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Easiest Germanic language to study? | ||
Tags: Germanic Languages | Difficulty | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| tritone Senior Member United States reflectionsinpo Joined 6119 days ago 246 posts - 385 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Portuguese, French | Message 1 of 28 13 August 2009 at 7:55pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm anxious to study a Germanic language but I'm not sure which. Which is the easiest, or most similar to English? What is the most accessible in terms of good self-study resources available?
I've heard that Norwegian and Swedish are the easiest, because apparently there's not much grammar to learn at all, nearly everything works exactly the way it does in English, and you just have to learn vocabulary - which contrary to the grammar/syntax is largely unfamiliar. German and dutch, while no doubt more accessible, are supposed to be more different. Can anybody who's familiar with these languages comment on the accuracy of those assessments?? Edited by tritone on 13 August 2009 at 11:27pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Aeroflot Senior Member United States Joined 5601 days ago 102 posts - 115 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 2 of 28 13 August 2009 at 8:59pm | IP Logged | ||
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Norwegian or Swedish would be easiest since they don't have the more complex system of declension that German does. Danish is a bit harder if only for the pronunciation. Icelandic is probably the most difficult because it retains the complex grammar of Old Norse. Dutch and Afrikaans are supposed to be pretty easy, with Afrikaans being the easier of the two since the verbs don't conjugate as much. As for being the closest to English, Frisian is pretty close to Old English.
Now I have only flirted with those languages once upon a time, but I've found that most people agree with those analyses. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Lizzern Diglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5908 days ago 791 posts - 1053 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 3 of 28 13 August 2009 at 10:45pm | IP Logged | ||
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Norwegian and Swedish are both tonal, so that adds to the difficulty for some people.
A friend of mine started learning Norwegian years ago and took a look at the relatively straightforward grammar and thought it would be easy peasy. He later took that back. The difficulty of Norwegian, well, it sneaks up on you. And not all aspects of grammar are that simple - noun definiteness (!) and its related syntax is one thing that a lot of people have difficulty with. Liz 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Aeroflot Senior Member United States Joined 5601 days ago 102 posts - 115 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 4 of 28 13 August 2009 at 11:39pm | IP Logged | ||
I agree with you, but he's just asking for whether or not his assessments are accurate or not, not whether his methodology is bad. Not everyone works the same way. He might be able to learn Spanish, Portuguese, and German at the same time. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Sprachgenie Decaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5708 days ago 128 posts - 165 votes Speaks: German*, Dutch, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Faroese, Icelandic, Flemish, Persian, Swiss-German Studies: English, Belarusian | Message 5 of 28 14 August 2009 at 12:19am | IP Logged | ||
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Dutch will be the easiest Germanic language for you to learn. Many more similarities to English than English has with German and Dutch grammar is simple and straightforward.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 6141 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 6 of 28 14 August 2009 at 12:19am | IP Logged | ||
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Back to the original question...
I'd say that either Dutch or Swedish would be easiest (excluding Frisian and Afrikaans). Here is why. Dutch - Other than Frisian, Dutch is the Germanic language that is the closest to English. Its grammar is not quite as complex as that of German, its vocabulary is quite similar, and the pronunciation is not difficult. Swedish - Swedish grammar is quite simple in general and has only a few tricky spots. The vocabulary is similar, but more distant than that of Dutch. The pronunciation is very pleasing to the ear, and also relatively simple. Although it is tonal, I don't think that this is such a big problem as it may seem (correct me if I'm wrong). If you are to choose one of the two described above based solely on pronunciation, I would personally go with Swedish. I love the bounciness of Swedish (and Norwegian too) and would take it any day instead of Dutch. That is not to say, though, that Dutch is not nice pronunciation-wise. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Aeroflot Senior Member United States Joined 5601 days ago 102 posts - 115 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 7 of 28 14 August 2009 at 12:38am | IP Logged | ||
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Yeah I was under the impression that the Swedish tonal system wasn't very difficult as long as you can pick up the rhythm pattern, which luckily is quite pronounced. Just pretend you're Inge from Sweden with Swedish meatballs and it shouldn't be too hard.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| vikramkr Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6068 days ago 248 posts - 326 votes Speaks: English*, Portuguese | Message 8 of 28 14 August 2009 at 12:41am | IP Logged | ||
Frankly, I disagree with the whole "no language is easier than another" philosophy. There are easier languages (obviously depending on the languages you know) than others. For example, it is easier for an English speaker to learn Dutch, than it is for him or her to learn Icelandic. It is easier for an English speaker to learn Spanish, than it is for him or her to learn Romanian. Some languages have grammars and vocabularies that are more similar to a native language. This thus makes learning the target language easier. And, many people on this forum are successfully able to study multiple languages simultaneously. Dr. Arguelles suggests one do so, in fact. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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