Which Language Would You Consider Easiest To Learn?

[jcannon]

I've always wanted to learn a third language. I'm a native English speaker, with some French ability. (By some, I mean that I can ask where the bathroom is located, and tell someone I don't understand -- the most important phrases in any language!)

What I'm curious about is this: for those of you who have become fluent in several languages, which did you find the easiest to learn, and why?

Thank you for any input!  :wacky:

[pandandesign]

My native is Chinese, which is the hardest language to learn. I think English is the easiest language for me to learn because I know the basic rules about English. I think once you know the sentence structures and enough vocabularies, English isn't as difficult as some people would think. I have learned English the hard way, which has helped me to be able to speak, write, and read English better.

[BWL]

In Asia, I would recommend learning Malay or Indonesian (they're different dialects of the same language, like American English and Australian English). They  are written in the Roman alphabet and have no tone, verb tenses, noun cases, irregular nouns and verbs and you make words plural by doubling them.

house = rumah

houses = rumah-rumah

[linguaholic]

In Asia, I would recommend learning Malay or Indonesian (they're different dialects of the same language, like American English and Australian English). They  are written in the Roman alphabet and have no tone, verb tenses, noun cases, irregular nouns and verbs and you make words plural by doubling them.

house = rumah

houses = rumah-rumah

Is this the general rule to construct plurals? If yes, that would be pretty awesome but I guess it is just the case with some nouns, isn't it? Doubling words to make plurals or change the meaning of the initial word (syllable) slightly is a concept used in other languages as well. For instance, in Chinese, if you say: "我今天去法国“，it means that you are going to France today. However, if you say "我天天去法国” (the word (syllable) 天 doubled), it means that you are going to France EVERY DAY. In this case to double the word does not give us a plural, however it changes the frequency of this adverbial phrase.

[xxxxxx]

For me, English is the one I consider to be the easiest language to learn. Since English is being taught in our school from elementary up to college in my native country that is why it is easier for me how to write, speak and how to make a conversation with the language.

[leahcim132]

For me it's English. I think it's pretty straightforward. The most difficult for me is any language that doesn't use the alphabet (a,b,c... etc).

[mareebaybay]

I would consider English the easiest language to learn. I mean I have never heard of anyone having problems with learning English. It is so easy to learn that a baby could do it. We also have easy to pronounce words and terms which add to the simpleness.

[SpringBreeze]

I think English is easy to learn. It's straight-forward and has less rules. But maybe I'm bias since English is my first language. I had a hard time learning other languages because of all the varying rules and conjugations. Out of the Romance languages I studied, I think Spanish was the easiest.

[ArchaeRogue]

I guess English is pretty easy to learn, but then again, I was born and raised in the US, so it might be different to foreigners. I think languages are easy to learn depending on what your first language was, or when you are learning the language (for example, babies learn languages pretty easily). So if your first language was Japanese, it might be easy to learn Chinese (or vice versa), because of the preexisting knowledge of kanji/symbols/whatever.

[jcannon]

Oh wow, I'm actually very surprised that English seems to rank top of the list for easiest language! With all of our slang and weird terminology, I thought for sure it would be considered more difficult -- but I guess that is just mastering it. It's funny how many people with English as a second or third language I know that speak it so much better than many of my native English speaking friends. We've just had longer to develop bad habits!

Well, thank you for the replies - though I was honestly hoping someone would say Chinese, since I'd love to learn that!

Someone said Indonesian, though, and I will be going to Jakarta within the next year.. so maybe that will be next

[Trellum]

English.  Seriously, it's so easy to learn I learnt it back when I was 16 years old (on my own) and it took me 6 months or so to form phrases that made sense   To be honest I never saw learning a new language as a challenge, that was until I started learning dutch.  Oh my... was I in for a big surprise!  LOL!  Seriously, I'm having the hardest time ever learning dutch... there are waaaay too many vowels together in one word... same with consonants; it's crazy! 

Plus they pronounce a word in a way, but the written version looks NOTHING like the way you thought it would when you listened to it the first few times!  Too bad I need to learn in order to move with my boyfriend to the Netherlands, but believe me... I have no real desire to learn this language; I never had!  Not even as a teen... and believe me I wanted to learn a lot languages back then!!!  One of them being finnish!

[linguaholic]

I just added a poll regarding the question: "Which Language Would You Consider Easiest To Learn?" Please vote! You will find the poll on top of this thread.

[SpiralArchitect]

Considering how common English is in terms of usage in the world and the large number of people who seem to have learnt it quickly enough, I'd say English is the easiest language in the world. Of course, difficulty level of a language varies from person to person but considering how many people seem to have mastered English, you can say it's easier.

[Baburra]

I pick Spanish. The pattern seems easy enough to comprehend, and I think it's one that is easy to understand even with a few mistakes or grammatical errors. Not to mention, a lot of their words are internationally known already to begin with.

[marmunmrhundun]

I will always consider English the easiest language to learn, because of how easily it is for me to speak it fluently and understand it just as well.There are so many people across the world who speak English that is why I think it is the easiest language to speak in my opinion.

[jubvman]

I think you should take a look at German! A lot of the words are similar and it's a pretty easy language to pick up for native English speakers. Duolingo is probably my favourite resource for learning it.

[pipps]

Ummmm, that's a tricky question. I would say English but that is only because I speak it and it's my mother tongue. However, I think Spanish seems quite easy. Considering I've never learnt it, I know how to say quite a few things in the language. I wonder if that's from TV?

[Astdua]

Ah, that's a very subjective topic. It all entirely depends on where you come from and what your first language is. For different groups of people, languages that are in the same linguistic group/category as their spoken language will be easier, for example the Scandinavian countries have little trouble transcending between the Danish, Norwegian and so on, but will have obvious trouble with Russian, Polish and slavic languages, while a Slavic person will have a pretty tough time with Norwegian

[sos]

I think English carries the day for me .I've tried learning French and I must say it is a little bit complex.English seems to be the easiest for me at the moment.

[leafy]

I guess it depends on how you define "learning a language". If I were to define it as getting to a level of fluency where you can understand native speakers and native speakers can understand you, then my answer would be English.

Mastering a language is quite a different story though. There is an immense amount of vocabulary in English, that most non-natives will never use nor need. Mastering your pronunciation is probably pretty hard as well, depending on your native language.

[Timeisrelative]

I would say English because it's the international language. And English seems to be everywhere you go. Whether it's the TV or the internet you will likely come across English. So that said it's easier getting your English to use than lets say Arabic.

[WeDontSleep]

English is probably the easiest one to learn. The hardest one from my experience is Russian, the grammar is incredibly hard to wrap your mind around, I've found many words that simply cannot be translated into any other language that I know which makes me feel super uncomfortable because I have no idea if I am able to use those words in my sentences correctly.

[fluffyducky]

I think Malay/Bahasa Melayu/Bahasa Indonesia is one of the easiest to learn, especially for someone who already knows English, the sentence structure and grammer are easy as hell. And everything is spelled exactly like how it's pronounced.

egs:

Close the windows = tutup jendela (lit close window(s))

My mother is a teacher = saya ibu cikgu (lit. my mother teacher)

[g2narat]

In Asia, I would recommend learning Malay or Indonesian (they're different dialects of the same language, like American English and Australian English). They  are written in the Roman alphabet and have no tone, verb tenses, noun cases, irregular nouns and verbs and you make words plural by doubling them.

house = rumah

houses = rumah-rumah

When I saw the question in this thread I was initially going to answer Filipino. It is my native language but it is a very basic language and very easy to learn. Then I saw this answer and I had to agree. I have tons of Indonesian friends and they've only taught me a few things in passing but Indonesian seems to be similar to Filipino but easier to learn for Foreigners. Both languages are also very easy to learn spelling-wise. All words are spelt the way they are pronounced. 

[angelicagapit]

I would say that English is the easiest language to learn, biases set aside. English is my native language, but it actually does seem easier than the other languages, especially Mandarin which I could probably never learn if I tried.

English seems to have easy pronunciation, easy phrases, and easy letters to read.