# Spanish: An easy language?



## ivanovic77

Many times while surfing the internet in search of language-related sites I come across the following statements: "Learning Spanish is quite easy" or "Spanish is an easy language". This preconceived idea about the alleged easiness of Spanish is quite common, mostly among U.S. citizens. 

However, I was told, when I was younger, that English speakers usually had a hard time trying to learn a Romanic language because of the subjunctive mood, verb conjugations and many other features that don't exist in English. 

But now I find that U.S. English speakers say that NO, that Spanish is one of the easiest languages they can learn. Even in a website I visited the other day (managed by an American guy, I guess) I could see that French was rated with 4 stars of difficulty, while Spanish was rated with only 2 stars.

So I wonder why Spanish is considered an easy language by most American English speakers, while French is considered a difficult one (when they are both Romanic languages and have similar grammar structures)?

There are, I think, two possible explanations:

1. *Previous knowledge of French*. Many Americans had French as their first foreign language, so when they started to learn Spanish, they already had a good knowledge of a Romanic language close to Spanish, and that's why Spanish may be seen as an easy language by them, because Spanish has usually been their second choice (I think this trend has been changing lately and now Spanish is the first choice for many students). 

2. *Spanish, the language of the poor*. Of course, why a language spoken by poor people should be difficult or should take a long time to master if you can get a smile from a humble Spanish immigrant by only saying "Buenos días, señor"? French, on the other hand, is considered by Americans to be a more refined, 'snobbish' language, a language for the rich, hence the need of being more accurate when learning French (you don't want to be looked down upon by an elegant Frenchman if you don't speak French correctly).

To sum up, I think the alleged easiness of the Spanish language could be related to the previous knowledge of French and/or the lack of self-demanding attitude when it comes to a language mostly spoken by poor people.

Am I right or is it really true that Spanish is an easy language for English speakers?


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## Ayazid

Olá!

I am not a native speaker of English, but I don't think that the explanations you presented are the only possibilities at all. For English native speakers (here I mean especially those from USA) there are might be various reasons supporting the idea that Spanish is rather easy language to learn, even in comparison with closely related French.

In the first place, there are much more opportunities to practice it than in the case of French. Unlike in French, its pronunciation and spelling are quite regular and simple. Just as French, it's an analytical language, so you don't have to bother yourself with learning of a complicated and troublesome declination system like in Russian and to a smaller degree in German. A lot of related vocabulary and a certain number of similar grammar features like plural made with an _-s, _the progressive tense, an equivalent of the English present perfect and a few other things make its learning easier too. And for the average English speaker (and not only for him) it is certainly incomparably easier than such "exotic" languages like Chinese, Japanese or Arabic.

I would also like to point out that considering some language to be easy to learn doesn't mean necessarily something negative or condescending. I have noticed that many native speakers of any language often think with some pride that their mother tongue must be extraordinarily difficult to learn, although that perceived difficulty is actually very subjective and depends on a number of things (linguistic closeness, grammatical similarity, amount of related words etc.)


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## xymox

Here's my 2 cents' worth,and personal opinion, knowing all three languages mentioned here:

Spanish is a phonetic language, you pronounce what you see. This is not the case with French, at all, nor with English.
However, I can assure you that Spanish is not all that easy, especially in Spain where the rules are perhaps not as easy as in Latin America because there is no influence from other languages around this country.
Spanish has a very different strcuture than the English language does and if used correctly, does not look anything like English direct translations that I sometimes come across here. Verb conjugation is extremely complicated if one wants to speak it correctly (have a good level). It has its rules and exceptions and is not at all that easy.
"To get by" in Spanish" may be easy to a certain extent but to get an acceptable, good knowledge of the language is not so simple.
How many times have I been told " I speak Spanish" and have started a conversation to get nothing but "what, what what are you saying, I don't understand a word!" after asking a simple question such as " ¿hiciste clases de español, dónde lo aprendiste, viajando o estudiándolo aquí (in Canada USA, France, Belgium, etc.)?
The English language is 70% latin and the other 30% germanic, Greek and other roots. Any linguist can bring other stats if they have them. I will be happy to read them.


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## Forero

Spanish has a simpler phonetic structure, in addition to being more phonetically spelled, than French.

We can "hear" plurals and past tenses in Spanish, but French seems to "hide" the word endings, which clouds understanding.

The majority of French vocabulary resembles English in form but is way off the mark when it comes to meaning; Spanish words are more likely to preserve something close to the original Latin meanings, making it easier to find cognates in English.

The average French sentence seems to be rather loosely strung together, somewhat like an English sentence but in a very different way, whereas the average Spanish sentence has a clear structure, with plenty of clues as to what modifies what.

When I make a mistake in Spanish, native speakers often know it is a mistake.  When I make a mistake in French, native speakers more often imagine I mean something very different from what I am trying to say.


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## Chaska Ñawi

Moderator note:  Because this thread is examining individual perceptions and opinions, participants need to be very careful in their responses.  Please make sure that your answer reflects a cultural perspective, and please re-read this part of the forum guidelines before you post to this thread.



> The purpose of this forum is to help participants and other readers learn about cross-cultural aspects of different countries and groups of people. It is neither a chat board, nor a place to advocate or promote personal viewpoints about the way things ought to be; rather, it seeks to help us learn how things are, and how they are changing over time, and not what I think of things and how I would like them to go.
> Therefore, responses must contain more than personal opinions.
> Please, do not respond to the part of the post that asks for personal opinions if that is going to be the bulk of your answer.



Thank you for your understanding.


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## chics

Is it different in, for example, Great Britain ?

In USA is the language of the poors but it's also a language of which the hear something sometimes or of which they may like to say sometimes an expression or a word in order to be cool. For example, Madonna in some songs.

In Spain and in France, when hearing Rumanian people use to say, _it's like Italian (they also "sing" when talking ) but I don't understand anything!_ In Italian we are used to see or hear some words (because Italy is nearer), even if we don't understand them, and that makes us think that it's more familiar to us so more easy, when in fact, after one or two classes, we realise that's the same.

I wonder if there's something similar with Spanish (as a nearer language) and the other Romance languages in USA.


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## CarolMamkny

I'm just wondering WHY you all keep saying that Spanish is the language of the POOR. I would like more information from all of you backing up that claim- Saludos


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## Miguelillo 87

Mexico it's the south neigbor of USA; Almost all latin american countries has a growing population in the states, mexicans, cubans; puertoricians; salvadorians, etc live in USA, but How many French speakers live in USA? Less!!! at least on the south side of the country; so it's obvious people find easier a language they are more relation with; for example for us Spanish or romantic speakers, shoulb be easy to learn French than English, but NO!!! At least in a general side. Why? Becasue we are really in touch wuth english.

Another point, It's not the same to know the words, burrito, tequila, fiesta, amor, novio, etc than to really understand and speak spanish, maybe for us it's easy to read Italian and potugese; but really to speak it or to have a good conversation with a native. That's hard!!! 

So I can concluse, that US natives, believe Spanish is easier 'cause they are really in touch wih the langage at leas more than woth FRENCH


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## xqby

CarolMamkny said:


> I'm just wondering WHY you all keep saying that Spanish is the language of the POOR. I would like more information from all of you backing up that claim.


 
It's obviously not entirely true, but the public perception ends up that way here just by the nature of immigration. Farm workers are much more likely to emigrate than, say, neurosurgeons. And collectively, the farm workers are much more memorable to Joe American, because he actually meets them occasionally. 

If you want do deal with something crazy like facts (boring, I know) South America is indeed _poorer_ than North America and Europe. The breakdown of economies in something like this filters into the national consciousness.


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## bb008

Hola

Yo también me estoy haciendo la misma pregunta: ¿Qué tiene que ver la pobreza con el idioma?...


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## chics

No es con la pobreza, es con la percepción que se tiene del otro. Muchos suramericanos considerarán mas rico su país, en el que tienen escuelas y sanidad pública para todos, vacaciones, una cultura propia, etc. que otro en la que nada de eso existe pero en la que hay cuatro sociedades en las que alguien (muy pocos) invierte y gana más que el PIB de algunos países del mundo, aunque el resto sean pobres o como ellos. 

Los estadounidenses consideran pobres a los hispanoamericanos (y a los españoles también) e Ivanovic sospecha que eso desprestigia la lengua castellana en ese país. Ya sabes, pobre equivale a inculto, ignorante, cazurro, animal, falto de ideas y de creatividad... no debe hablar una lengua muy complicada alguien así.

Por otra parte, hablar la lengua de los poderosos exige que uno se ponga el listón alto, que quiera saber matizar, hablar con propiedad, que quiera invertir tiempo y dinero en hacerlo. En cambio, hablar la lengua de los criados... con decir fiesta, chin-chin, toros, arriba y chingatumadre ya se sienten orgullosos ¿para qué más?

No es muy políticamente correcto todo esto, pero la cosa va por ahí...


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## kitenok

It seems to me that xymox was on the right track back in post 3. Spanish is perceived to be a relatively easy language to learn in school in the United States because it _is _usually easier for a native speaker of American English to attain a _low level_ of funcionality in Spanish than in other languages that are commonly offered. And unfortunately, a low level in a foreign language is usually all that is required of students in American schools and all that they expect of themselves. Many of the reasons why rudimentary Spanish is easier for Americans than, say, very rudimentary German have already been addressed. Here, to my mind, are some of the most important:

-Basic Spanish greetings, introductions, and even noun and adjective endings are already familiar to American students before they begin studying the language in a formal way, because Spanish is in such widespread use in the US.

-Phonetic spelling of Spanish makes it easier to learn as a beginner than, say, French or German.

-Very consistent endings to indicate the grammatical gender of nouns in Spanish make it easier to understand and apply the gender system in Spanish than in French or German. 

I do not see much evidence for either of the two possible reasons posted by ivanovic in the original question: 
1. _That Americans usually learn French first, so Spanish is easier._ This one is factually wrong. Americans have a lot of freedom in which of the commonly taught languages to learn, and four times as many choose Spanish than choose French. See US high school foreign language course enrollment data here. 

2. _That Americans perceive Spanish as the language of poor people, so find it more comfortable to speak it._ This is an interesting hypothesis, and it might be true for some Americans choosing to learn Spanish, but I don't think there is any basis for making a generalization out of it. American cultural associations with "poor people" and American cultural associations with "Hispanics" sometimes overlap, but for the most part they are separate categories. I would venture to say that most American students who choose to learn Spanish because it is "easy" are not thinking much about practicing it with native Spanish speakers, poor or otherwise.


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## Athaulf

ivanovic77 said:


> Many times while surfing the internet in search of language-related sites I come across the following statements: "Learning Spanish is quite easy" or "Spanish is an easy language". This preconceived idea about the alleged easiness of Spanish is quite common, mostly among U.S. citizens.



For English speakers, Spanish is indeed among the easiest languages to acquire basic or intermediate proficiency. This can be easily demonstrated with empirical research -- see, for example, the table at the bottom of this page. It's not really surprising, since Spanish shares vast amounts of Romance vocabulary, and at the same time lacks any terribly hard grammatical issues that would make an English-speaking learner's life miserable from the very start. 

Of course, when it comes to acquiring real proficiency, i.e. speaking, writing, and understanding almost like a native speaker, all languages are about equally difficult, including Spanish. 



> So I wonder why Spanish is considered an easy language by most American English speakers, while French is considered a difficult one (when they are both Romanic languages and have similar grammar structures)?


French has a much more complex orthography, and its phonology is also more complicated, so Spanish is probably somewhat easier at the very start. However, the difference is only slight, and empirically, French is also among the easiest foreign languages for English speakers at beginner and intermediate levels (see the table from the above link).


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## jinti

I don't know why the original post specified that "most Americans had French as their foreign language".  That may have been true up through the 1970s, but that's a generation ago.  The most popular foreign language now is Spanish -- over 50% of college students studying a foreign language here are studying Spanish.  So I don't think the relationship of French to Spanish has all that much to do with English-speakers learning Spanish.

In my school (northeastern US), we were given a choice of learning Spanish, Italian, French, German, Latin, and towards the end of my time there, Japanese.  

Spanish was considered the easiest of these.  No, not for reasons involving stereotyping Spanish-speakers (or, by the way, stereotyping us learners either, thank you ), but I think for these reasons: 

A fairly simple phonetic system
Fairly simple sound-letter correspondence and obvious pronunciation guides (written accents on words which don't follow the rules), which makes getting started with reading, spelling, and pronouncing easier.
Case endings on very few words
Simpler negation than in English
Pluralization of nouns is fairly simple and familiar to English-speakers
Only 4 articles and only 2 genders
The pretérito is easier than the passé composé
Spanish was all around us.  I learned Bienvenido/Welcome by seeing the signs on my elementary school doors every morning.  I played with Spanish-speaking kids (not all of whom knew much English) at recess.  I saw Spanish on grocery store products.  Spanish was just there.  The other foreign languages offered at my schools weren't around us in the community in the same way.
All this made it easier to get started.  

There are tough things about Spanish (as there are about every language), but I think that _the first couple years of study_ are easier than the first couple years in the other languages offered in my high school (and I took 4 languages in high school, and more since then).

And as Ayazid pointed out, _easier_ is not the same as _worse_.  Where's the shame in having features that make your language easier to learn?  Why on earth would difficulty in itself be good?


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## sokol

jinti said:


> The pretérito is easier than the passé composé


I think this is not so much of an argument - the Spanish system of tenses is much more complicated than the one of French; French has quite some irregularities and an irregular spelling system, but in Spanish it is the _use _of tenses which is difficult (when to use indefinido and imperfecto, and when to use pretérito perfecto).


jinti said:


> Spanish was all around us.


And this in my opinion is a _very _important fact why it is much easier for Americans to learn Spanish (that is of course only for those states where there's a sizeable hispanic community).

Language is all about practice.
I guess in Québec it should be completely different: not so many Spanish speakers around, but a whole world in French.


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## uchi.m

jinti said:


> And as Ayazid pointed out, _easier_ is not the same as _worse_. Where's the shame in having features that make your language easier to learn? Why on earth would difficulty in itself be good?


Easy, beautiful, good... Those are in the eye of the beholder.


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## jinti

sokol said:


> I think this is not so much of an argument - the Spanish system of tenses is much more complicated than the one of French; French has quite some irregularities and an irregular spelling system, but in Spanish it is the _use _of tenses which is difficult (when to use indefinido and imperfecto, and when to use pretérito perfecto).
> That's true.  I included the note that we found the pretérito easier than passé composé because as zero-level beginners, that fact was more relevant to us than more advanced choices about usage or the tense system as a whole.


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## JamesM

jinti said:


> A fairly simple phonetic system
> Fairly simple sound-letter correspondence and obvious pronunciation guides (written accents on words which don't follow the rules), which makes getting started with reading, spelling, and pronouncing easier.
> Case endings on very few words
> Simpler negation than in English
> Pluralization of nouns is fairly simple and familiar to English-speakers
> Only 4 articles and only 2 genders
> The pretérito is easier than the passé composé
> Spanish was all around us. I learned Bienvenido/Welcome by seeing the signs on my elementary school doors every morning. I played with Spanish-speaking kids (not all of whom knew much English) at recess. I saw Spanish on grocery store products. Spanish was just there. The other foreign languages offered at my schools weren't around us in the community in the same way.


 
I couldn't say it better and agree completely. 



			
				Athaulf said:
			
		

> For English speakers, Spanish is indeed among the easiest languages to acquire basic or intermediate proficiency.


 
This is key, I think.  Spanish may be equally difficult once you get to the more advanced stages but the initial stage seems to be much easier.  What I hear so often from people is that it is so much more _logical _phonetically and orthographically compared to French (and I love French.)


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## uchi.m

So easiness and familiarity are likely the same everywhere when it comes to languages. 

But this way of thinking is pretty much like when you meet a stranger-- you don't know him/her, or he/she looks unfamiliar, so he/she might be bad to you.


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## mirx

jinti said:


> Spanish was considered the easiest of these. No, not for reasons involving stereotyping Spanish-speakers (or, by the way, stereotyping us learners either, thank you ), but I think for these reasons:
> 
> _*Spanish was all around us.*_ I learned Bienvenido/Welcome by seeing the signs on my elementary school doors every morning. I played with Spanish-speaking kids (not all of whom knew much English) at recess. I saw Spanish on grocery store products. *Spanish was just there*. The other foreign languages offered at my schools weren't around us in the community in the same way.
> All this made it easier to get started.


 
Thank you. That's exactly what happens, there's not really much connection between the stereotypes about poverty and deciding to learn a language.

The statement by the thread opener startled me a bit, as far as I knew Spanish was indeed the 1st foreing language students learned, and in some cases in California it was actually mandatory.

Now, going back to the poverty-language thing. I think -_and I am sure many of you will agree_ - that French is regarded as sophisticated, elegant and full of _finesse. _Yet in México, and other countries I have visited, French has only a secondary place compared to English when it comes to foreing languages being taught at schools. And Miguelillo has in a very simple way explained why: _we hear it, we see it, we feel it, we live it, _... so then it becomes easier to learn than French which is a sister langauge.


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## Hakro

For Finns, Spanish is both easy and difficult.

It's easy for a beginner because Spanish people understand you if you can utter just a couple of Spanish words, no matter how you pronounce. This is my own experience.

But it's difficult for those who have studied Spanish for years; then the Spaniards think that you speak Spanish like a native and they answer like a machine gun – and you can't understand a word of it.

My brother who spoke Spanish fairly well, wanted to have a guided tour in Canary Islands. So he said to a taxi driver in Spanish: _"Can you speak Spanish_ – [a small pause, and the driver looked at him very astonished] – _very slowly and clearly?"_ The driver understood the idea, and they had a wonderful day.

I'm a beginner myself. In fact I started studying Spanish two weeks ago, for the second time. The first time I started some 30 years ago but I had to stop it. I had bought a Spanish course on C-cassettes that I listened when driving to the city in the morning and when returning back home in the evening. I had only started this when I borrowed my car to my younger brother who went to Spain. There a burglar broke the window of the car and stole all my Spanish cassettes! Although this was a loss of money, I always laugh when I think of the face of the thief when he started playing: "Me gusta España..."


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## chics

jinti said:


> reasons:
> 
> a fairly simple phonetic system. ok
> fairly simple sound-letter correspondence. this is true to us, but aren't the english speakers used to it?
> case endings on very few words same in french.
> simpler negation than in english in the 3 languages it's very simple!
> pluralization of nouns is fairly simple and familiar to english-speakers same in french
> only 4 articles and only 2 genders in french, 3 articles and 2 genders
> the pretérito is easier than the passé composé just the opposite!
> spanish was all around us. ok


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## JamesM

jinti said:
			
		

> a fairly simple phonetic system. ok
> fairly simple sound-letter correspondence. this is true to us, but aren't the english speakers used to it?


 
Try the following words in English with the "ough" combination:

Tough, Though, Trough, Through, Bough, Bought

Six sounds, one combination. Do you still think there is a simple sound/letter correspondence in English? 



> case endings on very few words same in french.


 
I'm not quite sure what we're talking about when we say "case endings" but the problem in French is that verb endings, for example, may be spelled differently but pronounced the same: ont/ons, e/es/ent, ai/ais/ait/aie/aient, etc. I don't know much Spanish but there don't seem to be so many spellings for the same sound. The letters are usually pronounced if they are there, in my experience. This is so much easier for a beginner.



> pluralization of nouns is fairly simple and familiar to english-speakers same in french


 
Once again, it's a pronunciation issue. It may be easy to learn the spelling of pluralizations, but determining when to pronounce the endings is a different story.


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## Grop

Athaulf said:


> the table at the bottom of this page.
> ...
> empirically, French is also among the easiest foreign languages for English speakers at beginner and intermediate levels (see the table from the above link).



I think this statement from your link implies a heavy bias:



> It must be kept in mind that that students at FSI are almost 40 years old, are native speakers of English. and have a good aptitude for formal language study, plus knowledge of several other foreign languages.


It is likely that these students already have learned a romance language before, and are familiar with many concepts that must help a lot.



JamesM said:


> I'm not quite sure what we're talking about when we say "case endings"



That would be word endings depending on case (subject, direct object, indirect object, possessive, etc) as they did with nouns in Latin, or as they do with articles in German. Or like _who_ and _whom_, _me_ and _I_ in English

Concerning sound-letter correspondence, I think Chics suggested that native English speakers were used to inconsistency; however I don't see how it should help them.


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## Etcetera

I'm not a native speaker of English, and I've never learnt Spanish (I'd like to learn it, though), but my aunt works as teacher of English and Spanish. I remember that several years ago I asked her which language is easier - English or Spanish. She said that English grammar is easier than Spanish, but it's quite tricky to learn to speak English properly, wereas Spanish grammar is more difficult, but the pronunciation is much easier. 

At University, when I was choosing my second foreign language, I was told that Italian can be learnt without a teacher at all. In general, my impression is that Romance languages are considered to be easier to learn than the Germanic ones. 

(Interestingly enough, the opinion that German is easier than English also exists here).


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## jinti

> Originally Posted by *chics*
> 
> a fairly simple phonetic system. ok
> fairly simple sound-letter correspondence. this is true to us, but aren't the english speakers used to it? Sure, we're used to ours. Unfortunately, that doesn't make other languages' idiosyncracies any more familiar.
> case endings on very few words same in french. True, but not the case for a couple other commonly taught languages I mentioned in my post.
> simpler negation than in english in the 3 languages it's very simple! Which 3? (And I've taught English as a Second Language long enough to know that getting the hang of when to insert _do_ in its proper tense, when to use _no_ and when to use _not_, etc. in English negation does present problems for quite a few beginning learners. )
> pluralization of nouns is fairly simple and familiar to english-speakers same in french Again, my comment was meant to extend beyond just comparing English, French, and Spanish. Pluralization is not so familiar to us in German or Latin, and is done quite differently in Japanese.
> only 4 articles and only 2 genders in french, 3 articles and 2 genders Same comment as above. In this respect, Japanese is the simplest.
> the pretérito is easier than the passé composé just the opposite! I'm talking about formation, not usage. With the passé composé, you have to memorize which verbs take which auxiliary, and also know past participles. Same thing in Italian with the passato prossimo, which was only invented to give learners headaches.  You don't have to bother with all that with the Spanish pretérito.
> Spanish was all around us. ok


At any rate, I think it's quite hard to judge the difficulty of learning any language for anyone else, unless you're learning it under similar circumstances (and even then... ).


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## Athaulf

Grop said:


> I think this statement from your link implies a heavy bias:
> _
> [From: http://www.nvtc.gov/lotw/months/november/learningExpectations.html
> 
> It must be kept in mind that that students at FSI are almost 40 years old, are native speakers of English. and have a good aptitude for formal language study, plus knowledge of several other foreign languages.__]
> 
> _ It is likely that these students already have learned a romance language before, and are familiar with many concepts that must help a lot.



True, but the table still shows a striking pattern: in the easiest category, one can find only Romance languages and those Germanic languages whose grammar has evolved in a direction similar to English (i.e. loss of inflectional morphology), which is to say continental Scandinavian languages and Dutch and its close cousin Afrikaans. I guess it is arguable which ones among these are easier for a monolingual English speaker, but in any case, I don't think there are any other languages that come even close to these two groups. 

Of course, to repeat an important point that is often overlooked, the similarities in grammar and shared vocabulary help a lot in the beginning, moderately in intermediate stages, but for advanced learners who are struggling to reach near-native proficiency, there is hardly any difference. After several years of intensive and enthusiastic learning and practice, the remaining few difficult issues that betray one as a non-native speaker will be of the more or less same magnitide for any foreign language.



> Concerning sound-letter correspondence, I think Chics suggested that native English speakers were used to inconsistency; however I don't see how it should help them.


Well, for start, just being used to the idea of words being pronounced very differently from how they are written helps a bit at the very beginning. However, the more important reason is that many French words exist in English with their original spelling. Although their English pronunciation is very different from the way they are pronounced in French, it's still possible to figure out how the patterns of their English pronunciation correspond to French. Of course, many of these correspondences are irregular and complicated, but they can still help a lot.


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## Athaulf

xymox said:


> Spanish has a very different strcuture than the English language does and if used correctly, does not look anything like English direct translations that I sometimes come across here.



This is true, but from the perspective of a beginner, the syntactic differences between Spanish and English are still relatively small when you compare them with the differences between English and more distant languages. If you translate English into Spanish word-for-word, you'll still likely make yourself understood (admittedly, it's worse in the other direction), whereas in many languages, a word-for-word translation from English won't make any sense even if the listener or reader makes best effort to understand it. Communicating at a near-native level is a different thing, of course.



> Verb conjugation is extremely complicated if one wants to speak it correctly (have a good level). It has its rules and exceptions and is not at all that easy.


I'd say you're overstating the difficulty of conjugations. The main problem  with them is that they look scary and psychologically discouraging to beginners, but learning to conjugate Spanish verbs isn't that hard. Again, to put things into perspective, you'll probably agree that even a very talented learner will need at least a few months or even years of intensive learning and practice to become fluent in any language if he's really starting from scratch. At the same time, my Spanish grammar book covers the entire inflectional morphology of verbs, including the complete conjugation tables for all irregular verbs, in less than a hundred pages. Learning and rehearsing this material is not an easy task, but if you compare it to the entire effort necessary to learn Spanish, it's hardly a crucial factor. 

The really difficult things in any language are those that can't even be covered by grammar books precisely, but rather depend on subtle intuitions for which you just have to develop the feeling through lots of practice. This is true for any language.


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## uchi.m

Ok, let's stick to the original poster's questions arguments then.


ivanovic77 said:


> There are, I think, two possible explanations:
> 
> 1. *Previous knowledge of French*. Many Americans had French as their first foreign language, so when they started to learn Spanish, they already had a good knowledge of a Romanic language close to Spanish, and that's why Spanish may be seen as an easy language by them, because Spanish has usually been their second choice (I think this trend has been changing lately and now Spanish is the first choice for many students).


I don't agree that all Americans can speak French before they start learning Spanish, otherwise all of them would be at least bilingual, which is a false assumption, I believe.


ivanovic77 said:


> 2. *Spanish, the language of the poor*. Of course, why a language spoken by poor people should be difficult or should take a long time to master if you can get a smile from a humble Spanish immigrant by only saying "Buenos días, señor"? French, on the other hand, is considered by Americans to be a more refined, 'snobbish' language, a language for the rich, hence the need of being more accurate when learning French (you don't want to be looked down upon by an elegant Frenchman if you don't speak French correctly).


I don't agree. For instance, the Chinese language is widely considered to be a difficult language, yet the Chinese people are mostly living in a life standard comparable to or lower than that of Spanish-speaking people. So being poor doesn't make your language "easier" to learn.


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## Nanon

English, Spanish and Italian are generally regarded as "easy" by the French, if we talk about learning the basics and making oneself understood.
Of course, this has to do with "familiarity", i.e. the degree of exposure. Because if easiness would depend only on belonging to the same language family, Latin would be regarded as "easy", but it is not. Any language with a nominal flexion (Latin, German...) automatically falls into "difficult".


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## Sepia

Of course Spanish is easy to learn, if you already speak a similar language. Spanish comes easyly to me because I already speak French and some Italian. For somebody speaking another Indo-European language of course it is still easier than for a native Mandarin or Chinese speaker. 

But talking about what is easier for a native English speaker to learn it cannot be the easiest one. In this thread nobody mentioned any of the Scandinavian languages. But it is no coincidence that Danes and Swedes often speak English very well - the grammar of those languages is so similar and it ought to be almost as easy for a native English speaker to learn Danish or Swedish as for a Dane or a Swede to learn English. There are a few complexities in their languages that don't exist in English (any more?) but the word order of a Danish sentense is so similar that you in most cases you could translate word for word out of the dictionary and still be understood. You can't do that with a romance language. Not many Danes can speak Spanish (nor Frencg, nor Italian). I'd say at least 2/3 of them can speak English. 

It seems to me that most writers in this thread are fixated on only comparing the most dominating European languages. Although the thread title asks a slightly different question.


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## Nanon

Sepia, the thread started from the point of view of frequent language learning and language learning in the US, so whether a language is dominant in Europe is not really on topic, as you pointed out.

Now, talking about "Spanish as an easy language" outside the US context, uchi.m among others may have heard this opinion from many Portuguese speakers. Closeness (both geographical and cultural) certainly makes life easy for beginners. As to difficulties... well, the existence of a specific, and pretty active, Spanish-Portuguese forum in WR provides part of the response.
It works backwards too: Portuguese seems easy to learn for Spanish-speaking beginners, then when you begin to study it seriously... surprise-surprise, it's not _that_ easy after all!


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## tvdxer

I would say Spanish is probably the easiest second language to learn for English speakers in the U.S.  I can think of a number of reasons:

* Especially if you live in the Southwest, California, Texas, or an area with a large Spanish speaking population (New York City, Chicago, etc.), it's easy to learn Spanish in a "passive" manner.  Even if you don't, there's still Spanish pretty much everywhere - bilingual instructions, labels, etc.  (To a much lesser extent, the same could be said of French, since in the U.S. it is common for things to be labeled in English, Spanish, and French - for the Quebec market, I'm guessing) 

* Spanish contains few "weird" or difficult sounds.  The only widespread consonants that really give North Americans headaches are /x/ (the "j" in joya" or "g" in "generación") and /r/ ("rr" in carro or perro).  And even then, /x/ is often replaced with a familiar /h/ in the Latin American accents of Spanish (which most Spanish learners inthe U.S. are trained in), and quite a few English speakers have no difficulty with the trill.  The "pure" vowels can be difficult at times to pronounce correctly, but I don't think the error committed by native English speakers in diphthongizing them (pronouncing "amigo" as "amigou") is particularly grave.

* It seems that most Spanish words have an English relative.  Often these are obvious: nación and nation, _construcción _and _construction_.  But even many or most everyday, basic words have English relatives with related meanings that are identifiable to English speakers, especially those with refined vocabularies: _mano_ and _manual_, _sangre _and _sanguine_, _edificio _and _edifice_, _probar _and _probe_, _corazón_ and _coronary_, even _amor _and _amorous_ etc.

* Spanish grammar can be difficult for English speakers, particularly the _ser _vs. _estar_ distinction, imperfect vs. preterite, etc. but I don't think it's anywhere nearly as difficult for the typical speaker as Russian, Latin, or even German.

There are other reasons, but I don't feel like spending any more time explaining them right now.  Maybe later.



Hakro said:


> It's easy for a beginner because Spanish people understand you if you can utter just a couple of Spanish words, no matter how you pronounce. This is my own experience.
> 
> But it's difficult for those who have studied Spanish for years; then the Spaniards think that you speak Spanish like a native and they answer like a machine gun – and you can't understand a word of it.



I agree with this.

Spanish definitely has a "machine gun" sound to English speakers because of the difference in syllable timing - Spanish speakers tend to spend the same amount of time on each syllable, while English speakers lengthen stressed syllables.  What really gets me too are the pronunciation of plosive sounds, which are very soft and indistinct to my ears.  I find * and [p] particularly confusing - for example, "pompa" and "bomba" sound virtually the same to me.*


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## Outsider

They're pronounced differently from the English plosives.

English "t" is IPA [t], sometimes [tʰ]. Spanish "t" is [t̪].
English "d" is IPA [d]. Spanish "d" is [d̪], sometimes [ð̞].


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## Athaulf

tvdxer said:


> Spanish definitely has a "machine gun" sound to English speakers because of the difference in syllable timing - Spanish speakers tend to spend the same amount of time on each syllable, while English speakers lengthen stressed syllables.



Things are actually much more complicated. There is in fact substantial variation in syllable duration in Spanish (though not as much as in English), and it's not only the stressed syllables whose length can stand out in English. Also, an important factor is that English syllables are on average more complex than Spanish ones (just think of single-syllable words such as e.g. _shrimps_ or _trusts_). For some interesting data and discussion about this topic, see this article: 
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=126


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## tvdxer

Outsider said:


> They're pronounced differently from the English plosives.
> 
> English "t" is IPA [t], sometimes [tʰ]. Spanish "t" is [t̪].
> English "d" is IPA [d]. Spanish "d" is [d̪], sometimes [ð̞].



I realize that.  Though it seems like the * / [p] / [v] ("b" and "v" are actually the same sound, a fricative, in Spanish) are really the problematic ones.*


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## MissIngalls

I teach both French and Spanish in the U.S., and this year I am teaching a class of beginners in each language. From my perspective, the two languages are equally difficult overall, with each presenting its own challenges; for instance, while pronunciation may be a bit more mysterious to the beginning learner of French, beginning Spanish students looking up words in the dictionary are far more likely to have trouble finding them (due to stem-changing verbs, etc.).

However, I'm getting feedback from my French students that French is easier than they expected, and from my Spanish students that Spanish is harder than they expected. The two classes have learned the same handful of vocabulary topics and their first regular verb conjugations; their textbooks are by the same publisher and have a similar layout and supporting materials; and, of course, they have the same teacher. The only variable, as far as I can tell, is that there is an assumption in our culture that Spanish is easy and French is not. From where I stand -- with one foot in each language every day -- that assumption is faulty.

I agree strongly with those who have written above that there is a big difference between learning your second language and your third. The easiest job I've ever had was teaching an accelerated French course at a university to students who, as it happened, had all studied Spanish in high school. Their rapid progress didn't have anything to do with French being "easier" than Spanish -- again, I don't think either language is noticeably easier for English speakers to acquire -- but I could simply say, "This is just like in Spanish" or, "This is similar to Spanish except..." That eliminated a lot of class time explaining grammar and allowed us to spend more time on communicative activities.


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## No_C_Nada

_I agree with Miguelillo 87 in Post Nº 8. _

_Let's remember that what is now the United States and territories were first colonized by the Spanish, starting with the arrival of Juan Ponce in 1513. About a hundred years later, in 1603, the English settled in what is now this country._

_What is now California, New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, and Florida were populated by native Spanish speakers. Even now, a traveler can go through those states without knowing much English and s/he won't have any difficulty communicating if s/he knows Spanish._

_That influence of Spanish in this country before it was colonized by the English is what makes it easier to learn than, say, Cantonese._

_On the other hand, it is difficult for somebody whose native language is Cantonese to learn Spanish, especially the pronunciation of the single r and the double r, such as perro, carro, cerro because they might pronounce them as pelo, calo, cedo; __they change the "r" into "d" or "l". For a native English speaker who did not grow up speaking Spanish, the pronunciation of the double r is difficult. Instead of pronouncing the double r, they pronounce those words as if they had a single r. It is also hard for them to pronounce some of the Spanish diphtongs: they separate the one syllable sound into a two-syllable sound. Instead of saying "leon" as one syllable, they separate it into two and say "lee-on"_

_Another example: "a-li-cia", they pronounce as "ah-lee-see-ah"._


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## Orreaga

ivanovic77 said:


> 1. *Previous knowledge of French*. Many Americans had French as their first foreign language, so when they started to learn Spanish, they already had a good knowledge of a Romanic language close to Spanish, and that's why Spanish may be seen as an easy language by them, because Spanish has usually been their second choice (I think this trend has been changing lately and now Spanish is the first choice for many students).


 
It's true, Spanish is much easier to learn after learning French (and vice versa), but the number of Americans who study French is much smaller than the number who study Spanish.  Outside of parts of Louisiana and northern New England, Americans don't have much exposure to French.



ivanovic77 said:


> 2. *Spanish, the language of the poor*. Of course, why a language spoken by poor people should be difficult or should take a long time to master if you can get a smile from a humble Spanish immigrant by only saying "Buenos días, señor"? French, on the other hand, is considered by Americans to be a more refined, 'snobbish' language, a language for the rich, hence the need of being more accurate when learning French (you don't want to be looked down upon by an elegant Frenchman if you don't speak French correctly).



I would frame it differently, I think that Spanish is seen as the language of pleasure, not poverty, it makes people think of the simple life, of a sunny beach somewhere or a tropical vacation where things are relaxed, laid back, the land of mañana.  By contrast, the French are seen as very complex, sometimes demanding people who are impatient with Americans trying to speak their language.  In this context Spanish is seen as more "fun" and less stressful to study than French.


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## Dandee

Hi all:
         I've heard that people that speak slavic languajes find spanish easy to learn. It is perhaps because slavic languages are more complex than spanish. My personal point of view is that english grammar is maybe simpler than spanish grammar in terms of getting fast results in learning a basic level of communication.

Dandee.


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## Adolfo Afogutu

xymox said:


> However, I can assure you that Spanish is not all that easy, especially in Spain where the rules are perhaps not as easy as in Latin America


   I do have to disagree with you. This is the first time I have ever heard such a thing. Yes, there are several differences in vocabulary, idioms and accents between each Spanish speaking country and even between regions of those countries, but when it comes to grammar, well, everything is more or less the same. I can't even imagine what kinds of grammar rules are more flexible in America than in Spain. I believe you would be unable to find any opinion from a reliable source, from any authority of any kind, supporting your opinion: grammar rules are easier in LA.


xymox said:


> because there is no influence from other languages around this country.


  Five languages are spoken in Spain. Besides, the country has long frontiers with France and Portugal. It would be hard to find a country with such a diversity of languages, cultures and conflicts around language use and education. The point is that, supposing for one moment that European Spanish might be harder to learn and use, there is not a country in America with that sort of language diversity, so this cannot be a reasonable explanation for that hypothetical difference in difficulty of language usage, not for me at least.
Regards


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## trance0

Dandee said:


> Hi all:
> I've heard that people that speak slavic languajes find spanish easy to learn. It is perhaps because slavic languages are more complex than spanish. My personal point of view is that english grammar is maybe simpler than spanish grammar in terms of getting fast results in learning a basic level of communication.
> 
> Dandee.




I can confirm this for Slovenia, almost everyone here thinks Spanish and Italian are easy whereas French is thought to be difficult.


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## Lugubert

From my Swedish point of view, French is difficult at the beginning, but doesn't get much worse on advancing.

Spanish is quite easy when beginning, but takes quite an effort for mastering the niceties.

I'm not much into Italian, but suppose it might qualify between Spanish and French, unless you want to be an expert in handling the passato remoto, in which case good luck to you.


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## Wilma_Sweden

As a Swede, I was surprised to find Swedish, Danish and Norwegian among the easiest languages to learn. This is not the impression we get in Sweden, at least, where native English speakers struggle as much as anyone else with Swedish noun genders and word order...

From a European point of view, the attitude of the native Spanish and French speakers may influence our perception of Spanish being an easy language while French is regarded as more difficult. If you speak a very basic level of French or Spanish, your success depends on how hard the natives try to understand your flawed grammar and pronunciation. Most of the French and Spanish pronunciation does not present any great challenge to Swedes. However, many Swedish visitors to France have complained that the French could not (or would not) understand them, while the Spanish in general seemed to make more effort in understanding even very rudimentary and flawed grammar and pronunciation. With such experiences, it is easy to see why Spanish is regarded as easier to learn at a very basic level: if you manage to communicate with the locals in their own language at all, you also perceive the language as easier.

/Wilma


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## Frank06

Hi,

Spanish is so incredibly easy: even a kid can learn it!

Groetjes,

Frank


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## trance0

I personally think French is somewhat more difficult for a complete beginner, because of the orthography and pronunciation(especially liaison, e-muet etc. difficulties). I also find spoken French much harder to understand than for example basic Spanish or Italian, because of the way the French pronounce their words(merging two or more words together into a seemingly one word through liaisons) and also because of the less "clear" vowels in comparison to Spanish or Italian. But grammar wise I think all romance languages are equally difficult, of course each in their own fields, but I personally find French verbal system to be generally  easier than that of Spanish, because French uses fewer tenses, subjunctive is significantly simpler to use(only one tense used in praxis), and there is no distinction between "estar" and "ser", only "etre" is used in French.


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## Estopa

After reading this discussion I could not help thinking of this poem (by Quevedo?). In Spain French is also considered a very difficult language to learn.

"Admirábase un portugués
de que, desde la tierna infancia,
todos los niños en Francia
supieran hablar francés.
"¡Arte diabólica es"
-dijo, torciendo el mostacho-
"que, para hablar en gabacho,
un hidalgo en Portugal
llega a viejo y lo habla mal,
y aquí lo parla un muchacho!"


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## Lugubert

trance0 said:


> I personally find French verbal system to be generally easier than that of Spanish, because French uses fewer tenses, subjunctive is significantly simpler to use(only one tense used in praxis), and there is no distinction between "estar" and "ser", only "etre" is used in French.


Come to think of it, that's good point. But for getting understood in a shop or a restaurant etc., I feel more confident in Spanish despite having had 3 years of high school French and 0 Spanish.


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## trance0

Yes, that`s why I said French is more difficult for beginners and probably for intermediate students too, because of pronunciation difficulties. But grammar wise, French is nothing special amongst the romance languages, like I said, I even find French verbal system simpler(although still far from simple!) than that of Spanish.


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## djweaverbeaver

sokol said:


> I think this is not so much of an argument - the Spanish system of tenses is much more complicated than the one of French; French has quite some irregularities and an irregular spelling system, but in Spanish it is the _use _of tenses which is difficult (when to use indefinido and imperfecto, and when to use pretérito perfecto).



I don't agree with your statement, and I think it is hard for a non-native English speaker to suggest how a native speaker would perceive certain grammar structure or a language.

For one, the Spanish taught in the United States is largely based on Latin American Spanish rather than Peninsular Spanish.  I, for once, started learning Spanish when I studied abroad in Germany, so I started with European Spanish.  The tenses you mentioned presented great challenges for the fellow German students in my class, since their Präteritum and Perfekt are mostly interchangeable and either one can be translated to mean all three forms in Spanish.  They quickly learned that it is not as formulaic as they were taught to perceive it.

In the U.S., we do have our problems with the imperfecto and indefinido, but they are not nearly as difficult for us as they are for the Germans, seeing as we have more past tense forms (though the present perfect is arguably not a past tense form).  Also, as mentioned above, we are taught more Latin American Spanish, and there are tiny linguistic differences.  First of all, we are not taught to call them indefinido, imperfecto, and pretérito perfecto, but rather pretérito, imperfecto, and presente perfecto.  I remember using these terms in my Spanish class in the US (my teacher in Germany was from Spain) and my Chilean teacher quickly corrected me.  Also, the Latin American usage of present perfect and simple past is much more similar to the American English usage of the two than to Peninsular Spanish.  The Chilean teacher would correct when I would say things like "Hoy/Esta semana *he ido* al supermercado y *he comprado* verduras y carne para la fiesta" suggesting *fui *and *compré  * respectively.  In American English, both are acceptable, but the simple past has a slight upper hand; I'm more likely to use *went *and *bought *from the abovementioned examples in everyday usage unless I'm trying to be really formal.

I agree with most of what other fellow Americans have stated about the perceptions we have about Spanish.  I would add that I've never heard any refer to Spanish as a poor person's language.  A country's relative poverty has nothing to do with perceived difficult.  Otherwise, there would be many more langauge that would be perceived as easier than Spanish.  Easiness perceptions stem most from exposure and promixity to Spanish-speaking countries, phonetic orthography (the reason why many Americans think English is very difficult for others to learn), and the long list of cognates.  Our government even considers it an easy language.  Spanish and other Romance languages are considered the easiers, followed by Germanic languages, then other Indo-European, ending with Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, and Arabic taking the longest. 

I began with French and am now quite fluent in it, so Spanish for me has been coming fairly easily.  I personally found French fairly easy, though some aspects did take longer to grasp, such as all the agreement rules, many of which don't exist in Spanish.  In many instances, when not considering the actual pronunciation, French spelling is easier because it is the exact same as in English. Both languages use the subjunctive with exceptional differences between the two, although any native speaker of either will try to prove to you why their usage of it is most logical...But all languages have their quirks.  I guess that's why I enjoy them so much.  Take care and keep me entertained!


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## jsanmartin

The fact that this FORUM exists should be a pretty good indication that Spanish is not a simple or easy language. The multiplicity of dictionaries and study aids that attempt to explain what each of over 400,000 Spanish words mean would not be necessary if the language was easy. I find Spanish to be a difficult language to master, or even to use at a 9-10 grade level.
Sure it might be easier to pronounce than other languages (English and French come to mind) but that ease of pronunciation does not make it an easy language. On the contrary, it makes it a highly sophisticated language - a language that to express a thought relies on a word and its ease of pronunciation. Other languages rely on recycling words with different pronunciations to mean different things.
Take for example the usage of the verb “to be.” Anglo-speaking folks have a tough time figuring out which to use when, should I use “Ser” or should I use “Estar” that is the question! Numbering is another interesting exercise, particularly for the French, do numbers in the 80’s and 90’s have their own names or are they a combination of the multiplication of previous numbers?
In my opinion, those who think French is a more sophisticated language than Spanish, or that English is a language that can only express marketing concepts, know none of these languages.
I don’t think there is such a thing as an easy language. We may be able to memorize words, expressions, ask for a beer, or be able to find the needed facilities. But to pretend that what we did was to speak a language is to deceive ourselves.
Spanish is a beautiful language. The poetry, humor, song and sentiment expressed in traditional or regional Spanish is something that only the very talented would be able to translate to another language. Yet, the same dynamic is true for English, and I suppose the same hold true for French, Check, Russian, etc. (languages of which I know nothing.)
The one think I would invite Forum members to consider is: please, do not link the intellectual or sophisticated level of an individual to the level of language that was passed to them by their previous generations. I’m sure that the Spanish spoken by García Márquez is very different to the Spanish spoken by someone with a first grade education that crosses a border, or goes to a distant land to try to make a better live for them and their families. But “Spanish” is not reflected by one or the other in the absence of the one or the other.
I feel bless I speak Spanish, and I try very hard to improve it as much as I can. I also feel blessed that I can hammer at English with the forgiveness of those who have a mastery of it. Yet, I will try even harder not to pretend the language is represented by a small community of folks near me.
Feliç Any Nou


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## sokol

djweaverbeaver said:


> I don't agree with your statement (...)


Point taken. 

We of course learn Peninsular Spanish here in Europe, as you know, and even though I knew that the use of tenses is different in Latin American Spanish I didn't realise that American _préterito perfecto_ is named and (it seems) used as a _presente perfecto_ - which makes quite a difference.

However, most important the point made in my post anyway was another one - that language mostly is about practice:


sokol said:


> Language is all about practice.
> I guess in Québec it should be completely different: not so many Spanish speakers around, but a whole world in French.


If you have native speakers around this makes it much easier to learn a language - because you can talk to them, you can watch Spanish TV and radio stations (without having to rely on the internet), you can buy Spanish papers etc.: of course not everywhere in the States, but I guess you know what I mean.


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## Argónida

chics said:


> No es con la pobreza, es con la percepción que se tiene del otro. Muchos suramericanos considerarán mas rico su país, en el que tienen escuelas y sanidad pública para todos, vacaciones, una cultura propia, etc. que otro en la que nada de eso existe pero en la que hay cuatro sociedades en las que alguien (muy pocos) invierte y gana más que el PIB de algunos países del mundo, aunque el resto sean pobres o como ellos.
> 
> Los estadounidenses consideran pobres a los hispanoamericanos (y a los españoles también) e Ivanovic sospecha que eso desprestigia la lengua castellana en ese país. Ya sabes, pobre equivale a inculto, ignorante, cazurro, animal, falto de ideas y de creatividad... no debe hablar una lengua muy complicada alguien así.
> 
> Por otra parte, hablar la lengua de los poderosos exige que uno se ponga el listón alto, que quiera saber matizar, hablar con propiedad, que quiera invertir tiempo y dinero en hacerlo. En cambio, hablar la lengua de los criados... con decir fiesta, chin-chin, toros, arriba y chingatumadre ya se sienten orgullosos ¿para qué más?
> 
> No es muy políticamente correcto todo esto, pero la cosa va por ahí...


 
Ahí has estao sembrá, Chics . Se puede decir más alto pero no más claro.

Creo que ese factor que tan bien explicas es clave en este tema de la percepción acerca de la facilidad o dificultad a la hora de aprender un idioma: los objetivos y el nivel de competencia que uno quiera alcanzar. Algún otro forero lo ha señalado: el español es fácil para pedir algo en un bar o restaurante, por ejemplo, que es también para lo que lo usan muchos "europeos del norte" aquí en España.

Por cierto, creo que no ha habido ningún comentario de británicos o irlandeses. Me gustaría saber su opinión, porque sospecho que va a ser diferente de la de los estadounidenses. Por lo que tú dices, Chics, y sobre todo por lo del "roce" continuo con el idioma que tienen muchos de estos últimos.

Saludos y feliz año a todos.


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## Víctor Pérez

Como todo idioma perfectamente estructurado, no creo que la lengua española pueda ser fácilmente aprendida por alguien que no conozca otra lengua romance. Me temo que mantener lo contrario es, cuando menos, una frivolidad.


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## cherine

We hoped that this thread could be addressed from a cultural point of view. But apparently such a question can only answered by personal opinions, which is against the rules of this forum.

So... this thread is now closed.

Thanks to all who contributed.


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