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Easiest language for an English speaker?

 Language Learning Forum : General discussion Post Reply
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COF
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 Message 1 of 80
01 June 2012 at 6:49pm | IP Logged 
I'd probably say Swedish. Grammatically it's like a simplified version of English with mostly Germanic vocabulary. Once you've learnt a few basic principles, you can form sentences in much a similar manner as you form sentences in English, so the learning curve is not that steep.

Although technically Afrikaans is probably the easiest language or certainly one of the easiest, for all intents and purposes it is pretty much a Dutch creole, sharing 90% of its vocabulary, so realistically I would include it under Dutch, which is obviously a lot harder to learn than Swedish.

Edited by COF on 01 June 2012 at 6:56pm

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sillygoose1
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 Message 2 of 80
01 June 2012 at 6:55pm | IP Logged 
esperanto
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tarvos
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Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans
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 Message 3 of 80
01 June 2012 at 7:00pm | IP Logged 
lol Afrikaans a Dutch creole, it hasn't got to be any funnier
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COF
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 Message 4 of 80
01 June 2012 at 7:03pm | IP Logged 
Afrikaans is to Dutch what Jamaican Patois is to English. It's definitely not a language in its own right.

Edited by COF on 01 June 2012 at 7:07pm

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tarvos
Super Polyglot
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Senior Member
China
likeapolyglot.wordpr
Joined 4705 days ago

5310 posts - 9399 votes 
Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans
Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish

 
 Message 5 of 80
01 June 2012 at 7:17pm | IP Logged 
Okay, you can stop trolling now.
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jdmoncada
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 Message 6 of 80
01 June 2012 at 7:25pm | IP Logged 
My answer, part jest part serious, is the language about which the learner is most passionate.

Sure, there are close languages, but sometimes the very closeness itself can be confusing. There are times that it's great to be able to compartmentalize the languages so you've got two different things.


As for Swedish, I relied on that a lot, even though I don't know the language, when I first lived in Finland. I found, oddly, that the more Finnish I learned the less Swedish I understood. Now, I find it incomprehensible and more guttural sounding than either German or Russian.
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hrhenry
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 Message 7 of 80
01 June 2012 at 7:38pm | IP Logged 
COF, the more I read your posts, the more I think you're just bored and have a need to
be noticed.

Tiny hint: yes, you'll get noticed, but you won't be taken seriously. Trolls rarely are.

R.
==
13 persons have voted this message useful



Serpent
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 Message 8 of 80
01 June 2012 at 7:57pm | IP Logged 
COF wrote:
Dutch, which is obviously a lot harder to learn than Swedish.
there's nothing obvious about this. not to me.


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