Many languages have been claimed to be the toughest one to learn. Here follow ten candidates for the title of "hardest language to learn," as released by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization. This list of 10 candidates includes an explanation as of why they made this list. Read it and find out whether these languages are worth their "tough as nails" reputation.
Top 10: French
As an official language in 29 countries, French is a challenging language. However, it can be seen as both easy and hard, depending on the learner's native language. French is a Roman language. If the learner's grasp of other Roman languages such as Italian, Portuguese and Spanish is strong, French will be a very quick and enjoyable new language to acquire. Otherwise, for those coming from a completely different language family, learning French would be considerably more difficult. Its pronunciation follows very strict rules based on the spelling, which is often based more on history than phonology.
Top 9: Danish
Danish is a North Germanic language spoken by some 6 million people. The sound system of Danish is in many ways unusual among the world's languages, which makes it one of the hardest languages in the world to learn, as the spoken language usually does not sound anything like its written version.
Top 8: Norwegian
Norwegian is a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is the official language. It is among the world's languages that's the most difficult to learn how to speak well. No officially sanctioned standard of spoken Norwegian is in place and most Norwegians speak their own dialect at any given time.
Top 7: German
As one of the world's major languages, German holds the largest number of native speakers within the European Union. It is a language which contains several standard dialects, both in its spoken and written forms. As an inflected language with three grammatical genders, it has a large number of words deriving from the same root.
Top 6: Finnish
As a language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland, Finnish is hard to learn for its extremely complicated grammar and "endless derivative suffixes." Finnish employs extensive modifiers to verbs, nouns, pronouns, adjectives and numerals, depending on their roles in the sentence.
Top 5: Japanese
Japanese is an East Asian language spoken primarily in Japan. According to documents, Chinese had a considerable influence on the vocabulary and phonology of Old Japanese. Since 1945, it has borrowed a large number of words from English, especially vocabulary relating to technology. One major reason which makes the language so hard to learn is that the written code is different from the spoken code. In addition, Japanese has an extensive grammatical system to express politeness and formalities.
Top 4: Icelandic
Icelandic, a North Germanic language, is the main language of Iceland. Icelandic is hard to learn because of its archaic vocabulary and complex grammar. Icelandic retains many grammatical features of other ancient Germanic languages, and modern Icelandic is still a heavily inflected language.
Top 3: Arabic
Arabic, belonging to the Afro-Asiatic language family, includes both the literary language and varieties of Arabic spoken across the Middle East, North Africa, and the Horn of Africa. The language has a complex and unusual method in constructing words from a basic root. For instance, nouns in Literary Arabic have three grammatical cases, three numbers, two genders and three "states."
Top 2: Greek
As an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, the Greek language features the longest and most documented history. It is spoken mainly across Greece and Cyprus. Along its history, its syllabic structure has remained constant. It has a mixed syllable structure, allowing for relatively complex combinations of sounds. In addition, Greek possesses an extensive set of productive derivational affixes and a rich inflectional system.
Top 1: Chinese
Chinese forms one of the branches of the Sino-Tibetan language family and over one billion people can name it as their native language. The relationship between the spoken and written Chinese language is rather complex. Its written form has no clues as to how it is actually pronounced. The tone system also is a pain because there are many homophones in Chinese only distinguishable by the four tones. Even this is often not enough unless the actual context and exact phrase are identified.
Deadline: February 28, 2015
Type: Fully Funded
JapanTravel.com, the largest and most trusted reference website for
travel to Japan is offering fully funded internships to International
Applicants.
Benefits:
Gain experience
- Produce articles, photos or video whilst travelling around Japan.
- Interact with local people and gain a unique view of Japan.
- Opportunities to be published in print media.
- Share your discoveries with thousands of readers.
Immerse yourself in Japanese culture
- Experience the Japanese way of life.
- Witness Kyoto’s famous temples and Tokyo’s neon lights.
- Visit a sake brewery in a rural village, or join agricultural or traditional experiences.
Promote Japan worldwide
- Help others around the world discover how amazing Japan is.
- Earn JT Rewards and improve your reputation by sharing content.
Accommodation:
- Roundtrip airfare (if not provided when out of stock), airport connections, travel documents
- Accommodation provided in the region you will be visiting.
- Reimbursement for your in-city travel expenses.
- Internships generally last 4-6 weeks.
Eligibility:
- Recent graduate or current photojournalist student.
- Demonstrated writing and photographic talent (e.g. blog/portfolio) or video skills (in the case of video journalists).
- Over 20 years old, possess valid passport and be eligible for a visa.
Applications rolling for Apr-Oct 2015
They will evaluate applicants on how well you get involved with the
site: if you can contribute, submit an article, photo story, translation
or video to JapanTravel. To apply visit here.
The European Union has 28 member countries, and much like snowflakes, they’re all special in their own way. You already know what each country is worst at. Well,
every country excels at something, too -- and to that end, we found one
thing every EU nation is the best at... even if it's having the most
experience working with robots.
Click here to see the full map, or on the stats to see the methodology.
UNITEE is a unique organisation in Brussels as it brings the interests of an «under-represented» group of entrepreneurs and business professionals to light, namely those with a migrant background.
Founded in 2010, UNITEE already comprises 6 national federations, 77 business associations and more than 17 000 entrepreneurs and business professionals, located in 23 European countries.
UNITEE’s first objective is to raise awareness of its members’ unique contributions to Europe’s economic growth, which have so far been insufficiently acknowledged. The entire organisation chain in the confederation is involved with international relations, advocacy and strategic communication activities. In addition, UNITEE provides a range of services and events that enable its members to have a deeper understanding of their institutional environment, become more efficient and better exploit international trade opportunities.
Based in Brussels, our team is also supported by an office in Strasbourg, France, which it shares with one of our French associations, the FEDIF Grand Est.
This is the reason why UNITEE recruits two interns for its office in Strasbourg, for a period of 4 months. The given tasks will include:
- liaising with MEPs during the plenary sessions;
- conducting interviews and write articles on the basis of these interviews;
- organise round-tables and other activities in Strasbourg;
- contribute to the Newsletter, UNITEE Blog as well as to UNITEE’s quarterly magazine;
- supporting the activities of our association, FEDIF Grand Est (40%).
This internship will provide you with the opportunity to meet high-level European and local stakeholders, as well as to organise innovative activities and to write articles in our Blog and/or magazine.
For more information regarding our internship programme, do not hesitate to visit the “Internship” section of our website: http://www.unitee.eu/about-us/internship. There you will find testimonies of our previous interns.
Required competencies:
‾ Undergraduate or graduate students in Political Sciences, Communication, Event Management, or similar;
- Ability to work both independently and in a team (with people from different cultural background);
- Ability to take initiatives and be creative (used to work with a lot of freedom and thus able to efficiently use it, namely to come with new ideas and proposals);
- Excellent oral and written communication skills (used to meet or get in touch with people at all levels and to feel at ease during such activities, physically or on the phone);
- Fully independent in expressing oneself in French and English and ability to take position on given topics (no need to correct gross mistakes);
- Possessing advanced knowledge of computerised office tools (especially MS Office applications such as Word and Power Point).
Please send your CV and motivation letter to: mtrull@unitee.eu
The International Pharmaceutical Excipients Council of Europe, IPEC Europe asbl is recruiting a part-time (25-30 h/week to be determined) Administrative Assistant.
Initially created in 1992, IPEC Europe is the only European association bringing together producers, distributors and users of pharmaceutical excipients. The association has been located in Brussels since 2012 and currently counts 72 full members. For additional information, please refer to the website: www.ipec-europe.org.
Task and responsibilities:
The Administrative Assistant shall undertake among others and not exclusively the following tasks:
Organise & archive paperwork, documents and computer-based information;
Manage databases (researching contacts, creating databases, updating/managing data);
Assist in updating websites, maintenance of external contacts’ database, mail-merging;
General administration of the invoices and payments under the executive manager’s supervision;
Produces a variety of correspondence, reports, and presentations using the appropriate software for word processing, graphics and spreadsheets under the executive manager’s supervision;
May be called upon to assist with special projects and assume responsibility for the development, administration, and promotion of specific projects, as required;
Perform other duties as assigned;
Assist with gathering, analysing and summarising data;
Administrate and maintain office processes;
Coordinate work of committees and task forces under the executive manager’s supervision;
Answer phone, sort incoming mails, and greet visitors;
Schedule appointments and arrange meetings and travels;
Support the preparation of events and congresses and on-site meetings;
Responsible for meeting organisation including: set-up of the meeting room, refreshments and lunch;
Order office supplies and make sure that all office supplies needed are available at any time.
Profile and experience:
Bachelor/Assistant Diploma;
Interest in communication is an asset;
One to three years secretarial and office management experience;
Fluent in French and English both oral and written. Other languages are an asset;
Have excellent written and communication skills;
Be flexible, autonomous, pro-active and able to deliver high-professional work in an international context;
Highly organised and detail-oriented;
Excellent IT skills including MS Office, CMS and web tool such as Google Drive, Batchbook…;
Experience with Trade Associations is an advantage.
Applicants are asked to submit a covering letter (maximum 1 page) indicating the required salary and a CV (maximum 2 pages) in English by email to job@ipec-europe.org.
The email subject should read: ‘Application: Administrative Assistant’. Application deadline is 8 March 2015.
IPEC Europe offers a part-time position representing 25-30 hours per week to be determined with the successful candidate.
The successful candidate will be expected to start as soon as possible.
Only short-listed candidates will be contacted.
