What language would be the easiest to learn?

[jasonmiller]

Alright, background info first- I'm back in college after sitting out for a few years. This is my second year back, and I could potentially be done in the spring; except for one obstacle. My degree demands four semesters of a foreign language. I took a bit of Spanish in high school, and I've taken one semester so far in college. The problem is that honestly, I hate Spanish. The Spanish class I took in college has been the most intensive class I've taken so far. By that, I mean that to get anywhere in the class, I actually had to spend some time practicing/studying. I don't like classes in general, and have an especially hard time putting forth effort in an area that I don't enjoy. So now I'm wondering if it would be worth it to stick out the remaining three semesters of Spanish, or try something new. My college offers: American Sign Language, Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Latin, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish.

So, what would be the easiest of those for an English speaking *******erner to learn? For what it's worth, the difficulty for me in Spanish is the fact that words change so much depending on how/when/where they're used...

Ha- The censor cut out m-i-d-w-e-s-t...

 

[vbranis]

If I were you, I'd try Italian. It's pretty straightforward and easy to pick up. Spelling, conjugations, and pronounciation are easier than Spanish, IMO.

Ilie Nastase said that he learned Italian just by talking to Italian stewardesses on flights to and from Italy. So how hard can it be?

 

[Golden Retriever]

Indonesian, the easiest major language in the world. Trust me. Do some research for yourself and you will see how unbelievable easy it is.

Of course it probably gonna be useless for you but you asked for easy right?

 

[jasonmiller]

^^Not offered at my school.

Also, I can make out simple written Spanish and get the general idea of what's going on in class, but forming Spanish sentences from scratch really gives me problems.

I may look into the Italian.

 

[cucio]

Tough choice. All of those are pretty difficult if you are not interested, either they have more complex grammar than English or use a different alphabet.

Nastase is Romanian, and Italian is a romance language pretty similar to it, so it is no wonder he found it easy, but I guess its difficulty won't be much different than Spanish for you.

Perhaps go for Sign Language, at least you get some exercise. It's a pity you can't gather up the interest, Spanish would open you a lot of doors.

 

[Golden Retriever]

In that way, maybe sign language. I mean how hard could it be? And your teacher is probably not a native speaker anyway so he/she won't hold you to a very high standard.

 

[TennisNinja]

American Sign Language, or German. There was an article on Yahoo a while back which said German was the easier to learn, followed by Italian. I'm personally taking French and that's not that hard either.

 

[Eph]

Portuguese, given your Spanish knowledge. Also, French is pretty easy to pick up, as it's a romance language.

I speak a few of those languages on that list, and wouldn't recommend most to anybody, let alone someone who is just doing it to get by.

 

[Eph]

American Sign Language, or German. There was an article on Yahoo a while back which said German was the easier to learn, followed by Italian. I'm personally taking French and that's not that hard either.

I know plenty of people with huge motivation to learn German who can't.

It's not an easy language.

 

[maverick66]

American Sign Language, or German. There was an article on Yahoo a while back which said German was the easier to learn, followed by Italian. I'm personally taking French and that's not that hard either.

german is not easy. French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian are what i have heard are the easier ones to learn.

Polish, Russian, and Mandarin are what I have read where the hardest. Thrown in with some Icelandic and Finnish and those are my guesses for hardest.

 

[Eph]

They're difficult, but I wouldn't claim they're the "hardest".

OP: I just reread your post. What is "Chinese"? There's no language called "Chinese". There's Mandarin and Cantonese style Chinese, however. I'd recommend steering clear from "Chinese" just for that reason if that' what they call the course.

Sigh.

 

[RealityPolice]

german is not easy. French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian are what i have heard are the easier ones to learn.

Polish, Russian, and Mandarin are what I have read where the hardest. Thrown in with some Icelandic and Finnish and those are my guesses for hardest.

Because a larger part of English lexicon is of French origin, it might be "easier" in that respect. It also has a relatively-limited set of cases and a number of syntactic and morphological features similar to English. Of the languages the OP listed, German is the most similar to English, but not all of the similarities are obvious or transparent, and it can be daunting to someone with limited language-learning background.

There really is no "hardest" language; difficulties are most obvious where languages are different, and individuals may find one "difficult" language to be easier to learn than some considered "easier." I've found Russian fairly easy but found German somewhat more difficult, despite the close genetic relationship German has with English, and the fact that (university-course) Russian requires learning two different alphabets. Arabic was fairly easy on a basic level, but gets difficult the more grammar is introduced. Finnish was brutal, due to its agglutinative nature and the extensive case system (Hungarian is just as difficult, and for the same reasons). Icelandic should be relatively easy due to its similarity to English (in many ways closer than English is to German). Polish is in some ways more difficult than Russian, although the use of Latin alphabet helps things.

 

[Feña14]

German was pretty hard for me, I studied it for 2 years but the word order is very tricky.

Every sentence seems to have it's own rule! Not easy at all.

 

[Golden Retriever]

French and Russian are easy?? Man, I am feeling like an idiot. They are like impossibly difficult for me.

 

[Golden Retriever]

They're difficult, but I wouldn't claim they're the "hardest".

OP: I just reread your post. What is "Chinese"? There's no language called "Chinese". There's Mandarin and Cantonese style Chinese, however. I'd recommend steering clear from "Chinese" just for that reason if that' what they call the course.

Sigh.

Well, if you put it that way, there is no country called China neither. It should be called Zhong Guo or more precisely 中国。China is just an alias for Zhong Guo and Chinese is an alias for Mandarin which is an alias for Potonghua. If you can't grasp the concept of alias you can't get a non-minimum wage job these days.

 

[Eph]

No, you fail to understand. Mandarin and Cantonese are two different languages. There is no Chinese language. That's a common mistake.

 

[RealityPolice]

French and Russian are easy?? Man, I am feeling like an idiot. They are like impossibly difficult for me.

No, not necessarily easy. It's all relative.

A lot depends on the teacher as well, or at the very least the teaching method. People learn things differently, and one teacher's style may be the worst possible fit for you.

 

[Golden Retriever]

No, you fail to understand. Mandarin and Cantonese are two different languages. There is no Chinese language. That's a common mistake.

I fail to understand?? Thats a good one. They share the exact same writing scripts, except for some local prank scripts that are never officially used anyways. Mutual listening comprehension is a bit tricky but we are just talking about a couple of months of getting used to. Maybe some dialects further West are really very different but Cantonese, Shanghainese and all the big city dialects are quite similar to Mandarin.

 

[RealityPolice]

Alright, background info first- I'm back in college after sitting out for a few years. This is my second year back, and I could potentially be done in the spring; except for one obstacle. My degree demands four semesters of a foreign language. I took a bit of Spanish in high school, and I've taken one semester so far in college. The problem is that honestly, I hate Spanish. The Spanish class I took in college has been the most intensive class I've taken so far. By that, I mean that to get anywhere in the class, I actually had to spend some time practicing/studying. I don't like classes in general, and have an especially hard time putting forth effort in an area that I don't enjoy. So now I'm wondering if it would be worth it to stick out the remaining three semesters of Spanish, or try something new. My college offers: American Sign Language, Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Latin, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish.

I'll add that ANY language takes work, especially the way(s) they're usually taught. You have to memorize a lot of things, and it's very easy to get left behind.

Get yourself some of those keyring notecards, put vocabulary and case endings on them, and study them whenever you've got ten minutes to spare: between classes, after lunch, whenever. That's in addition to your regular studying. You won't get anywhere without committing to this.

 

[Golden Retriever]

I'll add that ANY language takes work, especially the way(s) they're usually taught. You have to memorize a lot of things, and it's very easy to get left behind.

Get yourself some of those keyring notecards, put vocabulary and case endings on them, and study them whenever you've got ten minutes to spare: between classes, after lunch, whenever. That's in addition to your regular studying. You won't get anywhere without committing to this.

Well, maybe he just wants an easy A, which is perfectly understandable.

 

[RealityPolice]

Well, maybe he just wants an easy A, which is perfectly understandable.

Understandable, perhaps, but it shouldn't be expected. As shouldn't get handed out like you're at Harvard. But that's a topic for another day. :mrgreen:

 

[ubermeyer]

Cebuano

10c

 

[vbranis]

I took French in high school and found it difficult. Same with German, I just could not get a hang on it.

I do speak Romanian fluently, and it's too bad that they don't offer it at your school. I think it's the absolute EASIEST language to learn. Every word is pronounced the way it's spelled and conjugations are very easy to understand. Also, Romanian is the closest modern language to Latin, so if you know some Latin words, you will have no trouble understanding and picking up the vocabulary.

 

[jasonmiller]

Honestly, I'd settle for easy C's in this area. I just really don't enjoy studying another language, and was wondering if any of my options might have less intense memorization of how words change depending on how they're used, whether they're feminine or masculine, etc.

And that's what I thought about "Chinese" too. I wonder why they have it listed like that? Anyway...

It seems like I'd probably be just as well off sticking to Spanish. I was wondering mainly if German might be easier since it's closer to English, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Also, I was wondering if French, Italian, Portuguese, or Latin might be somehow easier than Spanish. Again, it seems not. Maybe American Sign Language would be easier??

 

[r2473]

German was pretty hard for me, I studied it for 2 years but the word order is very tricky.

Every sentence seems to have it's own rule! Not easy at all.

Even German's don't find German grammar easy.

I took 6 semesters in college and did an additional year in Frankfurt. I was on a business school exchange and took regular classes with the rest of the students. It was f'ing hard.

 

[pabletion]

I think I can pitch in. My mother tongue is spanish, but I started learning english in school at the age of 5 so its my 2nd language. I never knew how hard it was to learn another language from scratch till I went to Germany after my senior year in HS, to learn german. The thing I notice is that, of course, you try and relate it to your language (or languages), meaning you try and translate everything so similar languages come easier. Knowing spanish and pretty darn good english, I can tell you that the closest of those languages to english is german. A lot of the words are very similar or have common roots. The trouble would be in the order of the sentences, etc, but thats something you get used to. Id say go with german. I found myself comparing it more to english than to my natural spanish when I first started to learn it.

 

[Mick]

i don't know which one is easiest to learn but i were to learn a foreign language, i would choose spanish because there are a lot of people in america that speak spanish. imo, it's not useful to learn a language that only a very small population speaks.

 

[RealityPolice]

Honestly, I'd settle for easy C's in this area. I just really don't enjoy studying another language, and was wondering if any of my options might have less intense memorization of how words change depending on how they're used, whether they're feminine or masculine, etc.

And that's what I thought about "Chinese" too. I wonder why they have it listed like that? Anyway...

It seems like I'd probably be just as well off sticking to Spanish. I was wondering mainly if German might be easier since it's closer to English, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Also, I was wondering if French, Italian, Portuguese, or Latin might be somehow easier than Spanish. Again, it seems not. Maybe American Sign Language would be easier??

My sister-in-law and a few others I know have taken ASL to escape the "foreign-language grind." They enjoyed it a great deal. It certainly has its own challenges, but it's a viable alternative. It's also a great skill for a resumé.

If that's what you're looking for, go for it. It's certainly no less viable or less legitimate a language than any spoken language.

 

[rommil]

cebauno

10c

It's Cebuano, if you are referring to the Filipino dialect.

 

[Feña14]

Even German's don't find German grammar easy.

I took 6 semesters in college and did an additional year in Frankfurt. I was on a business school exchange and took regular classes with the rest of the students. It was f'ing hard.

I'm not surprised to hear that at all, you almost have to put the words in the order that seems most illogical to get it right!

 

[Vermillion]

Spanish or Italian

 

[Flyingpanda]

They're difficult, but I wouldn't claim they're the "hardest".

OP: I just reread your post. What is "Chinese"? There's no language called "Chinese". There's Mandarin and Cantonese style Chinese, however. I'd recommend steering clear from "Chinese" just for that reason if that' what they call the course.

Sigh.

Um.... that's not a reason not to take the class. In an academic setting, when they say Chinese, that usually defaults to Mandarin. The reason for this is that all Chinese citizens are required to learn Mandarin, it's the official state language. Secondly, you're only partially right. There are way more than 2 dialects of Chinese.

 

[ubermeyer]

It's Cebuano, if you are referring to the Filipino dialect.

yeah sorry

 

[rommil]

yeah sorry

No apologies needed. I guess my next question is are you Flip? Actually it's not a bad dialect to learn because you end up learning some Spanish words too.

 

[maddogz32]

go french, u can use what u already learned in spanish to help because a lot of the words sound alike. plus its a chick magnet

 

[albino smurf]

French is the best. Their food is the best.