A stop sign in Chinese.Image: www.imago-images.de
Whether click sounds, 25 cases or a completely foreign writing system – some languages are considered particularly difficult to learn. But what is that actually about?
November 17, 2025, 05:36November 17, 2025, 05:36
Melanie Rannow / t-online
Learning a new language is an exciting challenge for many people. Some are looking forward to the next trip, others want to train their brain. But how difficult a language is to learn depends not only on motivation and method, but also on the language itself.
What makes a language particularly difficult?
Linguists name three main factors:
1. Pronunciation
In many languages, pitches or unusual sounds change the meaning of a word. In Chinese, “ma” means, depending on the tone: mother, hemp, horse or to scold.
2. Grammar
Some languages do not have four cases like German, but up to 20. There are also special features such as numerous verb forms, several grammatical genders or extensive polite forms.
3. Writing system
Not every language uses an alphabet like German. Some languages use syllabic scripts, others use logographic systems with thousands of characters. If you want to learn Japanese or Arabic, for example, you have to acquire completely new reading and writing routines.
The 5 most difficult languages in the world for German speakers
Mandarin Chinese
With over 900 million native speakers, Mandarin is the most widely spoken language in the world – and one of the most difficult for German speakers. Because it combines several major hurdles:
- Tonal language with four tones: The same syllable means something completely different depending on the tone.
- Logographic writing: no letters, but thousands of characters (3,000 to 4,000 for everyday texts).
- Pronunciation unusual, many sounds do not exist in German.
- Cultural distance, many idioms and context dependencies.
Japanese
Japanese is considered logical, but extremely time-consuming to learn. Features of the language are:
- Three writing systems at once (Hiragana, Katakana, Kanji).
- Completely different sentence structure (verb at the end).
- Very complex politeness system.
Arabic
Arabic requires a lot of practice, both when reading and speaking. The biggest hurdles:
- Font from right to left and changeable letter shapes.
- Many sounds that do not exist in German (e.g. pharyngeal consonants).
- Standard Arabic ≠ everyday language: Each region speaks its own dialect.
- Unusual verb system.
Hungarian
Hungarian is one of the European languages furthest away from German:
- 18 to 25 grammatical cases, depending on how you count.
- Agglutination: Words often consist of long chains of endings.
- Vowel harmony makes correct form difficult.
- Vocabulary has little in common with German.
Polish
Although Polish uses the Latin alphabet, it remains extremely linguistically challenging. The most difficult aspects:
- Lots of consonant clusters and hissing sounds (sz, cz, szcz).
- Seven cases – similar to German, but more complex.
- Two types of masculine nouns (personal and impersonal).
- Pronunciation is often not clearly deducible from the spelling.
What is particularly important for German speakers
The further a language differs from German, for example in terms of structure, vocabulary or sounds, the more difficult it is to learn. That’s why non-Indo-European languages such as Finnish, Hungarian, Arabic or Japanese are particularly challenging. But: Even seemingly simple languages such as French or Spanish can present stumbling blocks with irregular grammar or subtle pronunciation rules.
The important thing is: no language is unlearnable. The key to successful language learning lies in perseverance, practice and, above all, passion for the language.
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