...according to the Daily Telegraph (U.K.). Taken from HERE.
The English language is closely related to many Germanic and Romance dialects, so when it comes to language study English speakers aren’t starting from scratch. Anne Merritt lists the 10 easiest to pick up.
We English speakers have a bad reputation in the world of language.
According to a European Commission survey in 2012, 61 per cent of British respondents could not speak a second language. However, with growing foreign economies and more global communication than ever before, languages are becoming a crucial skill for professionals.
Luckily, English is not an isolated language. Rather, it is linked to many European Germanic languages by descent or influence. It also absorbed foreign vocabulary in its earlier years; over 50 per cent of English words stem from Latin or French.
This means that when it comes to language study, English speakers aren’t starting from scratch. With common alphabets, structure, and vocabulary, foreign languages can be relatively easy for English speakers to learn.
Afrikaans
Like English, Afrikaans is in the West Germanic language family. Unlike English, its structure won’t make your head spin. A great feature of Afrikaans, especially for grammar-phobes, is its logical and non-inflective structure. Unlike English, there is no verb conjugation (swim, swam, swum). Unlike Romance languages, there is no gender (un homme, une femme in French).
Another feature of Afrikaans is its vocabulary, which shares many Germanic-derived root words that are familiar to English speakers. Vocabulary-building is as easy as pointing to an object and asking, “Wat is dit in Afrikaans?”
French
We can thank William the Conqueror for excellent, colour, identity, and about 8000 other French-derived English words left over from the Norman occupation. Linguists estimate that French has influenced up to a third of the modern English language, from the language of the courts in the 11th century to modern terms like je ne sais quoi, après-ski, and bourgeois.
For language learners, English has more in common lexically with French than any other Romance language. This means that French vocabulary is more familiar, recognisable, and easy to comprehend. Advanced French learners may struggle with its gendered nouns and 17 verb forms, but for conversational learning, it’s relatively facile.
Spanish
For language learners, a great feature of Spanish is its shallow orthographic depth – that is, in most cases, words are written as pronounced. This means that reading and writing in Spanish is a straightforward task.
Pronunciation is also fairly easy for native English speakers, with only ten vowel and diphthong sounds (English has 20), and no unfamiliar phonemes except for the fun-to-pronounce letter ñ. Grammatically speaking, Spanish has fewer irregularities that other Romance languages.
Spanish is also an attractive second language for English speakers because of its international status. Spanish is an official language on three continents, and with growing economies in Latin and South America, it’s a valuable professional skill. In a Telegraph survey, 37 per cent of employers rated Spanish as a useful language to know.
Dutch
Another West Germanic cousin of the English language, Dutch is both structurally and syntactically familiar for English speakers. In terms of pronunciation and vocabulary, it parallels English in many ways, such as groen (green) or de oude man (the old man). In addition to familiar Germanic root words, the Dutch language adopted many loan words from French, with familiar words like drogeren (drug) and blok (block).
Though some vowel sounds may be new for English speakers, Dutch pronunciation follows the English model of syllable stress, so pronouncing Dutch words is somewhat intuitive.
Dutch is similar to German, but because it has no cases and a less complicated grammatical system, many linguistic scholars consider Dutch to be the easiest language for English speakers.
Norwegian
This North Germanic language has consistent pronunciation and, for English speakers, some pretty breezy grammar. Norwegian and English have very similar syntax and word order. Verbs are an especially simple feature, with no conjugation according to number or person. The rules of conjugation are particularly straightforward, with a simple –e suffix for past tense, and –s for passive verbs.
Norwegian has the logical system of a tonal “pitch accent” to stress either the first or second syllable in matching words, as in English’s “desert” and “dessert”.
The one drawback to studying Norwegian is finding opportunities to use it. In Norway’s top-ranking education system, English is taught nationwide, starting at the primary school level, and most Norwegians are near-fluent.
Portuguese
Portuguese is grammatically similar to other Romance languages. One attractively simple feature is its interrogative form, which is expressed by intonation alone, not through rearranging phrases. We’re leaving now can become a question just by raising one’s voice at the end (“We’re leaving now?”) which is a natural linguistic habit of English speakers anyway. In Brazilian Portuguese, questions can also be posed through one catchall question tag: não é?
Though the nasal vowel sounds of Portuguese may be difficult to pronounce at first, its rhythmic tone is easy for English ears to follow.
Also, with Brazil’s economy now ranked 6th in the world, Portuguese language skills are an increasingly valuable asset for professionals.
Swedish
Another Germanic language, Swedish shares many cognate words with English, such as konferens (conference), midnatt (midnight), and telefon (telephone). The syntax is also familiar to English speakers, with a Subject-Verb-Object structure, and verb conjugations which follow the same patterns and rules as in English grammar. What’s more, Swedish verbs are uninflected and normally constant, which makes for wonderfully simple conjugation. “I speak/ You speak/ He speaks” would translate into Swedish as jag pratar / du pratar/ han pratar.
In terms of pronunciation, Swedish is a famously sing-songy language. Once a learner can master the four extra vowels (like ö or å) and the uniquely Scandinavian “sje,” Swedish can be a melodic language that is easy to listen to and fairly easy to reproduce.
Italian
The most romantic of Romance language, Italian has a Latin-rooted vocabulary which allows for many Italian/English cognates, including foresta (forest), calendario (calendar), and ambizioso (ambitious).
Like Spanish, the shallow orthographic depth of Italian makes it a highly readable language, especially since the Italian alphabet, at 21 letters, is actually simpler than English. Uniquely Italian phonemes like –ace or –ghi are regular and quite easy for English speakers to master.
What’s more, Italian sentence structure is highly rhythmic, with most words ending in vowels. This adds a musicality to the spoken language which makes it fairly simple to understand, and undeniably fun to produce.
Esperanto
Esperanto advocate Leo Tolstoy claimed to have learned it in four hours. Most linguists class it among the easiest languages to learn, especially for Indo-European language speakers.
Though not an official language in any one country, Esperanto has been recognised by the French Academy of Sciences and UNESCO, and now has an estimated 2 million speakers worldwide. Created in the late 19th century, this nationally and politically neutral language was constructed for easy acquisition.
What makes this man-made language so simple to learn? The spelling system is regular and phonetic, and the rules of grammar are simple and designed without irregularities. Words are constructed building-block style out of regularised prefixes, roots, and suffixes. Words compound logically, as we see in birdokanto (birdsong), akvobirdo (waterfowl), akvomelono (watermelon).
Frisian
This language is native to Friesland in the Netherlands, and is spoken by fewer than half a million people. Still, it is English’s closest sibling, uniquely connected in the tiny linguistic category of North Sea Germanic languages. The two parted ways, so to speak, when Old English and Old Frisian started evolving independently around the 8th century.
Despite their geographical and historical separation, the similarities between English and Frisian are uncanny, with near-identical vocabulary, structure, and phonetics. There’s a linguistic saying, “Good butter and good cheese” (Goed bûter en goed tsiis) is good English and good Fries.” Spoken aloud, the Frisian and English versions of the sentence are interchangeable.
Any language other than your own can be "difficult" to learn.
ReplyDeleteFor a start, some people have a more natural language ability. For another, the earlier you're exposed to another language, the easier it is to absorb and to speak.
I will comment on the fact that Dutch and even Frisian is in the top 10 of the easiest languages to learn for English people. I the beginning I thought the results are false, because Dutch is in the top 3 of the most difficult languages to learn all over the world.
Because Dutch has some sounds, which don't exist in English pronunciation, "oe" is one example. In Dutch the verbs often split, which initially is confusing, especially if you're trying to translate a sentence word by word. And there are a lot more difference in grammar but it is hard to explain.
But I think the reason why they are in the top 10, is because where you come from also influence your ability to learn another language. For example for a Chinese it is harder to learn Dutch than for a German. Probably that is way English people can easier learn Dutch, because there are similarities and for example with Chinese there are no similarities.
"I the beginning I thought the results are false, because Dutch is in the top 3 of the most difficult languages to learn all over the world."
DeleteMy impression of this article is that it is a lazy copy and paste job by a journalist who's been asked to cobble together 1,200 words to fill in a page or two in the paper. I don't suppose anyone at the Daily Telegraph cares about whether there is any scientific method behind this "research".
I think there is no easier language to learn. How we learn some languages is by knowing and oftenly listening to the language. For example, if we live and sorrounded by English, so we can easily learn the language. Probably, those top 10 languages which is the easiest foreign languages for English-people is because the pronounciation is a little bit same like how to spell in English. Because people will easily talk and speak a foreign language because there is a similarity between the language. Imagine, if Chinese people is forced to speak Arabic, or japanese forced to speak Turkiye, it will be harder. I had ever feel also like in my secondary-school, I learned Mandarin and I found that it was hard, but when I was in my high-school I learned Arabic and it was easier than Mandarin, because some of Indonesian words and vocabularies come from Arabic.
ReplyDeleteSo I think tha factor is about how often we hear or see the foreign language
Quotation: "How we learn some languages is by knowing and oftenly listening to the language." I think most Indonesians will agree with Fauqi on this one. There is an Indonesian saying of "Alah bisa karena biasa", which roughly translate as "You are able to do it because you're used to doing it" I can safely say that it's true since I've experienced it myself. Before I moved to the Emirates, I didn't even know the word rabbit in English. Ever since I joined my new school, I learned English and French at the same time, but I'm more fluent in speaking and writing in English than French, since I use English every day of the week. It has been eleven years since I started learning French, but I still struggle speaking French because it takes time for me to come up with a sentence. When speaking in English, the sentences come out naturally and instinctively, just like when I speak in my native language. I also noticed that the Dutch language parallels the English language in many ways.
ReplyDeleteI think there isn’t any language that’s easier to learn. When we learn a new language it takes time and process and we can’t mastered it instanly. There might be a language that’s easier to learn for someone but difficult for others, such as Indonesian is easier to learn Bahasa Melayu because of the similarity and I think it happens in English too. “Like English, Afrikaans is in the West Germanic language family. Unlike English, its structure won’t make your head spin. A great feature of Afrikaans, especially for grammar-phobes, is its logical and non-inflective structure. Unlike English, there is no verb conjugation (swim, swam, swum). Unlike Romance languages, there is no gender (un homme, une femme in French).Another feature of Afrikaans is its vocabulary, which shares many Germanic-derived root words that are familiar to English speakers.” This shows that Afrikaans is easier to learn because of its similarity with English and it happens with Bahasa Indonesia and Bahasa Melayu. If we want to learn an entirely new language we can’t learn it that fast though, some languages such as Japanese, Chinese, etc are using a different alphabet than English, so it may takes some time to really understand that.
ReplyDeletePerhaps what makes these languages easier for English speakers to learn is the fact that they have something that relates them one another, the pronunciation, or perhaps the fact that they have some sort of historical link to the English language like the French language. Then again, there are no such thing as easier language to learn for someone or more difficult, because when you learn a certain language, the thing that makes it easier to learn is when you're surrounded by the language itself, you get involved actively in that language speaking environment, then you will find it easier to learn that language. But personally for me, the most difficult barrier on learning a certain language lies on the pronunciation and the writing, if the writing is using other alphabet than latin alphabet, it’s a bit difficult to learn, like learning kanji or hiragana and katakana,the alphabet of Japanese language, or hangeul, the alphabet of Korean language.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, it is hard to say that learning second language it is easy. I think it is depend on the person itself, because the way of one person learning some languages is different with another person, but basically the same. Why basically the same? To learn a new language you must to know the basic of that language. Example, if you want to learn more about Japanese, you must learn the hiragana and katakana first, because it will lead us in the next level to understanding the writing in Japanese. So, practically we must to know the basic of Japanese language, before we get through in another session. I think every language is just the same, if we want to learn something we just need time, effort, and practice. With frequent exercise and practice, we will get used to it. If you want to learn more about Japanese, try to give your best effort and time for learning Japanese. But, if you don’t give an effort for it, it just the same, you learn nothing about it. You just learn that you wasting your time on something you don't like or good at.
ReplyDeleteI can understand that English speakers can learn French, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese easier because those languages have the same root. The other day I went out with Tunjung and a friend. They were talking about food and lately I know that they were talking about cinnamon. They said the name of the cinnamon in two different languages; Tunjung said it in Portuguese and a friend of mine said it in French but they understood each other. It is a proof that those languages have similarities so it is easier for those who speak one of those languages to learn the other. If you can already speak in one of those languages, without learning the other languages sometimes they can understand a few words in one sentence in another language I already mentioned above. Another example; 'dormir' means to sleep in Spanish, French and Portuguese. They have the exact same word.
ReplyDeleteDutch, French, German, and Spanish are few of the many language subjects that are offered when students with Cambridge system take their A-levels. They find it relatively easy to pronounce and understanding the word because they hear it a lot among peers in international school, or they live in a very diverse community. Usually students learn foreign language in high school, and they could choose a particular language that they prefer. The majority of students think that it’s pointless to learn another language that they don’t use in their everyday life. There is no guarantee that they will remember the words and sentences they have memorized and practice in high school. The way I see it, knowing how to speak another language would give us a wide range of business opportunities. It makes you look smart and presentable. When we apply for a job, they would look at our CV and surely be impressed with our ability. Apart from the languages mentioned above, I might add Indonesian. Eventhough the words, dialects, and pronunciation are not common, it seems that they can easily adapt and speak our language.
ReplyDeleteFor me, learning English really helps me to learn other languages, especially the latin ones. I’ve learned to speak fluent Portuguese because I was an exchange student in Brazil for a year and that made me realize how English and other languages are connected. I’ve been learning French for years and still find it funny how it resembles English. I read somewhere that English is derivation from 90% English and 10% other languages all over the world. Speaking Portuguese automatically makes me understand Spanish without learning it. I usually listen to what my Mexican friends talk, and then I understand them but I can’t answer them in Spanish. So, they talk with me in Spanish and I answer them in Portuguese yet we understand each other because both of the language resemble each other. I also think that many Spanish words resemble English. It’s really common for americans to learn and speak Spanish as their second language.
ReplyDeleteThe first thought that came to my mind when I saw the list was, “uhm, okay”. The list isn’t surprising. I mean, most of the language on the list are languages in which many people use and most of them have a bit similar vocabulary. Well, not really similar but yeah you can consider it as similar. And, the main point is, the foreigner in this case is English (Western) people, so the foreign language in this article will be a language that being used in Western area. That’s why this list is not surprising.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the opinion that said there is no easiest language to learn, it’s all about your habit (what you usually heard or practiced it in your daily life). For example: when you like to watch movie or maybe television show which used French, it will be easier for you to understand French. And that’s happened for other language too. So, I guess, that's why there is no Asian language on the list.
Maybe in this article I'm going to be a little out of topic because I don't have any idea on Dutch, French, Portuguese, Spanish, or else. I will simply give my own experience in understanding language. But first, the main thing to learn languages is make ourselves used to do it. I can speak in about three different Indonesian dialects. It's Javanese, Minangkabau, Batak, and ordinary Indonesian. I think, those languages have almost the same pattern but only different in several words and accents. But some people here may not understand fast if I speak in my high school accent which is the mixture of Minangkabau and Batak accents. I can speak Javanese because I used to listen to my parents' conversation in Javanese. But in high school, I used to communicate in Minangkabau-Batak accents, so I can understand and speak Minangkabau and Batak languages a little. So I can make conclusion that we can do something because we are used to do it. Same like learn other things outside languages, we have to practice it in our daily life. Theory is important, but we have to implement the theory so that the theory will not become only a theory.
ReplyDelete“The Easiest Foreign Languages for English People”
ReplyDeleteI don’t think any of the languages listed above is easy. They probably are considered to be easy because some of the vocabularies are quiet similar with the ones in English. Still, they are not easy. Learning languages other than our native language is not easy. Although in some cases it can be easy if we have already been exposed to a particular foreign language.
I don’t know much about the other languages listed above but I disagree with the article saying that French is included in the list. I think French is really difficult to learn, even for English speakers. I’ve also heard quiet often that many people think that French is more difficult than German. As for Dutch, I think it is a little bit easier than French because Dutch is slightly similar with German.
The reason these languages are included in the list is probably because they are mainly spoken in Europe. The countries in Europe are located next to each other so maybe the people have already been exposed to these languages. Also, I think it’s because those languages are still written in alphabets. Because compared to Arabic, Mandarin or Japanese, those languages are definitely easier for English speakers to learn.
I also agree with the others, learning second languages aren't easy. All those languages in the article above isn't easy to learn. There are some languages that are similar. For example, Indonesian with Malay and Dutch with German. But it still doesn't make any languages easy to understand. For English speakers I can understand why the ten languages in the article is easier to pick up, its because the vocaulary is more silimiar, recognisible and its easy to comprehend. The pronounciation is also easy for english speakers.I think thats why Anne Merrrit chose those languages above. In my opinion I think language is all about habbit. If you get use to speaking foregin languages that you don't understand, the more better and fluent you speak. So, if you normally hear or speak with foregin language I think it might be a good way of learning it better. But that also depends on the person itself.
ReplyDeleteI don’t really know about those ten languages above. It said that those ten languages are the easiest languages to learn for English speakers. I don’t know whether it’s true or not. But, my friend said that is right. Since he’s from Africa, he said that his language, Yoruba, is the easiest African language to learn. But, I think new language is always going to be hard to learn at first. I agree with Muhammad Fauqi’s comment above, how we learn some languages is by knowing and often listening to the language. Those ten languages maybe are not rare to hear for English speakers. That’s why they can learn those languages easier. But, if we are not often hearing the language, I think it’s going to be hard for us to learn. Just like Romy A.A. said in his comment, that we can because we used to do it. I think there’s a true meaning in that sentence. Maybe learning new language at first is hard, but when our knowledge about the language we learn becomes greater, I think it’s going to be so much easier to learn.
ReplyDeleteLearning a second language I must say is not easy for anybody, be it an English speaking person or Indonesian. Well it depends on the person if they are up for it or not because learning another language other than your own takes time and process to master.
ReplyDeletebut for example, if you can speak Afrikaans, you won’t have a hard time learning or speaking in Dutch , German or Swedish because I think they somewhat have the same root (if I’m not mistaken It’s because South African was one dominated by the Dutch).
I also think that if you can speak Afrikaans you won’t have a difficult time understanding Indonesian because I have this South African friend who could understand a bit of Indonesian because most of our vocabulary and grammar structure are the same.
And if you are able to speak Spanish you won’t have a problem in learning Italian, French or Portuguese.
So in conclusion it takes a few languages to learn another, as in it takes steps to finally learn that language that you want to make it easy (so from English, you learn Italian and from Italian you learn French etc to make it easier. you can’t go from English to German, it’s hard.. well for me at least).
In my opinion I think all languages has the same difficulties, no more or less. Nowadays in globalization era of course we are encouraged to learn and to know more than one languages which it will give us a massive benefits like when we’re going to do a job interview or doing some business abroad. Back to the topic, so on the passage above it is mentioned that the easiest foreign languages for English people are Dutch, French, Spanish, Afrikaans, and so on. But let’s look at the bright side, instead of thinking that any languages are equally difficult, let's try to think that it’s actually equally easy too. It depends on how we focus to learn on it and of course it needs a routine practice to get used to a foreign language. In my opinion, it might be a silly reason but I do think why English people think Dutch, French, or Spanish as one of their easiest languages is because some of the words in Dutch, France, or Spanish has the same meaning in English just like fiancee in French and English it has the same meaning. Last thing that I want to add, maybe it’s because the English people didn’t have to learn about native alphabet like Hangul for Korea or Hanzi for Chinese so it is easier for them to learn the languages straight to the spelling or grammar than they have to learn about the native alphabet first.
ReplyDeleteLearning other languages than your major language is a hard think. But if you like studying languages, it is not a difficult thing. In My personal opinion, the most easiest people to learn another languages is Indonesia.
ReplyDeleteIndonesian people can do western dialects, or eastern dialects. Maybe because Indonesian conquered by Netherlands and Japanese that Indonesian people could speak in both dialects. For example, I am learning both English and Japanese. And my teacher is both Indonesian people. But, their dialects is really the same as the original. So I think that Indonesian people could do both the Western and Eastern dialects.
Maybe all of this happen in the early year when people still like to exploring new land. They leave alone their languages in one land, and another land near it. So there is a lot of similarity in a lot of languages in this world. Well this is just personal opinion, sorry if there is a miss in my theory.
To be able to master the second language we are learning on is not an easy thing to do. Moreover if we have a big difference in culture which may own pretty different pronounces as well. For example, I bet Japanese must be facing plenty difficulties when they learn French language and vice verse.
ReplyDeleteActually the first thing when I saw the title of this post, my mind was sort of doubtless that Bahasa Indonesia would be included. Speaking and having a lot of friends across the countries made me thought that my language is one of the easiest one. Especially when foreign people just want to learn the daily basis not the formal or bookish one. It is because there are no vocabulary’s changes due to the grammar. No need to memorize which verb is the correct one to use, referring to tenses. We just can form a sentence by putting the words we mean to say.
I find it really interesting that one of the easiest foreign languages for English people is French. Well honestly, I’ve learned French for approximately three years in senior high school, and I seriously don’t find it easy at all. I just can’t get it. It’s a pretty difficult language to be learned for me. My classmates, even my schoolmates, also think the same with me. The tenses in French are far more difficult to be learned than expected. I can only remember the introducing part in French now, and some words that I already forget how to pronounce. But, if I’m given a chance again to learn, I really want to learn French seriously this time. I don’t want the three years that I have spent to learn French in senior high school to be a waste. I want to continue to learn French. Because French is a beautiful language, and I think being able to speak French will be very useful for me in the future.
ReplyDeleteHello, my name is Heza Ramanda and I would like to give my comment on this topic.
ReplyDeleteIn my own opinion, I think the best foreign language and the easiest I guess, for English people, is Norwegian. Why? Because it is stated that English and Norwegian languages have a very similar syntax and word order. The tonal accent is a trouble, but it won’t be hard to overcome, and I guess in the end, people just try to get along with it. Compared to other languages, which is harder I guess. And I think, studying French, Dutch, Portuguese et cetera is kind of hard. Since it has a difficult word to say, since almost each word has a different way to pronounce. I’ve learned French once, during senior high school. And I admit, learning to speak French is hard. And so to conclude, I think I prefer Norwegian because it’s similar to English, and wont take time to study.
And I guess that is all. Thank you.
Every language is actually difficult to learn. But when you have the will to speak using it, to practice it in your everyday lives, then any language will be just like a piece of pie. I heard from my friend who is now currently living in England, lots of people there starting to learn French language (in the countryside), and also mandarin.
ReplyDeleteI learned from my own experience. I studied Arabic for many years but now nothing stuck in my head (I didn't have the will to master it). But when I learn to speak English, I can already, at least, make a sentence within one month. And I personally think that perhaps it is easier for English people to learn 10 languages the article mentioned above because there aren't many differences in alphabets and pronunciations. And also, most of the languages mentioned are languages that come from various countries from the same continents.
Its quiet interesting that French included as one of the easiest foreign language. Cause what I know, from the people whose learning it was, that it is a hard language to be learned. They pronounce and type different. For example “toi” pronounced as “twa”, “manques” pronounced as “monq” and so on. And they has a hard grammar too (as I know) that’s why I don’t really interested in French. I’d rather say that the Deustch is easier. I ever learned some Deustch, and I spoke with some germans too with it. And they said like “for a foreigner, you pronounce it perfectly!”
ReplyDeleteBut, as an Indonesian, personally, I think, it’s easier to learn English rather than any other language. Even if I learn some Deustch, I still can’t speak fluently, and I still find difficulty for it. So the better language for me, I think English all the way. (yeay) and I hope, that I can speak more fluent in English.
“Unlike English, its structure won’t make your head spin.” I think I am going to learn Afrikaans after knowing that they don’t have complicated structure of grammar. I have already learnt 3 foreign languages in high school other than English: Deutsch (Germany), French, and Japanese.
ReplyDeleteI am surprised that French is included in the top 10. Even though it is similar with English but I think what makes it hard is the pronunciation. I was always stressed out whenever the teacher told us that there would be a listening test, and to make it worse there was a listening section in the final exam.
I am not surprised that the other 2 languages are not included in the list of the easiest language to learn, because it is not easy, indeed. They have complicated grammar. So far, I think the hardest one is Japanese.
In my opinion, by reading this article, I can conclude that the easiest language for English Speakers is Swedish.
In my opinion there is no language that easy to be learnt. If we learn new language, we must remember many new vocabularies and the grammar. The pronunciation is also different with our daily language. I don’t really know if all languages have grammar or not. Maybe those languages are easy to be learnt by English people because they have some similarities words or maybe the pronunciation is almost same with English. For the Indonesian people, those languages must be hard to be learnt because of the new vocabularies and pronunciation. I think the best way to learn language is often listen or make a conversation using the language that we want to learn. For example if we don’t understand about English but we have to stay in London, we will understand English faster. It’s because we always hear English everywhere and every time. Then we are forced to use English every time, especially if we meet new friends or ask something to the people around.
ReplyDeleteNorwegian shares a lot of words with English, but I disagree in a bit that conjugation of verbs is so simple in Norwegian. I was sitting here, trying to find a verb that fit the journalist's description of Norwegian verb conjugation, but I could not come up with a single example. But still, we have a huge amount of dialects in Norway, so if you just put a few random letters at the end of the word you are trying to conjugate, chances are it will be correct in some part of the country!
ReplyDeleteI also think Indonesian is quite easy to learn, even though I'm not really good at it so far. It is hard to remember all the words, but there is absolutely no verb conjugation and it doesn't really deviate from it's grammatical rules very much, if at all. This caused me to wonder if Indonesian was created to be an easy language on purpose, so that all the people from the different islands and cultures easily could learn the language and communicate with each other. It would be nice if someone could tell me if this is right or not!
The Easiest Foreign Languages for English People, I think that all foreign languages are difficult to learn, because we have to know the structure, the grammar etc, so it’s difficult to learn. But luckily the English people can learn famous languages much easier such as French languages or Germany (I’m envy with it).
ReplyDeleteFor me learn those languages are very difficult, in high school from the first grade I learnt French language, but till I finished my study in high school I could only introduce myself “bonjour mon nom Haris, je suis étudiant, j'habite rue Kalimantan numéro quinze” haha that’s all.
As Indonesian people we have some languages that easier for us to learn, like Javanese language, Melayu language, and many more (yeah Indonesia has many languages) but our language is not famous yet, so people around the world did not used it. I just imagine that sometimes, most people in the world will uses Indonesian language or Javanese language.
Learning a new language is always possesses difficulty. The grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation are different. Perhaps pronunciation is the most difficult step on learning a new language. To master pronunciation we have to use the language in our daily conversation. Since there are certain words that need special stresses. By using it on daily conversation it will make us speak more fluently.
ReplyDeleteThanks to globalisation and advancement of technologies we could do just like that. Videoconference with bunch of international friends will surely improve out speaking and listening skills. Listening to music can help us to learn and familiarise ourselves with new words. It will help us understanding the grammar indirectly. Hence we can sat that now we could learn a new language much easier compare to the old days. In the old days letter is the only means of long distance conversation, since making phone calls can be very expensive, and some times the reception is terrible.
It’s quite funny and makes my eyes open wide knowing if Afrikaans doesn’t have structure that can make our head spin, there is no inflective structure, no more verb conjugation (swim, swam, swum) or there is no gender (un homme, une femme in French). Now, I have a big question hanging on my head, how come french is considered as one of the easiest foreign language for english people? I think it totally breaks public understanding that French is difficult. Especially the pronunciation, most people will agree if learning pronunciation in French is the most difficult process, because we have to pronounce all those vowel, there are the difference in prononcing between “ou” and “au” and the accent sometimes unfimiliar for english speaker.
ReplyDeleteThen, how about spanish? Basically it may be the easiest language for most of English speaker. Spanish spelling is very simple and regular, Because both language have Latin origin, English and Spanish share many common words; there are dozens of English words in the Spanish language like: grande, mosquito, delicioso, drama, fiesta, color etc. So, I think for the top three easiest foreign language for english speaker Spanish should be in the second list. But whatever the difficulties learning new language is important to broaden our view about this world and surely it looks cool when we can speak with foreigners with their native tongue.
"Any language other than your own can be "difficult" to learn. "
ReplyDeleteI agree with Richelle's statement above. Everything outside our comfort zones can be a very difficult thing since we are not adapt to such situations; well, in this situation, the new language itself.
Learning a new language is not an instant thing to do. It needs time, practice and patient. Maybe if you are natural learner, it can be easy for you to learn new language. But for some people, they have to spent years to at least become good in that language they learn.
Practicing new language can be done through reading and communicating with others. Reading will gain your vocabulary and communicating will help to boost your speaking ability and also boost up your confidence level.
I personally would love to learn some of European languages such as Spanish, Dutch and French. Two things that makes them difficult to learn are the pronunciation or accents and the fact that there are different words to be used for female and male.
Nonetheless, learning new languages are a fun thing to do.
The difficulty to learn a new language is different for each person. It depends on what language you first mastered. Like what already stated, that some languages come from the same root so some of them have similar words or similar grammar. I'm also really sure that the key to learn new language is to practice. Practice makes perfect; it happens to anything that you do. Even if you know all the vocabularies and the grammar rules but you never practice speaking it, then it's no use. When my mom was in college, she was really good with English grammar. She always got an A. But she rarely spoke in English, so basically she was only good with the theory, not the practice. Until one day she joined an exchange program to Canada where she was forced to speak in English. And now she speaks very fluent English. From then my parents always taught us (me and my sister) to just try to speak in English every time and don't think about the grammar. I guess that's why I'm not good with grammar, haha. And I believe that this also apply when you want to learn any languages in the world. Learning the grammar is important, but speaking the language is much more important.
ReplyDeleteI thought it would be Spanish that is easiest foreign languages for English people. Because I saw in movies that students learn Spanish in their junior or senior high school. And they’re pretty good at learning it. “We English speakers have a bad reputation in the world of language. According to a European Commission survey in 2012, 61 per cent of British respondents could not speak a second language.” I don’t fully aware of this. Maybe that’s why in article “Languages in U.K. Universities” Foreign literature/language major has plunged by 40% and the rate of decline has increased in recent years. That article didn’t say anything about things that cause the plunged. But I think Japanese people more find it difficult to learn foreign language, because their letters are different with other countries. In the other side, English letters or alphabet is commonly used to so many countries around the world, so it’ll be easier for them to learn other foreign languages. Like these statements say “This means that when it comes to language study, English speakers aren’t starting from scratch. With common alphabets, structure, and vocabulary, foreign languages can be relatively easy for English speakers to learn. “ And “It also absorbed foreign vocabulary in its earlier years; over 50 per cent of English words stem from Latin or French.” I think it’s fine if English people don’t want to learn other language, because their language is the international language at the moment. Thank you for reading.
ReplyDeleteTo be honest I am not interested in learning a language other than English, other languages was extremely difficult for me to understand, how the pronunciation of the word and a diverse word selection makes it difficult to study, such as the German language has a masculine or feminine object classification, or French language the pronunciation is really difficult to replicate. I guess whether or not people easily master a language depends on the language similarities with the language he used, for example, I feel that as Indonesian Malay language is a language that is easy because it has many words in common and the same pronunciation. If we have a lot in common then people do not need to learn new things and be able to master the new language quickly compared to learning a language that has many differences with the language that he used to use everyday.
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