Chinese vs Arabic: Which Is the Harder Language to Learn and Why?

 

Humans are considered to be the most social animals on the planet. They live together, enjoy and share their feasts and reside together for obvious reasons. Social conventions among them are held through spoken communication. Development of language is an important block in this regard.

Different languages are spoken all over the world. Some of them are very easy to understand in terms of grammar, vocabulary and some are pretty hard to understand.

Hardest Language According to Google:

If you do a simple search on Google about the hardest language on the earth, the result would be “Mandarin Chinese” and the second one would be “Arabic”. Both of these languages have a vast and deep origin and history.

Language Difficulty Ranking:

Languages have been divided into 5 categories by difficulty level for English learners. This comes from Foreign Service Institute (FSI). According to these categories, Chinese and Arabic have been classified in the category V. These languages are accompanied by Korean, Japanese and Cantonese. Category V basically means these languages are expected to take around 88 weeks or 2200 class hours for an English speaker to master.

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Origin of Mandarin and Arabic:

In China, different dialects are spoken but Putonghua or Mandarin—  meaning “the common speech” is the main dialect everyone speaks. Mandarin Chinese is spoken by over 1.3 billion people around the globe. The language itself is said to be the part of Sino-Tibetan family with at least 6000 years of history, tracing back to  Shang Dynasty(1766-1123 BC).

Arabic on the other hand, is part of Semitic family with its roots originating from Arabic peninsula. The earliest version of Arabic dates back to 10th century which makes it one of the oldest languages still alive today on the planet.  Arabic is said to have an ancient history of 2500 years. It is spoken by 371.4 million people across the globe.

Why is Mandarin Difficult?

Ever wondered why Mandarin is the most difficult?

So now the big question: why is Mandarin considered the hardest language in the world?

First thing—Google’s ranking is based on English speakers learning other languages. But in reality, the “hardness” of a language depends a lot on your mother tongue.

For example:

• If your native language is Japanese or Korean, you’ll find Mandarin easier because you already know many Hanzi characters.

• If you speak Farsi, then learning Arabic or even Urdu becomes easier since the alphabets and sounds overlap.

 

 

 

 

So, the idea of “hardest language” isn’t the same for everyone.

Here, I am going to list some factors on the basis of which we can classify the hard areas of each language. 

Related: Polaris

I. PRONUNCIATION:

Mandarin Chinese:

Pronunciation is the backbone of any language. In Mandarin, the real struggle is that tones change the meaning of words completely.

 Example:

• tāng (high tone) = soup

• táng (rising tone) = sugar

Same letters, different tone, totally different meaning. That’s why Mandarin is called a tonal language—and this is what usually trips learners up.

To make life a bit easier, China developed the Pinyin writing system, which uses Latin letters with small marks (diacritics) to show the tone. But even with Pinyin, you need a good ear and a lot of practice.

In general, Chinese pronunciation is very difficult and can create confusion within a word.

Arabic:

Arabic pronunciation is tough in a different way. It’s written phonetically, but the sound of letters can shift depending on where they sit in the word. On top of that, Arabic has throat sounds (like ع ‘ayn and غ ghayn) that don’t exist in English.

 Example:

The way you pronounce a single Arabic letter can change depending if it’s at the start, middle, or end of the word. Plus, intonation changes whether a word is definite or indefinite.

 

So winding up: both Mandarin and Arabic punish you if you’re lazy with pronunciation. One slips with tone, the other with letter positions and throat sounds.

SPEAKING:

Mandarin:

Fluency in Mandarin only comes after a lot of practice. Since every word depends on tone, you can’t just “say it roughly” and expect people to understand. Mess up a tone, and you change the meaning completely. That’s why even simple conversations take effort at the start.

Dialects:

China also has many dialects—around 10 major ones—but Standard Mandarin (Putonghua) is the one used officially and taught in schools. It’s the safest bet if you want to be understood across the country.

Arabic:

Arabic is similar in that sense. It’s spoken across a huge region, and dialects can differ so much that someone from Morocco might struggle to fully understand someone from Syria. To solve that, there’s Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), also called Fusha (meaning “eloquence”). MSA is what you’ll hear in schools, news, and formal speeches, but day-to-day conversations still depend on local dialects.

Final Thought:

So in both languages, you can learn the standard form, but if you want to blend in with locals, you’ll need the dialect too.

WRITING:

Chinese writing spotlights much focus on strokes during writing. These strokes are so important that they change the meaning of the word. Consider the following example:

These symbols are complicated to use and even native speakers may do a mistake in them. Average Chinese learners know up to 4000 Hanzi characters while locals and experts may know up to 8000 characters.

However, Arabic lacks the use of characters and instead uses the alphabets. There are 28 Arabic alphabets that have consonant sounds.

Arabic is written from right to left, and the alphabet isn’t too hard to pick up. Most learners can get familiar with the 28 letters in a short time, especially with regular practice

The shape of these alphabets changes depending upon the location of alphabet in a word but they are not very difficult to remember.

READING:

Mandarin reading is all about characters, not an alphabet. You don’t spell words out—you memorize them. At first, that sounds impossible, but there’s a system. Characters are built from radicals (about 200 of them).

 For example, the water radical (氵) appears in words like 河 (river), 海 (sea), and 汤 (soup). The radical hints at meaning, so once you learn them, you can guess the idea of a word even if you don’t know it fully. Still, it takes practice because recognizing a character is always easier than writing it.

Chinese characters are complex and hard to memorize. So, reading codes are developed to break the words in radicals for an easy understanding of them. There are up to 200 radicals developed for this purpose.

Arabic reading works on a different logic. The script runs right-to-left, and each letter changes shape depending on its position in the word (start, middle, or end). On top of that, Arabic uses a root-and-pattern system. 

For example, the root ك-ت-ب (k-t-b) creates a whole family of words: كتب (he wrote), كتاب (book), مكتبة (library). 

Then there are diacritics (harakat), which mark short vowels and grammar. A single change in diacritic can shift both the meaning and the function of a word in a sentence. Once you’re used to these patterns, though, Arabic reading becomes very logical.

Final Thoughts:

So, while Mandarin demands visual memory for thousands of characters, Arabic demands pattern recognition and comfort with a flowing script. Both challenge you, but in totally different ways.

GRAMMAR:

East Asian languages are said to have relatively simple grammar, but Chinese language has a complex and cognitive grammatical system. Word order does most of the work.

 For example:

• 我吃饭 (wǒ chī fàn) = I eat rice.
• 我昨天吃饭 (wǒ zuótiān chī fàn) = I ate rice yesterday.
• 我明天吃饭 (wǒ míngtiān chī fàn) = I will eat rice tomorrow.

 

Arabic has its own unique and logical grammatical system. Arabic grammar is known as “sea of grammar” due to its vastness. But Arabic grammar is highly logical and word conjugated. Once understood, there is no chance of missing the target while speaking.

Arabic is a gendered language. It has plural forms of speech. Arabic grammar comprises of verb conjugation, word order, gender, dual, plural forms and each of them has its own rules and regulation. Even past, present and future tenses require specific verb conjugation. Word conjugation changes on the use of the word and determines whether it is a subject of a sentence, object of a preposition, object of verb and more. 

For example, the verb “to write” (كتب):

 

• هو كتب (huwa kataba) = he wrote

• هي كتبت (hiya katabat) = she wrote

• هم كتبوا (hum katabū) = they wrote

Plural formation in Arabic is also a hard nut to crack. Plurals in Arabic have same consonants but vowels around them are rearranged and every noun has unique plurals.

Final Thoughts:

Both Mandarin and Arabic are tough, but in different ways. Mandarin looks simple on paper—no tenses, no conjugations—but the tones, characters, and measure words hit you hard. Arabic, on the other hand, has an alphabet that clicks faster, but the grammar rules and root-pattern system demand serious attention.

Which one is harder? It depends on what kind of learner you are. If memorizing thousands of characters and handling tones sounds impossible, Arabic might feel easier. But if gender, cases, and heavy grammar scare you, Mandarin might actually be the simpler choice.

At the end of the day, neither language is “impossible”. They just challenge your brain in different directions. If you push through the early pain, both open doors to massive cultures, literature, and opportunities.