Which is the easiest language to learn?

[shadowed by the secret police]

I just wanted to broach this topic because I wanted to get a feel for what this community thinks might be the easiest language for all of us to learn. I am inclined to think that English might be the easiest now-a-days because of the AmeriKan cultural imperialism that exists in the world today. A lot of people seem to know bits of English because it is so prevalent. Let me know what you think. I've been looking into what languages I might take up. Been looking into Esperanto but I've heard it is sexist.



http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/e/languages/index.html

http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/e/lan.../esperanto.html (http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/e/languages/esperanto.html)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanto

[Q]

Well, assuming English is the easiest because of imperialism is not really correct. Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, Indian, Russian all cover large areas. Try speaking German or English in our "backyard" Eastern-Europe, and 9 out of 10 won't understand you.

And yeah, Esperanto is designed to be easy.

[Ander]

Wouldn't Esperanto be a totally useless language to learn?

[powertothepeople]

why do we need to learn a language

[illovich]

I think there's a couple answers to your question:

1) The easiest language(s) to learn are the ones you are born and grow up in close proximity to.

2) After those, it's the languages that are around you where ever you are.

3) The best language to learn is the one that will help you communicate with people you want to talk to.

It's awesome if you want to learn a language, but learning any additional languages takes work and a desire to learn that trumps being embarrassed and afraid to look like a fool in front of native speakers. And despite what some language methods might say, there's no substitute for immersion, so trying to learn the language of people that you don't have access to will probably not pan out well.

For folks like me in the Northeast US, there isn't much call for any language although Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese, Armenian and Russian would be the obvious first choices to me for my particular area.

I tried to learn German years ago, and did pretty well as long as I could be in Germany... but the lure of home was stronger than there so my German isn't too good anymore.

[KptnKrill]

Don't be foolish there are no "easier" or "harder" languages. It's entirely relative, languages are generally all of the same complexity, but vary in where that complexity is focused. Languages that share the most number of complexities in the same places as the language you speak natively will *seem* the easiest. For example, learning Frisian would probably be fairly easy for a native monoglot of English, but to a person who is a native monoglot of Japanese there is little difference between the two, they are both very hard.
So to say "Esperanto is designed to be easy" is actually quite misguided and gives the wrong impression of the language. Esperanto may have been designed that way, but it's really only easy for speakers of Western European languages. What does some freakish Romance + Germanic + Slavic hybrid have in common with Chinese, or Turkish, or Arabic, or Warlpiri, or Inuktitut, or Quechua, or kiSwahili, or any other real language?
Regards,
Krill

[OneBrickOneVoice]

Spanish is the easiest language. Languages with different alphabets (ie Slavic Languages) are the hardest.

[manic expression]

It depends on the person. For instance, although Spanish is very consistent in comparison to French (which has many irregularities), but many people still feel French is easier for them. Chinese is extremely difficult when it comes to reading and writing and tonal pronunciation (for westerners, anyway), but is very easy and simple (and IMO logical) in speaking structure (there are NO verb conjugations, no real tenses, etc...). Plus, I've heard that people who can read and write (Kanji-style) Japanese can understand Chinese characters, so someone who is fluent in Japanese will have a much different experience learning Chinese than an English-speaker.

In terms of difficulty, Korean, Russian, Hungarian, Arabic, Tamil and some others are most notable. I'm taking (Mandarin) Chinese and it's a mixed bag, with the written language being tough and speaking less of a challenge (it's really fun to learn). As a native English speaker, it's hard to appreciate the difficulty of learning English, but it is actually very difficult, since English has some perplexing parts to it (talk? walk? goose/geese? There are a lot of things that don't really make sense). French is probably the most difficult of the romance languages, Russian is IMO the most difficult European language.

Seriously, I could go on and on about this stuff. Most languages can be both "easy" and "hard", depending on you, the resources available to you and the ways in which you study. However, every language is rewarding, and I think it is a very worthwhile endeavor.

If anyone is looking for more information, you might want to check out this website:

http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/e/index.html

You can use the forums to ask questions if you want, too. The people there are pretty nice and very knowledgable. The "language profiles" are useful and helpful (if not interesting), but don't take them as 100% correct since it's so subjective.

[illovich]

Another answer (assuming you care mostly about "ease" rather than what you would use the language for), would be languages that are in the same branch as your mother tongue.

Assuming English is your first language (since you asked in English on a website in English -- I realize my reasoning isn't ironclad, but I go with what I have) German would be a good first choice, as English is very similar to German (some people (http://www.ex.ac.uk/german/abinitio/alphabet/twain.html) will say it's not, but it is. There are of course grammatical/syntactical differences, but many words are the same -- even many idiomatic phrases translate intact), and in addition German has surprisingly few words -- most of the more unusual words are compounds of the more basic words.

Examples from wikipedia:

* Wolkenkratzer ("skyscraper"): wolken, "clouds", + kratzer, "scraper"
* Eisenbahn ("railway"): Eisen, "iron", + bahn, "track"
* Kraftfahrzeug ("automobile"): Kraft, "power", + fahren/fahr, "drive", + zeug, "machinery"
* Stacheldraht ("barbed wire"): stachel, "barb/barbed", + draht, "wire"


If German doesn't interest you, I would guess that any Germanic Language (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanic_languages) would be easy, although some of them seem much more foreign than German.

[Janus]

Been looking into Esperanto but I've heard it is sexist.
Well, I've never heard that but it definitely is Eurocentric.


Plus, I've heard that people who can read and write (Kanji-style) Japanese can understand Chinese characters, so someone who is fluent in Japanese will have a much different experience learning Chinese than an English-speaker.
The Japanese have about 3000 Chinese characters in their written language.

[Ander]

I recommend learning Spanish, it's a fairly easy language to learn in my opinion, and it also opens the doors to others such as Portuguese and Italian.

[Severian]

Originally posted by shadowed by the secret [email protected] 30, 2006 11:19 am
I am inclined to think that English might be the easiest now-a-days because of the AmeriKan cultural imperialism that exists in the world today.
English is one of the harder languages to learn. You need a large vocabulary to converse in English, and the spelling and pronunciation are insane. On the plus side, the grammar's fairly simple.

[Jazzratt]

Originally posted by Severian+December 31, 2006 03:02 am--> (Severian @ December 31, 2006 03:02 am)
shadowed by the secret [email protected] 30, 2006 11:19 am
I am inclined to think that English might be the easiest now-a-days because of the AmeriKan cultural imperialism that exists in the world today.
English is one of the harder languages to learn. You need a large vocabulary to converse in English, and the spelling and pronunciation are insane. On the plus side, the grammar's fairly simple. [/b]
I did hear that english is the easiest language to learn, but I'm extremely skeptical. It is after all a language full of stupid rules for pronunciation of the same fucking wor darrangments: Through and Cough for example. It also has more homonyms & synonyms than any other language. SO I'm doubting its ease.

[sanpal]

First New Happy Year for every one!

I think it's easy to learn any foreign language ... for definite simplified used level (greeting, eating, weather, etc).
But what about more serious subjects ... it needs years and years the hard learning.
Or wait for a while when electronic translators would become more perfect :D

What is hard for me in English - polysemy of majority of english words i.e. the meaning according context
It is the difficulty for electronic translator too.

[Knight of Cydonia]

for me, English is the easiest language coz it's the international language that everyone around the world use to speak to each other that was from another country and different language.

[RevMARKSman]

Originally posted by Jazzratt+December 31, 2006 09:37 pm--> (Jazzratt @ December 31, 2006 09:37 pm)
Originally posted by [email protected] 31, 2006 03:02 am

shadowed by the secret [email protected] 30, 2006 11:19 am
I am inclined to think that English might be the easiest now-a-days because of the AmeriKan cultural imperialism that exists in the world today.
English is one of the harder languages to learn. You need a large vocabulary to converse in English, and the spelling and pronunciation are insane. On the plus side, the grammar's fairly simple.
I did hear that english is the easiest language to learn, but I'm extremely skeptical. It is after all a language full of stupid rules for pronunciation of the same fucking wor darrangments: Through and Cough for example. It also has more homonyms & synonyms than any other language. SO I'm doubting its ease. [/b]
German is moderately difficult if you are okay with strange grammar rules.


For example, adjectives:

"TYPE" ==>
Case-- PERSON
Nominative
Accusative
Dative
Genitive

After "DER"-words (the)
M F N PL
-e -e -e -en
-en -e -e -en
-en -en -en -en
-en -en -en -en

After "EIN"-words (a, an)
M F N PL
-er -e -es -en
-en -e -es -en
-en -en -en -en
-en -en -en -en

Unpreceded
M F N PL
-er -e -es -e
-en -e -es -e
-em -er -em -en
-en -er -en -er