Skip to content
Search AI Powered

Latest Stories

Multilingual People Explain Which Foreign Language Was The Easiest To Learn

Multilingual People Explain Which Foreign Language Was The Easiest To Learn

People become polyglots for a variety of reasons.

Some people grow up bilingual, with one language being spoken at home and another being spoken out in the world.


Others take it upon themselves to learn more languages. And every language has its own various challenges.

u/hunchbackweeb asked:

Polyglots of reddit: What was the easiest language for you to learn and why?

Here were some of those answers.

Bibbidi Bobbidi

Giphy

Italian.

Just get an Italian girlfriend and download Italian language versions of RPGs you've already beaten. Congratulations, you're now qualified to eat pasta.

LonelyPauper

Slang Game

I literally learned English by watching cartoons since a really young age. I spoke a lot of Russian and learning another language at the time. Then developed my vocabulary through literature. The hardest part was getting used to the slang. I couldn't understand a word my first year in England.

Sayor1

Cut From The Same Cloth

Giphy

Hindi - I grew up in a household speaking Punjabi, but learned Hindi from watching Bollywood movies. The languages share some roots, so it was like learning Italian when you speak Spanish.

GidhaRani

Idioma facíl

Spanish. I'm a French speaker. Spanish is simplified French with lots of "o"s and "a"s Oh, and intonations too.

moon-angel

Formulas

I like Spanish, as it is not so difficult knowing if a noun is masculine or feminine.

In German or French, you need to learn the gender of each noun, word by word. Sometimes you have a clue, but it's far more difficult than in Spanish.

ballena8892

Even The Language Is Imperialist

Giphy

English because it was omnipresent, and I feel like I just learned it by hearing it on TV all day and reading Harry Potter books because I didn't want to wait for the translation. I never felt like I put any real effort into learning it, it just sort of happened.

Of the language I actively learned I think Spanish was the easiest (relatively simple grammar, not many crazy exceptions to the rules), but it certainly helped that I spoke French already

Inevitable-Aardvark

Groupings

It depends on your native language and /or on what foreign language you already know.

Romance languages are close enough to allow you to pick another one up relatively easily. I've never studied Spanish, yet I can understand it well and can stumble my way through a basic conversation, based on my knowledge of Italian.

Ditto for Scandinavian languages. I'd probably become fluent in Swedish within a few months of practice and even the trickier Danish is much less nonsensical when you approach it as a Norwegian speaker.

English is odd... Easy to butcher, tough to master.

German, as all inflected languages, is more intimidating and definitely has a steeper and longer learning curve.

Kalle_79

Roots

Latin. By the time you've picked up one or two of the Romance languages, Latin words are pretty easy to recognize. Sentence structure is a bit less easy, and while pronunciation may look hard at first with some words, every letter is pronounced in Latin so there are no 'tricky' letters or sounds. Of course, it's a dead language, so there's that...

temporalwanderer

Word Order

Giphy

Easiest was Spanish, but most surprisingly easy was Mandarin. I am by no means fluent in Mandarin or close to it, but the sentence structure is surprisingly similar to English (both are SVO) and verbs are never conjugated, so memorizing and learning all the conjugations just isn't a thing. You of course have to learn how to mark time and tenses, but it's not as complex as for languages in which every verb is conjugated for every tense and every person.

Sure there's the tones and the characters and the measure words and all that, but on the whole was surprisingly less difficult than I anticipated.

Robearsn

When Things Mix Inside Your Brains

Well i have two first languages: English and Japanese.

So Italian is easy because it's alphabet is similar to English. Korean is easy because Japanese has the same grammar structure and even some similar words. Totally different alphabet and slightly more confusing honorific system, but nonetheless easy in general.

On the other hand, Spanish can be a huge pain in the butt for me sometimes because it's TOO similar to Italian. I'll mix up the vocabulary far too often lol

kaede1101

More from People

Screenshots from @harryl1223's TikTok video
@harryl1223/TikTok

Cynthia Erivo Praised For Calmly De-Escalating Tense Confrontation With Agitated Man Outside London Theater

Cynthia Erivo continues to show just how talented she is as she recently debuted her one-woman production of Dracula in London's West End.

Earlier this week, Erivo appeared in the backstage lot to speak to fans after one of her shows. But before she stepped out, an altercation had occurred, and a man was making a scene.

Keep Reading Show less
Screenshots of Nancy Mace and Tim Walz
@Acyn/X

Tim Walz Has Epic Clapback After Nancy Mace Asks Him To Define 'Woman' During Congressional Hearing

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz had a splendid response after South Carolina Republican Representative Nancy Mace attempted to claim that his support for transgender women would bar him from recognizing fraud in his state.

Walz's appearance at the hearing comes amid conservative claims—offered with little supporting evidence—that Somali-run childcare centers in Minnesota improperly received public funds intended to support childcare for low-income families. Subsequently, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the FBI expanded their presence in Minnesota as federal authorities froze childcare funding statewide.

Keep Reading Show less
Padma Lakshmi (left) reacts during an appearance on The Daily Show as Vice President JD Vance (right) stands with his wife, Second Lady Usha Vance (right).
@thedailyshow/Instagram; Antoine Gyori - Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images

Padma Lakshmi Hilariously Roasts JD Vance And His Wife Over Atrocious 'Ranch Dressing' Meal

Padma Lakshmi served up a top-tier helping of judgment for Vice President JD Vance’s questionable meal choice for his wife, Usha Vance.

The second lady, Usha Vance (née Chilukuri), is an American lawyer who made history as the first Indian American and first Hindu to hold the role. Her parents immigrated to the United States from Andhra Pradesh, India.

Keep Reading Show less
Chloe Kim; P!nk
NBC

Olympian Chloe Kim Just Gushed To P!nk About Loving One Of Her Songs—Except It's Not A P!nk Song

Most of us have gotten our pop queens mixed up a time or two, but few of us have done so on national television—while talking to the pop queen in question.

But Olympic snowboarder Chloe Kim sure has!

Keep Reading Show less
Elmo; Zohran Mamdani
Paul Zimmerman/WireImage/Getty Images; Selcuk Acar/Anadolu via Getty Images

Elmo Just Asked His Followers 'Where Have You Been?'—And Zohran Mamdani Had The Purest Response

Elmo, the furry red childlike monster from Sesame Street designed by Caroly Wilcox, began his life as a generic "baby monster" background filler in the 1979-1980 season of the long-running children's television program.

Originally having a gruff voice supplied by various puppeteers, Elmo found his falsetto-voiced, loving persona when Kevin Clash took over in 1985. Elmo was transformed into a three-and-a-half-year-old character designed to connect with the show's audience of preschoolers.

Keep Reading Show less