We often hear that Estonian is a complicated language and it is very difficult to learn as a foreign language. We mostly get the reasoning that it is difficult due to the 14 abstract cases. For language learners the number of cases has become a scare device.
Actually, the number of cases does not determine whether a language is more or less difficult to learn. Languages have different natures and in every language there are easier and more difficult areas. So there is no reason to think that the rather blurry system and usage of English prepositions is simpler than that of Estonian abstract cases. The form spoken with family, with friends, with seniors, by women, men and children are different, so speakers must select words carefully to avoid being rude or appearing inappropriately childlike, feminine or masculine.
Fact: The highest number of Japanese speakers outside of Japan reside in Brazil — approximately 1. Similar to Japanese, Chinese requires an understanding of thousands of characters.
It is said that knowledge of 3, characters will enable you to read a newspaper while a highly educated person might understand 8, characters — out of a total of over 50,!
Which means that often you just completely forget how to write a character. Source: BBC. Korean has two different numerical systems and no demonstrable relationship to other languages, making it a language isolate. Korean is also a contextual language, similar to Japanese.
A single sentence in Korean can be said in three different ways based on the relationship between the speaker and listener. Perhaps most complicated of all is the fact that verbs can be conjugated in hundreds of ways based on tense, mood, age and seniority.
Even more baffling for English speakers is that adjectives are conjugated too with hundreds of possible endings. Source: charles-wetzel. The Arabic alphabet is far smaller than Chinese or Japanese but can seem just as intimidating. Its cursive script comprises 28 letters supplemented by three vowels but most letters take four different forms depending on whether they stand alone or come at the beginning, end or middle of a sentence.
Source: Pimsleur. Class hours: 1, No. Estonian is classed as a difficult language because it operates with 14 noun cases. Moreover, Estonian has 25 dipthongs when two adjacent vowel sounds occur within the same syllable and many exceptions to defined grammar rules. Fact: Estonia has the joint second highest literacy rate worldwide at Must-see museum exhibits in Estonia TOP 10 naturally relaxing places Futuristic automatic hostels and hotels.
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Your quick guide to the Estonian language. Rhythmic beauty Estonian's melodic nature has lent itself well to folk songs. Photo by: Iris Kivisalu. Petite yet diverse There are as many as eight dialects and subdialects in Estonia. Estonian is hard! It has 14 noun cases along with short and long consonants and vowels, which explains why it has been named the world's 5th toughest language to learn for English speakers after Japanese, Chinese, Korean and Arabic.
In short, do not let this list discourage you. The Foreign Service Institute at the US Department of State, on whose data the list is based on, trains diplomats in language learning and maintains an internal ranking of language difficulty — specifically, how long it would take a native English speaker to reach proficiency, the blog says.
Estonian language is spoken natively by about 1. The cover image is illustrative. You have a mistake in Your example.
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