5 Hardest Languages To Learn For English Speakers

3. Mandarin  

Insider Monkey Score: 4 

Mandarin Chinese, spoken by 918 million native speakers and 199 million non-native speakers, is a highly valuable language to learn for English speakers despite its difficulty. It is tonal, with four tones that can change the meaning of words. The written form uses thousands of complex characters without directly connecting to pronunciation. While grammar is simpler than in Indo-European languages, understanding Mandarin’s syntax and mastering its extensive writing system requires significant effort.