* Your native language: Languages with similar grammar structures and sounds are generally easier to learn.
* Your learning style: Some people are better at picking up languages with complex grammar, while others excel at languages with a lot of vocabulary.
* Your motivation and immersion: The more dedicated you are to learning, and the more you immerse yourself in the language, the easier it will be.
However, some languages are often cited as particularly challenging for native English speakers:
* Mandarin Chinese: The tonal nature of the language and complex writing system pose significant hurdles.
* Arabic: The right-to-left writing system, complex grammar, and unfamiliar sounds can make it challenging.
* Japanese: The three different writing systems (hiragana, katakana, and kanji) and complex grammar can be difficult to master.
* Hungarian: The highly agglutinative grammar, with words formed by adding suffixes, is unique and challenging for many learners.
* Finnish: Similar to Hungarian, Finnish has a complex grammar system and unfamiliar sounds.
* Korean: The unique writing system (Hangul) and complex grammar can be challenging for English speakers.
* Icelandic: The language preserves a lot of archaic grammatical features, making it difficult for learners to understand.
Ultimately, the best way to determine the "hardest" language for you is to consider your individual learning strengths, weaknesses, and motivations.
Instead of focusing on which language is the "hardest," it's more productive to consider which language you're most interested in learning and then find resources and strategies that suit your learning style.