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 Emily Austin; Billie Eilish
@emilyraustin/X; Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for WSJ. Magazine Innovators Awards

MAGA Influencer Dragged After Calling Billie Eilish's Anti-ICE Speech At Grammys 'Shameful'

MAGA sports journalist Emily Austin was mocked online after sharing her disapproval for singer Billie Eilish's speech condemning ICE, which got a standing ovation from the crowd.

Eilish, who received the Grammy Award for "Song of the Year" with her brother Finneas O'Connell for their work on the song "Wildflower," used her time onstage to call out President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown as outrage grows around the country following the murders of Minneapolis residents Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti at the hands of ICE agents.

Keep Reading Show less
Melania Trump
Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images

MAGA Bots Come Out In Full Force After Melania's New Documentary Gets Abysmal Score On 'Rotten Tomatoes'

First Lady Melania Trump's new documentary was critically panned on its opening weekend, but MAGA bots have come out in full force with enough gushing reviews to give the film a near-perfect audience score on the review-aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes.

Melania follows current First Lady Melania Trump in the 20 days leading up to President Donald Trump’s second inauguration following the 2024 presidential election. The film was directed by Brett Ratner, who was accused of sexual harassment and misconduct by at least six women.

Keep Reading Show less
Donald Trump; Trevor Noah
Annabelle Gibson/Getty Images; Kevin Winter/Getty Images for The Recording Academy

Trump Threatens To Sue 'Total Loser' Trevor Noah Over Joke About Him And Epstein During Grammys

President Donald Trump lashed out at Grammys host Trevor Noah after Noah made a joke during the broadcast linking Trump's obsession with controlling Greenland to Trump's former friend and associate Jeffrey Epstein, the late disgraced financier and convicted pedophile and sex trafficker.

Trump has continued his push to seize control of Greenland from Denmark. He has reiterated his reasoning that owning Greenland is crucial to domestic and international security, dismissing the fact the territory is under the control of a key ally.

Keep Reading Show less
Shot of a group of signs from ice protests.
Photo by Nitish Meena on Unsplash

Family Of ICE Agents Explain How They Really Feel About Their Relative's Job

People need jobs, but some jobs might not be worth the personal loss.

How do we all deal with loved ones who sign up for something we vehemently disagree with?

Keep Reading Show less
Sabrina Carpenter
John Shearer/The Recording Academy/Getty Images

Video Of Sabrina Carpenter's Reaction To Losing All Six Grammys She Was Nominated For Has Fans Gutted For Her

Sabrina Carpenter has been in her winning era for the last few years, but it seems the Grammys did not get that memo this year.

Carpenter fans were excited and confident that the Man's Best Friend singer would take it all home when she was nominated in six categories for the evening, including Album of the Year, Best Pop Vocal Album, Record of the Year, Song of the Year, Best Solo Pop Performance, and Best Music Video.

Keep Reading Show less