Easiest second language to learn for a native English speaker?

Question

I speak (American) English- although most Brits would probably argue that there is no such thing. But anyway, I would really appreciate your help on this. Thanks!

Oh, and the reason why it's relatively easy to learn- similarity in grammar, vocabulary, etc. Thanks!

Answer 1

Definitely Spanish, for the following reasons:

1) Exposure: Especially in certain parts of the U.S., you have bilingual signs, telephone menus in both languages, Latin pop stations, etc. so you can hear and see the Spanish language a lot. This is very important to help retention and reinforce what you learn from the classroom.

2) Vocabulary: There are a lot of cognates, or words that sound similar in Spanish and English (e.g. música, familia, hospital). And many more Spanish words are derived from Latin roots that are familiar to English speakers (e.g. amor, mano, feliz)

3) Grammar: Other than the existence of gender and a few more verb forms, Spanish grammar is quite close to English. The word order is basically identical, and many idiomatic expressions like "have to" expressing obligation or "going to" expressing intention translate literally, which they don't in other languages.

Answer 2

Esperanto is the easiest. All the easy national languages require at least four times as much time to learn. Out of those, norwegian might be the easiest, but not much easier than dutch, french, frisian, swedish, italian Being able to get classes in the language would help a lot

Answer 3

ASL, or American Sign Language. Many people forget that this counts as a language, and it can come in very handy especially if you work with the public. You are essentially using English words and phrasing (for the most part, some phrases in ASL are jumbled around a bit), so it is easy to pick up. It does help if you are a visual learner, though. Basically, you just need to learn the signs.

I took ASL classes for one year in high school, and by the time the year was over, I could hold a pretty decent conversation in sign language.

Answer 4

If you live in the states Spanish would be the easiest for you to learn, for 2 reasons, the 1st being that Spanish it not hard to comprehend, and 2nd and most importantly Spanish is spoken everywhere in the United States so your exposure to it would , or could be almost like you were in Mexico. That's the best way to learn a language fast!

Answer 5

Spanish

Answer 6

Spanish when we had to take a second language to get through high school and get a diploma in California they told us the easiest was Spanish. We knew a lot of spanish growing up in CA. So this what we took.

Answer 7

Something that is spoken by a large community where you live. The easiest language to learn is the one you have the most exposure to and opportunity to practice. I live in Southern California, so my argument would be for Spanish, but it may be something else depending on where you are.

Answer 8

the easiest language to learn is the one that you are interested in learning. motivation is by far the single most important facilitating element. but all else being equal, italian is the easiest. if you live in the u.s. though, it would probably be more useful to learn spanish, which is almost as easy, and which you can hear and see all around you. german is easy to start out with, but it gets harder very quickly. french is not difficult either, but the sound of it is a bit tricky.

Answer 9

I'd say German, because both languages have a common origin, many similar words (Fisch, Mann, Haus, schwimmen, und) without the terrible phonetic complications, and with a relatively easy grammar.

Answer 10

Spanish. No doubt. It's the easiest language in the world to learn. Each vowel basically has only one sound. In English, vowels have multiple sounds.