# Easy languages



## kalmarunion

I speak Danish, English, Swedish, and some German. I really want to learn another language, but I'm having a hard time choosing. I did a tiny bit of Italian which seemed simple and interesting, but I was thinking whether there would be alternatives.

Basically, which languages are considered 'easy' to learn for me (considering the languages I speak)? I was thinking of:

Malay/Indonesian
Tagalog

But which other ones would you consider 'easy' languages? I know it's a difficult question, and it all depends, but I find it much more motivating to learn a language when it goes smoothly (like when I learnt Swedish).

Also, preferably a language with a decent amount of online material - I suspect Tagalog lags behind Indonesian here, for instance.

Thanks so much!


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## Hakro

Hi Kalmar Union (1397–1523), and welcome to the forums,

Basically 'easy' languages are those that belong to the same language family. For me, Estonian would be easy, but I've never studied it as I don't find it useful.

 In my opinion the main point is the motivation. You should have some practical use of the new language.

You're now speaking only Germanic languages. The Romance languages wouldn't be 'easy' for you but they could be useful as you're living not too far away from those countries. And if you're interested in faraway countries, I'd suggest you to learn Spanish. There are some 500 millions of Spanish speakers around the world.


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## kalmarunion

Hakro said:


> Hi Kalmar Union (1397–1523), and welcome to the forums,
> 
> Basically 'easy' languages are those that belong to the same language family. For me, Estonian would be easy, but I've never studied it as I don't find it useful.
> 
> In my opinion the main point is the motivation. You should have some practical use of the new language.
> 
> You're now speaking only Germanic languages. The Romance languages wouldn't be 'easy' for you but they could be useful as you're living not too far away from those countries. And if you're interested in faraway countries, I'd suggest you to learn Spanish. There are some 500 millions of Spanish speakers around the world.



Thanks for the reply! I was considering doing a Romance language... Italian is what I'm mostly hooked on. Its grammar looks pretty simple (compared to e.g. German!) and frankly I'd enjoy it more than Spanish, even if the latter is more useful in a wider context.

How easy is it to learn other Romance languages when I've learnt one? E.g. learning French if I already know Italian? You're Finnish, so maybe you can compare the difference to the Nordic languages?

As I said, learning Swedish is extremely for me since it's just about learning the different grammatical rules, vocab is 99 % similar to Danish. Would it be similar for the Romance languages?

Lastly (sorry for the many questions), how would you rank the Romance languages in order of simple grammar - I've been told Italian>Portuguese>Spanish>French(>Romanian>German), but I might be wrong.


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## Hakro

Hello KU,

If you're like the Italian language and you've already started learning it, just keep on studying. After you've progressed a bit you'll find the other Romance languages easier.

I can't say which Romance language would be easiest. I studied French in school for eight years, then forgot it all until I went to Paris for one year as a correspondent. Since then I've done a lot of translations from French into Finnish.

Later I studied Italian for a short time. I had much help of my French knowledge, compared to my classmates who had learned only Germanic languages.

Actually I'm studying Spanish, and I've found that the French knowledge helps me but the Italian knowledge is confusing me. (I mean the vocabulary, there are no big problems with the grammar.)

Ranking different languages in order of simple or difficult grammar is in my opinion impossible (speaking about very similar Romance languages). It depends on your mother tongue and on several other reasons.


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## gonzalox237

I think you also can learn Esperanto, it would be a practical tool to learn other languages, because it is a mix of many languages, like greek, latin, romances languages, chinese, japanese, etc.

You can learn it easily and then you can use that experience to learn faster an better Italian.

Or also, another language which I think is pretty easy is the Japanese, the only hard is the writting but I know you can deal with that =)

Hope I helped you.

PD: about the ranking I would say:  Portuguese>Catalán>Italian(Even when I think is difficult, too much rules,LOL)>French>Spanish>Romanian


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## Hakro

gonzalox237 said:


> PD: about the ranking I would say:  Portuguese>Catalán>Italian(Even when I think is difficult, too much rules,LOL)>French>Spanish>Romanian


In which order - ranking from easy to difficult or from difficult to easy?


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## kalmarunion

gonzalox237 said:


> I think you also can learn Esperanto, it would be a practical tool to learn other languages, because it is a mix of many languages, like greek, latin, romances languages, chinese, japanese, etc.
> 
> You can learn it easily and then you can use that experience to learn faster an better Italian.
> 
> Or also, another language which I think is pretty easy is the Japanese, the only hard is the writting but I know you can deal with that =)
> 
> Hope I helped you.
> 
> PD: about the ranking I would say:  Portuguese>Catalán>Italian(Even when I think is difficult, too much rules,LOL)>French>Spanish>Romanian



Thanks to both of you!  I'm grateful for your responses.

I actually tried a bit of Esperanto. I read that an experiment showed that e.g. 6 months Esperanto and 18 months of French would make you know more French than simply studying 24 months of French!

I think I'll just stick to Italian now, but do you think it'd be good to do as above and learn some Esperanto first? It was extremely quick to progress with the basics of Esperanto. However, it's not a particularly useful language intrinsically - it seems more instrumental.

So, the question basically is: Would it be best to learn:
1) Esperanto first, then Italian
2) Esperanto and Italian simultaneously
3) Italian only

If my end goal is to speak good Italian, with Esperanto skills merely as a "bonus" or added value?


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## gonzalox237

Hakro said:


> In which order - ranking from easy to difficult or from difficult to easy?



Yeah Easy to difficult


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## gonzalox237

kalmarunion said:


> Thanks to both of you!  I'm grateful for your responses.
> 
> I actually tried a bit of Esperanto. I read that an experiment showed that e.g. 6 months Esperanto and 18 months of French would make you know more French than simply studying 24 months of French!
> 
> I think I'll just stick to Italian now, but do you think it'd be good to do as above and learn some Esperanto first? It was extremely quick to progress with the basics of Esperanto. However, it's not a particularly useful language intrinsically - it seems more instrumental.
> 
> So, the question basically is: Would it be best to learn:
> 1) Esperanto first, then Italian
> 2) Esperanto and Italian simultaneously
> 3) Italian only
> 
> If my end goal is to speak good Italian, with Esperanto skills merely as a "bonus" or added value?




Well , your question is pretty hard to response.

I would suggest at first:

1) Esperanto ; but if you can handle it learn both Esperanto and Italian.
                    but, remember the instrument in this case (Esperanto) would be better to learn first


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## kalmarunion

gonzalox237 said:


> Yeah Easy to difficult



Wow, you say Portuguese has the easiest grammar? Interesting. (I don't know anything about it, I was just surprised.)


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## Hakro

kalmarunion said:


> So, the question basically is: Would it be best to learn:
> 1) Esperanto first, then Italian
> 2) Esperanto and Italian simultaneously
> 3) Italian only
> 
> If my end goal is to speak good Italian, with Esperanto skills merely as a "bonus" or added value?


According to my experience, it's best to learn one language at a time. After you have progressed you can take another language to study. But if you're clever enough you can learn several languages in the same time. 
(In fact, in the school I had to study simultaneously Finnish, Swedish, German, French and English. This doesn't mean that I'm clever. I just had to do it.)


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## gonzalox237

kalmarunion said:


> Wow, you say Portuguese has the easiest grammar? Interesting. (I don't know anything about it, I was just surprised.)



Im not a grammarian yet, I'm gonna study Linguistics next year.
but that ranking is about my personal experience. I lived near to Brazil, Iquitos (Perú), is not too close but we used to listen brazilean music and that stuff, I never studied Portuguese, (not in all cases) I can speak portuguese and understand it at good level , of course i learn more words, but is pretty easy to me speak with a person who speak portuguese, so is the same case of Catalán, but i have to study it =)

Italian, I tried once, but oh my god, it has a lot of rules to me, I'm very practical, or maybe lazy person.


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## Greetd

Hakro said:


> According to my experience, it's best to learn one language at a time. After you have progressed you can take another language to study. But if you're clever enough you can learn several languages in the same time.


That's my experience, too. It can be handy indeed to use your knowledge of French to learn Spanish for example, but learning them both at the same time is confusing. So in this particular situation, if you would like to learn a romance language and Italian interests you, go for it; when you think you've learned the basics of Italian, maybe learn Esperanto for a while, and then go back to Italian to see if it has helped; but I wouldn't advise you to learn both at the same time, especially not since they're both new and neither are germanic or nordic.


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## gonzalox237

Greetd said:


> That's my experience, too. It can be handy indeed to use your knowledge of French to learn Spanish for example, but learning them both at the same time is confusing. So in this particular situation, if you would like to learn a romance language and Italian interests you, go for it; when you think you've learned the basics of Italian, maybe learn Esperanto for a while, and then go back to Italian to see if it has helped; but I wouldn't advise you to learn both at the same time, especially not since they're both new and neither are germanic or nordic.




It would be interesting, to find out what happen if *kalmarunion *tries _*your *_ suggestion. To know the results. =)


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## kalmarunion

gonzalox237 said:


> It would be interesting, to find out what happen if *kalmarunion *tries to suggestion. To know the results. =)



I think I'll go for doing some basic Esperanto first, then Italian - but I'll definitely keep you guys posted!


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## Angelo di fuoco

gonzalox237 said:


> I think you also can learn Esperanto, it would be a practical tool to learn other languages, because it is a mix of many languages, like greek, latin, romances languages, chinese, japanese, etc.



Gonzalo, please corroborate the Chinese and Japanese part of Esperanto with substanstial arguments. As for all I know, Esperanto, nonwithstanding its claims to be a truly international language, is very eurocentrist.
If you don't come up with proof, I'll think the Chinese and Japanese part of Esperanto is either next to none or fruit of your imagination, because in another discussion you managed to assert that



gonzalox237 said:


> Esperanto is very flexible and also is an isolated and aglutinant language.



which is hardly sustainable.



gonzalox237 said:


> You can learn it easily and then you can use that experience to learn faster an better Italian.


Kalmarunion has already learned a bunch of languages so he can use that experience too.



gonzalox237 said:


> Or also, another language which I think is pretty easy is the Japanese, the only hard is the writting but I know you can deal with that =)



Three scripts, two syllabic ones and one morphosyllabic (Kanji, Chinese hieroglyphs) with at least one "Chinese" and "Japanese" reading.
The grammar isn't really easy either: agglutinative language with some very interesting features.
Then there are some sociocultural aspects (I only say "honorific speech") which have a direct influence not only on the choice of words, but also on grammar, are very hard to master.
In most European languages you have some common vocabulary and similar basic grammar structures which are sometimes confusing but which are also very helpful, but although Japanese has incorporated some loanwords from Portuguese, English, even German and Dutch (and, naturally, Chinese - but that's irrelevant here), the knowledge of European languages doesn't really help learning so distant a language.



gonzalox237 said:


> PD: about the ranking I would say:  Portuguese>Catalán>Italian(Even when I think is difficult, too much rules,LOL)>French>Spanish>Romanian



I would say Spanish is the easiest languages for one who hasn't learned any Romance language. In Kalmarunion's case I would venture to say that Italian is the easier one of the two.
European and Brazilian Portuguese are quite different in pronunciation and also in grammar. Especially European Portuguese phonetics is very complex. Portuguese grammar is one of the most conservative languages amongst the Romance languages and has some grammatical features that the other don't have. The same is the case of Romanian (I say only Balkan Sprachbund: enclitic articles, rudimentary case system, three noun genders). 
French has a very complex etymologic orthograph, so I would say it's the most difficult Romance language in this point.

I would suggest Islandic which I don't know myself, but which, being the most conservative living Germanic language contains many features which can be found in all the others. Otherwise give Norwegian a try.
If it shall be no Germanic language, than I would continue Italian.


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## kalmarunion

Angelo di fuoco said:


> I would suggest Islandic which I don't know myself, but which, being the most conservative living Germanic language contains many features which can be found in all the others. Otherwise give Norwegian a try.
> If it shall be no Germanic language, than I would continue Italian.



Icelandic would unfortunately not be of much use seeing that Icelanders learn Danish in school. It would probably be fairly simple to learn, but I would prefer one with more speakers.

I kind of know Norwegian; I lived there for a couple of years but never actually bothered to learn the differences between Danish and Norwegian since the languages are so similar. The Danish and Norwegian scripts are 99 % mutually intelligible.


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## Encolpius

Angelo di fuoco said:


> ...I would say Spanish is the easiest languages for one who hasn't learned any Romance language. In Kalmarunion's case I would venture to say that Italian is the easier one of the two...



Wow, that all could have been written by myself. I agree with everything you have written. Just out of curiosity, why do you think Spanish is easier than Italian? Thanks.


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## Angelo di fuoco

Spanish has a restricted number of irregular verbs (and those which are irregular often have their own regularities) whereas Italian (and French) has lots of irregular verbs, that's all.


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## Encolpius

Angelo di fuoco said:


> Spanish has a restricted number of irregular verbs (and those which are irregular often have their own regularities) whereas Italian (and French) has lots of irregular verbs, that's all.



Well, I thought of the fact Italian does not mark *word stress* (cadere, nascere), while both Spanish and Portuguese do (incógnito).


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## Angelo di fuoco

Yes, I forgot about that.


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## gonzalox237

*Of course I'll write about it. Let me find the info about the Asian roots in Esperanto.
I'm gonna make a little investigation to give you the info.
*


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## He Fe

Hello everyone!

I got very similar problem. I also like learning italian, but have to choose second language, either spanish or french - in addition to English. Yes, I am going to study linguistics and there is no italian at my university =(
I don't care either the language difficult or not. (And I think, actually, there are no difficult languages. There are difficult ways to learn these lang-s)

Any suggestions?
Thanks!


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## gonzalox237

I suggest you, between French and Spanish, Spanish....

And cool what you're gonna study .. I do it too....!


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## He Fe

gonzalox237,
why then? Could you please explain your point?


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## gonzalox237

Because, I think spanish would be useful for you, to introduce yourself to Romance languages.

And I study  linguistics too, from next year =)


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## Angelo di fuoco

gonzalox237 said:


> *Of course I'll write about it. Let me find the info about the Asian roots in Esperanto.
> I'm gonna make a little investigation to give you the info.
> *


The first rule of a linguist (actually of every scientist) should be: don't assert anything when you have no arguments to sustain your assertion. Otherwise it's not scientific.


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## gonzalox237

Angelo di fuoco said:


> The first rule of a linguist (actually of every scientist) should be: don't assert anything when you have no arguments to sustain your assertion. Otherwise it's not scientific.



Ok, I'll follow your suggestion.

I'm here to learn, and to expose what I know so far, so the next time I find you into a thread I'll put my database updated, I don't want to shame you again, because I'm learning yet.

So as soon as possible I'll write about the Asian root of Esperanto, there are no too much but something I'll find. And that's the point.

I guess.


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## Brioche

gonzalox237 said:


> *Of course I'll write about it. Let me find the info about the Asian roots in Esperanto.
> I'm gonna make a little investigation to give you the info.
> *



You won't find very many!

I've come across one Esperanto word in Wells dictionary which has Chinese roots.

dazibao = big-character poster

I must say I think it is a spectacularly useless word, as no Chinese would recognise it when pronounced in the Esperanto manner.

PIV obviously doesn't think much of it, either, as it cannot be found in Nova PIV.

PIV has words such as Obio, Kimono and Samurajo from Japanese.

Amoko [as in _run amok_] is in PIV, but it probably comes via a European language, rather than directly from the original Malay.


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## kalmarunion

Brioche said:


> You won't find very many!
> 
> I've come across one Esperanto word in Wells dictionary which has Chinese roots.
> 
> dazibao = big-character poster
> 
> I must say I think *it is a spectacularly useless word*, as no Chinese would recognise it when pronounced in the Esperanto manner.
> 
> PIV obviously doesn't think much of it, either, as it cannot be found in Nova PIV.
> 
> PIV has words such as Obio, Kimono and Samurajo from Japanese.
> 
> Amoko [as in _run amok_] is in PIV, but it probably comes via a European language, rather than directly from the original Malay.



Hahahaha


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## Shamone

> Well, I thought of the fact Italian does not mark *word stress* (cadere, nascere), while both Spanish and Portuguese do (incógnito).



Italian marks it only if it's in the end of the word, while in spanish there are rules and if you know them it's not hard at all...


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## gonzalox237

Angelo di fuoco said:


> The first rule of a linguist (actually of every scientist) should be: don't assert anything when you have no arguments to sustain your assertion. Otherwise it's not scientific.





Brioche said:


> You won't find very many!
> 
> I've come across one Esperanto word in Wells dictionary which has Chinese roots.
> 
> dazibao = big-character poster
> 
> I must say I think it is a spectacularly useless word, as no Chinese would recognise it when pronounced in the Esperanto manner.
> 
> PIV obviously doesn't think much of it, either, as it cannot be found in Nova PIV.
> 
> PIV has words such as Obio, Kimono and Samurajo from Japanese.
> 
> Amoko [as in _run amok_] is in PIV, but it probably comes via a European language, rather than directly from the original Malay.



Well for sure, I believe you, but i'm gonna ask too, I don't want dissapoint Angelo, maybe as you say I'll find few words but at least I'm goona look up for them =)

Thanks for your post and the new words =]


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## jónico

Spanish is by far the easiest. It's got the most transparent sound/spelling correspondance of the Romance languages. Portuguese is much more complex phonetically than Spanish, making it hard to get started with. Italian has lots of difficult features that hinder progress for beginners (unmarked long and short vowel pronunciations, double consonants, complex combinations of articles + prepositions, etc.). French is a gorgeous language but not at all transparent in its underlying rules of grammar and phonology. 
I've studied all of them, with more success with some than with others. 
For fun and a bit of a challenge, try Thai. It's not "easy" but it is fascinating and has a beautiful script (and great food, too!)


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## WondererCarvalho

Hello, Kalmarunion!

I've been helping a person from USA with Portuguese. And I really got surprised when he said Portuguese is easy enough for non-speakers. Therefore, if you want to try Portuguese, you can contact, by the way I'm learning some German and Norsk (that I want to master as soon as possible), and I'd like to interchange knowledge, since Danish has a strong influence upon Norsk.
At Encolpius: indeed Portuguese and Spanish have stressed sylables ; )



> (...)Portuguese is much more complex phonetically than Spanish, making it hard to get started with.


 
Good observation! In fact, I personally recommend you to start with Brazilian Portuguese, mainly the dialect spoken in my State, which has a strong remark of Spanish accent, the accent Rio Grande doSul State.


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## Encolpius

WondererCarvalho said:


> ...Good observation! In fact, I personally recommend you to start with Brazilian Portuguese, mainly the dialect spoken in my State, which has a strong remark of Spanish accent, the accent Rio Grande doSul State.



Yes, although 1 language I'd say there's much more difference between European and Brazilian Portuguese than British and USA-English. I bet some will disagree.  And I also agree, Brazilian Portuguese is more simple, and if I am not mistaken, that has its own historical reasons. And Brazilian Portuguese is spoken by about 190 million people, while European by 10 million. But the questions is how big chance there is to hear Brazilian and European Portuguese in Europe. Or maybe in Scandinavia, but maybe Brazilians prefer Europe to South America, so the chance is not as little as one would expect.


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## WondererCarvalho

Actually, some people ask me "why are you learning Norwegian??!?!?" "Why NOT?" I must say! Is the same thought about learning Norsk in Brazil... until you look for a job inside Petrobras (oil explorer) and find out almost a half of its personnel stems from Norway .
Not that Portuguese would become popular through Europe, but in case you face a product manufactured in Brazil, a song or any important information in that language... although English is a universal language for business, we can easily get surprised with some handbooks for example.


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## kalmarunion

WondererCarvalho said:


> Actually, some people ask me "why are you learning Norwegian??!?!?" "Why NOT?" I must say! Is the same thought about learning Norsk in Brazil... until you look for a job inside Petrobras (oil explorer) and find out almost a half of its personnel stems from Norway .
> Not that Portuguese would become popular through Europe, but in case you face a product manufactured in Brazil, a song or any important information in that language... although English is a universal language for business, we can easily get surprised with some handbooks for example.



This is very true. The fact that you speak Portuguese and Norwegian, a "strange" combination, opens up for some unique job offers that very few other people will be able to get.


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## kalmarunion

Just digging up this thread again... I went to the Dutch Wikipedia page and realised reading texts on familiar subjects is really easy - basically it seems almost like reading German to me (which I studied). Of course I knew there was a high lexical similarity, but I wasn't aware it was so extreme.

How is Dutch grammar compared to German (and English fwiw)?


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## Hakro

kalmarunion said:


> Just digging up this thread again... I went to the Dutch Wikipedia page and realised reading texts on familiar subjects is really easy - basically it seems almost like reading German to me (which I studied). Of course I knew there was a high lexical similarity, but I wasn't aware it was so extreme.


An old friend of mine, born in the Swedish speaking west coast of Finland, was working for a while in Amsterdam and studying Dutch at the same time.
- It can't be too difficult for you as you speak fluently German, I said.
- Well, German helps a little, he answered, but more help I get from the Swedish dialect of my home region. It's amazingly close to Dutch.

Funny, isn't it?


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## kalmarunion

Hakro said:


> An old friend of mine, born in the Swedish speaking west coast of Finland, was working for a while in Amsterdam and studying Dutch at the same time.
> - It can't be too difficult for you as you speak fluently German, I said.
> - Well, German helps a little, he answered, but more help I get from the Swedish dialect of my home region. It's amazingly close to Dutch.
> 
> Funny, isn't it?



Yeah that's striking... Actually, I find it to be somewhat similar for me - my German is quite weak, but I find reading Dutch to be approximately as easy/difficult as reading German - even though I've never studied a second of Dutch. Maybe I should do some introductory Dutch; the input-to-output seems to be pretty favourable!


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## Angelo di fuoco

kalmarunion said:


> Just digging up this thread again... I went to the Dutch Wikipedia page and realised reading texts on familiar subjects is really easy - basically it seems almost like reading German to me (which I studied). Of course I knew there was a high lexical similarity, but I wasn't aware it was so extreme.
> 
> How is Dutch grammar compared to German (and English fwiw)?



As for all I know, the verbal flection is still very well developed, whereas the nominal flection has been strongly simplified during the last (two?) centuries: no cases except in fossilized expressions, but the gender category has been retained.


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## Gavril

Hakro said:


> An old friend of mine, born in the Swedish speaking west coast of Finland, was working for a while in Amsterdam and studying Dutch at the same time.
> - It can't be too difficult for you as you speak fluently German, I said.
> - Well, German helps a little, he answered, but more help I get from the Swedish dialect of my home region. It's amazingly close to Dutch.
> 
> Funny, isn't it?



I recall reading that a large percentage of Swedish vocabulary is loaned from Low German (a close relative of Dutch) -- maybe that's why he found them so similar?


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## kalmarunion

Gavril said:


> I recall reading that a large percentage of Swedish vocabulary is loaned from Low German (a close relative of Dutch) -- maybe that's why he found them so similar?



When i learnt Swedish I was indeed struck by the volume of German cognates. It's much higher than in Danish and Norwegian.


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## Banbha

I would also recommend Dutch Especially as you speak English and German. I have recently started Dutch myself before Christmas and I am surprised how fast it can be learned from your knowledge of German! The word order is almost identical making it easy to construct any combination of words/clauses and you can also guess words you dont know pretty easily. And if its easy it makes you want to learn more as you see it is rewarding so soon after starting and as you had this experience with Swedish you will really enjoy it and it is a beautiful language Regarding the romance languages I have found Spanish much easier than Italian but they are both nice and if you have a passion for Italian you are better off learning that first as you will be more dedicated and you can then learn Spanish after that and as it is easier you will learn it even faster from your knowledge of Italian. Best of luck with whatever you choose!


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## jeanlerymc

kalmarunion said:


> I speak Danish, English, Swedish, and some German. I really want to learn another language, but I'm having a hard time choosing. I did a tiny bit of Italian which seemed simple and interesting, but I was thinking whether there would be alternatives.
> 
> Basically, which languages are considered 'easy' to learn for me (considering the languages I speak)? I was thinking of:
> 
> Malay/Indonesian
> Tagalog
> 
> But which other ones would you consider 'easy' languages? I know it's a difficult question, and it all depends, but I find it much more motivating to learn a language when it goes smoothly (like when I learnt Swedish).
> 
> Also, preferably a language with a decent amount of online material - I suspect Tagalog lags behind Indonesian here, for instance.
> 
> Thanks so much!



Just like you, I want also to learn all most used Languages in the world. Unfortunately, I already know how to speak in French, Spanish, Korean and of course English. Though I have a lot of time, I will spend it by mastering another Languages which has to be Dutch, German and Chinese and I prefer any of the easy or difficult Languages, I just want to learn all.


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## travix

jeanlerymc said:


> Just like you, I *also *want also to learn all *of the* most used *spoken l*anguages in the world. Unfortunately, I already know how to speak in French, Spanish, Korean and of course English. Though I have a lot of time, I will spend it by mastering another *other l*anguages*,* which has *have* to be Dutch, German and Chinese and I prefer any of the easy or difficult Languages, I just want to learn *them* all.


Hope you don't mind those corrections. Your sentences don't sound very natural in English, which just goes to show that this language is not so easy to master either.


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## Orlin

travix said:


> Hope you don't mind those corrections. Your sentences don't sound very natural in English, which just goes to show that this language is not so easy to master either.


 
I think that the idea of this post must be that no language is easy to master and English is no exception. I'm sure that every language is difficult in its own way.


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## Encolpius

Orlin said:


> I think that the idea of this post must be that no language is easy to master and English is no exception. I'm sure that every language is difficult in its own way.



Maybe even Esperanto.


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## Goddess Mystyxx

kalmarunion said:


> Basically, which languages are considered 'easy' to learn for me (considering the languages I speak)? I was thinking of:
> 
> Malay/Indonesian
> Tagalog


 
Tagalog is relatively easy to learn. Because of many influences, it is actually a mix of indonesian, malaysian, and spanish words. 

like Street in Filipino is _Kalye_ while in Spanish it is _Calle _


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## WondererCarvalho

> When i learnt Swedish I was indeed struck by the volume of German cognates. It's much higher than in Danish and Norwegian.


 
When I started learning Norsk, I found out the most of Norsk words (and expressions like "på gjensyn" e.g.) are the same in Danish. For now, I haven't found a false friend between both. Now I'll start searching for them not to misplace some words once I'd learn Danish after I learnt Norsk. Your comment came through my studies Takk!


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## donjoe

If you want a truly uncomplicated language, you can try this: http://www.lojban.org/tiki/tiki-index.php?page=Lojban

It won't help you understand any extra natural languages and it won't help you communicate with any (multi-)country-sized group of people (yet), but it might teach you to think and express yourself very clearly, since:
- each word has one and only one meaning
- each sentence has one and only one syntactical interpretation.

Claimed features:





> * Lojban is designed to be used by people in communication with each other, and possibly in the future with computers.
> * Lojban is designed to be culturally neutral.
> * Lojban has an unambiguous grammar, which is based on the principles of logic.
> * Lojban has phonetic spelling, and unambiguous resolution of sounds into words.
> * Lojban is simple compared to natural languages; it is easy to learn.
> * Lojban's 1300 root words can be easily combined to form a vocabulary of millions of words.
> * Lojban is regular; the rules of the language are without exception.
> * Lojban attempts to remove restrictions on creative and clear thought and communication.
> * Lojban has a variety of uses, ranging from the creative to the scientific, from the theoretical to the practical.


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## Alxmrphi

> Unfortunately, I already know how to speak in French, Spanish, Korean  and of course English



Unfortunately?!?!?!


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## Rallino

Esperanto is fun to learn, and remarkably easy, but it's just that -- for my part, I couldn't really find too many people to practise it with. 

When you have learnt Esperanto, it will help you with most of the core vocabulary you may find in Romance languages, as mentioned by _Angelo di Fuoco_, it is a eurocentrist language. 

However, the grammar is very different. Even you if you learn Esperanto, when it comes to studying the grammar of any Romance language, you're on your own.

_For someone who isn't a native speaker of any Romance language: _amongst Italian, French, Spanish and Portuguese: *I think* that Portuguese has the most complicated grammar, while French has the most complicated orthography. Between Spanish and Italian, I would say that Italian tenses are easier than Spanish, while Spanish pronunciation is easier than Italian (due to the stress rules.)

So, between Spanish and Italian, many people say that Spanish is easier but, I find that neither is actually really _easier_.


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## mugibil

Very interesting. Why do you consider Portuguese grammar to the most complicated? I'm asking out of curiosity, because I have only a very general idea of each of these languages (except French).


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## Angelo di fuoco

Rallino said:


> Esperanto is fun to learn, and remarkably easy, but it's just that -- for my part, I couldn't really find too many people to practise it with.
> 
> When you have learnt Esperanto, it will help you with most of the core vocabulary you may find in Romance languages, as mentioned by _Angelo di Fuoco_, it is a eurocentrist language.
> 
> However, the grammar is very different. Even you if you learn Esperanto, when it comes to studying the grammar of any Romance language, you're on your own.
> 
> _For someone who isn't a native speaker of any Romance language: _amongst Italian, French, Spanish and Portuguese: *I think* that Portuguese has the most complicated grammar, while French has the most complicated orthography. Between Spanish and Italian, I would say that Italian tenses are easier than Spanish, while Spanish pronunciation is easier than Italian (due to the stress rules.)
> 
> So, between Spanish and Italian, many people say that Spanish is easier but, I find that neither is actually really _easier_.



I think that Portuguese, being very conservative hast the most complicated grammar only amongst the Western Romance languages (together with Galician), but amongst the Romance languages I would say it is Romanian, due to the retention of cases, tenses roughly as complicated as in the other Romance languages, and a phonetic that matches that of European Portuguese in complexity.
And no, no other (big) Romance language helps me much to unterstand Romanian.


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## mugibil

Looking at a grammar, the most remarkable conservative feature of Portuguese seems to be the retention of the Latin synthetic pluperfect, but its use is said to be receding (sadly). In addition, there's the future subjunctive and the inflected infinitive (which coincide in regular verbs); they don't seem to be that intimidating overall. As for Romanian, it does seem to be the hardest in terms of distance from familiar Romance patterns and vocabulary, but most of the "weird" verb forms (futures and, more importantly, subjunctives) are Balkan-style analytic or semi-analytic periphrastic constructions, which should make them somewhat easier to learn than their synthetic Western counterparts. I suppose this could compensate for the presence of special presumptive forms, the retention of a synthetic pluperfect (from the Latin subjunctive pluperfect) and similar niceties.


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## gat.negre

i think it's difficult to call a language "easy". once you reached a certain level, you will find every language easy - and difficult in other apects. if a language has a "simple" tempus system, it might have a difficult nominal system with many cases. 

 you should have the opportunity to practice, so you can see your progress, which always motivates a lot. there is no "easy" or "difficult" in general. it's always the point of view. to me, arabic is pretty hard to learn, but a friend of mine from israel is pretty good in it, because she speaks hebrew which belongs to the same family. 

concluded: i would learn a language you can identify with. if you like italian more than spanish, learn italian, and don't care about any "is easier" "is more popular" "has more speakers". learning a language should BE fun, if you do it "just for fun".



p.s. italian does mark the word stress. città, più etc.


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## Angelo di fuoco

gat.negre said:


> p.s. italian does mark the word stress. città, più etc.


The stress in Italian is marked obligatorily only if it the last syllable is stressed, and sometimes to mark the difference between words with different stress, like àncora and ancóra, or sùbito and subìto.


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## Meyer Wolfsheim

kalmarunion said:


> I speak Danish, English, Swedish, and some German. I really want to learn another language, but I'm having a hard time choosing. I did a tiny bit of Italian which seemed simple and interesting, but I was thinking whether there would be alternatives.
> 
> Basically, which languages are considered 'easy' to learn for me (considering the languages I speak)? I was thinking of:
> 
> Malay/Indonesian
> Tagalog
> 
> But which other ones would you consider 'easy' languages? I know it's a difficult question, and it all depends, but I find it much more motivating to learn a language when it goes smoothly (like when I learnt Swedish).
> 
> Also, preferably a language with a decent amount of online material - I suspect Tagalog lags behind Indonesian here, for instance.
> 
> Thanks so much!


 
Since your mother tongue is a Germanic language and you've already learned several, the language family or group which I feel would be easiest for you to master would be those of the Romance languages.  

All of them have a generally simple phonological structure and sounds, lack a complex orthographical system (like English), have little to no remnant of any case based grammar (no inflections on nouns/articles/etc for case), generally have only one productive way to produce a plural of a noun (usually add an -s), have only two genders which are relatively predictable (Spanish has three but the neuter is largely not counted as its use is not often).  

In addition, verb conjugations, while considered the major challenge in learning any Romance language (most verbs can have over 50 different forms) is rather very regular and there are only a handful of irregular verbs most of which simply form a separate class of verb conjugations and hence aren't that irregular.  The verb endings are also very friendly to the ear and easy to remember.  

Unlike German or other Germanic languages (except English), the word order is relatively 'fixed' and almost exactly like English (SVO), where as German moves main verbs to the end of a clause and has a Verb second rule, Romance languages have no such constraints.  

At least for an English speaker, Romance languages are considered *easier* than any Germanic language (I have only studied German).


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## duvija

People! there are no 'easy' languages as opposed to 'difficult' ones. If it's easy in one area, it's going to be bad in another. 
For your languages, you may go in any direction you want to. Think of how would you use it, instead of how 'easy' it may be.

saludos


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## Meyer Wolfsheim

duvija said:


> People! there are no 'easy' languages as opposed to 'difficult' ones. If it's easy in one area, it's going to be bad in another.
> For your languages, you may go in any direction you want to. Think of how would you use it, instead of how 'easy' it may be.
> 
> saludos


 
However, if languages are very similar to another, then they have very similar easy parts and difficult parts (Spanish and French for example).  So those 'diffuclt' parts become much easier if your L1 has them as well because it's simply copying a more complex or hard to grasp structure.


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## Igel

In my opinion a language is easy to learn if you're really interested in the places where it's spoken and the people who speak it. You might have visited a country on holiday and you really liked it there and want to learn their language, or you learn the language because you want to go somewhere you've always been interested in. 

How do you feel about the places where the languages you consider studying are actually spoken? Have you met any native speakers you liked? Would you be interested in visiting a certain country, would you like to get into their art and culture? Have you seen any films made in those places, read any books by writers from these countries that you would like to read in the original language? Or do you simply enjoy the food, the style, or the sound of the language?

I believe learning a language is also a sensory experience, it works best if there's a certain spark that gets you going.


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## WondererCarvalho

Igel said:


> In my opinion a language is easy to learn if you're really interested in the places where it's spoken and the people who speak it.(...)


 
I agree! Although I'm not at my expected level yet, I just love both German and Norwegian (besides English itself) and I commited myself to learn them much more than French e.g. (I found French and Spanish much more difficult than Germanic languages). I think there are those languages you can master faster than others, as long as you have interest and patience, anyway.

And not just by visiting places, but for listening to music, as it's my case.


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## Ottilie

My mother tongues are Romanian(the 1st one) and Russian (the 2nd),but the easiest language I've encountered so far is English.


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## olaszinho

Are you joking guys? Spanish is the easiest romance language. The pronunciation is a breeze. For instance Italian has 7 vowels and all consonants can be pronounced simple or double, this is very tricky, believe me. As for grammar The Spanish one is the most regular, it has no irregular plural, more or less like Esperanto! Apart from verbs, everything is simple in Spanish: articles, prepositions, pronouns, plurals, compound tenses....
The use of auxiliary verbs is probably the most complicated in Italian compared to the other romance languages, even French.
I'd rank the romance languages like this:
Esperanto (a constructed language); Spanish; Brazilian; Italian/French/Catalan; European Portuguese/Romanian


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## Ottilie

olaszinho said:


> I'd rank the romance languages like this:
> Esperanto (a constructed language); Spanish; Brazilian; Italian/French/Catalan; European Portuguese/Romanian



 On what criteria did you classify these languages like this? For me Portuguese is very far from Romanian,unlike French seems pretty close.


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## Alxmrphi

Ottilie said:


> On what criteria did you classify these languages like this? For me Portuguese is very far from Romanian,unlike French seems pretty close.



He was classifying what he ranks as difficulty, not similarity.
On what criteria that order was based on for difficulty, I'm not sure.

I thought we'd all established that native language has a massive role to play and it wasn't always a case of "_X is categorically easier than Y_", but I don't think maybe people listened to that argument.


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## Ottilie

Of course,but classifying Portuguese and Romanian in the same category ,I thought that he finds them somehow similar.


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## Alxmrphi

Ottilie said:


> Of course,but classifying Portuguese and Romanian in the same category ,I thought that he finds them somehow similar.



Ah, I see.
I didn't get the impression that there was any similarity by his post, only that they are of equal difficulty, in a diverse sense. Maybe_ olaz _can clarify for us?


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## olaszinho

I have to admit that it is quite silly to define a language as easy or difficult, at least from a linguistic point of view. Anyway I have learnt most of these languages and I am interested in linguistics and particularly in the structure of languages and phonology so I'll try to explain my previous message. In my view, European Portuguese and Romanian are the most conservative romance languages: Portuguese has got the richest verb system and Romanian retains a few simplified cases. In addition, Romanian plurals are really complicated, compared to other languages, even Italian. Brazilian has simplified its grammar a lot, lately: in its standard form just three or four persons of each verb tense are used. Besides the current use of pronouns is much easier than that of European Portuguese. Comparing the various grammar elements, I'd say that Spanish is by far the most regular and straightforward romance language: it makes use of just one verb to form all compound tenses (haber) unlike French or Italian, articles and prepositions are less complicated than the italian ones, for instance. In Italian most articles combine with preposions and form lots of contracted prepositions. Spanish lacks adverbial pronouns like French or Italian (French y, en) Italian (ci, ce, vi  , ne), and so on. To be honest, the difference between ser/estar (to be) and the subjective mood are probably the most difficult subjects in Spanish.


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## duvija

Let me comment.
For a speaker of a Romance lg. the others are 'easiest' (as compared to what follows). At least you have the same sentence structure.
Past the Romance, the Indoeuropean languages are second easiest - precisely by sentence type.
Then, when you get to the non-Indoeuropean, there's were we have a really hard time. Nothing is how we know it. The surprises make us think no human brain could have invented them, but they did. And how!

I assume next comes Martian, or so.

(and of course, within each group, we'll find parts that are easier, others than aren't)

saludos


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## trbl

Meyer Wolfsheim said:


> Unlike German or other Germanic languages (except English), the word order is relatively 'fixed' and almost exactly like English (SVO), where as German moves main verbs to the end of a clause and has a Verb second rule, Romance languages have no such constraints.



German word order is relatively fixed as well. SVO is the standard word order for main clauses and SOV for most subordinate clauses. Variations are possible but clearly marked.


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## Ottilie

duvija said:


> Let me comment.
> For a speaker of a Romance lg. the others are 'easiest' (as compared to what follows). At least you have the same sentence structure.
> Past the Romance, the Indoeuropean languages are second easiest - precisely by sentence type.
> Then, when you get to the non-Indoeuropean, there's were we have a really hard time. Nothing is how we know it. The surprises make us think no human brain could have invented them, but they did. And how!
> 
> I assume next comes Martian, or so.
> 
> (and of course, within each group, we'll find parts that are easier, others than aren't)
> 
> saludos




 This should be true,but since I've never learnt any Romance language,I found English very easy because its vocabulary has many things in common with the Romance languages ,although it's the language I speak the worst ,because I've started learning it 3 years ago


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## WondererCarvalho

I still think English to be the easiest language to learn, although most of its non-native speakers (and some natives as well) don't follow its strict rules. By the way, one reason why Romanic (Romance) languages are considered more difficult for many people: too many rules for past, future and present. I work in a university, just at Language College and there are lots of Chinese students there. They learn Portuguese really fast, though they develop better their listening than their pronounciation. That at the first moment, what's common to all non-speakers of any language.
But what is more interesting is that Brazilian Portuguese learners use to get surprised with such freedom it offers. I mean, not that our language is a "no-man's language" that anyone can introduce whatever. But yet, Brazilian Portuguese allowed throughout its development not just the possibility of using a single verb in almost infinite contexts without losing its meaning (figurative sense, being it in formal or informal speech), but also the very informal (only in spoken form and REALLY informal) and even funny possibility of transforming a strict noun (thing="coisa") into a verb, as if the word "thing" could be used to express an action. Not to mention some slangs that managed to turn into useful words even in formal speech.
Maybe it sounds obvious for the most of you, but it's just an interesting thing to be observed and pointed out, once I stopped to think whether it makes this language easier or even more cryptic. Here, those interchange students just say "I think it's very nice!"


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## duvija

WondererCarvalho said:


> I still think English to be the easiest language to learn, although most of its non-native speakers (and some natives as well) don't follow its strict rules. By the way, one reason why romantic languages are considered more difficult for many people: too many rules for past, future and present. !"


 
Remember, it's Romance languages, not romantic languages (they have nothing to do with romantic feelings).
And yes, the verbs are a pain. But word order is easier than English.
I've heard many times that Tanzania has a very easy language. Bull...., let me tell you. (Why Tanzania?)

saludos


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## WondererCarvalho

duvija said:


> Remember, it's Romance languages, not romantic languages (they have nothing to do with romantic feelings).
> And yes, the verbs are a pain. But word order is easier than English.
> I've heard many times that Tanzania has a very easy language. Bull...., let me tell you. (Why Tanzania?)
> saludos


 
You're right! I didn't notice I put a "t" in the middle of it! My fail!

In terms of word order, the difference is basically that Romanic (Romance) Languages, at least Portuguese as far as I'm concerned, neither need an auxiliary verb to form questions nor change places between subject and verb (Inversion). Thus, we use less words than English, but those verbs...

I apologize that little "t" blunder.


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## COF

Turkish, Indonesian, Norwegian are what I'd call particularly easy languages.


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## McBabe

I had always heard that Portuguese was one of the most difficult romance languages, if not _the_ most difficult, apart from maybe Romanian.

I'd say Spanish and Italian are certainly easiest, followed by French and then Portuguese. 

Portuguese has an incredibly complex verbal system. The use of subjunctive is extensive in Portuguese, Spanish and Italian, but Portuguese has a future subjunctive, which Spanish and Italian don't have, and the 'personal infinitive', which is used extensively in Portuguese, and, as a structure, is unique to Portuguese. 

I would completely agree that the differences between Brazilian and European Portuguese are far greater than those between British and American English, and according to my Spanish speaking friends, a lot greater than between Latin American Spanish and European Spanish. 

I still find many Brazilians completely incomprehensible! 

If you know German, I'd say go for Dutch. A German speaking friend of mine did Michel Thomas Dutch on a flight to Amsterdam from Edinburgh and could quite easily converse by the time she got there


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## olaszinho

The use of subjunctive is extensive in Portuguese, Spanish and Italian

As far as the use of subjunctive is concerned French and Romanian are the easiest, that's for sure: modern French only has two tenses unlike Italian or Spanish (4 tenses) or Portuguese (6 tenses). Romanian subjnctive is mainly periphrastic, probably the easiest one.


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## Angelo di fuoco

COF said:


> Turkish, Indonesian, Norwegian are what I'd call particularly easy languages.



I tend to agree about Norwegian, but why Indonesian and Turkish? Turkish has, to my knowledge, a very rich verbal system (would say at least as rich, perhaps even richer than in the Romance languages) and vowel harmony. Indonesian has various levels of politeness which influence greatly the choice of words.


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## Ottilie

McBabe said:


> I had always heard that Portuguese was one of the most difficult romance languages, if not _the_ most difficult, apart from maybe Romanian.



Romanian is ''more difficult'' maybe because its vocabulary is a bit different from the other Romance languages. For example,there are many words in Romanian that aren't in any of the other Romance languages, and there are common words in the other Romance languages,which aren't in Romanian. 
 As for the grammar,I think the most difficult is the Genitive declension(many natives sometimes have problems with it) and the large number of irregular plurals. Romanian it's unique,but still Romance


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## duvija

I cannot believe anybody is still talking about 'easy languages'. There isn't such a thing. All languages have irregularities. In the book 'In the land of Invented Languages', the thesis is that Esperanto (or any artificial language) never can become a 'real' language (meaning spoken by a generation of children) precisely because it's totally regular, and we (people) cannot deal with completely regular languages. We need the irregularities.

I don't know whether this idea is true or not, but the fact is that every language is going to be difficult and irregular in some areas, and 'easy' in others - normally the 'easy' parts are from languages of the same family as the native language of the speaker. 
There is no way one particular language is going to be easy for everybody.

saludos


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## olaszinho

*"I tend to agree about Norwegian, but why Indonesian and Turkish?"*

As far as I know there are no irregular verbs in Turkish.


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## cherine

Hi all,

This thread has managed to survive all this time! I think it's time to close it now, because it doesn't really belong to this forum.

The Other Languages forum is about translation and grammatical questions about languages that don't have their own independent forum in WR. So, please, let's try to stick to the scope of this forum.

Thanks,
Cherine
Moderator.


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