@yvfj155]

Чисто из любопытства, зачем вообще учить русский? Смысл в этом какой?

[@Alfrisssss]

@@yvfj155 я люблю изучать языки, а я хочу изучать один славянский язык. Also, it’s a bit more challenging than, say, spanish or italian 🤭 But holy moly, it is painful at times 🤣

[@chef1arjunaidi]

And Tagalog spoken by the lady

[@Beryesa.]

Don't forget that these won't apply to you if your native language isn't English though! I.e. French and Portuguese are probably Category 4 for me, while Mongolian and Korean are Category 1, as a native Turkish speaker. But it'll of course be easier to learn German and Dutch after learning English either way, let alone the availability of high quality resources. Take your own language and also the ones you've learned so far into account before approaching such lists :) Lastly, don't get lost in such details, just learn whichever the one that motivates you the most!!

[@alexshewan]

I've recently picked up your Short Stories in French book! Looking forward to implementing that read & practice into my studies. Great video!

[@nsevv]

Paul noble book and audio course is better and cheaper.

[@alexshewan]

@@nsevv Can you elaborate on what makes it "better"? I paid $15 for my book which is less than a meal these days so the cost isn't an issue. I do appreciate the suggestion though as it's something to look into for continued studies. Sidenote: Paul Noble's book alone is $18.99 which is more expensive.

[@codyscott8687]

I initially thought Tagalog but the different script threw me off and stumped me 🤣 good one, Olly!

[@pierreabbat6157]

That's a script that used to be used for Tagalog. Now it's written in Latin.

[@alanguages]

It was the Brahmic script. Some of the languages in the Philippines used to be written in it, and some still do. The script could be mixed up with the other languages that still use it across the Asian continent at first glance.

[@darktheme2192]

That script is called Baybayin. It's not used but taught in sort of elective classes at uni level I believe.

[@alanguages]

@@darktheme2192 The Brahmic script was widely used. Good to know that it is somewhat offered in the Philippines for people to learn Baybayin. It is too bad other systems like Kulitan, Palaw'an, Buhid, etc... It is also too bad other places like Indonesia is not using their versions as much either.

[@kevinb2208]

I learned French to C1 level relatively quickly. It helped I got posted to Paris for 3 years. But the step up to German is so challenging. I won't let it beat me though. I'm currently battling on to get to B2.

[@mikereisert2803]

I'm German, and I also find French to be pretty easy. But it's surprising to me that you find German so much harder than French, I would have guessed for an English speaker, they should be around the same difficulty

[@watermelon3679]

​@mikereisert2803 yes actually french s harder than german unless u re a romance language speaker

[@putinisakiller8093]

Go to Berlin. ;)

[@kevinb2208]

@@mikereisert2803 I think it is because French grammar is relatively similar to English grammar, whereas German grammar and word order is very different from English. All those cases, declensions and verbs coming at the end of sentences are quite mind-taxing. But I enjoy the challenge.

[@candidakang4848]

This is an EXCELLENT video. I enjoyed it immensely. I hope people from all around the world watch it!

[@sidharth1123]

I'm truly a StoryLearning veteran now Olly. I've finished French Uncovered till B1, four books (Short Stories Simple, Intermediate, Conversations Simple and Intermediate) and am currently enjoying Subjunctive Made Simple. I also correctly guessed Tagalog and already speak two category IV languages - Hindi and Marathi. My aim is B2 Spanish post B2 French!

[@lisamarydew]

amazing!

[@nHans]

To be clear, Hindi's inclusion in Category IV-requiring 44 weeks or 1,100 class hours of study-is only for native English speakers who don't speak any other language. Whereas if you speak any language from the Sanskrit (Indo-Aryan) family fluently, then Hindi would be an easy Category I. Marathi is not categorized or taught by the FSI, as it's not an international diplomatic language. But I think I know what you mean. Of course, to anyone who already knows Hindi or other Sanskrit-family languages, Marathi too would be an easy Category I (or II at worst).

[@patriciaesguerragalan4963]

I knew it was Tagalog because I’m a native speaker. I want to say though that in the Philippines it’s officially known as Filipino, which is the national language based on Tagalog (the biggest ethnic group and situated around Manila, the country’s capital) but which incorporates elements from Spanish,, English, Chinese and other languages. It’s a beautifully expressive language but I agree it can be a challenge for anglophones to learn. (I have C2 English and B2 French, currently learning Spanish).

[@billylewis6270]

I’m currently learning Japanese and it hasn’t been the hardest. The only thing hard for me has to be the writing and reading. Speaking has been an easier experience for me.

[@coolbrotherf127]

Japanese speaking has levels to it. It depends on if you want to speak words and phrases in a good pitch accent or not. If you just speak without a pitch accent, you'll probably still be understood by native speakers, but you'll sound very foreign. It took me a good year of careful studying of the standard pitch accent to be able to hear it clearly and replicate it consistently in my own speech. It's much better to study it earlier than later so you don't develop bad pronunciation early on you'd have to unlearn.

[@edithpalomares2507]

​@@coolbrotherf127 I'm studying japanese thanks for the tip

[@billylewis6270]

@@coolbrotherf127 I’ll have to keep that in mind thanks!

[@Bmonkeygurl]

Wanikani is so helpful for Kanji. Happy learning!

[@elisabethgronlund6842]

My native language is Swedish and when I was a kid we started to learn English in school at ten and the third language at 13. I was pretty tired of school by then so my choice was German since I was told it was easier than French. I didn’t really want to learn German so I later studied French for a year. During that year we had classes several hours a week and used a studio to practice speaking and listening. So in a year my French surpassed the four years of German I had studied earlier. This was in the 1980s something so I don’t speak either language today. But, I had use of both languages alongside Spanish, Italian and Latin while I was studying classical singing. And I am very grateful for my teachers in German for their persistence in teaching the importance of grammar and usage, which benefited me greatly when I later took English at university level, and when learning to understand and sing in new languages

[@BlackJaguar12]

My favorite way to learn a language is too read lots of children books and cartoons because Many native kids are probably just as a beginner as you are.

[@tammygant4216]

same

[@ellie9457]

My current watch is SpongeBob and bluey in Italian 😂

[@whokidd124567]

What a coincidence I’m learning Tagalog right now (the mystery language)😂😅 I have an advantage knowing a regional Filipino language Bisaya, but Tagalog has more complex conjugations and stricter grammar rules. I’m struggling a little bit but I’m pushing through! Thanks Olly for always coming out with motivational language learning content.

[@entropie138]

So I know Lao, Spanish, Japanese, German, and Latin to varying degrees. Currently relearning Spanish after decades back in high school. Almost like getting back on a bike. Should be back to the level I want in the next few months.

[@JosephSolisAlcaydeAlberici]

There must be a structured 12-year formal schooling in a certain foreign language from preschool up to high school, not just as a language subject, but also as a medium of instruction for science, mathematics, and civic subjects. This preferred foreign language must be used as a medium in businesses, mass media, and civil service to complement compulsory schooling. I hope this approach will be considered by Filipino educators and politicians if they wish to revive Spanish as a spoken language in the Philippines.

[@wallysonguimaraes3483]

Imo there is no such thing as a "difficult language", the difficulty depends on your mother tongue (or the languages you have already learned)

[@esun608]

Agree, as a Korean myself, Japanese is the easiest language to learn because we share very similar syntax and ways of thinking

[@watermelon3679]

Exactly as for me russian s much harder than Japanese for example

[@user-mrfrog]

I speak English. Je parle français. Ég er að læra íslensku! 🙂

[@darktheme2192]

Is the last one, Icelandic?

[@user-mrfrog]

@@darktheme2192 Yes, it is! 🇮🇸

[@brandislav]

Olly, can you make a video about different alphabets? 😊

[@user-lu8cw5iv1r]

As a second language learner of English, I put in my best effort to learn, but I often face challenges and setbacks. Your advice is truly motivating and gives me hope. I've heard about an extension called Immersive Translate from some KZbinr's comments, and it sounds quite intriguing. I'll give it a try and hope to make significant progress in this area.

[@Venik75]

I agree on the last point, learning korean alphabet took me less than two hours and I wasn't only focus on this task at the moment (reading fluently took me more time tho)

[@jamesbickel2168]

Hey Olly, I’ve just started to learn Czech, got a couple phrases memorized and the usual like hello, bye, good My girlfriend is Czech and speaks Czech, same as her brother and parents, and I find it hard to sit and study with textbook cause it’s just boring. I enjoy speaking to them in Czech and learning new phrases through them or translate and using them I also haven’t listened to any podcasts or anything as of yet but I’ve heard they are a good way of learning to understand sentances How would you go about learning Czech if you was in my situation?

[@scorit-zq4yx]

When are you releasing an Icelandic story learning course :)

[@devin6272]

I didn’t realize but I made a goal to learn Portuguese, German, Russian, and Mandarin and they are all in different categories. Almost C1 in PT I suppose German is next!

[@SSA.J05]

I guessed it right!!!

[@heyitsshadz]

I totally understood the mystery language you presented. It's not my mother tongue (I speak Cebuano), but we did have to learn it in school since it's the national language. Unfortunately, I can barely speak it now (moved to the States when I was 10), but at least I still could understand it. Good thing English is also the other language we learned in school. I can reply in English. 😅

[@whokidd124567]

Yawa lisod ang Tagalog pero kasabot pa ko gamay 😅 mas ganahan mi mag English kaming Cebuano 🤣

[@generallogics3643]

Personally my biggest struggle when it comes to learning languages is the access to resources. I am learning Japanese and it’s been rather slow. Most if not all of the accurate and study worthy resources are kind of expensive, and so it makes it hard to access resources. Luckily, I’m graduating soon and will be majoring in Japanese in college, hopefully it goes well😅 I do really want to get story learning for Japanese as well as other languages I want to improve (Spanish in particular)

[@TiffanyHallmark]

I have found a very unique challenge in learning my husband's tribal language. Ekpeye is a Nigerian language and there are not many resources, so I have made my own. I am constantly trying to find ways to make it a part of my daily life. I would guess that this one is a Category III. Although it's not that hard grammatically. I just don't have the same forms of comprehensible input as I do with any of my other languages(Spanish, German, Romanian).

[@kcmoon2214]

Curious how does this apply to sign language. Currently learning ASL but also learning Japanese (spoken not sign) as well. Sign feels easier.

[@Regalia85]

Happy birthday! 🎉

[@philipdavis7521]

I think the bit that everyone misses about the listing is that its 'classroom hours', with the assumption that study is extra. I think the general rule that to get to B2 will take around 3,000 hours, +/- 40% is a good one - with the category 1 languages being the minus 40%, and category 5 being +40% is pretty reasonable. The good news is though that with category 5 languages it gets easier to learn some if you already know one - even though they are not linguistically connected, you do have some advantages, such as knowing kanji/hanzi or the similar syntax of Korean and Japanese.

[@MURDERPILLOW.]

10:06 all i can think of is Tok Pisin I dont know why its stuck there Category III?

[@432wheels]

Interesting about the duplication of words for plural in Indonesian. Australian Aboriginal languages do the same.

[@KevCo95]

Surprisingly I’m studying tagalog for my second language and when I saw the babayin script I was like oh shit no way!! I’m about a year in my journey and I’m about an A2ish level. I believe my next step is just obtaining as much vocab as possible. For the most part understood the clip as well!

[@marikothecheetah9342]

Vocab is the key. Seriously, you can skip conjugations for a while but if you miss words - no conjugation will tell you what that word means... :/

[@mayo9738]

My second language is Mandarin Chinese... I've been learning it for about 2 years, and I just started learning Russian because I love the sound of Russian, and I already know the syrillic alphabet

[@ssh4658]

Удачи в изучении)

[@stefan_popp]

9:30: It should be "Die Katze". Katz' is a word in some southern spoken dialects.

[@tahanamarieboughter7667]

Do you offer any help to someone who is looking for someone who can read different languages. I have miniature books I can't read. If I send you a pic of the book could you tell me what language it is and what it says. It might be possible you have never seen these books in your life or maybe you have seen them and would like to see them again. Thanks you, Tina

[@user-ev2wc6rx3b]

En tant que camerounais, nous sommes exposés au français et à l'anglais au quotidien. Ayant fait toutes mes études en français, j'ai décidé d'apprendre l'anglais de moi-même sur internet et avec des livres pour pouvoir regarder les vidéos KZbin et regarder les films américains. En me lançant dans cette voie je me suis dis que ça allait être facile, mais en réalité non! Ça m'a pris un an de travail intensif. J'ai réellement expérimenté à quel point il est difficile d'apprendre une nouvelle langue étant adulte. Si les autres langues sont plus difficiles que l'anglais comme vous le dites, je me contenterai des trois langues que me maîtrise déjà: le français, l'anglais et l'ewondo (ma langue maternelle). Bonne chance à ceux qui, étant adulte, se lancent dans l'apprentissage des langues de la classe IV ou V.

[@taneishawhite6536]

i live and work in Japan as a graphic designer. Japanese will be rewarding when I'm fluent but for now it is like knowing something so well but going to work and realizing you know nothing. I can literally understand formatting text and have casual convo. I'm doing a pretty good job working with the text, it helped me with gaining a better grasp of the language by getting thrown in. a huge part of this language is culture based, so answering a question with a yes brings confusion as well as a no. It is hard to stay motivated from time to time. And no i didn't use a lot of capital letters writing this, i don't need those things anymore... except for my entire name every time i write it. And my keyboard is Japanese so i spend a lot of time trying to find the correct punctuation or just remembering to change between languages. cuz there are actually FOUR alphabets if you include romaji that I use daily in advertising. the space in English is shorter width than the space in Japanese. that's all i can muster for now.

[@juangarciadelrio7605]

Mi demandas min kiam vi/oni parolos pri Esperanto... jen la vera "unua kategoria" lingvo...

[@mayo9738]

I learned Vietnamese from 4th to 6th grade... and still remember a few words, sentences, and all 6 tones, I remember "ghen", "em yêu anh", "xin lõi", "xin chào", "Chào bạn,"... I don't remember any grammar, though

[@The_Prenna]

I want to learn Arabic but I haven't started yet. A language that FSI hasn't categorised is Scottish Gaelic and I'd put it in level 3.

[@AmethystsArePretty]

Good luck learning Arabic…you’ll need it 😊

[@qualitytraders5333]

As a Dutchman, born in 1949, the educational system was provided bt the government. All schools were government schools, the books were the same and teachers were certified. We also had to learn 3 foreign languages, starting with French in the 5th. grade and followed by German and English from the 7th. grade. Final exams consisted in having read 3 books in each language and be able to have a fluent conversation about them during an hour. Yes, we really learned those languages because they "weighed" as much as maths.

[@AstralHealthGuy]

I’m on day 204 of Italian and feel very much like a beginner. I practise between 15 mins to 3 hours a day so probably at least 1 hour everyday on average, it’s not like I’ve not been expose to it either as my mum is Italian. I also listen to Italian at least an hour a day. I do wonder if I’m too dumb to learn a language

[@halcyon733]

I feel the same about Spanish. I have been learning it for three and a half years (1 hour a day). And I am afraid I am not even at B1 level. Though I still hope to reach C1 one day...

[@thetightwadhomesteader3089]

Same amount of days and I feel the same in spanish. I average 2 maybe 3 hours a day and Spanish is said to be a bit easier then italian. I've been messing around with italian too for fun, I only know a few phrases though. I really like italian. Buona fortuna per il tuo cammino!

[@thetightwadhomesteader3089]

​@@halcyon733 Sólo llevo siete meses aprendiendo español. Creo que mi español ya debería ser mejor para ahora. Mi camino es largo, pero lo voy a hacer y aprender español. buena suerte en tu camino

[@AstralHealthGuy]

@@halcyon733 sorry to hear that. Well done for sticking it for so long

[@AstralHealthGuy]

@@thetightwadhomesteader3089 thank you, I’m going to Italy in about 6 weeks so maybe that will help. Luckily have family there that speak both English and Italian so maybe they can help. Good luck with your Spanish learning

[@handsoapinc]

10:40 My guess: Hindi (because Indus river). FSI 3 or 4 (hard, but not the absolute hardest).

[@bwphoenix_p-i-e]

I guessed Tagalog and category IV!!!

[@adrigom5925]

I would love to know how hard are other languages for not english native speakers. I speak czech, polish ans slovak since my birth, in high school I became fluent in english and french and I am learning korean (and study medicine at the same time, whoh :D) and now I doing internship in Paris and I hear a lot of arabic and I am trying to learn some phrases :)

[@ridleyroid9060]

I'm learning Japanese right now and It doesn't matter what a chart says about its difficulty: the simple fact is, the language is incredibly foreign to someone of indo-european speaking origin, in my case Serbian and English (which are, comparatively, quite similar). Whereas if you're a speaker of a related language group, the language will be at least grammatically be similar, if not share vocab with your target language. Then again I am having an easier time with Japanese just because I enjoy Japanese media so much more than with Polish, which is a very closely related language.

[@sysyphenf8ewtfr603]

Are learning category 5 languages worth the reward?

[@according2jessss]

Lost my mind when you revealed the mystery language and I was right on both counts! Also I'm trying to learn Russian and I can definitely confirm the presence of bears.

[@poojabahl6217]

That's what I was looking for thanks for making this video

[@kakashiTheThug]

What category would you give to luxemburgish?

[@scientistforscience]

I wanted to cry when I saw Korean was Cat V. Always wanted to understand the interviews I watch every week without having to have it translated. Don't need to speak it though. Would that cut the hours down?

[@edithpalomares2507]

You can do it if you have the enough motivation, I'm studying Korean, I know will be a long journey but I love the language, I like it a lot and is not as difficult as people said, of course have some details like different endings depending the formality a lot of particles and some details with certain grammatical points but if you want you can.

[@noon110]

You can do it! Even if you get to only a b1 b2 level, you can understand most words in an interview / song. C not being too necessary. Plus with these kind of languages, Koreans are very thankful that you even took the time to learn it. With French, my third language, I find interesting content to be hard to find. But Korean has a lot. I recommend TTMIK and How to Study Korean as your textbooks. Good luck!

[@sherlockhomeless7138]

2:35 Since my native tongue (dutch) is among the same list as english, I guess I can assume portuguese and italian would take me 600 hours as well?

[@hamzaalahmad8265]

Bro it feels good to be Arabian you have a category v language in the bag by default And english comes passively as well

[@mayo9738]

I learned the syrillic alphabet without meaning to me. I was just listening to music in Russian and reading the lyrics in Russian while singing along, I also thought myself the Greek alphabet 1 day, because I wanted to, so I normally write people's names in the Greek alphabet in my journal, while the journal itself is in a mix of Russian and Mandarin Chinese... so only I can read it

[@Kristina-ec2lu]

These rankings really depend on a lot of factors. Like for a monolingual Macedonian, it will be way easier for them to learn Russian than a monolingual English speaker. There are also plenty of different examples of this. I always felt like language tier on difficulty was always based on a monolingual English speaker.

[@pierreabbat6157]

I figured out it's Tagalog and caught "sinigang" (some kind of food), but don't know the FSI level.

[@MisterHowzat]

Doesn't it depend on what the first language of the learner is? As you've said, category 1 languages are easiest for speakers whose L1 is English.

[@hotterotter1367]

2:34 Is there also a list where german is the basis?

[@kfnwuwbw9s]

I am C1 in Spanish (native in English), and it really is not that easy to get to this level. It pretty much requires interactions with native speakers. I want to learn Korean, but I know that a C1 in Korean is going to be insanely hard to get. I have listened to Korean for over 5 years, so I know what it sounds like and understand it decently, but it is so hard to learn unless you actually live in South Korea. However, let's be honest, most polyglots are in the A2 or B1 range in most of their languages they claim to know.

[@lawrence675a]

This channel really helps me set language learning in better perspective. Sometimes it's not just looking up how to say something in another language😭

[@makingpixierose]

Bothers me that none of the languages I want to learn are ever on this system. (I want to learn many of the Celtic languages and some indigenous to turtle island)

[@JoseDavid-ov1kf]

Yeah

[@mirae9163]

As a native Cantonese speaker who has tried to learn more than 20 languages, the most difficult language for me is Georgian, and then Arabic and Russian. I would like to relearn Georgian .... maybe next year ☺️

[@AmethystsArePretty]

What languages have you tried to learn?

[@cuberkid7311]

I am Bengali.

[@teminoffke3339]

i guessed "tagalog lvl 4" in my head and didnt bother writing it here turned out to be correct lol

[@flyvez2303]

If aliens came to Earth to choose a easiest language to adopt they will probably choose Indonesian

[@nHans]

Maybe so-but I'm still not able to accept the hypothetical that aliens would come to Earth to adopt a language 🤣.

[@user-uo6lc6ls6x]

Russian an easiest language

[@YasEl7]

@@user-uo6lc6ls6xрусский -сложный язык))

[@user-uo6lc6ls6x]

@@YasEl7 it was joke, you 🤡

[@1langueen100jours]

I got a half point! However, I have to (partly) disagree with the list: I think the categories are note accurate. I can give my personal experience with slavic languages, for instance. Russian is much harder than Serbian/Croatin (longer words, pronunciation is tricky + couple of other things that are counter-intuitive from a French perspective)... which is certainly harder than Bulgarian/Macedonian, which have no cases! Similarly, I assume French is trickier than Spanish or Italian for native English speakers, partly because of the reading part, which is a nightmare, even to French people. Also: I'm pretty sure that a lot of the non-Indo-European (like Finnish and Hungarian, for instance) are much more complex than the Indo-European in the same category, from a French/English perspective. Hungarian and its 18 cases + many syllables + extremely long words seems definitely more challenging than Russian, to me, for instance. Last thing (but that was not as true in the 40's): some languages are tougher simply due to the lack of material. For instance, Japanese might be much trickier than Breton but you don't have many resources in the later. However, thank you Olly, insightful content, once again!

[@grethen123]

I wonder if for cat.3 language English would also be in category to learn... and if the languages in the same category are cat.1 for each other (probably not)

[@lisamarydew]

Good question!

[@charlottegiesler4910]

Where is sign language on the list?

[@mikereisert2803]

That's of course Filipino with an older script. Beautiful Language!

[@K.etanak]

As a Thai, I'm so glad that our language is being mentioned here . I just took french a month ago, and I'm struggling with the conjugation and genders. I can't believe that Thai is at the IV level in FSI ranking. We have no tenses, no articles, no genders, and most importantly no conjugations.

[@watermelon3679]

Yes thai grammar s easy But strange alphabet and tones make your language hard to learn 😊

[@K.etanak]

@watermelon3679 Yeahhh, I forgot to mention about the tones and alphabet. Learning other languages other than your mother tongue is hard anyway.

[@ColorMeCrystal27]

สวัสดีค่ะ I'm learning Thai right now (as a native English speaker), and I love it! I definitely appreciate the "no tenses, no articles, no genders, and no conjugations" aspect! 😆 I've actually had a lot of fun learning & practicing the writing system, and the tones start to feel more accessible & instinctive as my listening improves. I really encourage people interested in learning Thai to not let those aspects intimidate them! สู้ๆ

[@kti5682]

Also that you use syllables and only have an alphabet for those, unlike Japanese that has two for syllables and kanji on top of it really makes it approachable. The fact that it is tonal is kind of novel to me though.

[@ponyfeng9542]

as a chinese,it just take me four months to communicate with native english,but at present i have learned for 10months ,i still cant understant a lot of American seriers

[@NeonBeeCat]

You're doing good, just keep going and it will come naturally.

[@AmethystsArePretty]

I can understand how it is difficult for non-native speakers to understand native speakers

[@leorphic777]

All the languages I want to learn are in category 4....I got this

[@derpauleglot9772]

Well, I'm learning/improving my French (category I), Czech (category III) and Japanese (category V). I also teach German (category II). I think the differences get smaller as the number of study hours and the level you want to reach goes up, though. Zipf´s law etc.

[@quatra1000]

We had to learn 3 foreign languages from primary school on. Later I had to learn Spanish for work in Latin America and other countries where Spanish is one of the official languages and that added another 440 million people to my catalogue of potential acqaintances and friends.

[@tb7-rf1fb]

Holy crap, that Thai sounds wild!

[@AdamYLM]

FSI really doesnt apply properly to normal people. Only thing one should take from it is that which langs are normally easier, and which ones will probably take more time. And if you know a second language, depending on what language that is, FSI chart can become very wrong. Because its designed for only English speakers.

[@falafelbrincess]

I've studied multiple languages from Categories 1, 4 and 5 (as a native English speaker). Out of all of them, French has been the hardest for me. According to the chart, it should have been one of the easiest. There really are a lot of other factors that determine how difficult a language will be for each individual.

[@AdamYLM]

@@falafelbrincess I myself am learning French right now, and yes its more difficult than I thought it was. Currently 2 year + learning French, still has trouble understanding natives. I though it would be easy when I saw FSI chart for first time before learning French.

[@Emerald483]

I am requesting you please try Malayalam ( India's hardest language )

[@vladislavshevchenko634]

15:12 I understand that the content creator wanted to show how different Russian alphabet is, but its the old Russian alphabet. The writing reform 1708 dumped 15 letters (3of which were later added back and added one extra letter which didn't exist before) the Soviet government in 1917 dumped 3 more letters and simplified the rules to make them closer to the actual pronunciation. back in the day.

[@yaldrammuqadis]

The language is Tagalog! The name comes from the words "Taga" and "Ilog"; "Taga" means "from" and "ilog" means "river". Roughly meaning the language of the people of the river! I know cuz I tried learning it and I love etymology

[@NienNunbOnly]

Curently learning indonesian and i dont think it should be catagory 3 tbh its very simple to see and understand the patterns in it.

[@williamedmeades4572]

Tagalog FSI 4

[@AlexDane]

lol being filipino i was like, hey that kinda looks like baybayin, oh yeah our sentences also start with verbs, then heard her talk and was like oh yeah, definitely Tagalog

[@columbus7950]

Vietnamese FSI LEVEL 4?

[@mattmovestothephilippines]

The mystery language is Tagalog, also called Filipino. It's what I'm studying now. I'll guess it's a 3. I'm struggling, but getting there.

[@tb7-rf1fb]

Learning Russian, and having motivation is key!

[@gtripmusic2906]

10:29 That's Tagalog since the vast majority of my co-workers are Pinoy. I'm Mexican-American btw so this was due to exposure and not my ethnic identity

[@maoelnofi2605]

Edward Saeed explained why some people keep saying the Arabic language is difficult whatsoever. "However, this is not the case," he added.

[@pierreabbat6157]

They think Greek is more difficult than Swahili? I don't think so. Lots of Greek words are familiar, like φωνη from "telephone" (which is "τηλέφωνο" in Modern Greek), the letters are familiar because they're used in math and frats, and verb conjugation is similar to lots of other Indo-European languages. I read the NT in Koine Greek, and if anyone else shows up this evening, I'll have a conversation in Greek.

[@RealBigMan247]

You speak Greek?

[@azizucak4455]

after hearing what you say about those 5 languaages at the end which are arabic , japaneese , chineese etc. I gotta need hell amount of exposure to mandarin then to start to learn ! but at the end smt rewarding . Man I am on the fence .. but thank you for your tips

[@misscamay]

I watched Olly’s interview with Pablo of Dreaming Spanish in Spanish.I was disappointed and disillusioned, he was constantly grappling and searching for Spanish words.

[@arthurvanrodds2772]

Idk the language but it's definitely from the Philippines