which language is easier to learn?

[try again]

hallo every one.im try again from china.

im speaking quite fluent english,and i wanna learn another language.

now im tryin to learn french, but it seems quite hard. cos the prounouciation is quite different from english. like the word"tiger".
in english we say /taige/ but french would be/tighe/
i think it may coz english influences me too much.
so waht language do u think is the most near to enlish? in terms of pronouncition and grammar and spelling and other things?
thx!

[sarahlauren]

I would say probably the easiest language to learn to compliment your english skills would be spanish. The Z's are pronounced as S's, and the LL's are pronounced as a Y sound. Other then that the alphabet is very similar.
Also, when putting sentences together, it is very different from English, (they use masculine and feminine forms), but as far as learning the basics and starting, it is probably your best bet. Hope that helps in your selection! Good Luck!

[boulevard]

That's right; French is way too different from English when it comes to pronounciation.

I don't know much about Spanish but I, too, think it's closer to English than French.

But, I think you should learn a language you like ( of course being easy is important ). Try to know more things about several languages (Spanish, French, Italian, German...or maybe something else Japanese, Persian, etc)

Believe me, it's important to like the language one learns because you'll have to study about its speakers (I mean the nation that speaks it and their customs and traditions,etc). But Spanish is a good choice anyway.

[aziraphale]

being english myself, i found it so much easier to grasp german than french of spanish. this may be from the way both english and german stem from the same branch of linguistics, or through heavy influence, but i still found it easier.
well, theres my 2 pence worth!
Hope it helps

[gilou]

hallo every one.im try again from china.

im speaking quite fluent english,and i wanna learn another language.

now im tryin to learn french, but it seems quite hard. cos the prounouciation is quite different from english. like the word"tiger".
in english we say /taige/ but french would be/tighe/
i think it may coz english influences me too much.
so waht language do u think is the most near to enlish? in terms of pronouncition and grammar and spelling and other things?
thx!

Dutch is the closest language to english, I think.
A+,

[pc2]

we also think Dutch is very close to English.
Danish and Norwegian are very close to English too.
being Brazilian and having Portuguese as a native language, for us, Indo-European languages (specially those coming from Latin) are easier to learn.
Latin is very easy to learn for a Portuguese speaker, and French is too, because Portuguese has 90% of Latin vocabulary...
Spanish is very easy as well, because it is the closest language from Portuguese (at least in Latin America). Galician and Catalan (the first is spoken in Portugal, the second in Spain) are also very close to Portuguese (the first one being closest to Portuguese, the second one to Spanish).
Sanskrit and Greek are easy as well (but a bit more complicated), and, studying Sanskrit makes it very easier to understand the nature of Greek and Latin grammars (as well as other Indo-European languages) and perceive resemblances between them.
but Chinese is very hard, not in grammar, but in pronunciation and understanding, because it is very different from Indo-European.
but we study many languages, such as Indo-European, Semitic etc. and we found these languages very hard at first, but, with many studying, we started finding them easy.
so, with practice, you (try again) can learn any language you want, even being distant from your native language or any other language you speak.
as one can see, it is all very relative.

salutations,

[Maïwenn]

Galician and Catalan (the first is spoken in Portugal, the second in Spain) are also very close to Portuguese (the first one being closest to Portuguese, the second one to Spanish).

Both are spoken in Spain actually. Galician is spoken in Galicia.

It's interesting to know that Portuguese comes from Galician (one would have expected the contrary, right ?), and until the XIIIth century, they were the same language. Now, they share about 85% of the vocabulary.

[pc2]

Galician and Catalan (the first is spoken in Portugal, the second in Spain) are also very close to Portuguese (the first one being closest to Portuguese, the second one to Spanish).

Both are spoken in Spain actually. Galician is spoken in Galicia.

It's interesting to know that Portuguese comes from Galician (one would have expected the contrary, right ?), and until the XIIIth century, they were the same language. Now, they share about 85% of the vocabulary.

interesting...
we have already read, actually, that Portuguese comes from Galician, long time ago, but the source said that Portuguese was a mixture of Galician with Vulgar Latin. we thought it couldn't make sense, since Galician already comes from Vulgar Latin, isn't it?
but we thought Galician was spoken in Portugal. this clarification was important.

salutations,

[gilou]

In fact, Galician and Portuguese come from a common ancestor language, Gallaico-Portuguese, which itself comes from (vulgar) Lusitanian latin. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galician-Portuguese

A+,

[Manuela]

Spanish is closer to english than french ? Wow people, I am learning interesting things in this forum ! I have always thought that german or dutch would be much easier to learn for an english native speaker than spanish or french. Anyway, all languages can be difficult or easy : it depends on how interested you are in them.

[xaviergym]

Maybe an artificial language, like Esperanto ?

[pc2]

In fact, Galician and Portuguese come from a common ancestor language, Gallaico-Portuguese, which itself comes from (vulgar) Lusitanian latin. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galician-Portuguese

A+,

great...
we know this Wikipedia and it's very good... we visit it almost eveyday.
there must be a Portuguese language version of page on Galician-Portuguese... we will check it later...
Portuguese (which is our native language) has a very interesting history, isn't it?

salutations,

[gilou]

Yes. My main source of knowledge about the evolution from Latin to Portuguese is a quite good (and cheap) book in french, Histoire de la Langue Portugaise, P. Teyssier, ed. PUF, 1980.
A+,

[dYShock]

but Chinese is very hard, not in grammar, but in pronunciation and understanding

I think try again is well aware of that already...

Location: China

Either way, I can't do much more than repeat what has already been said: German and Dutch are among the languages closest to English, thus making them easier to learn for someone who already masters that language. But then again you have to like the language you're learning: if you find no interest in the German or Dutch language, I would strongly advise against learning them.

[pc2]

Yes. My main source of knowledge about the evolution from Latin to Portuguese is a quite good (and cheap) book in french, Histoire de la Langue Portugaise, P. Teyssier, ed. PUF, 1980.
A+,

we should read it sometime... the only problem is how we would buy, from Brazil, a book from France.

salutations,