Which Language is Easiest for an English Speaker to Learn?
79Choosing a Language to Study
Unfortunately in Australia and New Zealand it appears that fewer and fewer students are studying foreign languages at school or tertiary level (college). Australian's appear more bemused than proud that their new Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd can speak Mandarin and is competent enough to make official speeches in it - which is a very competent indeed!
Should We Learn French or German?
Thirty years ago the languages of choice in schools were European: usually we were learning French, sometimes Latin, less commonly German. Now the reason that these were taught in New Zealand and Australian schools was this is what used to be taught in English schools! It made a whole lot of sense in the South Pacific - or did it? English has the biggest vocabulary of any language: its classified as a Germanic language, but thanks to the French speaking Normans invading in 1066 there are an awful lot of borrowed French words for words the dull locals didn't have including to do with food, "cuisine" is in fact is French and words associated with law and administration. In fact your average English speaker will recognise many more words in written French than they will in Dutch or German - even though the latter two languages are linguistically closer to English.
|
Learn How to SPEAK SPANISH Language Levels 1, 2 & 3 NEW
Current Bid: $47.79
|
|
NEW Language Littles Lizzie Spanish Speaking Doll
Current Bid: $39.99
|
|
Electronic Language Translator English Spanish Italian
Current Bid: $9.75
|
|
NEW!! LEARN to Speak SPANISH Language 9 CD's (Audio/PC)
Current Bid: $18.89
|
|
ECTACO English Spanish ES-X5 Language Translator ESX5
Current Bid: $199.95
|
|
New Edgy Learning Spanish Language Series Class 1 of 30
Current Bid: $1.00
|
So is French or German the language to learn - well they are spoken by only small groups of people. French is loosing ground in areas such as IndoChina where French was traditionally the second language it has all but disapeared for the under-60's. French is still a second language in Saharan Africa.
Should we learn Chinese?
Today English is probably the most widely spoken language in the world, thanks to the British Empire. However the language with the largest number of speakers is Chinese Mandarin and given the economic importance of China that we should be encouraging students to study Mandarin? After all 20 years ago Japanese was the language of choice for similar reasons. However economically important Chinese may be this ignores the fact that it is incredibly difficult to learn languages which have no vocabulary in common with English, are written in a different script and are tonal to boot - the same word can have completely different meaning depending on whether you use a rising, falling or flat inflection! Its a bit like expecting a student to study calculus without having learnt basic arithmetic!
Learning languages is like any skill the first one is always the most difficult - so maybe Chinese is not the best option to start studying as your first foreign language.
|
101 Languages of the World
Price: $19.08
List Price: $29.99 |
|
The Quick and Dirty Guide to Learning Languages Fast
Price: $12.33
List Price: $20.00 |
|
American Sign Language: Learning System 2 DVD Set
Price: $18.05
List Price: $29.99 |
|
SmartFrench Audio CDs Beginner Level
Price: $37.95
List Price: $44.95 |
Lets learn Spanish
The third most spoken langauge in the world is Spanish. Although it only comes in as 3rd in world languages. Spanish is good news for English speakers, especially for linguistically challenged ones like me - so why is learning Spanish particularly easy for English speakers?
Spanish Pronouncation Spanish is spoken as its written with only a couple of variations, the Latin American version is particularly easy for an English speakers : cinco (5) is pronounced - well "cinco" really, though in Spain it would be prounounced "thinko".
Spanish Vocabulary A lot of Spanish vocabulary is close to English variations: Some Spanish words you already know: any fan of Terminator already know how to say "see you later" "hasta la vista". Hola (hi), chica (girl), autobus (bus), rio (river), ciudad (city), norte (north), mar (sea).
Spanish Spelling and (some) grammar Although Spanish grammar can get complex, the simple, present form of the language is straghtford , and unlike French is a noun ends up "o" it's masculine and "a" is feminine with 5 exceptions in total. There are also only a handful of irregular verbs.
El Mundo de Espanol (The Spanish Speaking World)
Spanish will take you as a first or second language from Texas south to Argentina. The only exceptions aer Portugese speaking Brazil, English speaking Belize and Dutch and French speaking Guyanas. In addition Spanish is spoken in Spain. It gets better Spanish and Italian are so close that they are mutually comprehensible. Portugese, French, Romanian are also closely related languages. Spanish will take you a long way around the world.
PrintShare it! — Rate it: up down flag this hub
Comments
Hola Sybille, gracias por su commentario!
What about Hindi say some thing on it, as you might be knowing USA Goverment has put a lot of fund to learning Hindi in Federak Budget.
I'm afraid I wouldn't count Hindi as easy - there is little common basis for the vocabulary or grammar and the script is different too. Also a lot of Hindi speakers appear to have excellent English already!
Olá Lissie, pensei que você estava aprendendo Português!? :)
After all you think Spanish it´s easier than Portuguese, if you need help with spanish you can always ask http://hubpages.com/profile/AngelesF and I bet she is going to love teaching you how to speak/write good spanish ;)
I was once told that Danish is a relatively easy language to learn, although I've never tried. If you have done some French, then Italian does not present too many horrors - probably the same applies to Spanish, although that is a language that Americans are more likely to learn than Brits are.
For an English-speaking person living in the UK, I would recommend trying Welsh, as its structure is not difficult to grasp and there are plenty of Welsh speakers just over the border who are often happy to help their neighbours to learn the language once spoken throughout the southern parts of the British Isles.
Indexer it woudln' surprise me if Danish is relatively easy, probably the other Scandanvian languages too, excluding Finnish - they are quite closely related to German and Dutch and English I think. Welsh is a novel idea - part of the problem with learning a language in isolation is not having the chance for informal pracitice outside the classroom.
Funride - yes I am currently learning Portugese - I work for an exploration company who is working in Brasil and they hired us a tutor - its impossible to find Portugese lessons in Perth Australia! 1 of the other students thought I was some sort of language genius because I picked up the concept of different verbs for "to be" , the grammar some of the vocab really easily! The teacher laughs at my pronounceation ! That was my expereince in Portgugal too - I can read a lot but I found it realy hard to be understood and to understand because of the significant differences in pronounceation - I think Italian would be easier? It's hard to remember the little words that are differeent such as Sim/Si Nao/non Eu/yo obligado/gracias etc Oh and I can't spell in any language including English!
At school I learned French and Latin (the latter being so helpful in my medical/nursing career) and later I learned a little Italian. I am now learning Chinese - which takes a while to get used to, but when you live in the country it is better. You can practice daily.
Malay language is the easiest to speak and write amongst all. I mean, if you wanna write it, you will still be using ordinary ABCD------- alphabets. But then, the only difficulty is how to pronounce words. For example a word starts with a letter A, For English speakers, most of the time, they will pronounce as 'Eii', whereas Malays will say 'Aaa'.
hahaha, correct me if im wrong yea
I answered the topic as Spanish while I was clicking into it. I agree.
Italian is one of the easiest languages to learn...and once you know the language you have a great place to visit!
An easy way to remeber a foreign word is to use the link-word technique. Here I linked an Italian word to an English word by using matching sounds between thewords. English word = flour Italian word = la farinaTry to picture a group of FLOUR bags having a great LAUGH at theARENA after a concert.
Hallo, wie geht's, Lissie? Ich bin sehr gut. Danke fur das Hub!
I found that German was fairly easy to learn, although I'm currently learning Spanish and it's not that bad. However, whenever I'm trying to formulate sentences in Spanish, I sometimes accidentally end up saying German words instead! :(
Great idea for a Hub!
The thing that gets me with German is the different word order - though that said I can read what you said - its quite close to English sometimes.
I have been learning Portugese and I would be foreever using Spanish words- fortunatly the teacher thought it was funny!
Bonjour, comment allez-vous ? I'm at the end of my first year of college level French. It's hard, especially for someone 'mature' like myself. But it is very interesting to see how many French and English words are the same or very similiar. Also very close to Spanish, since they all have latin roots.
Muy bien lafenty! Yes Spanish/Italian/Portugese are close and I believe Romanian. French is a little further but you can still see the similarities - I find French pronouceation really difficult though!
Chinese is by far the most difficult language for an English speaker to learn. French shares more vocabulary than German does but is has a different grammatical structure whereas German has a similar grammatical structure to English. Spanish, for your country, would only be important when dealing with Spain or latin countries. Latin, however, would facilitate the learning of several European languages.
I've heard Thai is even worse than Chinese! I have huge admiration for the Australian Prime Ministter Kevin Rudd who is a fluent Mandarin speaker - to the point that he can speak to Chinese leaders directly in their own language!
Well, that's what I've heard in regards to Chinese. Perhaps your right. I admire your Priminister but I wonder if the entire Australian public could learn a language so vastly different than English. Hong Kong, though, isn't that far away from Australia.
Ironically I've been to HK and that's an English speaking country - at least for the tourist! Austalians should be learning Indonesian because its right next door - and the language is quite simple to learn
Great Hub! I'm a self proclaimed language geek! I speak English (native speaker), French, Spanish, Mandarin Chinese and Portuguese. I think the best language for an English speaker to start with is Spanish. Firstly, because it's easy to learn and it's also an international language. Also, once the student masters Spanish she or he will have a really easy time learning the other Latin-based languages (French, Italian, Portuguese & Romanian).
As far as Asian langauges go I'd start with Mandarin. Firstly, it's extremely useful and any young student learning Mandarin today will surely benefit job or career-wise. Secondly, the other Asian languges, eg Korea, Vietnamese & Japanese all have words based on Chinese.
I have a few hubs teaching basic Mandarin - I'll try to add more. Thanks! Dawei888
I agree with dawei888, most European languages (including English) are based on Latin thanks to good 'ol Caesar and other crazy Roman leaders that conquered half the world! So Spanish is a great one to start with mostly because in America is basically our 2nd language since we have so many immigrants, and also there are tons of learning options out there. And other latin based languages will come much easier. It probably wouldn't hurt to study a little Latin before you start!
Asian languages are harder to learn if English is your native language mostly because everything about most of them, especially Chinese, is opposite from what we've been taught. The alphabet is way different and they read down and to the left, however if you're interested studying a popular Asian language would definitely be worth your while in this day and age!
If you're interested in Spanish check out my new hub!
I've learned Latin, French, Russian, German and Spanish. Spanish is definitely the easiest for the reasons you mention. The spelling is fairly phonetic so the pronunciation is more-or-less the way it looks, once you've learned the few unusual letters (e.g. "c" being pronounced "s" in South America or "th" in Spain).
It also has the advantage that it's a widespread language, so there's some point in learning it.
For English speakers a Romance language is the best place to start. The most difficult Romance languages are French and Portuguese and the easiest is Spanish (Latin American version). The remaining Romance tongues, Latin, Romanian, Italian, Catalan, fall somewhere in between. The student should pick the language whose culture interests him or her the most. After that I would recommend a Germanic language. German has great reach here in Europe but for ease Dutch or Norwegian seems to be easier to get your arms around. The Slavic languages are difficult owing to their very foreign vocabulary. Most people start with Russian. The easiest Slavic language to learn is Bulgarian. It has no cases for nouns. It is the exception that proves the rule. The most difficult Slavic language is Polish. The grammar is more complicated that even Czech and the sound system is very difficult to master even for native speakers of another Slavic language. The Russians refer to Polish speakers as "prshedki" owing to the sounds of the language. Polish is rich is consonant clusters of "sh", "zh, |shch" "w" "pzh" Bardzo trudno !
Being a native English speak and someone who has learnt Welsh, Italian and Afrikaans, I'd say Welsh gives you lots of practice if you live in the UK, Italian links in nicely with Spanish and Portuguese. I do find I can follow a lot of Spanish and agree with a lot of comments here, as the third most spoken language it's worth trying.
Sybille Yates says:
2 years ago
!Hub bien hecho, felicidades! SY