[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":887},["ShallowReactive",2],{"article-\u002Farticles\u002Fhardest-languages-to-learn":3},{"_path":4,"_dir":5,"_draft":6,"_partial":6,"_locale":7,"title":8,"description":9,"date":10,"author":11,"category":12,"tags":13,"body":22,"_type":881,"_id":882,"_source":883,"_file":884,"_stem":885,"_extension":886},"\u002Farticles\u002Fhardest-languages-to-learn","articles",false,"","The Hardest Languages to Learn for English Speakers: FSI's Honest Ranking","The hardest languages for English speakers, ranked using the US Foreign Service Institute's category system. Real hours, real reasons, no click-bait padding.","2026-06-08T00:00:00+00:00","Michael McGettrick","Methodology",[14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21],"language difficulty","FSI","hardest languages","mandarin","japanese","korean","arabic","language learning",{"type":23,"children":24,"toc":870},"root",[25,34,40,53,58,108,113,125,139,146,151,156,203,215,259,271,276,281,286,382,387,392,404,416,421,483,488,500,505,625,637,643,648,653,695,700,706,711,779,784,790,802,807,812,818],{"type":26,"tag":27,"props":28,"children":30},"element","h1",{"id":29},"the-hardest-languages-to-learn-for-english-speakers",[31],{"type":32,"value":33},"text","The Hardest Languages to Learn for English Speakers",{"type":26,"tag":35,"props":36,"children":37},"p",{},[38],{"type":32,"value":39},"Almost every \"10 hardest languages to learn\" list on the internet is padded nonsense. They mix Mandarin and Japanese (which are genuinely hard for English speakers) with Icelandic, Basque, Navajo, and whatever else the writer thought sounded exotic, then rank them in whatever order makes the headline pop. There is no methodology. The numbers are made up. The ranking changes between the H1 and the conclusion.",{"type":26,"tag":35,"props":41,"children":42},{},[43,45,51],{"type":32,"value":44},"There is exactly one credible source on this question, and it has existed since the 1950s. The ",{"type":26,"tag":46,"props":47,"children":48},"strong",{},[49],{"type":32,"value":50},"US Foreign Service Institute",{"type":32,"value":52}," (FSI) is the US State Department's diplomatic training school. It teaches American adults to professional fluency in roughly seventy languages, has been doing so for seven decades, and tracks how many classroom hours each language takes a native English-speaking diplomat to reach a measurable \"Professional Working Proficiency\" (Speaking 3 \u002F Reading 3 on the Interagency Language Roundtable scale, roughly C1 on the CEFR).",{"type":26,"tag":35,"props":54,"children":55},{},[56],{"type":32,"value":57},"That data is the closest thing the field has to an objective difficulty ranking. The FSI sorts languages into four buckets:",{"type":26,"tag":59,"props":60,"children":61},"ul",{},[62,73,83,93],{"type":26,"tag":63,"props":64,"children":65},"li",{},[66,71],{"type":26,"tag":46,"props":67,"children":68},{},[69],{"type":32,"value":70},"Category I",{"type":32,"value":72}," (\"languages closely related to English\") - 24 to 30 weeks, around 600-750 classroom hours. French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Afrikaans, Romanian.",{"type":26,"tag":63,"props":74,"children":75},{},[76,81],{"type":26,"tag":46,"props":77,"children":78},{},[79],{"type":32,"value":80},"Category II",{"type":32,"value":82}," (\"languages with significant linguistic and cultural differences from English\") - around 36 weeks, 900 hours. German.",{"type":26,"tag":63,"props":84,"children":85},{},[86,91],{"type":26,"tag":46,"props":87,"children":88},{},[89],{"type":32,"value":90},"Category III",{"type":32,"value":92}," (\"hard languages with significant differences\") - around 44 weeks, 1100 hours. Russian, Polish, Czech, Greek, Turkish, Hebrew, Hindi, Vietnamese, Thai, Finnish, Hungarian, Estonian, Mongolian and others.",{"type":26,"tag":63,"props":94,"children":95},{},[96,101,103],{"type":26,"tag":46,"props":97,"children":98},{},[99],{"type":32,"value":100},"Category IV",{"type":32,"value":102}," (\"super-hard languages\") - 88 weeks, 2200 hours, with the second year spent in-country. ",{"type":26,"tag":46,"props":104,"children":105},{},[106],{"type":32,"value":107},"Mandarin Chinese, Cantonese, Japanese, Korean, Arabic.",{"type":26,"tag":35,"props":109,"children":110},{},[111],{"type":32,"value":112},"(FSI has reorganised the category numbering more than once over the years. Some older sources call the super-hard tier \"Category V\" with German as Category II and the third tier as Category IV. The four super-hard languages are the same in either scheme. This article uses the current four-category labelling.)",{"type":26,"tag":35,"props":114,"children":115},{},[116,118,123],{"type":32,"value":117},"The honest answer to \"which languages are hardest\" is: ",{"type":26,"tag":46,"props":119,"children":120},{},[121],{"type":32,"value":122},"the FSI Category IV five.",{"type":32,"value":124}," Anyone claiming otherwise is either selling a course or has not done the reading. Here is each of those five, why it is hard, and what the FSI's 2200-hour figure actually buys you.",{"type":26,"tag":35,"props":126,"children":127},{},[128,130,137],{"type":32,"value":129},"For the other side of this argument, see ",{"type":26,"tag":131,"props":132,"children":134},"a",{"href":133},"\u002Farticles\u002Feasiest-languages-for-english-speakers",[135],{"type":32,"value":136},"The Easiest Languages to Learn for English Speakers",{"type":32,"value":138},", which covers the FSI Category I list.",{"type":26,"tag":140,"props":141,"children":143},"h2",{"id":142},"mandarin-chinese",[144],{"type":32,"value":145},"Mandarin Chinese",{"type":26,"tag":35,"props":147,"children":148},{},[149],{"type":32,"value":150},"The most-spoken language on Earth, the language nearly every \"hardest\" list puts at number one, and the one where the popular framing of difficulty is most misleading.",{"type":26,"tag":35,"props":152,"children":153},{},[154],{"type":32,"value":155},"What is actually hard about Mandarin:",{"type":26,"tag":59,"props":157,"children":158},{},[159,169,193],{"type":26,"tag":63,"props":160,"children":161},{},[162,167],{"type":26,"tag":46,"props":163,"children":164},{},[165],{"type":32,"value":166},"The writing system.",{"type":32,"value":168}," This is by far the largest single cost. A literate Chinese adult knows roughly 3,000-4,000 characters; functional newspaper literacy starts around 2,500. There is no alphabet. Characters carry meaning rather than sound, and although about 80% contain a phonetic component, it is unreliable enough that you cannot read aloud a character you have not seen before.",{"type":26,"tag":63,"props":170,"children":171},{},[172,177,179,184,186,191],{"type":26,"tag":46,"props":173,"children":174},{},[175],{"type":32,"value":176},"Tones.",{"type":32,"value":178}," Four tones plus a neutral tone. The tone is part of the word; ",{"type":26,"tag":46,"props":180,"children":181},{},[182],{"type":32,"value":183},"mā",{"type":32,"value":185}," (妈) with a high tone (mother) is a different word from ",{"type":26,"tag":46,"props":187,"children":188},{},[189],{"type":32,"value":190},"mǎ",{"type":32,"value":192}," (马) with a falling-rising tone (horse). English speakers find this conceptually fine but acoustically slippery, because English uses pitch for emphasis rather than for word identity.",{"type":26,"tag":63,"props":194,"children":195},{},[196,201],{"type":26,"tag":46,"props":197,"children":198},{},[199],{"type":32,"value":200},"Sound system.",{"type":32,"value":202}," A handful of sounds English does not have (the q, x, zh, ch consonants), but beyond the tones, Mandarin pronunciation is one of the more reasonable parts.",{"type":26,"tag":35,"props":204,"children":205},{},[206,208,213],{"type":32,"value":207},"What is ",{"type":26,"tag":46,"props":209,"children":210},{},[211],{"type":32,"value":212},"not",{"type":32,"value":214}," hard about Mandarin, which the popular framing usually misses:",{"type":26,"tag":59,"props":216,"children":217},{},[218,249],{"type":26,"tag":63,"props":219,"children":220},{},[221,226,228,233,235,240,242,247],{"type":26,"tag":46,"props":222,"children":223},{},[224],{"type":32,"value":225},"The grammar is comparatively simple.",{"type":32,"value":227}," No verb conjugation by person, number, or tense. No gender on nouns. No noun cases. No definite or indefinite articles in the European sense. No singular\u002Fplural marking on most nouns. Word order is largely SVO, the same as English. Aspect is marked by particles like ",{"type":26,"tag":46,"props":229,"children":230},{},[231],{"type":32,"value":232},"le",{"type":32,"value":234}," (了), ",{"type":26,"tag":46,"props":236,"children":237},{},[238],{"type":32,"value":239},"guo",{"type":32,"value":241}," (过), ",{"type":26,"tag":46,"props":243,"children":244},{},[245],{"type":32,"value":246},"zhe",{"type":32,"value":248}," (着), but these are added words rather than morphological inflection.",{"type":26,"tag":63,"props":250,"children":251},{},[252,257],{"type":26,"tag":46,"props":253,"children":254},{},[255],{"type":32,"value":256},"Vocabulary is combinatorial.",{"type":32,"value":258}," Most multi-syllable words are transparent compounds. Computer is diànnǎo (电脑, \"electric-brain\"); telephone is diànhuà (电话, \"electric-talk\").",{"type":26,"tag":35,"props":260,"children":261},{},[262,264,269],{"type":32,"value":263},"The honest summary: the spoken language is ",{"type":26,"tag":46,"props":265,"children":266},{},[267],{"type":32,"value":268},"not the hardest of the five",{"type":32,"value":270},"; the writing system is. A learner pursuing speaking-only Mandarin could reach functional conversational ability in something closer to FSI Category III time. Adding the writing system is what doubles the budget. This is why FSI puts Mandarin and Japanese at 88 weeks each but considers Mandarin marginally less hard overall than Japanese: same writing-system burden, simpler grammar.",{"type":26,"tag":140,"props":272,"children":273},{"id":18},[274],{"type":32,"value":275},"Japanese",{"type":26,"tag":35,"props":277,"children":278},{},[279],{"type":32,"value":280},"If pushed to nominate one language as the single hardest in the FSI sample for an English speaker, the FSI's own informal answer over the years has been Japanese. The grammar is more alien to English than Mandarin's, the writing system is arguably worse, and the social register system adds a third dimension that European languages do not have.",{"type":26,"tag":35,"props":282,"children":283},{},[284],{"type":32,"value":285},"What is hard about Japanese:",{"type":26,"tag":59,"props":287,"children":288},{},[289,313,355,365],{"type":26,"tag":63,"props":290,"children":291},{},[292,297,299,304,306,311],{"type":26,"tag":46,"props":293,"children":294},{},[295],{"type":32,"value":296},"Three writing systems used together.",{"type":32,"value":298}," Hiragana (46 phonetic syllables for native grammatical bits), katakana (the same 46 in a different shape for foreign loanwords), and kanji (Chinese characters for content words). The two kana systems are learnable in a week each. The kanji are the same long-tail cost as in Mandarin: roughly 2,000 \"jōyō\" kanji for general literacy, each with multiple readings (Chinese-derived ",{"type":26,"tag":46,"props":300,"children":301},{},[302],{"type":32,"value":303},"on",{"type":32,"value":305}," and native-Japanese ",{"type":26,"tag":46,"props":307,"children":308},{},[309],{"type":32,"value":310},"kun",{"type":32,"value":312},").",{"type":26,"tag":63,"props":314,"children":315},{},[316,321,323,328,330,335,336,341,342,347,348,353],{"type":26,"tag":46,"props":317,"children":318},{},[319],{"type":32,"value":320},"Grammar that runs the opposite direction to English.",{"type":32,"value":322}," Japanese is SOV, verb at the end. Particles (",{"type":26,"tag":46,"props":324,"children":325},{},[326],{"type":32,"value":327},"wa",{"type":32,"value":329},", ",{"type":26,"tag":46,"props":331,"children":332},{},[333],{"type":32,"value":334},"ga",{"type":32,"value":329},{"type":26,"tag":46,"props":337,"children":338},{},[339],{"type":32,"value":340},"wo",{"type":32,"value":329},{"type":26,"tag":46,"props":343,"children":344},{},[345],{"type":32,"value":346},"ni",{"type":32,"value":329},{"type":26,"tag":46,"props":349,"children":350},{},[351],{"type":32,"value":352},"de",{"type":32,"value":354},") attach to nouns to mark grammatical role. No articles, no plurals, but a counter system where the number form depends on what you are counting.",{"type":26,"tag":63,"props":356,"children":357},{},[358,363],{"type":26,"tag":46,"props":359,"children":360},{},[361],{"type":32,"value":362},"Keigo (politeness levels).",{"type":32,"value":364}," Three formal registers (plain, polite, honorific\u002Fhumble) that are obligatory rather than stylistic. Verb form, vocabulary, and sometimes sentence structure change depending on who you are talking to and about. No European equivalent at this level of grammaticalisation. This is the single feature that makes adult professional Japanese harder to master than adult professional Mandarin.",{"type":26,"tag":63,"props":366,"children":367},{},[368,373,375,380],{"type":26,"tag":46,"props":369,"children":370},{},[371],{"type":32,"value":372},"Pitch accent.",{"type":32,"value":374}," Not tonal in the Mandarin sense, but lexical: ",{"type":26,"tag":46,"props":376,"children":377},{},[378],{"type":32,"value":379},"hashi",{"type":32,"value":381}," high-low is \"chopsticks\", low-high is \"bridge\". Less central than Mandarin tones; rarely taught explicitly.",{"type":26,"tag":35,"props":383,"children":384},{},[385],{"type":32,"value":386},"What is comparatively easy: pronunciation for survival level is gentle (five vowels, small consonant set, no consonant clusters worth mentioning). An English speaker can be intelligible in Japanese within weeks. This is the trap: survival Japanese is easy, professional Japanese is one of the hardest things on this list.",{"type":26,"tag":140,"props":388,"children":389},{"id":19},[390],{"type":32,"value":391},"Korean",{"type":26,"tag":35,"props":393,"children":394},{},[395,397,402],{"type":32,"value":396},"Korean is the language on this list whose ",{"type":26,"tag":46,"props":398,"children":399},{},[400],{"type":32,"value":401},"writing system is the easy bit",{"type":32,"value":403}," and whose grammar is the hard bit. The honest comparison: Korean grammar is harder than Mandarin grammar; Mandarin's writing system is harder than Korean's writing system; net, the FSI puts both in the super-hard tier and they are honestly similar in total time to fluency, though Korean is widely regarded as marginally less work than Japanese.",{"type":26,"tag":35,"props":405,"children":406},{},[407,409,414],{"type":32,"value":408},"What is easy about Korean: ",{"type":26,"tag":46,"props":410,"children":411},{},[412],{"type":32,"value":413},"Hangul, the script, is famously the most logical alphabet ever designed.",{"type":32,"value":415}," Created in the 15th century under King Sejong, it has 24 base letters whose shapes were designed to reflect the shape of the mouth when making the sound. Genuinely learnable in a day. This is the single biggest reason Korean is often misranked as \"easier than it is\" by learners who confuse the writing system with the language.",{"type":26,"tag":35,"props":417,"children":418},{},[419],{"type":32,"value":420},"What is hard about Korean:",{"type":26,"tag":59,"props":422,"children":423},{},[424,434,444,473],{"type":26,"tag":63,"props":425,"children":426},{},[427,432],{"type":26,"tag":46,"props":428,"children":429},{},[430],{"type":32,"value":431},"Grammar.",{"type":32,"value":433}," SOV word order, agglutinative verb endings that stack to encode tense, aspect, mood, evidentiality, and politeness all at once. A single Korean verb can have a string of suffixes longer than the verb root. The honorific system is comparable to Japanese's keigo.",{"type":26,"tag":63,"props":435,"children":436},{},[437,442],{"type":26,"tag":46,"props":438,"children":439},{},[440],{"type":32,"value":441},"Particles.",{"type":32,"value":443}," Like Japanese, noun-attached particles mark grammatical role, with a topic vs subject distinction that does not exist in English.",{"type":26,"tag":63,"props":445,"children":446},{},[447,451,453,458,459,464,466,471],{"type":26,"tag":46,"props":448,"children":449},{},[450],{"type":32,"value":200},{"type":32,"value":452}," Plain, aspirated and tense versions of the same stop, where English has only voiced vs voiceless. The difference between ",{"type":26,"tag":46,"props":454,"children":455},{},[456],{"type":32,"value":457},"bul",{"type":32,"value":329},{"type":26,"tag":46,"props":460,"children":461},{},[462],{"type":32,"value":463},"pul",{"type":32,"value":465}," and ",{"type":26,"tag":46,"props":467,"children":468},{},[469],{"type":32,"value":470},"ppul",{"type":32,"value":472}," is real to Korean ears and slow to acquire.",{"type":26,"tag":63,"props":474,"children":475},{},[476,481],{"type":26,"tag":46,"props":477,"children":478},{},[479],{"type":32,"value":480},"Sino-Korean vs native-Korean vocabulary stacks.",{"type":32,"value":482}," Two parallel vocabularies, one Chinese-origin (formal and technical) and one native. Learners eventually absorb both.",{"type":26,"tag":140,"props":484,"children":485},{"id":20},[486],{"type":32,"value":487},"Arabic",{"type":26,"tag":35,"props":489,"children":490},{},[491,493,498],{"type":32,"value":492},"Arabic is the hardest of the five for a specific structural reason almost no other major language has: ",{"type":26,"tag":46,"props":494,"children":495},{},[496],{"type":32,"value":497},"diglossia",{"type":32,"value":499},". The Arabic you can learn from a textbook is not the Arabic anyone actually speaks at home. You have to learn two languages, sometimes more, to operate functionally.",{"type":26,"tag":35,"props":501,"children":502},{},[503],{"type":32,"value":504},"What is hard about Arabic:",{"type":26,"tag":59,"props":506,"children":507},{},[508,532,542,601],{"type":26,"tag":63,"props":509,"children":510},{},[511,516,518,523,525,530],{"type":26,"tag":46,"props":512,"children":513},{},[514],{"type":32,"value":515},"Diglossia.",{"type":32,"value":517}," Modern Standard Arabic (MSA, ",{"type":26,"tag":46,"props":519,"children":520},{},[521],{"type":32,"value":522},"Fusha",{"type":32,"value":524},") is the formal pan-Arab written and broadcast register. It is what FSI teaches, what Al Jazeera broadcasts, what newspapers publish. It is ",{"type":26,"tag":46,"props":526,"children":527},{},[528],{"type":32,"value":529},"nobody's native spoken language",{"type":32,"value":531},". Arabic speakers grow up speaking a regional dialect (Egyptian, Levantine, Gulf, Maghrebi, Iraqi) that differs from MSA in vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation, and learn MSA at school. An MSA-only learner can read a newspaper but cannot order coffee from a Cairo street vendor.",{"type":26,"tag":63,"props":533,"children":534},{},[535,540],{"type":26,"tag":46,"props":536,"children":537},{},[538],{"type":32,"value":539},"The script.",{"type":32,"value":541}," Written right to left. Letters have four contextual shapes. Short vowels are not written. The script is learnable in a few weeks, but the no-vowels convention means you cannot pronounce a word you have not heard before with any confidence.",{"type":26,"tag":63,"props":543,"children":544},{},[545,550,552,557,559,564,566,571,573,578,580,585,587,592,594,599],{"type":26,"tag":46,"props":546,"children":547},{},[548],{"type":32,"value":549},"Root-and-pattern morphology.",{"type":32,"value":551}," Word formation runs on three-consonant roots that combine with vowel patterns. The root ",{"type":26,"tag":46,"props":553,"children":554},{},[555],{"type":32,"value":556},"k-t-b",{"type":32,"value":558}," gives ",{"type":26,"tag":46,"props":560,"children":561},{},[562],{"type":32,"value":563},"kataba",{"type":32,"value":565}," (he wrote), ",{"type":26,"tag":46,"props":567,"children":568},{},[569],{"type":32,"value":570},"kitab",{"type":32,"value":572}," (book), ",{"type":26,"tag":46,"props":574,"children":575},{},[576],{"type":32,"value":577},"maktab",{"type":32,"value":579}," (office), ",{"type":26,"tag":46,"props":581,"children":582},{},[583],{"type":32,"value":584},"maktaba",{"type":32,"value":586}," (library), ",{"type":26,"tag":46,"props":588,"children":589},{},[590],{"type":32,"value":591},"kaatib",{"type":32,"value":593}," (writer), ",{"type":26,"tag":46,"props":595,"children":596},{},[597],{"type":32,"value":598},"maktoob",{"type":32,"value":600}," (written, fated). Elegant once you see it; a totally different way of building vocabulary from European languages.",{"type":26,"tag":63,"props":602,"children":603},{},[604,609,611,616,618,623],{"type":26,"tag":46,"props":605,"children":606},{},[607],{"type":32,"value":608},"Pharyngeal and emphatic consonants.",{"type":32,"value":610}," Sounds produced in the throat (the famous ",{"type":26,"tag":46,"props":612,"children":613},{},[614],{"type":32,"value":615},"ayn",{"type":32,"value":617},", the ",{"type":26,"tag":46,"props":619,"children":620},{},[621],{"type":32,"value":622},"ha",{"type":32,"value":624},") and emphatic versions of standard consonants, both slow to acquire.",{"type":26,"tag":35,"props":626,"children":627},{},[628,630,635],{"type":32,"value":629},"Honest summary: pick a target dialect first (Egyptian and Levantine are the most common choices) ",{"type":26,"tag":46,"props":631,"children":632},{},[633],{"type":32,"value":634},"and",{"type":32,"value":636}," learn MSA alongside. Treating it as one language is the single most common Arabic-learner mistake.",{"type":26,"tag":140,"props":638,"children":640},{"id":639},"cantonese",[641],{"type":32,"value":642},"Cantonese",{"type":26,"tag":35,"props":644,"children":645},{},[646],{"type":32,"value":647},"The fifth FSI super-hard language and the one most \"hardest\" listicles miss because they assume Cantonese is a subset of Mandarin. It is not. Cantonese is a separate Chinese language with its own grammar, vocabulary and tone system, mutually unintelligible with Mandarin in speech, sharing only the writing system (and even there with significant Cantonese-specific characters).",{"type":26,"tag":35,"props":649,"children":650},{},[651],{"type":32,"value":652},"What makes Cantonese arguably harder than Mandarin for an English speaker:",{"type":26,"tag":59,"props":654,"children":655},{},[656,666,676,686],{"type":26,"tag":63,"props":657,"children":658},{},[659,664],{"type":26,"tag":46,"props":660,"children":661},{},[662],{"type":32,"value":663},"Nine tones",{"type":32,"value":665},", depending on how you count, vs Mandarin's four. Six tones plus three \"checked\" tones that occur only on syllables ending in p, t, k. Heavier tonal workload than Mandarin.",{"type":26,"tag":63,"props":667,"children":668},{},[669,674],{"type":26,"tag":46,"props":670,"children":671},{},[672],{"type":32,"value":673},"No agreed Romanisation standard.",{"type":32,"value":675}," Mandarin learners have Pinyin. Cantonese has Jyutping, Yale, Cantonese Pinyin, the old Wade-Giles-style place-name conventions, and none has won the race. Materials use different systems.",{"type":26,"tag":63,"props":677,"children":678},{},[679,684],{"type":26,"tag":46,"props":680,"children":681},{},[682],{"type":32,"value":683},"Less learning material.",{"type":32,"value":685}," A fraction of the textbooks, podcasts, apps and courses that exist for Mandarin. Changing slowly but real.",{"type":26,"tag":63,"props":687,"children":688},{},[689,693],{"type":26,"tag":46,"props":690,"children":691},{},[692],{"type":32,"value":166},{"type":32,"value":694}," Chinese characters with about 95% overlap with Mandarin's, plus a layer of Cantonese-specific characters for spoken-Cantonese particles and vocabulary.",{"type":26,"tag":35,"props":696,"children":697},{},[698],{"type":32,"value":699},"The grammar is similar to Mandarin's, so a Mandarin learner's grammatical reset cost for Cantonese is modest.",{"type":26,"tag":140,"props":701,"children":703},{"id":702},"honourable-mentions-fsi-category-iii",[704],{"type":32,"value":705},"Honourable mentions: FSI Category III",{"type":26,"tag":35,"props":707,"children":708},{},[709],{"type":32,"value":710},"The five above are the honest answer. The next tier down, FSI Category III, contains languages that are properly hard for English speakers but reachable in around half the super-hard budget:",{"type":26,"tag":59,"props":712,"children":713},{},[714,737,753,769],{"type":26,"tag":63,"props":715,"children":716},{},[717,722,723,728,730,735],{"type":26,"tag":46,"props":718,"children":719},{},[720],{"type":32,"value":721},"Hungarian",{"type":32,"value":465},{"type":26,"tag":46,"props":724,"children":725},{},[726],{"type":32,"value":727},"Finnish",{"type":32,"value":729},", both Uralic and unrelated to their Indo-European neighbours, with eighteen and fifteen noun cases respectively, vowel harmony, and agglutinative verb morphology. ",{"type":26,"tag":46,"props":731,"children":732},{},[733],{"type":32,"value":734},"Estonian",{"type":32,"value":736}," is Finnish's closest relative with similar structure.",{"type":26,"tag":63,"props":738,"children":739},{},[740,745,746,751],{"type":26,"tag":46,"props":741,"children":742},{},[743],{"type":32,"value":744},"Polish",{"type":32,"value":465},{"type":26,"tag":46,"props":747,"children":748},{},[749],{"type":32,"value":750},"Russian",{"type":32,"value":752},", Slavic, with cases (seven and six), three genders, and the perfective-imperfective aspect pair on essentially every verb.",{"type":26,"tag":63,"props":754,"children":755},{},[756,761,762,767],{"type":26,"tag":46,"props":757,"children":758},{},[759],{"type":32,"value":760},"Vietnamese",{"type":32,"value":465},{"type":26,"tag":46,"props":763,"children":764},{},[765],{"type":32,"value":766},"Thai",{"type":32,"value":768},", tonal Southeast Asian languages (six and five tones); Vietnamese uses Latin script and Thai uses its own.",{"type":26,"tag":63,"props":770,"children":771},{},[772,777],{"type":26,"tag":46,"props":773,"children":774},{},[775],{"type":32,"value":776},"Hebrew",{"type":32,"value":778},", right-to-left script and root-and-pattern morphology like Arabic, but without diglossia thanks to its 20th-century revival.",{"type":26,"tag":35,"props":780,"children":781},{},[782],{"type":32,"value":783},"Some practitioners place Hungarian, Finnish and Estonian just below the super-hard line.",{"type":26,"tag":140,"props":785,"children":787},{"id":786},"what-hardest-actually-means",[788],{"type":32,"value":789},"What \"hardest\" actually means",{"type":26,"tag":35,"props":791,"children":792},{},[793,795,800],{"type":32,"value":794},"A final point worth holding onto. The FSI rankings measure ",{"type":26,"tag":46,"props":796,"children":797},{},[798],{"type":32,"value":799},"how hard a language is for an adult native English speaker, taught full-time by professional instructors with state-funded materials, to reach Professional Working Proficiency.",{"type":32,"value":801}," They are not measuring intrinsic linguistic complexity. They are measuring distance from English plus institutional support.",{"type":26,"tag":35,"props":803,"children":804},{},[805],{"type":32,"value":806},"A Korean speaker learning Japanese will not find Japanese as hard as an English speaker does. A Mandarin speaker learning Cantonese has roughly the same cognitive load as a French speaker learning Italian. The \"hardest\" framing is honest only relative to your starting point. The FSI's authority comes from the size and consistency of the English-speaking sample it has trained over seven decades, not from any claim that these languages are objectively harder than others.",{"type":26,"tag":35,"props":808,"children":809},{},[810],{"type":32,"value":811},"The corollary: if you have already invested in one of the FSI Category IV languages and reached intermediate level, the next one in the same family becomes significantly cheaper. Mandarin makes Cantonese a Category III effort. Japanese makes Korean a Category III effort, and vice versa. The full 88-week budget is the cost of the first super-hard language only.",{"type":26,"tag":140,"props":813,"children":815},{"id":814},"cross-references",[816],{"type":32,"value":817},"Cross-references",{"type":26,"tag":59,"props":819,"children":820},{},[821,831,858],{"type":26,"tag":63,"props":822,"children":823},{},[824,825,829],{"type":32,"value":129},{"type":26,"tag":131,"props":826,"children":827},{"href":133},[828],{"type":32,"value":136},{"type":32,"value":830},", covering the FSI Category I list.",{"type":26,"tag":63,"props":832,"children":833},{},[834,836,842,843,849,850,856],{"type":32,"value":835},"The ",{"type":26,"tag":131,"props":837,"children":839},{"href":838},"\u002Fspanish",[840],{"type":32,"value":841},"Spanish for adult learners pillar",{"type":32,"value":329},{"type":26,"tag":131,"props":844,"children":846},{"href":845},"\u002Ffrench",[847],{"type":32,"value":848},"French for adult learners pillar",{"type":32,"value":465},{"type":26,"tag":131,"props":851,"children":853},{"href":852},"\u002Fmandarin",[854],{"type":32,"value":855},"Mandarin for adult learners pillar",{"type":32,"value":857}," cover the three languages this site teaches, two Category I and one Category IV.",{"type":26,"tag":63,"props":859,"children":860},{},[861,862,868],{"type":32,"value":835},{"type":26,"tag":131,"props":863,"children":865},{"href":864},"\u002Farticles\u002Fcefr-explained",[866],{"type":32,"value":867},"CEFR explainer",{"type":32,"value":869}," explains the proficiency scale referenced throughout this article.",{"title":7,"searchDepth":871,"depth":871,"links":872},2,[873,874,875,876,877,878,879,880],{"id":142,"depth":871,"text":145},{"id":18,"depth":871,"text":275},{"id":19,"depth":871,"text":391},{"id":20,"depth":871,"text":487},{"id":639,"depth":871,"text":642},{"id":702,"depth":871,"text":705},{"id":786,"depth":871,"text":789},{"id":814,"depth":871,"text":817},"markdown","content:articles:hardest-languages-to-learn.md","content","articles\u002Fhardest-languages-to-learn.md","articles\u002Fhardest-languages-to-learn","md",1780941685602]