Yes, Ukrainian is considered a hard language for English speakers, categorized as a Category II or III language by the U.S. Foreign Service Institute (FSI) (FSI), requiring around 1100 hours for professional proficiency due to complex grammar (cases, declensions) and a different alphabet (Cyrillic), though basics are achievable and it's less difficult than East Asian languages.
The vocabulary is more or less exotic and doesn't have that many words in common with English and French for example. But even though these points might make Ukrainian a little tougher than say, Spanish, it's just a question of putting in a little more work. So let's get into it!
The Foreign Service Institute (FSI) categorizes Ukrainian as a Category II language, estimating approximately 1,100 hours of study for English speakers to reach professional working proficiency.
The overall consensus is that Ukrainian is a more challenging language to learn, but with a positive attitude, lots of motivation and support, and a variety of learning materials and resources, you can master the language. Have patience and perseverance, and you'll get far!
There's no single "number one" easiest language, as it depends on your native tongue, but for English speakers, Norwegian, Dutch, Afrikaans, Spanish, and Italian are consistently ranked as very easy due to similar Germanic roots (Norwegian, Dutch, Afrikaans) or shared Latin vocabulary (Spanish, Italian) with English, plus simple grammar and pronunciation. The truly easiest language is the one you're most motivated to learn and find engaging content in, as personal interest drives acquisition.
Let's explore the 10 hardest languages for English speakers to learn, and the challenges they deliver:
Frisian is the closest language to English
The closest language to English is Frisian. This Germanic language is spoken by about 400,000 people in an area historically known as Frisia—now within the modern regions of Netherlands and Germany.
Comparisons are often made between Ukrainian and Russian, another East Slavic language, yet there is more mutual intelligibility with Belarusian, and a closer lexical distance to West Slavic Polish and South Slavic Bulgarian.
Common informal greetings include:
The 7-letter Russian spelling rule states that after the consonants г, к, х, ж, ч, ш, щ, you never write the vowel Ы, but instead use И, even if the sound is hard (like in жизнь - life). This also applies to other vowels: after these seven letters, never write Ю, use У (e.g., чуть), and never write Я, use А (e.g., часто), a principle often extended to include the letter Ц in broader rules. This rule ensures consistency with phonetic shifts after these specific "hard" or "hissing" consonants, helping learners avoid common mistakes in endings.
Pimsleur covers all the bases to help you learn to speak Ukrainian. Your Pimsleur Ukrainian subscription includes the best audio language instruction you'll find anywhere.
Foreign languages
19.2% of Ukrainians said they could read, write or speak some English, but not well. Among those surveyed, 7.5% can read, write and speak English, but not fluently. In contrast, only 1.1% of respondents are fluent in English.
To say 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 in Russian, you say: один (odin), два (dva), три (tri), четыре (chetyre), пять (pyat), шесть (shest), семь (sem), восемь (vosem), with pronunciations like "ah-DEEN," "DVAH," "TREE," "chye-tir-ye," "pyat," "shest," "syem," and "VO-syem," respectively, using the Cyrillic spellings and English phonetic guides.
Ukrainian is increasingly valuable internationally, particularly in countries with large Ukrainian diaspora communities like Canada, the USA, and Poland. The language also provides advantages in international organizations, humanitarian work, and businesses expanding into Eastern European markets.
До свидания! (do svidaniya): Good-bye! Пока! (paka): Bye-bye!
In Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, oy (ой) is often used as an expression of various degrees of surprise, like "Whoops" or "Oh". In the Scandinavian languages, Oi! or the Swedish variant, Oj!, is commonly used as an exclamation of surprise, like "Oh" or "Whoops".
Meeting and Greeting
Still, all the minority languages (including Russian) remain explicitly protected under article 10 of the Ukrainian Constitution. The repeal would also bring back into force the previous law on languages, which was in place in Ukraine for 23 years before July 2012 and was regulating the use of the minority languages.
Ukrainian has a Cyrillic alphabet almost identical to some other Slavonic languages (Russian, Bulgarian). Some of its letters look exactly like those of the Latin alphabet used in English; however, most of these are pronounced differently than in English and may in fact resemble other English sounds.
Ukrainians are part of the larger Slavic ethnicity and are closely related to other Eastern Slavic groups such as Belarusians, Russians, and the small Rusyn ethnicity of the Balkans. Similarly, the Ukrainian language is related to the languages of those peoples. It is written in a version of the Cyrillic alphabet.
There are 4 distinct layers of English: Anglo-Saxon, French, Latin, and Greek. All 4 layers have resulted in unique spellings in the English language. As teachers, we should explicitly teach the prefixes, suffixes and roots associated with Anglo-Saxon, Latin, and Greek.
Old English (also called Anglo-Saxon) is an early form of the English language which was spoken in England around the year 1000. It is a West Germanic language, and is therefore similar to Frisian and Old Saxon. It is also quite similar to Old Norse (and, by extension, to modern Icelandic).