global_gizzy Senior Member United States maxcollege.blogspot. Joined 5702 days ago 275 posts - 310 votes Studies: Spanish
| Message 33 of 39 14 April 2010 at 9:35pm | IP Logged |
Its hard to say. Sure you can make estimates but you also have to take into account peoples backgrounds. For example, I've had foriegn languages in my life a long time, and many pediatrician/psych-linguistic people say that even being exposed to a foriegn language as a child can help in later developing linguistic abilities.
I dont know how true all of this is, but its hard to say what would be easiest for an English speaker to learn. English is spoken in many, many places all over the world. An English speaker from Europe may grasp other European languages easier while a Nigerian English speaker may find an African language that they've never studied, spoken or used easier because its been in their environment a LONG time.
Also, motivation comes into play a lot also.
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Johntm Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5421 days ago 616 posts - 725 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish
| Message 34 of 39 14 April 2010 at 10:00pm | IP Logged |
Scots. That is if you don't count it as a dialect of English.
Edit: It's Scots, not Scotts. And if anyone wants to see it, look at Wikipedia in Scots
Edited by Johntm on 15 April 2010 at 5:26am
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Metamucil Groupie United States Joined 5874 days ago 43 posts - 51 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German
| Message 35 of 39 15 April 2010 at 2:26am | IP Logged |
Dutch/Afrikaans
Norwegan
Swedish
one thing I will say is Spanish is way overrated as an easy language to learn for English speakers
and for those who harp on GENDER in German get a copy of Hammer's German Grammer or A Practical Review of German Grammer (I believe Dippman) or a high school text book even. There very much is a rhyme and reason to German grammer and especially to gender. There are practically dozens of noun endings that have a determinded gender.
I don't have the time to post a more detailed response specifically but have posted on this in the past. Gender is not nearly as hard as many make it out to be and this information is usually covered in High School German.
I will also say that there are far more cognates in German than most people realise.
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quendidil Diglot Senior Member Singapore Joined 6311 days ago 126 posts - 142 votes Speaks: Mandarin, English* Studies: Japanese
| Message 36 of 39 15 April 2010 at 5:01am | IP Logged |
Smart wrote:
Interesting mention. I would agree to a degree, being that I think Dutch is easier as it is quite similar to English. |
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Middle English is immediately comprehensible to a degree to any literate English speaker. I doubt Dutch can beat that. Of course, Middle English wasn't static and the earlier examples still had a strong Anglo-Saxon component but even with sutff like the Ormulum, it is remarkably comprehensible to most English speakers specially so if spoken aloud.
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Talairan Tetraglot Senior Member Spain Joined 6591 days ago 194 posts - 258 votes Speaks: Afrikaans, English*, Gypsy/Romani, Dutch Studies: Spanish, Flemish, Galician, Aramaic
| Message 37 of 39 15 April 2010 at 12:06pm | IP Logged |
I would concur with Vinlander's ranking of the languages mentioned.
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William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6271 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French
| Message 38 of 39 15 April 2010 at 4:47pm | IP Logged |
chucknorrisman wrote:
brian91 wrote:
Okay, here are the top ten easiest languages to learn, according to the Foreign Service Institute:
1 Afrikaans
2 Danish
3 Dutch
4 French
5 Italian
6 Norwegian
7 Portuguese
8 Romanian
9 Spanish
10 Swedish
German is at 11. |
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I find it strange that Romanian is easier than Spanish. Romanian has the case system which English does not have, while Spanish has more lexicon similar to English and lacks the case system. |
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The ranking is alphabetical within the categories in the original. Romanian is meant to be roughly in the same degree of difficulty as Spanish, not easier. It is placed before Spanish only because R comes before S.
German is thought to be slightly more difficult, so it is placed in a slightly higher category of difficulty.
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ReachingOut Pentaglot Groupie Greece Joined 5236 days ago 57 posts - 81 votes Speaks: English*, German, GreekB2, French, Romanian Studies: Italian
| Message 39 of 39 25 July 2010 at 6:56pm | IP Logged |
I agree that Romanian is definitely more difficult to learn than Spanish, but German is definitely much more difficult being a highly declined language, which is difficult for native speakers of English. Modern Greek is also a difficult language to master.
Edited by ReachingOut on 25 July 2010 at 6:57pm
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