Across multiple sources, Mandarin Chinese is the number one language listed as the most challenging to learn. The Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center puts Mandarin in Category IV, which is the list of the most difficult languages to learn for English speakers.
Mandarin is unanimously considered the most difficult language to master and is spoken by over a billion people in the world.
Japanese is another most difficult language for all those who have grown up learning English, Spanish or French but at the same time might be easy for those who are well-versed in East Asian languages.
Most English language learners will find it challenging to learn English verb tenses, phrasal verbs, articles, spelling, pronunciation, and idioms. This is because these are features of English that are very different from most other languages in the world, or which simply require a lot of memorization.
Of these, Spanish and Italian are the easiest for native English speakers to learn, followed by Portuguese and finally French.
The Chinese language has a unique structure and pronunciation system that is vastly different from English. Chinese is made up of tens of thousands of characters, each with its own meaning, and often multiple pronunciations. This makes the language extremely difficult to learn, especially for non-native speakers.
The Japanese language is considered one of the most difficult to learn by many English speakers. With three separate writing systems, an opposite sentence structure to English, and a complicated hierarchy of politeness, it's decidedly complex.
French is one of the best sounding languages with the words being too melodic and soft for the ears. The musical tone of the French language is too soothing and French is widely spoken in various parts of the world like France, Switzerland, Canada, Congo, Belgium, etc.
Mandarin (1,118 million speakers)
However, it's the most spoken language in the world if you count only first-language (native) speakers due to China's significant population. Mandarin is not actually a language, but a set of dialects of the Chinese language.
Lojban (pronounced [ˈloʒban] ( listen)) is a logical, constructed, human language created by the Logical Language Group which aims to be syntactically unambiguous. It succeeds the Loglan project.
The English language is widely regarded as one of the most difficult to master. Because of its unpredictable spelling and challenging to learn grammar, it is challenging for both learners and native speakers.
Spanish may be the #1 easiest language to learn. Not only does Spanish share the same alphabet – with the sole addition of ñ – but it's also phonetic. That makes figuring out new vocabulary easy, since the spelling tells you how to pronounce it.
Russian is allegedly one of the most complex languages to learn; its Cyrillic alphabet is enough to scare you away. In fact, the Foreign Service Institute classifies it as a category-four language. But don't let that intimidate you. Learning the Russian language is far from impossible.
Widely regarded as one of the world's toughest languages to learn, Mandarin is considered by many as impossible. Anyone who's learnt this notoriously difficult language is bound to be met with gasps of surprise and admiration when speaking of their accomplishment.
Cantonese – Most Difficult Language Overall
Some people debate whether Cantonese deserves recognition as a language in its own right or a dialect of Chinese. Either way, Cantonese poses plenty of problems for students, even if they already speak Mandarin! But why is Cantonese harder than Mandarin for English speakers?
The closest language to English is one called Frisian, which is a Germanic language spoken by a small population of about 480,000 people. There are three separate dialects of the language, and it's only spoken at the southern fringes of the North Sea in the Netherlands and Germany.