above metal04
JF-Expert Member
- Feb 23, 2012
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7 OF THE EASIEST FOREIGN LANGUAGES TO LEARN
1. Spanish
Speaking: Very Easy
Grammar: Very Easy
Writing: Easy
Overall: Very Easy
As English speakers, we can be thankful that Spanish pronunciations are one of the easiest to learn.
Overall, Spanish has a shallow orthographic depth – meaning that most words are written as pronounced. This means that reading and writing in Spanish is a straightforward task.
With only ten vowel and diphthong sounds (English has 20), and no unfamiliar phonemes except for the fun-to-pronounce letter ñ. This makes learning how to speak Spanish the easiest out of the bunch, and may give you the best return on your time and investment, as 37 per cent of employers rated Spanish as a critical language to know for employment.
2. Italian
Speaking: Easy
Grammar: Easy
Writing: Moderately Easy
Overall: Easy
Italian is the most “romantic” of the romance languages. Luckily its latin-rooted vocabulary translates into many similar Italian/English cognates, such as foresta (forest), calendario (calendar), and ambizioso (ambitious).
Like Spanish, many of the words in Italian are written as pronounced. Moreover, the 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 a spunky language to use.
3. French
Speaking: Moderate
Grammar: Moderate
Writing: Moderately Easy
Overall: Moderate
Welcome to the International language of love. Despite how different French may appear at first, linguists estimate that French has influenced up to a third of the modern English language.
This may also explain why French’s Latin derivations make much of the vocabulary familiar to English speakers (edifice, royal, village). There are also more verb forms (17, compared to the English 12) and gendered nouns (le crayon, la table).
But it’s not all easy.
Pronunciation in French is especially difficult, with vowel sounds and silent letters that you may not be used to in English.
4. Portuguese
Speaking: Moderate
Grammar: Moderate
Writing: Moderate
Overall: Moderate
With the Brazilian economy ranking 6th in the world, Portuguese has become a powerful language to learn. One great element of the language is that interrogatives are fairly easy, expressed by intonation alone (“You Like This?”) If you can say it in Portuguese, you can ask it. What’s more, in Brazilian Portuguese, there’s one catchall question tag form: não é.
The main difficulty with the pronunciation is the nasal vowel sounds that require some practice.
5. German
Speaking: Difficult
Grammar: Moderate
Writing: Moderate
Overall: Moderately Difficult
For many English speakers, German is a difficult language to pick up. Its long words, four noun case endings, and rough pronunciation gives your tongue quite the work out each time you speak.
German is recognized as a very descriptive language. A good example is how they use the noun by combining the object with the action at hand.
Example: das Fernsehen – the television, combines the words fern, far, andsehen, watching, lit. far-watching.
On the other hand, German can be a fun language to learn and its use of grammar is considered to be quite logical, with many overlapping words in English. Just watch out for the exceptions to the rules!
6. Hindi
Speaking: Moderate
Grammar: Moderately Difficult
Writing: Difficult
Overall: Moderately Difficult
There are many familiar words in English which are either Hindi or of Hindi origin. For example guru, jungle, karma, yoga, bungalow, cheetah, looting, thug and avatar. Hindi also uses lots of English words. They are read and pronounced as they are in English, but are written in Hindi. For example, डॉक्टर is pronounced doctor and स्टेशन is pronounced station.
This shows that while learning the vocabulary and pronunciation of Hindi may not to be too difficult due to its similarity to English, writing in Hindi is a different ball game.
7. Mandarin
Speaking: Difficult
Grammar: Difficult
Writing: Very Difficult
Overall: Very Difficult
Last, but not least: Mandarin. We mainly put this here to show you the contrasting difference between the easiest language to learn (Spanish) and the hardest language to learn, for English speakers.
While language learners won’t struggle as much on the grammar, mastering the tones can be very difficult. Mandarin is a tonal language, which means the pitch or intonation used when a word is spoken impacts its meaning. For example, tang with a high tone means soup, but tang with a rising tone means sugar.
Learning Mandarin has its rewards though, providing cultural insights and knowledge. But according to the BBC, you’ll need to memorize over 2,000 characters to read a Chinese newspaper!
1. Spanish
Speaking: Very Easy
Grammar: Very Easy
Writing: Easy
Overall: Very Easy
As English speakers, we can be thankful that Spanish pronunciations are one of the easiest to learn.
Overall, Spanish has a shallow orthographic depth – meaning that most words are written as pronounced. This means that reading and writing in Spanish is a straightforward task.
With only ten vowel and diphthong sounds (English has 20), and no unfamiliar phonemes except for the fun-to-pronounce letter ñ. This makes learning how to speak Spanish the easiest out of the bunch, and may give you the best return on your time and investment, as 37 per cent of employers rated Spanish as a critical language to know for employment.
2. Italian
Speaking: Easy
Grammar: Easy
Writing: Moderately Easy
Overall: Easy
Italian is the most “romantic” of the romance languages. Luckily its latin-rooted vocabulary translates into many similar Italian/English cognates, such as foresta (forest), calendario (calendar), and ambizioso (ambitious).
Like Spanish, many of the words in Italian are written as pronounced. Moreover, the 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 a spunky language to use.
3. French
Speaking: Moderate
Grammar: Moderate
Writing: Moderately Easy
Overall: Moderate
Welcome to the International language of love. Despite how different French may appear at first, linguists estimate that French has influenced up to a third of the modern English language.
This may also explain why French’s Latin derivations make much of the vocabulary familiar to English speakers (edifice, royal, village). There are also more verb forms (17, compared to the English 12) and gendered nouns (le crayon, la table).
But it’s not all easy.
Pronunciation in French is especially difficult, with vowel sounds and silent letters that you may not be used to in English.
4. Portuguese
Speaking: Moderate
Grammar: Moderate
Writing: Moderate
Overall: Moderate
With the Brazilian economy ranking 6th in the world, Portuguese has become a powerful language to learn. One great element of the language is that interrogatives are fairly easy, expressed by intonation alone (“You Like This?”) If you can say it in Portuguese, you can ask it. What’s more, in Brazilian Portuguese, there’s one catchall question tag form: não é.
The main difficulty with the pronunciation is the nasal vowel sounds that require some practice.
5. German
Speaking: Difficult
Grammar: Moderate
Writing: Moderate
Overall: Moderately Difficult
For many English speakers, German is a difficult language to pick up. Its long words, four noun case endings, and rough pronunciation gives your tongue quite the work out each time you speak.
German is recognized as a very descriptive language. A good example is how they use the noun by combining the object with the action at hand.
Example: das Fernsehen – the television, combines the words fern, far, andsehen, watching, lit. far-watching.
On the other hand, German can be a fun language to learn and its use of grammar is considered to be quite logical, with many overlapping words in English. Just watch out for the exceptions to the rules!
6. Hindi
Speaking: Moderate
Grammar: Moderately Difficult
Writing: Difficult
Overall: Moderately Difficult
There are many familiar words in English which are either Hindi or of Hindi origin. For example guru, jungle, karma, yoga, bungalow, cheetah, looting, thug and avatar. Hindi also uses lots of English words. They are read and pronounced as they are in English, but are written in Hindi. For example, डॉक्टर is pronounced doctor and स्टेशन is pronounced station.
This shows that while learning the vocabulary and pronunciation of Hindi may not to be too difficult due to its similarity to English, writing in Hindi is a different ball game.
7. Mandarin
Speaking: Difficult
Grammar: Difficult
Writing: Very Difficult
Overall: Very Difficult
Last, but not least: Mandarin. We mainly put this here to show you the contrasting difference between the easiest language to learn (Spanish) and the hardest language to learn, for English speakers.
While language learners won’t struggle as much on the grammar, mastering the tones can be very difficult. Mandarin is a tonal language, which means the pitch or intonation used when a word is spoken impacts its meaning. For example, tang with a high tone means soup, but tang with a rising tone means sugar.
Learning Mandarin has its rewards though, providing cultural insights and knowledge. But according to the BBC, you’ll need to memorize over 2,000 characters to read a Chinese newspaper!
