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! Expand your mind with these fascinating facts! kzbin.info/aero/PLmZTDWJGfRq0md0LQ6w229_ON6SeDFrMa

[@MinorityHunter516]

Mojo

[@yeasashikder3704]

💝❤️💖

[@jgappy]

change my mind: youtube is really laggy app ever made

[@thefamiIyguyshow]

This video made me pregnant I will do drugs now so my baby can live it's best life just like James Charles thank u for being my role model

[@MinorityHunter516]

@@thefamiIyguyshow LMAO

[@Dubiousthinking]

I guess the Squid Game thumbnail would get more clicks.

[@esccyprus]

Lmao

[@channel5980]

These Watchmojo clowns have no shame.

[@Isleptwithjesus]

So will this comment

[@laxjoh]

People hate on click bait and sensationalist content but the reality is they get the most views and that's how you succeed on platforms like KZbin. Even someone who makes consistently superior content may never get as many views as the worst offenders of click baiting and sensationalism. In many ways it's like going to company parties and winning the favor of your boss and superiors. In Asia, it's frowned upon to leave work early and you are rewarded more verbally and acknowledged for staying late. If you don't partake in drinking with superiors after work, it doesn't bar you from getting better standings with the company but it is much harder to get promoted within the company if you don't partake. Life has many of these things and US is no different. For example, most references we use for work are heavily biased and subjective. A lot of the reference recommendations are exaggerating how good an individual worker is. But you still look significantly better with it. You see this on a day to day basis with commercials and advertisements. And these cheap tricks work for a reason. The squid game thumbnail probably would garner more views than a thumbnail simply showing the written language for say Hangul (Korean).

[@niceColdWuhta]

the Korean part is quite mischievous but whatever helps them sleep at night also, no mention of agglutinativity? or a further spread of korean media worldwide that makes the language ever so familiar?

[@patrickhein6986]

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

[@Somali.Pirate1]

The list is not accurate as Chinese should not even be on it, anyone who speaks mandarin understands why it, and its language group is rather basic. Chinese grammar is incredibly simple, and enunciation relies for the most part on three 'tones'.

[@Error-gz3pp]

@@Somali.Pirate1 And what about all of the other dialects? And the fact that there are four tones, not three?

[@Somali.Pirate1]

@@Error-gz3pp There are more dialects in Arabic. The tones are not difficult, like you said they are only 4. Hardly difficult. We are literally talking about a language whos words do not even have changeable forms or even something as basic as gender nouns.

[@Tarabara]

As an English speaker, that surprises me too.

[@playcraft7368]

Ich auch

[@stevenayoub1654]

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

[@mohammadalloush8636]

+1, tho I hate to learn other languages.

[@Yas_Sin]

Yep, that makes the two of us, just keep in mind that we're only good because it's our native language, the point is, arabic is still actually pretty hard, even for us natives, i mean i rarely even got average marks in arabic classes lol

[@doyleeee]

same here as a Japanese. lol

[@Sagefrakrobatik]

I've studied Arabic for several years, for me the Grammar and Syntax are very difficult. There are multiple ways of expressing adverbs, there is more variety of the plural form, There are four different to express the passive, dont get me started on the Harakat. I went back to take Arabic, for practice but it was hard to keep up because me and this other girl were the only non-Arabs in the class.

[@mohammadalloush8636]

@@Sagefrakrobatik Dude, "Harakat" lmao, I always hated them when studying Arabic as a kid.

[@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

[@elizabethcatlion7015]

Why’d you click on it if you didn’t want to learn about it?

[@kiboma4209]

Im guessing it’s not in order, tf is Polish considered that low on the list? It should be higher, that language has tougher grammar than Russian and it’s pronunciation is difficult

[@marcusvergara6193]

hungarian is far from 10th. jesus, watchmojo sucks.

[@chrysoberylidol]

@@marcusvergara6193 Watchmojo is worst than Wikipedia.

[@user-ww5je7bc1b]

@@kiboma4209 Yes. I guess the man who made the video knows nothing about these languages or he has even never ever learned one of them

[@sahara310]

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.

[@jctt96554]

😂😂😂

[@maciekmularczyk6427]

God created the Polish language to train the infidels. ;)

[@zachbalch3992]

Yeah I still struggle with Polish as my secound language and I am polish. If only I grew up in a household that spoke it more

[@sahara310]

@@zachbalch3992 despite I came from Poland I still have difficulties with this language 😂😂

[@fabianaguilar6288]

If you think Polish is hard because of its sounds, wait until you learn Georgian.

[@Danny-G92]

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 😂😂😂

[@AlmostAl]

Came here to say this. As an Irish person I feel somewhat insulted, lol. My guess is that Welsh has the higher number of people speaking it compared to Irish.

[@TonyM9]

Tá! Go direach!

[@gabrielhunger]

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

[@danielsirbu6706]

@LøstSoul asked?

[@lSovereignl]

Lmao after learning Spanish I can for the most part read Portuguese, and I can tell you your language isn’t hard at all lol

[@franciscakikakika9527]

@@lSovereignl then start learning all our verb tenses and then you can tell me. Plus. Spanish isn’t anything like Portuguese expect it’s origins that are both Latin

[@danielsirbu6706]

@LøstSoul do we care that you know both? No. Asked? No. Now go play some roblox in your bedroom

[@channel5980]

@@franciscakikakika9527 Spanish isn't anything like Portuguese? Are you serious or joking?

[@laylab.2048]

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

[@Konpaku_Hungary]

Very true.

Muy cierto

[@user-ww5je7bc1b]

And why is English on the list ?

[@user-bo7zv6sr8m]

@@user-ww5je7bc1b because you're be suprised of how bad their grammar is.

[@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

[@user-fq2ty]

thanks bby

[@ZeroAnalogy]

Spoiler alert! Why bother watching the whole video. I was getting sleepy-eyed midway.

[@elbasha2488]

and spanish 😭

[@Indra2007]

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.

[@MrGeo-EmitFodrol]

So you want to be Cipher...

[@Battaton912]

Me too Joseph

[@LouisTsuiful]

Chinese is the language of future, everyone should learn Chinese for getting a better job !

[@justflavio3260]

@@LouisTsuiful unfortunately yes. But I hope English stays on top

[@MrOfflineAlways]

Like Wonder Woman😁

[@otgenesis7410]

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.

[@BurningRubber454]

Really Japanese isn’t that hard

[@otgenesis7410]

Really? Well it ain't impossible that's for sure.

[@BurningRubber454]

@@otgenesis7410 I learn it before highschool to play Japanese games

[@7opvdeos]

It's not difficult at all. Almost not for speaking and understanding.

[@otgenesis7410]

Then my respect for you just increased.

[@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.

[@sameerahmed-gx8js]

exactly....even Sanskrit is more difficult to learn than hindi

[@santhoshrider7348]

Contrary to popular belief, Malayalam is one of the easiest languages (only next to Bengali) in India with easy grammar. Of course, nasal pronunciation is tricky but not that difficult compared to Urdu's qa,gha, etc. In fact Dravidian languages are very much easier than the Indo Aryan languages (except Bengali, Odiya and Assamese). The grammatical gender in North Indian languages is so complicated. Ex: in Hindi, they say "mooch gir gayi (moustache has fallen)". Why in the world does the masculine thing moustaches have to be feminine??? It's just the tip of an iceberg. South indian languages are consciously branded as tough languages by the North Indians to stress the point that they don't want to learn them. It's more like Chinese people calling English tougher than Chinese.

[@sapnesuhaneladakpankeallep8828]

U must be a mallu😂

[@henryqu19]

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

[@AdvocateMusicOfficial]

Ive also been learning deutsch

[@ansjovisnl9059]

Hoe ver ben je al?

[@axelblaze7492]

Which language is similar to deutsch

[@legoworksstudios1]

I went hard mode. I'm trying to teach myself Mandarin.

[@AdvocateMusicOfficial]

@@legoworksstudios1 sheeeesh good luck with that

[@cookscreativecorner]

As a writer, I've found a good way to learn different pieces of languages is to create characters who either know these languages or are from these countries. It won't make me fluent, but it gives me an idea of how to spell and pronounce some of these words. In one of my series, I have characters who speak Welsh, Arabic, Latin, and Greek, either because many of them are native speakers of it or they have learned it over the years. It's definitely been a fun time learning as many of the words I can.

[@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!

[@calvinchan7681]

Yea it's really confusing why it's on this list - you can literally learn to read and write in 5 minutes.

[@globalforce]

@@calvinchan7681 While Hangul itself is a wonderful system, there are many exceptions in the way actual words are pronounced. Korean grammar is an absolute nightmare, too. I'm a native speaker and every time I would try to study Korean for a formal testing purposes, I would nope the hell out. Also, the honorifics system can be pretty intricate.

[@danasaeed9018]

Learn Japanese Instead, Leave Korean.

[@globalforce]

@@danasaeed9018 Why? Unless you're a weeb (I'm one) it's not exactly the most relevant or trendy language at this moment.

[@calvinchan7681]

​@@elee522 and pray tell why you would assume i don't know what words mean? the point is the language is pretty consistent in comparison to others and structured in a quite logical way vs. the others on the list. which helps make it an easy language to pick up AND learn the meanings. So therefore seems inappropriate to be on a list of difficult language to learn list. 🙄

[@BlenderStudy]

Thank you for the update, WatchMojo..!! Korean language shares the same words with Tamil, Hungarian, Siberian, Indonesian, etc.. Amazing people, culture and language..!!

[@RiverWorksCo]

Which Korean words are similar to Hungarian words?

[@louiseogden1296]

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

[@corinna007]

I know this is a year later, but I find your comment interesting. I have an Estonian friend living in Finland who speaks and teaches both (she speaks English as well), and she told me that in her opinion Estonian is harder because the grammar isn't as logical as Finnish grammar. But I haven't studied Estonian as of yet so I can't really agree or disagree. Personally, to me Estonian sounds a bit like "simplified" Finnish, in that it has a lot of similarities to shortened spoken Finnish. I love Finnish, but once I feel comfortable saying I'm fluent I might take a shot at Estonian.

[@louiseogden1296]

@@corinna007 Interesting! I can see that, definitely. Estonian has been heavily influenced by Indo-European neighbours, particularly Russian, so what I've heard from various sources is that the grammar is less agglutinative and more similar to Indo-European grammatical structure. Russia imposed certain structures on its Estonian vassals, but the stronger Russian and probably German influence on Estonian made it easier to transition to learning as someone who gets on better with Indo-European grammar. I totally get the idea that Finnish is a more conservative language and thus has a more logical system, though. I got on well when learning Polish and Russian because of that stricter logic, although learning where to put words that you needed to stress in a sentence was tricky at first. In English intonation is the way you stress a word and word order flexibility is only for poetic effect. In Slavic language shifting things like pronouns and verbs around helps get to the point of a sentence a lot quicker rather than relying solely on how something sounds. It's very useful when writing because there you can't rely on intonation.

[@corinna007]

@@louiseogden1296 Yeah, that's not surprising. I just went straight to Finnish without even thinking of Estonian (thanks, Apocalyptica). There are actually a fair amount of Swedish loanwords in Finnish, but they tend to modify loanwords to fit the grammar, not really the other way around. (Although it is always fun when I see a word that's the same or similar to German, such as the word "Hai".) Yeah, Finnish grammar is very logical and there aren't nearly as many exceptions to rules as there are in English and once you figure out the patterns, it becomes a lot easier. The tricky part is learning all the patterns. Yeah, I haven't really looked into the Slavic languages but I can believe that. In Finnish the word order is more flexible as well, which can make Finnish music really interesting and lovely to listen to.

[@genki2705]

English is easy, very easy. Slavic languages aren't that difficult, we say it as we mean it (serbian, native language). German is more difficult. The grammar rules are ambiguous. You learn it more or less by heart (the country I live in). But French, you can't write it, you can't read it, you can't speak it, French is a life's challenge (tried and given up to master it)

[@foodforafrica509]

French native speaker and I can second that french grammar makes it an absolute clusterfuck of a langage to learn

[@Denis-89]

Actually German is pretty easy. It is consistent with its grammar and rules. English is more difficult since there are exceptions to the rules and you are never certain if you spell or say something correctly

[@ellfin2450]

Idk I've found German to be relatively easy to learn. This is coming from someone who's only been exposed to English until high school

[@heatherdierks6376]

French is easy. But English is complex. Same words with different spellings and meanings confuse so many ppl.

[@heatherdierks6376]

@@foodforafrica509 actually I thought french was easy.. I took a year of it in high school. I've tried learning Chinese & Japanese but they are very difficult to understand

[@justapeacefulmanwhosbornin7291]

I’m surprised that teenager became an expert of all 23+ different languages.

[@cesarhurtado9213]

Thanks Watchmojo this is an awesome video I love languages

[@dawierwheresmycoffee]

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.

[@maellecampion6663]

What about Armenian? That language has its own isolate alphabet as well like Georgian

[@seroujghazarian6343]

Yeah, I'mma second the Armenian reply. >A declension system so bad it makes Arabic cry >An abysmal aorist system that won't make sense to even the devil >An even worse imperative system which our ancestors thought it was a good idea to base off of the AORIST. Why the hell would you base the imperative on the past simple forms? >Cognates that look almost nothing like their european counterparts >and the most important thing, the f***ing hidden schwa which does nothing but make me bash my head to the desk. >oh, and there's that one digraph, ոյ, which changes pronunciation with no discernable f***ing pattern. Oh, you learned how to pronounce ոյ from յոյս (hope)? Well bravo, except it's pronounced completely differently in անոյշ (sweet) and ոյժ (strength).

[@seroujghazarian6343]

And you'd be downright lucky learning Modern Armenian and not Old Armenian. In Old Armenian, not only did the genitive/dative change with the type, ALL the declensions change with the type. And don't even get me started with the hybrid type words.

[@successaffirmationshub5431]

As a Georgian I agree with you!

[@brunomacedo3267]

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.

[@mathiasmorrison1530]

Who ever came up with that...

[@MrOfflineAlways]

I disagree, there’s a lot more to English grammar than Spanish grammar (I know English and Spanish, with English being my first fluent language) Me personally, I spent a lot less time of my life learning Spanish than English and I still have my few hiccups with English grammar from time to time. And if you find Spanish and Portuguese more difficult, it just might be a specific case.

[@MrPuzzleCodes]

Ikr! English is not that hard imo. Romanian is much harder. Even tho most of the time romanian is pronounced as written, grammar is hell, and the amount of words with the same meaning is overwhelming. (Ex: teamă=frică=spaimă=groază, all mean scaryness) There are also soo many old words and words that are used in other regions of romania i dont even know. Reading an old book or from a far region of romania hurts my brain.

[@astrovisionbroadcastingunion]

Every language possible is harder than English, only the deepest points in English Linguistics contain some tricky bits but English is like so simple to speak...

[@lukemchugh719]

Yo, how about you master a language before switching to another one.

[@DenisPopov888]

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

[@DenisPopov888]

@@deleteduser2137 can you specify your question, please?

[@DenisPopov888]

@@deleteduser2137 Czy Pana obchodzi czy ja znam polskiegi czy nie? Znam. I co z tego wynika?

[@DenisPopov888]

@@deleteduser2137 Chyba Pan jest piatykiem? Szkoda wtedy, prosze pana sie nie wtracac i nie przeszkadzac tu wiecej. Czy to jest zrozumiale?

[@RiverWorksCo]

You are the one I was talking about in my comment. 🏆 here you go

[@amaryllis.2259]

what a thumbnail mojo, appealing the topic and describes the video perfectly!

[@saki369420]

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

[@ZeroAnalogy]

Spoiler Alert! Why bother watching the entire video now? Actually, I was getting sleepy-eyed around the Khoisan Languages.

[@ericn.5263]

NOBODY

[@ericn.5263]

CARES

[@ZeroAnalogy]

@@ericn.5263 Hands in the air! Now wave them around like you just don't care! [comment(s) posted = waving] YOU CARED A LITTLE BIT! Words repurposed from a Mr. Lovenstein comic.

[@antoniokastrocarlisledemel6617]

I speak 3 languages including english and french is the language i most want to learn..its a trip no bs i was literally about an hour ago reading an article about the hardest and easiest languages to learn then i come here and see this just got uploaded

[@justsomebody9081]

Enchanted table language: Look at what these people need just to mimic a fraction of my power.

[@peacelives1875]

why that foto ? why you have to remind to people ?

[@DailyHub_77]

cursed pfp

[@JerKKeR]

As a Turkish guy who often struggles to speak proper Turkish I'll list some easy and some hard difficult things about the language Easy: • There are no genders or articles, there's no "an apple" or "the apple" there's "apple" and that's it. Maybe "one apple" too. There's also no he/she/it, the third person uses the same pronoun (o) for everything related to it. "His apple", "her apple" and "its apple" all translate to "onun elması" • it's a Phonetic Language, every letter has one pronunciation and that's it. There are no cases where a letter becomes silent. • It's an easy way to understand people from Azerbaijan as Well, Turkish and Azeri are at least 90% the same language and it more often feels like it's a dialect rather than its own language. • It uses a latin alphabet, something that wasn't the case until the late 1920s believe it or not. • there are No Xs and No Ws, onlytime Turks use these are for cimputers like typing in URLs. Turkish taxis have "Taksi" written on top of them. Difficult: • There are letters and pronunciations unknown to the English tongue, next to the ç, which is pronounced like the ch in Cherry. And the ş which is pronounced like the sh in Shorts. There are also the ı which I cannot find a pronunciation equivalent for and since it's an i without the dot the capital İ in Turkish has a dot as well. Not only that there's also a "soft g" (ğ) you gotta hear to understand what it's pronounced i cannot describe it as a text. • Like it's already said in the video, sentence cases are added, not changed. So if we wanted to say "they're from England" you say "İngiltere[den][ler]" (the square brackets are just to point out what's added and not actually part of the word dw) • The core grammatical structure is fundamentally different to English and you will have a hard time translating things. There are some things you can say in Turkish that would usually require additional context to be understood in English.

[@twiceisallabout1758]

+ Speaking Turkish maybe hard but learning is easy cause everything goes in the same order. Of course there are some different pronunciations but those are very few and easy to learn

[@sonichasdiabetes3652]

As a fellow Finn it's cool to see how unique our language is cuz besides like Estonian which is kinda similar to Finnish, there isn't any other language that I am aware of that's similar to ours

[@eifelitorn]

I believe Hungarian is also a close relative to our language.

[@ZetaR0yszawa]

What about the Saami languages?

[@pupuliini124]

Both Hungarian and the Sámi languages are related to Finnish but not that closely. Probably the closest ones are Karelian, Meänkieli and Kven (both Meänkieli and Kven are sometimes/have been considered dialects of Finnish).

[@foodforafrica509]

Surprised french didn't make the list, french grammar is an absolute nightmare to learn. At least its harder than english

[@maellecampion6663]

I am French and I 100% agree with you

[@martinmartineznaula]

Thanks for the video

[@oliversievanen8554]

I kind of guessed Finnish would be included, heh. There are certain irregularities that are not easy to explain, and the lack of prepositions (well, rather that they're placed at the end of the word) makes it difficult for many.

[@janiilola6499]

Moi

[@Harold075]

Finnish is actually easy to pronounce. Each sound is matched by a letter and you put them in sequence.

[@belalabusultan5911]

I am an Arab, I think that after learning the Alphabet, andbeing able to speak all te weird letter, write simple stuff (like your name - town etc....) you would use this advice: 1- for Modern Standard rabic (Formal - education - researches - literature etc...) you should listen to modern poetry. 2- for Old Standard Arabic .... it is similar to the modern variant, but is more like a (different accent), so learning medieval poetry will help you. 3- for local dialect (day to day conversations - buying stuff - asking for directions etc...) you could listen to pop songs from whatever region you are visiting, the Dialects can be as wide or narrow as your definition of (Dialect) is, the largest being 2: Maghrebi (North Africa) and Mashriqi (the rest of the Arab world).... and the narrowest could be as small as a neighborhood.

[@yasminchan7425]

You really didn't include Danish that is actually known for being one of the hardest languages to learn in the world

[@mas4583]

It really isn’t tho. I am German n if I really wanted I could learn any of the Scandinavian languages.

[@steveni.228]

Danish alphabet has the letters A and E combined “Æ”.

[@Steve-Riverwood]

Came here for this one. Yes Danish is INCREDIBLY hard! There is a lot of unwritten rules and grammar that just has to remembered. It holds a whole heap og silent letters and sounds that are one of a kind in the world. Soft D's, Æ, Ø and Å. People from all over the world settling down in Denmark have no chance to learn it, and not give away in their accent, that they arent native danish(even after living in Denmark for +25 years.) It's not just top 20, nor is it top 5, No it is THE hardest language to learn. If you dont think so, consider yourself challenged!!

[@alysharaedt4759]

I can't quite compare, as I don't speak many of the languages named in this list, but I'm not sure Korean should be on number eight. Sure, there are quite a few grammar rules, but there is near to nothing irregular about it. Once you've learnt the alphabet and how to write properly, you're on good track.

[@zvra5802]

Russian is probably the easiest slavic language why is it so high lmao

[@vasilijamirkovic2104]

Was just about to say this, like why tf is Serbian not on the list

[@fbaallied]

No language is "hard" to learn. This video reeks of European western bias.

[@psychogenesis6755]

@@fbaallied Some are easier than others. Some are harder than others. The video assumes you are an English speaker. So the list is based on how hard the language would be to learn as an English speaker. Personally the Spanish language is possibly the easiest in the world bc of how consistent it is. But then you have Finnish where the grammar is something else for English or even Mandarin speakers to grasp

[@user-dq1kc6gr3e]

@@vasilijamirkovic2104 serbo-croatian is very easy, i learned it in 6 months just by working with people that speak it

[@fbaallied]

@@psychogenesis6755 no language is "hard" because as humans we all possess neo cortex/dominant hemisphere brain function. It's only "hard" because what ever language you learned in your formative years is the easiest to recall

[@Riutanharju]

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

[@canal_zero]

That's americans being americans. :D

[@robertanthonyfairweather3416]

Technically, Finland is in Scandinavia, but its language is surprisingly more related to Mongolian.

[@maellecampion6663]

You’re right that Finnish isn’t a Scandinavian language and that it’s Finno-Urgic but Estonian is not a Finno-Urgic language, Estonian is a Baltic language like Latvian and Lithuanian. Only 2 other examples I can give for Finno-Urgic languages are Hungarian and Turkish

[@panem1562]

@@maellecampion6663 you sure that you have any idea what you are talking about?

[@maellecampion6663]

@@panem1562 lol I only found out recently that Estonian IS a Finno-Urgic language

[@yugioht42]

Japanese tends to follow a certain amount of key sounds that are just there but you kinda just learn that over time. The honorifics are simple really, San means third person or mr or mrs, ms or that type thing. Sempai means upper classmate or higher than you in a company, kouhai means a lower classmate or a lesser person in a company depending. There are names for president, secretary, etc which are used as name then position. The language also seriously changes in a business as regular Japanese and business Japanese are so vastly different. Business Japanese has a completely different word structure let alone different pronunciations. Heck even words are completely different. You have to start from scratch on business Japanese as even the written language is different.

[@skidawg22]

Thank you for putting Polish on this list!! I find it impossible (and, as you may be able to tell from my surname, I am Polish).

[@zacrysyap]

Tagalog not only uses English words but also Bahasa Melayu, Mandarin, Nihongo and Castellano .. and the pure Tagalog alone has a small percentage usage than Spanish which built 80% of our language

[@rinotilde2699]

Tagalog just has a few dialects. The Philippines has more than 100 different languages. But thanks for including it! 🤭 Filipino, the standard version of Tagalog, is one of the official languages. It also uses a lot of Spanish words. And the Tagalog grammar was not mentioned. Also, they put the Visayas (Philippines) map in the Icelandic part of the video 14:49 😅

[@paulemboy6066]

Ahahaha yeah I saw that!!

[@cleverallan]

Nagsasalita ba siya ng Tagalog? - Lucifer

[@acebagtas7733]

My Filipino prof said the so-called dialects of Tagalog are actually languages by themselves. I'm a Filipino myself, and I can vouch that learning those other languages apart from tagalog is super challenging. The accents also differ within the same language/dialect.

[@DevSarman]

Definitely should have included languages like Basque, Tibetan, Chechen, and Georgian

[@spilleraaron4748]

Oh come now, Klingon is the hardest language to learn ;)

[@LouisTsuiful]

Chinese is the language of future, everyone should learn Chinese for getting a better job !

[@kashmyr2972]

I believe you might be my spirit animal....

[@rikutow5000]

As a Japanese, I wouldn’t learn Japanese if I weren’t Japanese.

[@canal_zero]

I'd love to learn. Tried once but it's hard as hell. Intending to try again next year. The best country and people in the world. :)

[@yamigekusu]

I've been learning Japanese for over twenty years, and I'm still barely conversational

[@user-yl3rs2ez9p]

それな。

[@Flopfist]

I've been learning Japanese for over half a year and a language based entirely around clicking noises sounds infinitely harder than learning japanese

[@mastermindtheofficial]

English harder than portuguese and spanish? 😅

[@areloTET]

Finnish absolutely WAAAY harder than Russian. Even as a native Finnish speaker, I'm struggling a lot.

[@FemmeBaer]

Sama täällä :D

[@nurzahidah2277]

What do you struggle with if I may ask?

[@areloTET]

@@nurzahidah2277 mainly the breaks between words. Since I speak "near-native" English, my Finnish is going worse over time.

[@nurzahidah2277]

@@areloTET Do you mean the grammatical cases or that just a matter of combining a word with another? I’ve been thinking about learning Finnish because it just sounds so beautiful and unusual despite of its complexity. (even though I’m learning German right now)

[@PuumajasarjatOY]

@@nurzahidah2277 I hope you have the determination and will to learn finnish because it will be a hard and long jorney my friend. And do you really think finnish is a beautiful language, because everyone I know says it is terrible and drunk.

[@Turrican]

English is easy. I learned it when I was about 2.

[@shoshanaloomer]

I'm learning French, but I'm also trying to learn Greek and Japanese. They're so hard!

[@RAMBO14001]

Aulàlà ambitious ~

[@esccyprus]

Greek is easy

[@alexandrossimitzis146]

I can teach you Greek because I am Greek and I also teach Greek.

[@astrovisionbroadcastingunion]

Bloody hell you are learning French? Good luck with my mother tongue lol 'cause there are quite a bunch of nonsense things in it xD

[@Doomergedon]

@@astrovisionbroadcastingunion same, we like to you many different ways of pronouncing the same sound like: “o” which can also be “au” which can also be “eau” or “e” which can be “œ” or “eu”. Let’s not even mention in infinity number of times you can must use, there are dozens of past , present and future tenses. Oh! And how everything has a gender for some reason ( like many other languages to be fair) and even I, who has lived in France for 18 years know, basically my entire life, always has to guess the gender since there is often no way of knowing it besides constantly being corrected by people, asking them or looking in the dictionary. Another thing the french adore is the excessive amount of exceptions. Every word ending in 2 “e” is feminine except for “musée”(museum) or “lycée”(high school)… Same goes for “ette” like: -cigarette -toilette -machette -Éprouvette -casquette But not “Squelette” which, hilariously, is masculine 😂🤣

[@CourageABLTForever]

Great Video, Watchmojo 👍and Happy Early Halloween

[@nancyomalley6286]

I'm glad you included English in this list as opposed to your 10 list where you deliberately excluded it. I always spoke English but watching shows like Little House where the Russian immigrant was trying to learn to read in English and was struggling, I realized how hard it is when a lot of words would be spelled alike but pronounced totally different.

[@fenggula7890]

English is one of the easiest languages to learn. It's grammatical structure is laughably basic compared to other languages. A Russian immigrant trying to learn or read English is OBVIOUSLY going to be a struggle.... An anglophone doing the same for the Russian language would not even be able to pronounce the first word lol

[@RiverWorksCo]

​@@fenggula7890exactly

[@MegaSantaclaude]

Danish definately needs to be on this list. Ive met countless of foreigners here who after 5+ years still struggle with our grammar.

[@gustav1002]

Skandinaviska språk anses väl vara några av de enklaste att lära sig, har jag för mig.

[@mikitz]

I suppose we can all agree that Norwegian and Swedish are the only relatively easy Nordic languages to learn, regardless of the learner's native language. They probably just had to pick either Danish or Icelandic and Finnish or Estonian.

[@gustav1002]

@@mikitz Why would Danish be harder than Swedish and Norwegian? It's literally the same grammar.

[@joermnyc]

I’d say the hardest languages are those that no longer have living native speakers, and no audio examples available, like Ancient proto-languages, because we’ve lost all references to what the language sounds like.

[@ChampionOfHammerfell]

Gotta get those views with the thumbnail 😂😂 I see you guys doing your thing

[@riverkang785]

As a Korean, i think Korean is the easiest language to learn. NOT Because i am the native speaker, just really easy, comparing with other language,even easier than English. I can speak Korean, Chinese(i used to live in China quiet long ),English and German(one of my major in college).

[@neel-hi4ow]

Korean have complex grammar and every word have different meaning .I think it's between medium and hard difficulty

[@riverkang785]

@@neel-hi4ow i think it's okay, like in English, in different situation, a word can have different meaning, and in Chinese, it happens, sometimes. Modern Korean, is the easiest one to learn, it's combine with a lot of English, and Chinese

[@riverkang785]

@@neel-hi4ow that's actually because the lack of Korean words, and we used to use Chinese in ancient times, and inmodern times, we quit writing Chinese. A lot of ancient Korean books are actually written by Chinese.

[@thatsaltybrit2603]

@@riverkang785 im trying to learn Korean but the different levels of formality and the sentence structure is what confuses me most

[@riverkang785]

@@thatsaltybrit2603 okay, that's a little difficult to learn, but practice makes perfect, you need to do some exercise, that may help you.

[@lexxitrexxi]

I'm American Hungarian, born in America to a fully Hungarian speaking family whom immigrated in 57, and I still can not speak Hungarian. It is incredibly difficult. I can speak and understand Spanish, Dutch, and am learning German which have come with ease, but I've been trying to learn Hungarian for 28 years and it's still a total pain lol, but it will be incredibly rewarding to speak to my relatives in the native language one day. Update: Once you learn the alphabet however, you'll at least find that Hungarian words are pronounced exactly how they are written.

[@yamigekusu]

My mother's native language- Tagalog. She never fucking taught me, and frequently forgot that i didn't speak Tagalog...

[@okumabear]

My cousin's Welsh husband says that the Welsh language came about when someone tripped carrying a bag of Scrabble tiles and said "That'll work."

[@crossthewater2002]

The 9 sounds in Cantonese is a killer!

[@Somali.Pirate1]

Basic grammar, basic language. Any linguists, or any polyglot who has bothered to learn grammatically intensive languages as that of the Afro-Asiatic family group (Arabic, Somali, Berber) would tell you this. Cantonese is harder than mandarin, collectively both are much easier than any one of the Indo-European languages, especially when you grasp the the tones (which are not difficult at all) as the grammar ranges from basic to veritably non extant.

[@barbaranikol2531]

As a Greek I confirm that Greek is tough. Even me I don't know the meaning of a big percentage of words cause there are too many! I mean huge amount and if you want to speak right Greek you have to use specific words on each occasion from a pool of words with quite similar meaning. Spelling is very hard, grammar also (similar to German but way more flexible) . However I believe that because of many a O and e words are understandable and if you know some Greek you understand the words when you listen to them. It's a language that it's moderate to learn on a basic level but almost impossible to a very high level.

[@AudiophileTubes]

Yes, this is so true! I'm Greek-American, and although we used to speak basic Greek in our household when my father and Yiayia (both from Greece) were alive, and when we went to Greece for summer vacation when I was a teen, i've forgotten most of it. I went to Greece recently (2 and 3 years ago) after a long absence (i'm 62 now), and I found it very difficult to speak even intermediate Greek. I only remembered how to talk on a very basic level. I found it very frustrating to 'reach' for those more expressive, intermediate words, and would often stop the Greek, and start speaking English. This is even though a lot of the locals in Greece told me that my Greek is good. Greek is very expressive and beautiful, but it is a language that requires constant practice for retainability.

[@ONRIPRESENCE]

Fun fact: Our Navaho language (Diné Bizaad) has at least 3 dialects across the Navaho Nation. This is due to the varying topology of landscape (mountains/forests, deserts/canyons). People pronounce certain Navaho words ever so slightly based on which biome one is from.

[@itay3894]

I'd remove English for Hebrew, way harder and it can be a "stepping stone" for Arabic

[@adventuregnome4389]

What a joke of a list, are you really pretending english is even close to being as hard to learn as polish? English has some weird things going on but its undeniably easy to learn.

[@Shinobito1]

I speak 4 languages on this list (with various proficiency) and I would say - English is not difficult at all. Yes, mastering its intricacies and peculiarities could prove difficult, but getting to a conversation level is quick, relative to other languages.

[@normaangelicamanktelow2407]

I agree. I don't think it should be on this list.

[@normaangelicamanktelow2407]

@Me I don't think it has anything to do with exposure. English grammar compared to some other highly inflected languages and others that follow very interesting (and difficult grammatical rules) is very easy. The only difficult thing about English is that it is not phonetically consistent, but once you understand a few patterns, it is not hard at all. I have studied Japanese and French and I found those muh more difficult than learning English.

[@robertanthonyfairweather3416]

As a mathematician, artist and linguist, I enjoy world languages myself.

[@botanica3able]

Czech language should be on the list , as a native language for me, I know that some Czech people don't even know a lot from our language. And we use a lot of symbols in letters and words like Č / Ř / Ů, (Ředkvičky - which is Radish) and much more.

[@majka3631]

Z môjho pohľadu v češtine sa na rozdiel od slovenčiny menej skloňuje. A to napriek tomu že máte navyše vokatív.

[@rafanifischer3152]

You make a common mistake by saying that anglophones have a better chance of learning Tagalog because of the many English words that are used (borrowed). The problem is that an English speaker still has to learn the word in "Tagalog" since one does not have prior knowledge that a certain word is the same in English as in Tagalog. There are no shortcuts in language learning!

[@thatdariachick]

I understand this is a list of spoken languages, but, I can tell you from experience, ASL is just as difficult learn as any language. I wish you had added that, even as an honorable mention.

[@Issabezzi]

Totally agree. Sign language is very difficult to master for those who doesn't have it as their native language. I speak some Swedish sign language and the grammar (the use of eyebrows, facial expressions etc.) is far more complex than spoke languages.

[@Sarah-eh7bw]

One of the biggest determining factors here seems to be how many cases a language has. Cases are very hard to wrap your head around, especially for English speakers, since our language has so few.

[@nancyomalley6286]

When the narrator mentions 'cases', what does she mean?

[@Sarah-eh7bw]

@@nancyomalley6286 it describes a noun’s function in a sentence, for example possessive case would be ‘John’s dog’. English has less case agreement rules than other languages.

[@pinkflower7159]

Greetings from Mongolia. In my opinion, Mongolian is a difficult language. Mongolians are good at imitating the exact pronunciation of any foreign language, because we have both hard and soft words, and with a large vocabulary, the same word is rarely repeated in multiple meanings. The Mongolian script is the vertical script, or national script, and the Cyrillic script is widely used now. Mongolians think that they learn dialect pronunciation well when they learn other languages. Thank you for being interesting 👍🇲🇳

[@mlggamer5296]

I was just about to ask if Duolingo or Rosetta Stone or whatever translation apps you got are accurate. Seem so Based on what you're saying about Navajo

[@adamdorris4081]

What about dolphin, elephant, bird, squirrel, plant? Or even Romulan/Vulcan, Ferengi, Cardassian, Klingon, species 8472, Jabba the Hut, Computer...? I don't know. I'm just bored and wanna make someone smile. 😊

[@fbaallied]

Yeah, this list reeks of Euroepan western bias.

[@nancyomalley6286]

I'd love to know were the Ferengi got their universal translators-The ones they have embedded in their ears ("DS9-Little Green Men")

[@ZeroAnalogy]

No. You are being playfully chaotic. I applaud your actions, as a little mischief goes a long way. I myself do that quite often in the KZbin comments.

[@funandscream436]

Please make a video about the top revived languages.

[@darwinqpenaflorida3797]

Trivia about Tagalog Language:The most number spoken outside the Philippines and aside Filipinos in Southeast Asia was Indonesians where mostly are in Jakarta and Manado where many Filipinos, both workers or tourists are understood with Indonesians because we’re brothers and sisters of Southeast Asia and it was easy to interact to become friends or finding relationships

[@realharvo]

Not me speaking: Australian, American, and English (all fluently)

[@shaggyonly875]

Nice accent

[@realharvo]

Shaggy Only haha

[@WonderingHead]

😃😃😃@American and English

[@ESPNGai]

I always felt Cantonese should be categorized as a separate language and not a dialect of mandarin.

[@ponta1162]

In fact, only the non-native Cantonese Chinese says that It's a "dialect" of Mandarin

[@justflavio3260]

I'm trying to learn Korean, Spanish, German, Arabic or Turkish and, if possible, Japanese. Right now, I know Italian and Albanian other than English. I am just starting with German bcs. it's like learning english (said by other people). What language is also needed for a guy that wants to travel the world?

[@gwendee5070]

Cantonese is the most complex language to learn; I am learning it right now.... struggling not only with the tones, prouncation but the grammar. There are hardly any resources available.... plus there are 4 types of written systems. 2 well-known romanisation Yale and Jyutping, Traditional/written Cantonese and spoken written Cantonese. 6 tones but technically 9 tones; Cantonese loves idioms and sayings (you need to know them all)... Hong Kong Cantonese, Macau Cantonese, South China/ Canto/Guangdong province, Cantonese diaspora. The language varies quite a lot, depending on who you speak to.

[@orangejuicegamer7108]

Watchmojo mentioned Philippines Filipino: "Allow Us To Introduce Ourselves"

[@brianperrine8099]

My wife is Filipina and it made me cringe to hear her say ta-ga-LOG when her and her family make it sound like it runs together, ta-galog with their accents 🤣🇵🇭

[@debesche96]

While Finland is a Nordic country, it's not a Scandinavian country.

[@ChuanClaw]

People always forget about Slovenian lol My friend from Slovenia is teaching me and it's quite difficult. The easiest language for me is Japanese. And the characters in Cantonese vs Mandarin is just that Mandarin using simplified characters while Cantonese uses Traditional and the Japanese Kanji is just the traditional characters of Cantonese basically. Plus, you have many different dialects and languages all throughout China. Also, in Mexico where my cousin is from is a whole different dialect so when him and his buddy from Mexico City came to American together, they couldn't even understand one another. Plus, I am Cherokee and out language is also a tonal language and one of the first Native American written languages, we also had our own newspaper back in the day that was published in the Cherokee alphabet. I'm someone who enjoys learning many languages and for me, Japanese is the easiest and comes more naturally for myself. Each language is actually put into categories of easiest to hardest for different native speakers. From level 1-5; for an English speaker, Swedish is a level 1 as one of the easiest to learn for English speakers while German is actually a level 2, most people believe that German would be the easiest but it has more difficult aspects to it for English speakers than Swedish. But, I think language is truly fascinating so I love to learn as many as I can. I also like to learn Sign Language as well and ASL is quite different than English, but since I'm also learning Japanese, I wanna study JSL as well. Language is fun and interesting and I encourage anyone to study, it's an amazing way to connect to people and culture.

[@kathymai7684]

I am of Canton descent, and I am proud that I know how to speak the hardest language to learn, Cantonese, and the fact that I also understand and comprehend traditional Chinese instead of simplified.

[@Im_alivexx]

I’m still teaching myself Japanese and it’s hard as hell

[@Konpaku_Hungary]

I started to learn japanese in part to get to those hard parts. I mean, to see where it becomes more complex than hungarian independent of the kanjis. But I'm still at the very beggining of the whole thing.

[@kptbroncano]

You all forgot the rest of Scandinavian Region (Norwegian, Swedish and Danish) I lived in Denmark for a year and a half and i can’t even form a simple sentence 😅🤣

[@tamiotribe5238]

I taught Philippine Literature for years in college and used english in instruction cos of the syllabus. But during finals i would require my students to write an original short play as final requirement. My students used both tagalog and english in their scripts i was expecting theyll use pure tagalog cos its easier. During Buwan ng Wika in August I would use deep old tagalog words to my students and my students would just stare at me like i was speaking in a foreign language. Filipino youths are more comfortable in taglish tagalog and english.

[@izabeladeja3401]

As Polish I'm proud of people who wanted to learn this language because my mother tongue is famous for really long words and complicaded and sometimes unlogical grammar rules.

[@kn2549]

If you ever lived or been around native Japanese people, you’ll know that “code switching” is a major part of the language. The way you speak, what vocabulary to use, titles, pronouns, ending suffixes etc changes depending on the situation, your relation with that person/group and what you’re trying to imply to others. And regional dialects are only often used with the people you grew up around and not so much with outsiders. Or when Japanese people are drunk lol.

[@marcadewerisches9985]

I always thought German was very difficult

[@HolgerDabske]

I think it is more difficult for native english speakers, because even if you are good at german as a english person you will have a horrifying accent. But many Germans can’t speak proper german so it is all good

[@mas4583]

@@HolgerDabske the second sentence is so true. Lol…

[@Anubis2705]

No, German is only difficult, when it comes to very specific grammar-rules most Germans don't know either. But overall it is not that difficult.

[@user-xj5ig9yy2v]

yeah the das der dim dong ding dang shit. i dont get it.

[@Gongoblicious]

I'm surprised Tagalog made it. It's not that hard,but the variations and similar sounds make it so.(Cebuano,Ilongo,etc) My community consist of Urdu,Arabic,Cantonese,Mandarin,Korean,Tagalog,Visaya and Fuzounese. I know some Quranic Arabic and it's difficult

[@kstanni87]

Glad to see Icelandic here. Indeed our cultural pronunciation and accent is difficult.

[@justapeacefulmanwhosbornin7291]

Suggestion: Top 10 best Superman-inspired characters of all time.

[@nachovichoZX]

1) Shazam

[@justapeacefulmanwhosbornin7291]

@@nachovichoZX Formerly known as the original Captain Marvel.

[@vinnyfiorino9003]

Most easiest languages to learn next?

[@mlggamer5296]

I actually know a preacher who used to be a superintendent at my church Who was Welsh but she left some years ago. Haven't heard from her since

[@yourmum8259]

8:35, because i go to school in north wales, i’m obviously been taught welsh my whole life, it’s not that hard once you master the basics

[@mr.decencykeepinitreal6348]

I would like to make friends with real life people who can understand and speak several, 12 or 20 different languages.

[@adithyam2573]

fun fact : Malayalam is the most difficult language in india Do some research on it

[@tintumon-mj6pr]

In the world

[@aelardiz]

@@tintumon-mj6pr Ath korach koodi poyille mwonu...

[@jedichristian7294]

I’m actually learning Arabic, and the story of why is long but I still want to learn it, and I’m also going to be learning both Japanese and German.

[@mlggamer5296]

The most I know about Japanese is like Japanese names in anime. I'm slowly getting around to understanding it. for example the U's aren't pronounced in the names. So like Sakura you don't pronounce the u. I had no idea