What is the most difficult word to pronounce in the world? To answer that question that has raised so many concerns among onlookers of all nationalities, we must understand that everything is relative…
The answer will always depend on the language you speak, and how foreign to you is the language in which that word “difficult” is.
In other words, no matter how precise we are in trying to answer, in the end there will be an enormous load of subjectivity in the verdict.
Just as a French person may find the Spanish word “ferrocarril” difficult, a Latin American will find it difficult to pronounce Norwegian or Danish words.
That’s because the speakers of each language are the result of entire generations moving their mouths in the same way.
We can find a radical example in music: the Mongolians usually sing with the vestibular folds of the mucosa, located above the glottis; On the other hand, in the Western world, almost no singer knows how to make them sound, except for historical exceptions such as Freddie Mercury .
The same goes for words and pronunciation on a more modest scale. English-speakers are not used to Hungarian sounds, and vice versa, nor are French-speakers generally adept at Mandarin Chinese words.
Of course, with care and dedication, anything is possible, but we must also consider the cases of agglutinative languages (in which new words are created by joining concepts) and non-phonetic languages (which are not pronounced as they are written).
In any case, among the 7,000 languages that exist today, there are some words that linguists and students have considered “the most difficult to pronounce”. So let’s review some candidates…
The hardest words to pronounce
Let’s start with English. Although English speakers obviously dominate English as their first language, they too have found it difficult to pronounce some words of their own language. According to a survey published on Reddit, these are:
Rural.
Otolaryngologist.
Colonel.
Penguin.
Sixth.
Isthmus.
Anemone.
Choir.
Worcestershire.
If the above are difficult for English speakers themselves, not to mention what it costs for those who are learning English or have it as a second language.
the hardest of all
But let’s take a tour of other languages to see what else we can get.
Chinese
日 ( rì ): day
Ruso
мгла (mgla): mist.
German
On TikTok, the number five hundred and fifty-five in German has become a viral challenge: Fünfhundertfünfundfünfzig.
Estonian
Jõululaululaulja: Christmas carol
Welsh
Llanhyfryddawelllehynafolybarcudprindanfygythiadtrienusyrhafnauole – the unofficial name of a village in Wales
Icelandic
Vaðlaheiðarvegavinnuverkfærageymsluskúraútidyralyklakippuhringur – a key fob for the outside key of road workers found in a wasteland called Vaðlaheiði
Of all these, you will have to choose one. To do this, we recommend that you use a translator with sound (like Google’s) and see how difficult it can be. This will also serve as an interesting exercise.
Practice makes a master
Everything is possible with the correct method, motivation and practice. For this reason, at Lingua Language Center we are delighted to share these curiosities with you.
Remember that if you want to learn a language , we offer you the experience of our linguists and teachers under a methodology that is as fun as it is effective. Write us today ! You will see that the really hard thing will be not to try.