Some languages pose a greater challenge to learn than others. In fact, some languages are downright difficult to master. There is the need for all kinds of businesses to avail themselves of interpreters and translators. These are six of the hardest languages in the world to learn for English speakers:
- Japanese: Japanese is difficult for English speakers because, among other reasons, it has more than one set of written characters, and readers need to memorize thousands of characters to achieve fluency.
- Mandarin Chinese: Mandarin Chinese is tricky for English speakers because it is tonal and uses many homophones. These are words that sound the same but mean the different things such as the words “pair”” and “pear” in the English language. Moreover, it too requires that those who study it learn thousands of characters before they can become literate.
- Arabic: There are an estimated 315 million people who speak this challenging language. The main thing that makes it challenging for students to learn is that in its written form it has very few words in common with English so there are practically no reference points for English speakers.
- Korean: The interesting thing about the Korean language is that it has no demonstrable genealogical relationship to other languages. This makes it quite unique and quite the challenge to master. Additionally, when describing an action in Korean, the subject goes first, then the object, and finally the sentence ends with the action.
- Russian: Russian is made of letters that are completely unfamiliar to English speakers. Some of the Cyrillic letters may look familiar but make a different sound. For example, in Russian letter “B” actually makes the “V” sound.
- Danish: Danish is deemed by many language experts to be the most difficult language to learn. Why is this you say? Words sound nothing like the way they are spelled which can confuse and frustrate people who are trying to master the language.
All this being said, just because something is challenging does not mean that it is not worth doing. Many business professionals require the services of competent interpreters to help them conduct their business, to help advance legal proceedings, etc. Thus, if you need a Chinese translator in Houston our translation services company can help you.