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The Easiest Language for English Speaker

  Tags: Difficulty | English
 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages Post Reply
39 messages over 5 pages: 1 2 3 4
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:
quendidil wrote:
Middle English

Interesting mention. I would agree to a degree, being that I think Dutch is easier as it is quite similar to English.


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.


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.


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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