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

Screenshot of JD Vance; Donald Trump
@Acyn/X; Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

JD Vance Just Said The Quiet Part Out Loud About What Trump Really 'Takes Seriously' As President—And Yep, That Tracks

In his announcement this week that the Trump administration will be withholding $1.3 billion in Medicaid payments from California due to alleged fraud, Vice President JD Vance had people raising their eyebrows after claiming that President Donald Trump "takes fraud seriously."

As part of his role overseeing anti-fraud efforts, Vance said the administration is targeting California because state officials are not taking Medicaid fraud seriously enough. Vance claimed both California and American taxpayers were being “defrauded” and alleged that some patients had been given unnecessary medications after fraudsters encouraged “false prescriptions” and improper treatment.

Keep Reading Show less
Screenshots from @itsgoobz's TikTok video
@itsgoobz/TikTok

Woman Goes Viral After Revealing How She Caught Her Husband Cheating Thanks To His iCloud Account

Cheating is an absolute dealbreaker in most relationships—but when you add three children to the mix, it escalates to a level of betrayal that there's really no coming back from.

It's even worse when the cheater does little to apologize for or even acknowledge what they have done.

Keep Reading Show less
Screenshots from @maggieeatsss's TikTok video
@maggieeatsss/TikTok

Mom Goes Viral After Confronting Her Son About His Bullying Behavior At School—And Parents Are Applauding

Parents might not want to think about it or talk about it, but at some point, their children are going to make some mistakes, and the true test of their parenting is how they respond in those moments.

So when TikToker @maggieeatsss found out that her son had been bullying a kid at school, she knew there was no time to waste.

Keep Reading Show less
North Carolina Mom Slams MAGA Congresswoman For Attacking Her 10-Year-Old Son And His Teacher In 'Horrific' Letter
FOX8 WGHP/YouTube; Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

North Carolina Mom Slams MAGA Congresswoman For Attacking Her 10-Year-Old Son And His Teacher In 'Horrific' Letter

Greensboro, North Carolina, mother Emily Mango is upset with MAGA Republican Representative Virginia Foxx over a letter the North Carolina legislator sent to her 10-year-old son in response to a school assignment.

Mango shared that her son Christian, who is in the 4th grade, was tasked with a writing exercise. Students were to compose a persuasive essay on a topic of their choosing and send it to a changemaker.

Keep Reading Show less
Hayden Panettiere
On Purpose with Jay Shetty; Neutrogena

Hayden Panettiere Claims Neutrogena Fired Her After 10 Years For Speaking About Postpartum Depression—And Fans Are Appalled

Despite being in an industry that many people only dream of, Heroes and Bring It On star Hayden Panettiere hasn't had the best of luck.

With her memoir This Is Me: A Reckoning coming out soon, Panettiere has been opening up about her experiences with discrimination and abuse, this time on the On Purpose with Jay Shetty podcast, shedding light on one very popular skincare line.

Keep Reading Show less