I seem to be acquiring Spanish very quickly, unlike my efforts in Japanese and ASL. I already speak French so that’s why.
I’ve been at Vietnamese for about 2+ years and it’s really easy to learn as a written language. Pronunciation is the hardest part. But if you are used to tonal languages, it’s easy.
I’m curious about the tones, too. How are the tones of Vietnamese/Cantonese for you being a native speaker of Korean/Taiwanese/Mandarin? Are they really easy for you? For me the tones of Mandarin were OK because there are only four that are clearly distinct from each other, but the tones of Vietnamese or Cantonese (or Taiwanese) are quite difficult for me to distinguish
For me it’s either Dutch or Spanish. Both are similar to English and don’t have confusing pronunciations or spelling systems, at least in my opinion.
I’ve learnt Chinese and Taiwanese since I was born, together with Korean so I cannot remember learning Chinese & Taiwanese tones. It just comes naturally and I just know the tones(?)
For Vietnamese and Thai, the tones are pretty easy to me probably because I listen to a lot of Thai and Vietnamese content so I don’t find it difficult to distinguish the tones
Cantonese was quite difficult for me at first, with a few tones sounding very similar but because I study music so I used music notes to denote the notes and it’s all fine for me now
When I started learning Vietnamese, I found this YouTube Channel to be the best for learning tones (as a native English speaker). Most “Learn Vietnamese” channels are made by native speakers of Vietnamese and for them, I think the tones just come naturally. On this channel, he’s learned Vietnamese as a second language so the way he explains the tones and the pronunciation makes a lot more sense language learners who are tonally challenged.
Interesting! Thank you guys
For me the easiest languages were actually the ones “further away” from my native tongue. @Rina mentioned Scandinavian languages for native English speakers - I’m a native English speaker and although I could quickly see the connections between English and Swedish, I did not enjoy it and really struggled because there were too many similarities - I couldn’t keep them separate in my head although a lot of people do appreciate the similarities when learning.
The easiest languages for me have been Finnish, ASL, and KSL.
wow, what a comprehensive answer. I agree though. and I agree that Esperanto is easier than other romance languages
are you turkish native speaker?
wow, thank you! I am looking for this. answering what easy and difficult from my language
so musicians are better in tonal language, got it.
The easiest foreign language by far is English, probably because its grammar is very simple.
I disagree that the lack of verb tenses makes a language easier. In such a language, when there’s a need to make it clear that I mean, say, the past, I would have to find some roundabout way of doing it, and I’d still be left wondering if the listener will really understand that I mean the past. In English, you have the past and the future, but the relevant grammatical forms are very easy to figure out. That’s what makes a language easy.
Good morning,
Similar to Indonesian, the grammar of Afrikaans is very easy as there are less tenses, no gender differentiation of nouns, etc. If you know any of the languages of the Germanic group of languages, Afrikaans will be a feast as it is grammatically much easier than German or Dutch. Even the word order in German and Afrikaans is the same.
So, in my opinion the easiest languages are the younger ones in a language family group. Afrikaans is much easier than the Germanic languages from which it has developed, because languages tend to become grammatically easier over time.
For each person the easiest language will differ as each person’s mother tongue is linked to a specific language family group.
Greetings from South Africa.
now I am curious about afrikaan
The easiest language for me to learn was Esperanto, although I didn’t find time to learn it, yet I am thinking to get back to it.
The second easiest language I have learn was of course English.
I agree, Esperanto is easy. I have been learning it for 4 months and my level in esperanto more or less the same or even more compared to my spanish which I already learned for a year
Such an interesting topic. I would say Spanish and then Russian and German were easiest for me and for different reasons…
- Spanish because I started it young and had great teachers.
- Russian was easy because I had a great first professor who was just plain FUN, and because I’ve had THREE immersion experiences with it, two in the former Soviet Union and one here in Vermont at a summer program with no English allowed. There was no choice but learn it.
- German just seemed logical to me and because of its ties with English and because I was used to cases by the time I started it.
Irish is NOT easy, but it’s so beautiful and fascinating that I just keep falling more in love with the language the more I learn.
such a great language learning journey
Esperanto. Besides all of its traits mentioned in many websites, I find it easy to remember thel Esperanto logical grammar. It has many Romance-based words, so it helps to understand Romance languages too. It is also easy to make international friends by Esperanto. I feel more equal in terms of the communication.