Languages, which one is the easiest to learn?

savy839 • 29 March 2013 at 3:45 PM

People who are saying latin is easiest probably have not taken latin. ;D At least where I take latin, it's a lot of chart memorization (we probably know at least 30 charts) and a lot of word memorization. It's not spoken, so you can't just pick up on it like you can the others. I'd say spanish would probably be the easiest as well as french. Those use english letters. Italian might not be too bad, I think it's relatively similar to latin, but with less charts, and it's used today.
But latin isn't easy unless you're super good at english grammar and willing to put in work every day.

glacias • 31 March 2013 at 2:10 PM

Italian, you write what you hear
Makes it verrrrry easy

honeykam • 31 March 2013 at 2:16 PM

Spanish i thinks
i study chinese 3 yrs but forgot it all already
cause the writing is too hard

borgore • 31 March 2013 at 2:19 PM

@trish

Spanish, French and Italian are the easiest.

Many words are similar in these languages, and many have near cognates and are easier to memorise. 😊

discordixan • 31 March 2013 at 6:20 PM

Spanish would be the easiest with a 1 to 1 phoneme to grapheme ratio (ie. each letter has one and only one sound).


But honestly, it comes down to grammar and verb conjugation in the end.

English is an odd language in that is does not have many verb tenses because it relies on word position in a sentence to convey the meaning of who is doing what to whom. In most other languages this is all conveyed through conjugation of the verb.

Typically there are groupings of verbs with similar endings that will all change in the same way for the same reason. But, the verb will change for the person acting (I, you, you formal, you plural, him, her, she, he, they, we, us), when the action is occurring (now, in the past, just now, in the near future, etc), mood (an order, expressing doubt, hypothetical, conditionals, etc)

Anyway, given the complication in the grammar, I would at least stick with something that is easy to read and
pronounce.

menagerie • 31 March 2013 at 8:25 PM

@trish Asian languages are generally harder to learn for people who speak English as their first language (mostly because there is almost no overlap between the languages and the alphabets are often different).

I would recommend taking a European language- like Italian, Spanish or Latin 😊 Just keep in mind there are often a lot of grammar rules to learn, but the language itself won't be too hard.

trish • 31 March 2013 at 8:30 PM

@menagerie I really want to take a European language, but I'm from Chinese origin and my whole family speaks it. So it's really between Spanish, French, and Chinese.

menagerie • 31 March 2013 at 8:35 PM

@trish Haha, perhaps those could be your top 3?

Chinese is a good language to learn, in terms of giving good job options in the future.

If you have family members who speak Chinese, you might have an easier time learning it, as you'll have people to practice with and correct you 😊

I'm taking Chinese (Mandarin) and it's pretty hard for me as I don't really have anyone to practice with...I'm pretty sure half the time I say stuff that doesn't make sense xD

But if you don't want to put too much effort in, a European language would be best (they're the easiest to learn for the first few years) 😊

rainbowkitty • 31 March 2013 at 8:57 PM

@trish
I would take either Spanish or French 😊

Spanish:
Many people here speak it. We learn it in school and it's pretty easy.

French:
I know a lot of words in French 😸 It's a but hard if you have an American accent like me, but it's nice 😊

frogtoad • 31 March 2013 at 9:03 PM

@trish
I'm Chinese, and I think it's easy. 😸

discordixan • 1 April 2013 at 8:18 AM

As for prospects, Chinese, if you take it long enough to say that you are business fluent, will give you a HUGE boost in the world. Probably even more so if you happen to know more than one dialect.

Latin is good if you plan to go into classics/archaeology in college, but you would also get classical greek and hebrew as basics most likely.

French and Italian are good for arts and humanities.

With the three Asian languages use listed-

Chinese has one system of written characters, with the characters being one syllable of a word or a word on their own.

Japanese has 3 systems, two completely syllabic, one of which is generally used for foreign words, and the third is similar to chinese which it was derived from.

Korea has Hangyeol- which is a system of 14 consonant and 10 vowel symbols (jamo) which are combined into syllabic blocks, which are what we usually see as letters.<---probably easiest to read.


@I realize that I am being very long winded and boring with these explanations. I AM trying to help in my own horribly long winded way. You could also look up how languages sound and see which one you like best. I've done that before.

maypanda • 1 April 2013 at 1:57 PM

^^ ditto; they are the most similar to English I think. I'm living in France at the moment so I can agree with other people who speak about grammar rules but some mainly are used in writing. I guess the main ones would be perfect/parfait, imparfait, pluparfait, simple future, immediate past etc.

I find I use the subjunctive less as well as other forms. I find it interesting, my boyfriend is French so he helps me out. 😃

I've studied four languages thus far, Welsh for five years, Spanish for two, French which has been ongoing since I was eleven and Thai since I am half.

Hardly fluent in any, but I think learning one does help with learning others .. 😸

mokat • 1 April 2013 at 6:33 PM

I think that if you're used to the English language, it'll be hard to learn Asian languages because they're not like English. You'll have to learn all new symbols (and there's a lot of them) instead of words, and I think it might be difficult to pronounce some of the words in Asian languages if you've got an American accent (I'm not sure though).

discordixan • 2 April 2013 at 10:35 PM

@mokat

You'd be surprised. But it does depend on the phonemes (sounds) of the language. I can say that Chinese would probably be very difficult because of the sheer number of characters and the phonemes that have no equivalent in English. I believe that Korean would not be quite as difficult character wise, but I think there are some phonemic differences, but I have never spoken at length with anyone about Korean.

I have taken Japanese. Nearly everything can be spelled in one of the syllablic systems (katakana or hiragana) which tend to be what is learned first. Often, even in Japan, when a Kanji that may be unfamiliar appears in print a hiragana subtitle is present even). The syllabaries are really easy to memorize, and there are many mnemonics out there to help.

After that, most sounds are the same, except for some that blend, like L and R. That would be something you have to hear, I've never had an issue with it. My best advice is to watch the speaker and see how they form the word. that helps a bunch.