What’s the Easiest Language to Learn?
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Possibly the most commonly asked question about language learning is "What is the easiest language to learn?" I answer that question in general, and then with regard to native English speakers. The short answer: whatever language is most similar to your native language. But of course there`s more to it than that.
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In this video I discuss the easiest language to learn as well as the hardest language to learn.
The full FSI list can be found here:
Music: "Kickin` It" by Jingle Punks
Outro music: "Otis McMusic" by "Otis McDonald.
A note from a Chinese speaker: Be glad your language has an alphabet.
C2Lception Bopomofo exists…not that it helps much.
@Oliver Zhang no, bopomofo is used in Taiwan, Hanyu is used in mainland
@magmagon I thought they used Cantonese?
@Faiz Yusuf wtf when did you get that idea? The Taiwanese use Mandarin (traditional form) and we also speak Taiwanese (hokkien), hakka, and some Fujian.
In addition, Cantonese is not a written language but a dialect. Hanyu is a style of pronunciation using the Latin alphabet.
Tried Kanji. I feel it.
Native language: Arabic
Very hard: Arabic
XD that’s rough
Same with me , I can read and write english and French pretty easily but I have trouble reading my native language bengali. Too many language markers so the spellings make no sense at times.
Drive Home Honestly lol it’s just that formal Arabic and its grammar rules are hard and very very strict. Without practice they’re easy to forget. Normal people can do it but they make many mistakes (especially cuz Arabic dialects are quite different from formal). Hell I probably write better formal English than Arabic.
@A J that would probably be the same case for me. Some of the Americans/british people have no regard for their own grammar. Most people don’t even know whether to use “there” or “they’re” in correct places. That’s like basic grammar rules :3
Drive Home Yh and unlike English, formal Arabic grammar rules almost NEVER change with time (still the same as around 1000 years ago). So while what we speak has changed a lot overtime (although not at all as much as other languages because the Quran’s existence restricts too much change in the language), writing hasn’t and that’s where the problem lies.
Native: German
Easy: English, Dutch
Very Hard: Humor
😀
TURKISH IS VERY HARD
If you’re a Native German speaker you have a huge advantage
This was class 👏😂
Hi, everyone! If you’re currently learning a language, check out my review of *Innovative Language courses:* https://langfocus.com/pod101. I’m a member of several of their sites and I recommend you try them out!
Just want to soil the first comments lol
@Euphemia Adamson i dunno the bureau list it on similarities to related language, even it’s related if it not closely similar (in case German to English) it’s listed as close rather than grammatically simple and easier in general but totally not related (Indonesian). I dunno that bureau would list coz tonal feature.
Arabic, Bengali, Chinese are hardest languages to learn. On the otherhand
English, Hindi are easiest languages.
And Russian, Hibrew two lovely language we should admire after English. And the truth is having too many people or nations on earth but we have only a handfull of languages that we speak across the globe..!
Why do you look like quentin tarantino so much
Wow recent comments in a video thats 5 years old. Also I’m currently simultaneously learning spanish and french, so thanks for the help and I’ll gladly check out the link
Native: German
Easy: English, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Icelandic
Hard: History
Okay, so first, Romans call you guys barbarians, then some Germans (Franks) made the Frankish Kingdom which is what you call France today…
Wait a second…
Tjena, hur mår du?
why not finnish?
@Sugar X because finnish is not germanic
@Tim90 and what kind of langauge is it? slavish?
Native: Spanish (Venezuelan)
Easy: English
Medium: German, French
Hard: Mandarin (Chinese)
Impossible: Chilean
Jajaja 🤣
Native : French
Easy: Spanish
Less easy: English
Medium: German
Hard : Mandarin
Impossible: Women
@Xerly i confirm the impossible one
@Siempre sonríe nosotros hablamos normal OS aengitno ch dqke ita bando????
Native: Swahili
Easy: Arabic (Egyptian accent), Spanish .
Hard: Dutch, German, French,
Very hard: Norwegian, Russian, Japanese, Korean.
Extremely hard: explaining to people how Swahili varies in different spoken countries
I would think Norwegian would be easy if you’re english is good enough to understand this video
Arabic easy and norwegian hard?
That was unexpected
@Etrusca Because Swahili contains like 30% + Arabic
@Etruscakuna misamiati aina ainati ya Kiswahili yatokayo kutoka Kiarabu. Kunayo maneno kama meza, na mvinyo kutoka Portuguese
@Kizuu Haitisi Arabic EASY??? I’d hazard a guess and say you must be from TZ…
The spoken language may be easier for you because you have some words in common but the written language is very hard due to the signs.
I am French. German was easy to learn for me, but I think learning Latin at the same time helped a lot (the two grammars often follow the same logic). English was quite easy : easy because of the shared vocabulary, but difficult because of the pronunciation (and spelling), and difficult because of the verbs tenses (I didn’t get it during a few years, I didn’t get the logic behind it…). I tried Italian : very, very easy (but it seemed that it has a lot of tenses French do not use any more so I think it is only easy at the beginning). Tried Japanese : very difficult!
My parents learned one dialect from Arabic, and found it very easy (the grammar is very simple).
My uncle leaned Russian and German, and told me Russian is extremely difficult (way more than German)
I am a native English speaker and learning Latin immensely helped with other languages for me as well. Latin should be promoted more. Sadly my hometown stopped offering it to students
Native: Slovak/English
Easy: Slavic languages
Very hard: Japanese, Chinese
Impossible: Not being mistaken for Slovenia
Ahh you must be from Czechoslovenia
I feel like it would be the other way around. Way more people know of Slovakia versus Slovenia.
Those pesky Slovenians!
The special name Karin and the words or and ova cannot be in someone’s name, and all unsuitable names must be changed!
My list of languages that I highly recommend, starting with the prettiest and then the easiest…
…Dutch & Norwegian (they are really perfect languages, like English / Scottish, with almost only pretty words and beautiful sounds, and should be learned with the soft G and the soft / Americanized R, and are very poetic and refined, so they are a must-know, just like English / Scottish)
…Swedish (it’s almost as pretty as Norwegian, but it’s easier to read Swedish words after learning more than 3k Norwegian words, so that’s why one should start with Norwegian, as most Norwegian words are very easy to read and memorize)
…Portuguese / Galician / Catalan / French / Occitan / Esperanto (most words are very pretty words, a bit more prettier than many Spanish words, even though Spanish is way easier to learn, and one should definitely choose a more open / non-nasal pronunciation / soft R tho, because a soft accent with open vowels can make these languages sound so good and pretty)
…Frisian / Afrikaans / Luxembourgish / German / Limburgish (very pretty words in all these languages, even though a lot may find German grammar more complicated, and by the way, one should use a soft R and soft G, which will make them sound so pretty)
…Spanish / Italian / Corsican (lots of pretty words and many neutral words, and Spanish is definitely the easiest Latin language to learn, which makes it a great option to start with, and Italian is as easy as Spanish honestly, from what I’ve noticed, and I highly recommend a soft R in these languages and all other languages, which will make them sound very pretty)
…Icelandic / Danish / Faroese (very pretty words, but it’s easier to learn these languages once one knows Norwegian and Swedish, because they are not as easy to read as the other two Nordic languages, and the pronunciation can be more complicated in Danish, for example, which has many words and rules that are similar to the Norwegian word and others that are more similar to the Swedish word, so that’s why they should be learned after learning a lot of words in Norwegian and Swedish, and, Icelandic is a bit easier to read than Faroese)
…OId Norse / Latin / OId English / Norn / MiddIe English etc (I highly recommend learning at least one of these languages, even though they aren’t used a lot nowadays, and all other Germanic languages that I didn’t list here, but I have them on my list tho, and they are interesting, and can be used in poetry / lyrics because they are very poetic sounding, so I am going to learn them all, plus I already know a lot of words in Middle English, which I use in many of my lyrics, and I can understand it because it’s mostly the spelling that is a bit different from Modern English, but OId English is completely different tho, so it’s more similar to German)
…Welsh / Scots Gaelic / Irish / the other Celtic languages (I recently found lyrics and read words in these languages, and they seem very interesting, have so many pretty words, from what I read, even though they have almost no similar words to the words in Germanic languages and Latin languages, so they are completely different, and kinda have an elf-like sound to them, so they are perfect for me, but I also recommend them to all because they sound very poetic, and can probably be learned in a few years, I don’t know, but I seem to be able to remember the words I learned so far, so they don’t seem difficult to memorize, but they are definitely more difficult to spell than to memorize tho)
…Hungarian (I know two songs in Hungarian that I learned years ago, so it doesn’t seem that difficult to memorize, and many words are so pretty, so I would definitely recommend this language, which is very different)
…Finnish / Estonian (these two languages have a lot of pretty words and a lot of neutral words, even though other words aren’t pretty and are opposites, but I would recommend at least the pretty words and the neutral words, which I am also learning)
And, I also recommend learning the pretty words from Indonesian & Filipino & Sundanese, because these three languages have a mix of very pretty words, as well as lots of neutral words, but then they also have a lot of funny words that are not pretty (so a lot of opposites too) but, I am definitely learning all the pretty words that I find, which can be used mixed with other languages and in poetry / lyrics!
Native : French
Extremely Easy : Toki Pona
Very Easy : Esperanto
Easy : Spanish, Italian, portuguese, English
Normal : Greek
Hard : German
Very hard : Japanese, Arabic, Chinese
Extremely hard : Sibo Gomero, ǃXóõ
Impossible : Every single person I met in my life
Esperant’ estas la solan lingvon mi aktuale konas mdr
i know toki pona yay
@Monophone vi parolas esperanton! mojosa ! ne estas facile trovi esperantistojn kun kiuj paroli
@m4therfucker sina toki ala toki e toki pona?
Greek is normal?
Native: Hungarian
Easy: Nothing apart from English
Hard: Everything.
Very hard: Explaining people that I’m in fact, hot hungry.
Impossible: Explaining people that we don’t understand Finnish at all.
You don’t have to explain that you’re hot and hungry, we already know that
Not hungry?
Native : Roman.🇮🇹
Hard: tell the world that i dont understand Romanian.🤣
As a Finn, I totally agree with the last one 😀 I think there’s not many words anymore that are similar, I think “blood” was quite close in Finnish and Hungarian, “veri” in Finnish.
@Markus Ketonen od you agree with the flag of your country’s air force?
By far the easiest language I learned was Esperanto, which is an “artificial” language with a simple grammar and vocabulary drawn largely from European languages. Among national languages, I studied French and German, and later Spanish. The grammar and cases in German were impenetrable, though the vocabulary has a lot of similarity to English. Even though I’ve been exposed to French the longest, I found Spanish considerably easier.
That artificial language claimed that it’s gonna the new WORLDWIDE medium because it’s “easiest” and “make sense”, and I understand that but it’s MAINLY from European language. Which absolutely honest speaking from someone from lot different culture, “I’m offended”. Like how can you make such a claim, it’s so self-centered view.
@Silver Measuring Spoons forget the fact that it’s mostly made from euro languages. The issue is that it has no ethic, cultural, and religious ties. No history, no people to call it their mother tongue. It is a soulless, synthetic language lacking any human roots. Lol, even Quenya from LOTR had more substance
I am from Surabaya Indonesia. I am happy that you mention our language, Bahasa Indonesia. Our language is very simple indeed. It is also easy to listen to Bahasa Indonesia for our words are longer. Chinese is actually very simple actually without writing. I agree with you that Japanese is very difficult, probably the most difficult one I have learned. By the way, I know English, German, Dutch, Chinese, and Japanese.
@Sabroso Lopez there’s about 10,000-ish people maybe more that natively speak Esperanto
@Sabroso Lopez i mean it’s a nice languague to learn other languages. Having a world language is nice and it should’t be english. Better be esperanto
My native language is from a Slavic group, but I think it’s an illusion that other Slavic languages are easy when you know one – yes, there’re lots of similarities in grammar, but when it comes to vocabulary, there are so many “false friends” and tiny nuances you intuitively get wrong, that for me it’s way easier to start with something completely different.
I wanted to write that English is easy because at least objects are not gendered (seriously, this is the most annoying and useless language feature ever!), but then I recalled how much trouble I had as a kid with all the things that don’t sound the way they’re spelled… ghoti = fish and all that.
Persian is surprisingly easy to learn and it’s very beautiful. I didn’t expect it to have so much in common with my native language and Germanic languages! One of my favorite words is “setareh”, which means “star”. And it has no gender category at all, yaaaay!
Vocabulary is the easiest part in the Slavic languages. The grammar is nasty.
Being native in Greek, having mastered English and German as a child, found the easiest ones to be Italian and Esperanto and the most difficult ones…Icelandic and Finnish. Being in contact with Russian from an early age I found it bearable.
Σαν Ολλανδος, μετα απο δεκαετεια εδω στην Ελλαδα, ακομα το δυσκολευω με την γλωσσα. χαχα
Why the hell would anyone speak Esperanto
Hi I love watching your video.
I’m Japanese, when I learned English it was extremely hard of course the English grammer was crazy for me
BUT the culture!!
Sometimes I feel like in order to well understand the phrase we need to understand the thoughts of speakers behind the phrase and this was so hard for me.
Interesting! I teach adult Japanese students online, so it’s always so helpful to hear a learner’s perspective. Your English seems great!
English sounds like hell to learn if you don’t already speak a language that shares a lot of words with it. The spelling is also crazy, you’ve got these words: rough, though and thought; all of which have drastically different pronunciations
I’m brazilian and I’m currently learning Japanese. I loved the japanese at first sight, the sounds are very easy and fun to learn from a portuguese speaker, but the japanese grammar is really hard hahaha. I love the way japanese think to make phrases. Cheers from your friends in Brazil 🇧🇷❤️🇯🇵
Actually Japanese grammar is crazy too…
I am from New Zealand. The English culture is complicated for us also.
乾杯
The easiest language is the one which interests you and which you are able to actively put a lot of time and practice into. I have always found German hard because of lack of motivation and practice, but actually found Arabic easier because I find it easier to practice and motivate myself.
Na dann viel Glück damit
I am very interested in many languages, but back in day in school I, a native English, flunked French and passed German. I have since learned some other languages, but other than picking out words and a few phrases I recognize, my brain just won’t comput French. I blame genetics, I had both ancestries, but modern DNA shows just so much more German in me. The fact that I look like a Hessian peasant should have tipped me off.
Afrikaans is simpler than Dutch, so I’d say it’s easier to learn than Dutch (for example, in Dutch ‘het’ means ‘the’ but in Afrikaans it makes a sentence past tense only). And as an Afrikaans second-language speaker, it was quite easy for me to learn German because many of the words are the same except Afrikaans doesn’t have gendered nouns.
I’ve spent quite some time in Indonesia back in the early to mid nineties. Now, 30 years later I still understand and speak the lingo at a modest (street) level, I even recognise and somewhat speak regional dialects like Manadonese and Ambonese. Never took formal lessons just learned it through socialising with locals. A few years later I took formal lessons in Mandarin and I found that much harder. Forgot most of it unfortunately.😆 To me (Dutch) I found German the easiest language to learn. Learned it as a kid back in the seventies simply by watching kids programs on German tv. In those days we only had two Dutch TV stations, but also could recieve three German ones since were living close to the German border.
It depends on which languages you listen to, which you are interested in AND how your voice box (mouth, tongue, face muscles, lips etc) is constructed. If your voice box can form the language sounds easily, you will learn that language quickly. The training lies in getting the specific sounds and stresses right. Once it becomes automatic it’s easy.
my native languages are Ukrainian and Russian. Of course I understand pretty well other Slavic languages and I can say English wasn’t easy one for me to learn. I’ve been learning German and I found it easier. Also I tried to learn Swedish and Finnish. With Finnish I enjoyed more, cause it’ completely different to languages I know. However, I can say less in Finnish, than in Swedish. Now I’m learning Norwegian and I love this language. It’s well-balanced Scandinavian mixture of English & German, with some Slavic words. Perfect pronunciation, smoothness. Oh.. I love this language!