These Are The Hardest Languages For English Speakers To Learn

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For English speakers, learning Spanish or Italian can take less than a year. Reaching the same level of proficiency in Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, or Arabic may require nearly four times as much study.

This wide gap reflects how closely a language resembles English in its vocabulary, grammar, sounds, and writing system.

This visualization, created by Julie R. Peasley via Visual Capitalist, ranks languages by difficulty using categories and study-time estimates from Effective Language Learning and Rosetta Stone, which reference Foreign Service Institute-style benchmarks.

Which Languages Are Easiest to Learn for English Speakers?

Languages are generally easier to learn when they share familiar grammar, vocabulary, sounds, or writing systems. That’s why many Category I languages, including Spanish, French, Italian, Dutch, and Swedish, are considered relatively approachable.

The data table below shows the difficulty rankings and estimated learning time for 70 different languages:

LanguageCategoryTime to learn
🇿🇦🇳🇦 AfrikaansI24-30 weeks
🇩🇰 DanishI24-30 weeks
🇳🇱🇧🇪 DutchI24-30 weeks
🇫🇷🇧🇪🇨🇭🇨🇦 FrenchI24-30 weeks
🇮🇹🇨🇭 ItalianI24-30 weeks
🇳🇴 NorwegianI24-30 weeks
🇵🇹🇧🇷 PortugueseI24-30 weeks
🇷🇴🇲🇩 RomanianI24-30 weeks
🇪🇸🇲🇽🇦🇷 SpanishI24-30 weeks
🇸🇪 SwedishI24-30 weeks
🇩🇪🇦🇹🇨🇭 GermanII36 weeks
🇭🇹 Haitian CreoleII36 weeks
🇮🇩 IndonesianII36 weeks
🇲🇾🇧🇳 MalayII36 weeks
🇹🇿🇰🇪 SwahiliII36 weeks
🇦🇱🇽🇰 AlbanianIII44 weeks
🇪🇹 AmharicIII44 weeks
🇦🇲 ArmenianIII44 weeks
🇦🇿 AzerbaijaniIII44 weeks
🇧🇩🇮🇳 BengaliIII44 weeks
🇧🇬 BulgarianIII44 weeks
🇲🇲 BurmeseIII44 weeks
🇨🇿 CzechIII44 weeks
🇦🇫 DariIII44 weeks
🇪🇪 EstonianIII44 weeks
🇮🇷 FarsiIII44 weeks
🇫🇮 FinnishIII44 weeks
🇬🇪 GeorgianIII44 weeks
🇬🇷🇨🇾 GreekIII44 weeks
🇮🇱 HebrewIII44 weeks
🇮🇳 HindiIII44 weeks
🇭🇺 HungarianIII44 weeks
🇮🇸 IcelandicIII44 weeks
🇰🇿 KazakhIII44 weeks
🇰🇭 KhmerIII44 weeks
KurdishIII44 weeks
🇰🇬 KyrgyzIII44 weeks
🇱🇦 LaoIII44 weeks
🇱🇻 LatvianIII44 weeks
🇱🇹 LithuanianIII44 weeks
🇲🇰 MacedonianIII44 weeks
🇲🇳 MongolianIII44 weeks
🇳🇵 NepaliIII44 weeks
🇦🇫🇵🇰 PashtoIII44 weeks
🇵🇱 PolishIII44 weeks
🇷🇺 RussianIII44 weeks
🇷🇸🇭🇷🇧🇦🇲🇪 Serbo-CroatianIII44 weeks
🇱🇰 SinhalaIII44 weeks
🇸🇰 SlovakIII44 weeks
🇸🇮 SlovenianIII44 weeks
🇸🇴 SomaliIII44 weeks
🇮🇳 TeluguIII44 weeks
TibetanIII44 weeks
🇮🇳🇱🇰🇸🇬 TamilIII44 weeks
🇹🇯 TajikiIII44 weeks
🇵🇭 TagalogIII44 weeks
🇹🇭 ThaiIII44 weeks
🇹🇷🇨🇾 TurkishIII44 weeks
🇹🇲 TurkmenIII44 weeks
🇺🇦 UkrainianIII44 weeks
🇵🇰🇮🇳 UrduIII44 weeks
🇺🇿 UzbekIII44 weeks
🇻🇳 VietnameseIII44 weeks
🇿🇦 XhosaIII44 weeks
🇿🇦 ZuluIII44 weeks
🇸🇦🇪🇬🇦🇪 ArabicIV88 weeks
🇭🇰🇲🇴 Cantonese ChineseIV88 weeks
🇨🇳🇹🇼🇸🇬 Mandarin ChineseIV88 weeks
🇯🇵 JapaneseIV88 weeks
🇰🇷🇰🇵 KoreanIV88 weeks

One of the most striking findings is the size of the gap between the easiest and hardest languages. While Spanish or French can often be learned in 24–30 weeks, mastering Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, or Arabic may require roughly 88 weeks of study.

Many Category I languages use the Latin alphabet and share vocabulary roots with English through Germanic or Romance-language connections.

This may also help explain why European languages often rank highly in language-learning apps and why Duolingo’s most popular languages globally include several widely taught European options.

What Makes a Language Harder to Learn?

Category III languages tend to have greater linguistic distance from English. This can include unfamiliar grammar structures, new alphabets, or pronunciation patterns that require more time to master.

For example, languages like Russian, Greek, Hindi, Turkish, and Vietnamese all fall into this category. Some use different scripts, while others introduce grammatical systems that are less intuitive for native English speakers.

The “Super-Hard” Languages

Category IV languages are considered exceptionally difficult for English speakers. This group includes Arabic, Cantonese, Mandarin, Japanese, and Korean.

Many of these languages present multiple learning hurdles simultaneously. Mandarin and Cantonese require mastery of tones, Japanese combines several writing systems, Korean introduces a unique alphabet and grammar structure, and Arabic uses an entirely different script. Together, these differences significantly increase the time needed to reach professional proficiency.

To learn more about language use across the U.S., check out Mapped: America’s Most-Spoken Languages After English and Spanish on the Voronoi app.