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

The Duffer Brothers
Jerod Harris/Getty Images for Netflix

The Duffer Brothers Just Made A Surprising Comment About The Future Of 'Stranger Things'—And Fans Are Cringing

Fans haven't exactly been overjoyed about the final season of Stranger Things, and they're not thrilled about the show's potential future either, it seems.

After the show's creators, brothers Ross and Matt Duffer, gave Entertainment Tonight an unusually candid take on what the Netflix series means to them, fans are crying foul.

Keep Reading Show less
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
Meidas Touch Network

AOC Epically Shuts Down Fox News Producer's Request That She Go On Jesse Watters' Show

A video filmed Wednesday night outside the Capitol Building, by Meidas Touch Network correspondent and Migrant Insider editor Pablo Manríquez, caught New York Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) holding Fox News personality Jesse Watters accountable for his past words and actions.

The video quickly went viral.

Keep Reading Show less
Donald Trump
Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Trump Was Asked If There Are Any Limits To His Power—And His Response Should Alarm Everyone

President Donald Trump gave a chilling answer when asked, in an interview with the New York Times, whether there are any constraints on his power in the wake of his invasion of Venezuela and ouster of the country's dictator Nicolás Maduro.

Trump spoke to the publication amid heightened concerns that the United States could take control of Greenland. Earlier this week, the White House said it was not ruling out military action to acquire Greenland from Denmark, a NATO ally.

Keep Reading Show less
Lost and Found center
Photo by Jonny Gios on Unsplash

People Who Work In Lost And Found Share Surprising Things No One Came Back For

Perhaps one of the greatest rushes of dopamine we can experience is running over to a lost and found location, and discovering that some kind person dropped our misplaced item off there.

So it's hard to imagine why a person wouldn't try to be reunited with their lost items.

Keep Reading Show less
Michelle Obama; Screenshot of Laura Ingraham
Marcus Ingram/Getty Images; Fox News

Laura Ingraham Just Admitted That Michelle Obama Was Right About Something—And Hell Is Officially Frozen Solid

Fox News personality Laura Ingraham stunned viewers by taking back remarks she made about former First Lady Michelle Obama, who'd claimed that poor neighborhoods are often "food deserts."

Ingraham spoke with Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins as the Trump administration on Wednesday released updated dietary guidelines for Americans, emphasizing whole and minimally processed foods, reduced consumption of refined carbohydrates, and what officials described as a “war” on added sugars.

Keep Reading Show less