Tongan has a reputation for being a hard language to learn but how hard is it actually?
In reality, it’s not impossible to learn Tongan and is much easier than you think.
Let’s take a look at all the reasons why people think Tongan is hard to learn and how you can make it easier.
We’ll also discuss how long it takes to learn Tongan for an English speaker.
Table of Contents
Is Tongan Hard To Learn?
Tongan isn’t impossible to learn but it is harder to learn than some other languages for English speakers.
The Foreign Service Institute has spent decades teaching foreign languages and over the years has ranked them in terms of difficulty.
The categories start from category I, which includes easy languages like French and Spanish, and go to category IV, which includes super hard languages like Mandarin Chinese and Japanese.
Whilst Tongan isn’t included on their list, we can estimate which category it would fall into based on other similar languages included in the list.
We would expect Tongan to fall within category II or III in terms of difficulty. This means that Tongan is harder to learn than French and Spanish but easier to learn than Chinese or Japanese.
What Makes Learning Tongan Hard?
Whilst there are things you can do which makes learning Tonan easier (discussed later), Tongan does have some complex features that make it hard to learn.
I’ve discussed the main ones below.
Language Families
English is part of the Indo-European language family which means it has lots of similarities with other languages that are part of that family including French, Spanish, Italian and German.
Tongan is part of the Austronesian language family. Other languages that fall within this category include Indonesian, Malay, Tagalog, Hawaiian and Tahitian.
Tongan falls under the Polynesian branch of this family meaning it’s more closely related to other Polynesian languages like Hawaiian and Samoan.
These language families group together languages that descend from a common ancestral language.
Learning languages from the same language family tends to be easier as these languages share many similar characteristics with one another.
The similarities vary between languages but can include vocabulary, word order, grammar, pronunciation and word composition.
As English and Tongan are from completely different language families, this means they share few similarities so learning Tongan may be difficult.
Formal Speech
Something else to bear in mind when learning Tongan is that it actually has 3 different levels of formality.
The most common one is the regular, day-to-day conversation style used with friends, family etc.
The second level of formality is honorific and is used when speaking with chiefs. You would also use this language when talking about a chief (even if they’re not present). In today’s society it may also be used by an employee towards a boss or in other similar situations.
The third level is regal and is only used when speaking directly to the king.
An example of the differences between these is illustrated below with the phrase ‘come and eat’:
- Ordinary – Haʻu ʻo kai
- Honorific – Meʻa mai pea ʻilo
- Regal – Hāʻele mai pea taumafa
You don’t really have to worry about this one too much, just focus on learning the regular conversation level as it’s unlikely that you’ll need to speak to a chief or the king.
Glottal Stop & Macron
One of Tongan’s consonants is the symbol ‘. You might know this is an apostrophe but in Tongan this is called a fakauʻa.
The fakauʻa represents a glottal stop. This is a break in a word, as an example, in English we have the word ‘uh-oh’. The fakauʻa is the break in between the syllables.
If you’ve not learnt a language before that uses glottal stops, this can take a little while to get used to but it’s not too difficult to learn.
The Tongan alphabet also uses an extra symbol called a macron (or toloi in Tongan) to distinguish between short and long vowel sounds.
A toloi is a straight line that is placed above a letter e.g. ā. This indicates a long vowel sound.
Word Order
Word order in Tongan is a bit different to English.
In English the standard word order is subject-verb-object.
Example:
John throws the ball.
John = subject, throws = verb, ball = object.
Tongan is different as it is an ‘action verb’ focused language and it’s standard word order is verb-subject-object. Quoting the same example as above, in Tongan the phrase ‘John throws the ball’ would be worded as ‘Throws John the ball’.
This may take a while to get used to for a native English speaker.
Metaphors
Tongan is a very expressive language and it relies on metaphors and idioms more than other languages like English.
Idioms are common expressions that mean something different to the literal meaning of the words e.g. ‘over the moon’ in English is an idiom.
Tongan uses a lot of idioms and metaphors, mainly in speeches and large ceremonial gatherings. This means that even if you understand what the words mean you may not fully understand what is being said.
For example, the Tongan phrase is ‘kuo to ae la’a ‘i ho loto fale’ literally translates to ‘the sun has set in your home’. This phrase is used when someone has passed away – it’s a formal way to pay respects.
Speakers Of Tongan
One thing that makes Tongan difficult to learn is that it is not widely spoken. There are only approximately 187,000 speakers of Tongan in the world.
When learning a language, one of the best and most important ways is to immerse yourself in the language and practice with native speakers as often as possible. This can be very difficult with Tongan, especially if you don’t live in Tonga.
If you do live in Tonga or in another community with native Tongan speakers then this shouldn’t be an issue for you.
Lack Of Resources
Resources such as books, courses and classes are really important when learning a new language.
Another thing that makes Tongan really difficult to learn is that there are not that many good resources out there for learning Tongan.
Compared to other languages like Spanish and French where there are hundreds of courses and books to choose from, the Tongan resources available are very limited.
An audio course is the best way to learn Tongan – the best one out there is the Intensive Course in Tongan. This course includes audio and a book which immerses you in the language and helps you become fluent fast.
Another good idea is to purchase a reference book like this Tongan dictionary. This will help you to learn new words.
The website Digital Dialects introduces some basic words and phrases and is a great place to start your Tongan journey.
There are also a few videos on YouTube for beginners that introduce some basic phrases and concepts of the language. Check out the video below as an example:
As you can see, resources are very limited and even popular language learning programmes such as Duolingo don’t have a Tongan course.
Unfortunately, if you don’t know anyone who speaks Tongan you may find it very difficult to learn Tongan due to a lack of good resources.
What Makes Learning Tongan Easier?
There are a few things that actually make learning Tongan much easier. I’ve summarised them all below.
English Loanwords
A lot of Tongan words are derived from English ones so they often sound very similar. This is great for learners as it means you should easily recognise many Tongan words straight away and they’ll be super easy to learn.
Take a look at the list below to see some examples of English loanwords in Tongan:
- Internet – ‘Initaneti
- Air – ‘Ea
- Van – Veeni
- Horse – Hoosi
The Alphabet Is Familiar
One thing that will be familiar to you is the Tongan alphabet. Luckily, Tongan uses the same alphabet as English so you don’t have to spend hours learning a new script.
There’s 1 additional letter in the alphabet that we don’t have in English – the glottal stop (discussed above) but you’ll pick that up in no time.
Knowing A Similar Language
Learning Tongan will be much easier if you speak another similar language.
The most closely related languages to Tongan are Samoan, Hawaiian and Niuean.
Samoan is really similar to Tongan and the two languages share a lot of common features and vocabulary. The same can also be said for Hawaiian and also Niuean.
If you happen to also speak one of these languages then learning Tongan will be very easy for you.
How You Can Learn Tongan Easily
Learning Tongan is made much easier with good quality courses and resources. Below I’ve listed the best ones which will make learning Tongan easy!
Tongan Audio Course
The Intensive Course In Tongan is a fantastic audio course that will get you speaking from day 1.
This course is perfect for anyone who wants to focus on being able to speak the language (rather than reading and writing).
The course features 130 lessons, comes with a follow along book and can get you fully fluent in as little as 6 months.
It’s a great course and explains the language in clear, easy to understand terms.
You can supplement this course with a Tongan – English dictionary to learn more vocabulary.
How Long Does It Take To Learn Tongan For An English Speaker?
Unfortunately there isn’t enough statistical data available to determine how long on average it takes to learn Tongan.
However, we are able to provide a rough estimate based on the research done by the Foreign Service Institute.
It will take between 36 weeks and 44 weeks to learn Tongan. This is the equivalent of 900 – 1100 classroom hours.
This assumes you do 25 hours of studying a week. If you’re not able to dedicate this much time to learning Tongan it may take you longer.
Your progress may actually be much faster if you already speak a similar language such as Hawaiian, Samoan or Niuean.
The Foreigh Service Institute has a language classification system that categorizes how long it takes for a student to reach ‘professional working proficiency’ in a language.
This is one of the best and most accurate language classification systems out there as they’ve spent decades analysing how long it takes their students to learn new languages.
Tongan isn’t listed on their language list, however it is expected that it would fall under either category II or category III.
This is based on the fact that other Austronesian languages such as Malay, Indonesian and Tagalog fall under these categories. These are the most closely related languages to Tongan on the list.
Malay and Indonesian fall under category II which takes approximately 36 weeks (900 class hours) to learn. Tagalog falls under category III which takes approximately 44 weeks (1100 class hours). We would expect Tongan to fall somewhere in between.
Related Post: Is Tongan A Dying Language?
Is Tongan Worth Learning?
The answer to whether Tongan is worth learning is really up to you.
As I mentioned previously, it would take you roughly 900 – 1100 hours or 36 – 44 weeks to learn Tongan. This is a lot of time and effort and you have to have a lot of motivation and discipline to achieve this.
If you do decide to learn Tongan you will get a lot out of it.
Tongan is spoken by around 187,000 people around the world, mainly in Tonga but also in Australia and New Zealand.
The Tongan people are known to be super friendly and accommodating and will be more than happy to help you with their language.
By learning Tongan you would be able to communicate with 187,000 people and enjoy their vibrant and interesting culture.
Tonga is a beautiful country made up of 170 islands lined with picturesque white sandy beaches and coral reefs. The islands also feature tropical rainforest terrain, lagoons and limestone cliffs.
Learning Tongan will allow you to experience Tonga to the fullest.
If you’re interested in learning Tongan why not start by learning how to say hello in Tongan.
Check out our other Tongan content here.
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