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
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.
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.
Cut From The Same Cloth
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.
Idioma de facíl
Spanish. I'm a French speaker. Spanish is simplified French with lots of "o"s and "a"s Oh, and intonations too.
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.
Even The Language Is Imperialist
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
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.
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...
Word Order
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.
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
