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

US restauranteur Guy Fieri arrives before President Donald Trump to attend UFC 327 at Kaseya Center in Miami.
Julia Demaree Nikhinson / POOL / AFP via Getty Images; @gifdsports/X

Guy Fieri Speaks Out After Getting Backlash For Embracing Tate Brothers At UFC Fight—But Not Everyone's Buying It

In a moment that felt less Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives and more “who signed off on this,” Guy Fieri found himself at the center of backlash after a very public embrace of two of the internet’s most polarizing figures.

Food Network star Guy Fieri is facing social media backlash over his friendly greeting of controversial “manosphere” influencers Andrew and Tristan Tate at a recent UFC fight, prompting him to release a statement claiming he doesn’t actually know them and does not support them “in any way.”

Keep ReadingShow less
Robot chasing wild boars
ABC News/X

Robot Chases Wild Boars Out Of Polish Neighborhood Before Waving Goodbye In Surreal Viral Video

Robots have received a lot of attention in the media lately, particularly for situations like the delivery robot that circled around a houseless man without a second thought, reminding us of its lack of humanity and empathy.

But a humanoid robot in Warsaw, Poland, made headlines for a much different reason this week, protecting a neighborhood from a pack of wild boars that had wandered into the community.

Keep ReadingShow less
Danny Pintauro attends the opening night of "The Sound Inside" at Pasadena Playhouse.
Paul Archuleta/Getty Images

'Who's The Boss' Star Danny Pintauro Reveals New Side Job To Show There's 'No Shame' In It—And Fans Are Applauding

Hollywood often frames reinvention as a return to fame, but Danny Pintauro is defining it on his own terms. The former child star recently revealed that he’s making a living as a delivery driver for Amazon Flex—and he’s not shy about it.

Pintauro, 50, first found fame as a child star on Who’s the Boss?, where he played Jonathan, the son of Judith Light’s Angela Bower, alongside Tony Danza as her housekeeper, Tony Micelli.

Keep ReadingShow less
Rosie O'Donnell
Neil Mockford/WireImage

Rosie O'Donnell Hilariously Shuts Down Rumors She'll Be On 'Dancing With The Stars' After AI Photo Goes Viral

With the dawning of AI, we're basically in a time where we have no idea what's real or fake anymore—and sometimes it's really, really funny.

Case in point, an AI-generated photo of Rosie O'Donnell with a headline screaming that she'd be returning to the U.S. to make her big debut on Dancing With the Stars.

Keep ReadingShow less
screenshots of Instagram video by Jo Frost
@jofrost/Instagram

'Supernanny' Star Jo Frost Warns Of Impact Of Social Media On Kids In Impassioned Plea For UK Ban

At the beginning of 2026, the United Kingdom's House of Lords supported a proposal to prohibit those under 16 from access to social media to include the sites Facebook, X, TikTok, and Instagram. Any such ban would be introduced as an amendment to the government's schools bill.

Childcare author and television personality Jo Frost has now shared her opinion on the proposal. Ironically, on Instagram on Tuesday, Frost made an appeal to British Prime Minister Keir Starmer to ban social media for children under 16.

Keep ReadingShow less