The most difficult languages

Domantas Deveikis group I

The outline
1. 2. 3. 4.

Introduction Classification The most difficult languages Conclusion

Classification
The

Foreign Service institute:

Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Korean 88 weeks

Hindu, Urdu, Russian, Hungarian 44 weeks

Swahili, Indonesian Malay 36 weeks German, Italian, Spanish, French, Portuguese 24 weeks

The top 4 languages

Classification
Category I: Languages closely related to English 23-24 weeks (575-600 class hours) Afrikaans Danish Dutch French Italian Norwegian Portuguese Romanian Spanish Swedish

Classification
30-36 weeks (750-900 class hours) German (30 weeks / 750 class hours) Indonesian (36 weeks / 900 class hours) Malay (36 weeks / 900 class hours) Swahili (36 weeks / 900 class hours)

Classification
Category II: Languages with significant linguistic and/or cultural differences from English 44 weeks (1100 class hours) Albanian Amharic Armenian Azerbaijani Bengali Bosnian Bulgarian Burmese Croatian Czech *Estonian *Finnish *Georgian

Classification
Category II: Languages with significant linguistic and/or cultural differences from English 44 weeks (1100 class hours) Greek Hebrew Hindi *Hungarian Icelandic Khmer Lao Latvian Lithuanian Macedonian *Mongolian Nepali Pashto

Classification
Category II: Languages with significant linguistic and/or cultural differences from English 44 weeks (1100 class hours) Persian(Dari,Farsi,Tajik) Russian Serbian Sinhalese Slovak Slovenian Tagalog *Thai Turkish Ukrainian Urdu Uzbek *Vietnamese Xhosa Zulu

Classification
Category III: Languages which are quite difficult for native English speakers 88 weeks (2200 class hours)(about half that time preferably spent studying in-country) Arabic Chinese Japanese Polish Korean

Polish
Seven

Cases Seven Genders Difficult pronunciation Average English speaker is fluent at about the age 12; the average Polish speaker is fluent in their language not until age 16.

Arabic
Difficult

pronunciation Many dialects (about 30) Complex grammar Hello Difficult writing system

maraban

Korean
A

maze of grammatical complexity The alphabet is supplemented by an ideographic character system of Chinese origin Pronunciation: many unique sounds Vocabulary Spelling Adjective endings : more than 500 Verb endings: more than 600

Chinese
Vocabulary

Very

difficult writing system Pronunciation: 4 tones You cannot use the level of your voice to express feelings or emotion

Japanese
Japanese

verbs always go at the end of the sentence, hence the language sounds back to front to the English speaker Vocabulary Spelling: 1945 characters to learn

Sources of information
http://how-to-learn-any-

language.com/e/languages/korean/index.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page http://www.krysstal.com/spoken.html http://www.funshun.com/amazing-facts/languagefacts.html http://www.lexiophiles.com/featured-articles/toplist-of-the-hardest-languages-to-learn http://pocketcultures.com/topicsoftheworld/2009/ 05/25/the-worlds-most-difficult-language/

Thank you for your attention