A new study by the University of Maryland and Microsoft found that artificial intelligence understands Polish better than any other language, while English surprisingly ranked sixth. Researchers tested 26 languages across major AI systems, including OpenAI, Google Gemini, Qwen, Llama, and DeepSeek, using identical prompts to measure response accuracy.
The findings challenged expectations. “English did not lead in performance,” the researchers explained. “It placed sixth for long-form responses, while Polish consistently delivered the most accurate results.”
Polish Outshines Other Languages in AI Performance
Polish achieved an average accuracy rate of 88%, the highest among all tested languages. The Polish Patent Office remarked, “Polish turns out to be the most precise language for issuing commands to AI. Humans may find it hard to learn, but AI does not.”
Despite limited Polish-language data available for AI training, models processed it more effectively than larger datasets in English or Chinese. Chinese performed near the bottom, ranking fourth from last among all languages tested.
Ranking the Most Effective Languages for AI
The study placed Polish first, followed closely by French, Italian, and Spanish. Russian took fifth place, with English landing sixth, just ahead of Ukrainian, Portuguese, German, and Dutch, which rounded out the top ten.
Researchers concluded that the complexity of a language does not determine how well AI can understand it. Ironically, the world’s most challenging language for humans proved to be the one machines understand best.
