What are the easiest languages to learn? (Specific Languages) Language Learning Forum

What are the easiest languages to learn?
Tags: Easiness
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Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages

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Aquila123
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Message 25 of 58

08 October 2012 at 11:27pm | IP Logged

Afrikaans may come high up in this list

I imagine Turkish is very easy becasue its regularity both in grammar and spelling.

Japanese is difficult due to the writing, but the grammar is very easy.

Edited by Aquila123 on 08 October 2012 at 11:34pm
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hrhenry
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Message 26 of 58

08 October 2012 at 11:53pm | IP Logged

Aquila123 wrote:

I imagine Turkish is very easy becasue its regularity both in grammar and spelling.

As someone who's been studying Turkish for going on two years now, I can agree that the
grammar and spelling are quite regular. I can also say that those two things don't make
a whit of difference in the difficulty in learning Turkish.

Once you get past these two things, I think you'll find that Turkish is actually quite
difficult. The most difficult? No, certainly not, but it's not one of the easiest,
either.

R.
==

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Serpent
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Message 27 of 58

09 October 2012 at 12:21am | IP Logged

mick33 wrote:

Isn't Indonesian supposed to be one of the easiest languages to learn? I thought I read that somewhere, although I'd have thought that the unfamiliar vocabulary could be a challenge in the beginning.

not only in the beginning... It's like with Finnish really, for me they're in the same category.
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clumsy
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Message 28 of 58

09 October 2012 at 12:51pm | IP Logged

Everyone talks about how easy is Swahili, but for me it's hard.
All these word classes and verb agreements.

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Cavesa
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Message 29 of 58

09 October 2012 at 9:41pm | IP Logged

Levi wrote:

Cavesa wrote:

4.your personal afinity to the language.

I quote this because it's a point that needs to be reiterated. The easiest language is
always the one that you are most motivated to learn, provided you are able to
acquire adequate study materials and get adequate exposure to the language.

If we're talking about the easiest languages for an English-speaker to learn from a
purely linguistic point of view, that would be the close relatives of English: Frisian,
Scots, Tok Pisin, Afrikaans... But of course, in practice, your relationship to your
target language is everything. Without motivation and exposure, even those "easy"
languages will be outside your reach, and you may find a very "difficult" language like
Korean or Arabic easier to learn if you have the passion to sustain your studies over
the long term and the opportunity to use what you know.

No, I put this and motivation separately for a purpose. I've met many people who were
learning two languages, had similar motivation for both but one of the two was usually
much easier to learn for them.
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Chang He
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Message 30 of 58

10 October 2012 at 2:49am | IP Logged

patrickwilken wrote:

Марк wrote:

Japanese is the most difficult language for native English speakers
according to FSI.

I thought they list Arabic, Japanese and Chinese as the three hardest.

They have updated the list. According to http://fsitraining.state.gov/training/Language_Toolkit.pdf, on page 45,
they list Arabic, Korean, Japanese, and Chinese as "Superhard" languages, and give Korean an asterisk, stating
that it is more difficult than the other languages in that category for native English speakers.

Additionally, the whole of that document is of interest to language learners.

Regarding ease of learning, Barry Farber, whose book prompted the Google search which led me to this website,
states categorically (on page 168) that Indonesian is the easiest major language for a foreigner to learn. Your
mileage may vary.
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Марк
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Message 31 of 58

10 October 2012 at 4:57pm | IP Logged

We can ask learners of Japanese how hard it is compared to other languages.
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jeff_lindqvist
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Message 32 of 58

10 October 2012 at 6:49pm | IP Logged

Native speakers usually say that their native language is the most difficult in the world, so no big surprise there.

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