Jakob is a full-time traveler, obsessive language learner, and dedicated language teacher. The good news? While you may consider, how long it will take to learn the language. Spanish may be the #1 easiest language to learn. This is the translation of the word "easy" to over 100 other languages. To give you some hope: verb conjugations are consistent, so you’ll have an easy time once you know all the endings! For example, a single word in Finnish can be translated into a full sentence in English. It’s not exceptionally difficult to learn how to ask for the bathroom or say “I love you” in 20 different languages. Their notorious silent letters can make you feel like a cat’s got your tongue. For an English native speaker, Afrikaans is fairly straightforward and one of the easiest languages. And with 35 different cases, we can see why! If learning all the new sounds of a foreign language is your biggest challenge, you should consider starting with a language like one of these: You saw this one coming, right? The biggest difference is likely the new sounds, including sch and ij. Oh and Arabic is considered a macrolanguage, which means it has 30 different varieties worldwide! And you may even discover a few cognates, such as geyser from the Icelandic geysir. All you need is -är to form verbs for everybody. Learners may also be put off by the way words can be inflected by verbs, nouns and adjectives. Japanese actually has three different writing systems, though most learners will stick to kanji and kana. or when you’re waiting to meet a friend. You’ll find useful vocabulary and get the feel for natural phrasing. The most unusual aspect of Swahili is the lack of verb conjugations. We’re here to tell you definitively, that’s just not the case. To achieve his goal, he made Esperanto have predictable and phonetic spelling. Almost everything about Mandarin can be overwhelming at first (although the grammar rules are thankfully fairly simple). If you want to say "Goodbye" in one of the Germanic languages, say "Auf Wiedersehen" for German, "Tot ziens" for Dutch, or "Farvel" for Danish. Two things: 1. There are generally three major things that make a language easy or hard for any given learner: 1. But as we’ve referenced here and there throughout this post, linguistically speaking, it falls somewhere around the fiftieth percentile. Besides shared vocabulary, Dutch also has similar verbs to English, though they’re conjugated differently. Saying no in African Languages. Instead. Here's how to say hello in different languages of the world — 21 of them, to be exact. And One More Thing… Let’s be honest. These tones make Mandarin extremely tricky; if you don’t get the tone right, you’ll say a different word entirely! But there’s no doubt that this sing-song language is within your reach. On the plus side, the Korean alphabet hangul is easy to learn. Easy Read and Other Languages Guides. You got this! To say "Goodbye" in several different languages, say "Adios" for Spanish, "Adeus" for Portuguese, "Au revoir" for French, or "Arrivederci" for Italian. Are vocabulary words easily identifiable? Yikes! For example, a single word in Finnish can be translated into a full sentence in English. Japanese may not be a tonal language, but it’s one of the hardest languages to learn. Now, if you’re a native speaker of a European language and want to devote yourself to learning the intricacies of a language like Pirahã, we support you wholeheartedly. It’s not called the Germanic language family for nothing. This language isn’t as distant from English as you may think. Japanese has historically gotten bad PR among language learners, but its pronunciation is actually remarkably simple. While Turkish has used Latin script since 1928 – lucky for English speakers! While some Hindi learners use a Latin alphabet, the Devanagari script actually helps clarify pronunciation once characters are understood. You’ll learn any language more quickly if you’re interested in it. You can see this in the huge number of cognates, i.e. These are very basic manners that can be very useful to learn in different languages. Everyday items are usually similar or exactly the same as the Spanish name. can take anywhere. In addition, Turkish grammar has a whooping 30 verb tenses and six noun cases. In addition, it uses a phonetic Latin script (so no need to learn a new alphabet) and similar word order to English. Our favorite English word from Dutch is koekje, meaning cookie. Is it the new sounds, the grammar rules, finding chances to practice or something else? It also tacks on participles and pronouns to show subject and object within the verb. Compared to German nouns, for example, Czech has 15 times more possibilities! The biggest difference is likely the new sounds, including. Given its Latin roots, Italian also shares lots of cognates, so get ready to find similarities between English and Italian. Well, it’s an Indo-European language, which means there are some useful cognates between Persian and English. The first zinger? Others entirely lack tenses or cases or inflections of any kind and are riddled with guttural sounds nearly impossible for speakers of most languages to pronounce. Though right to left, Persian uses Arabic script, as well as four more letters in their alphabet. My online friends and I wanted to show you how to count from one to ten in different languages. All languages require effort and practice. Learn to say 'Hello' in 50 languages Happy International Mother Language Day! For example, the word galore in English comes from the Gaelic go leór. – a close relative of Dutch. Don’t forget about all the irregular nouns and verbs too (uh-oh). The hardest part about Spanish is the huge variety of dialects, as it’s officially spoken in 21 different countries. To some extent, this is just because the speech sounds of unfamiliar languages often sound garbled and meaningless to foreigners. It also has VSO (verb, subject, object) word order, which can be hard to keep straight at first. While no country has adopted Esperanto as an official language, it’s been widely supported by the European Union and organizations like PEN International. Finally, Persian grammar can be difficult to grasp, including a large number of prefixes and suffixes added onto words. Even the word car comes from càr in Gaelic! Learners across the globe seem to have extreme feelings towards English—it’s the hardest or the easiest language they’ve ever learned, they love it or they hate it. When William the Conqueror stormed England in the 11th century, the English language became forever entwined with French. If you want to create the passive tense, just add, . Some Spanish learners also struggle with the speed. Esperanto is an incredibly easy language to learn since it’s a constructed language meant to bring people together from across the world. How closely it’s related to the languages you already know. There are only two new sounds, tx and tz, and the alphabet uses Latin script. On the bright side, Hungarian only has three verb tenses: past, present and future! In addition, Norwegian grammar is a cinch, with present endings for all groups ending in, . Knowing whether a language is easy or hard is good for setting expectations, but it’s still subjective. You won’t find shared roots or cognates here, which means Finnish is a bit of a blank slate. Generally speaking, however, the reasons are grouped into six categories: These are the main criteria for deciding whether a language is one of the easiest or hardest. We’re all parents, friends, neighbors, small business owners, full-time travelers or artists. Korean is one of the hardest languages to learn for native English speakers because of some key grammatical and pronunciation rules. If you want to create the passive tense, just add -s. And if you want to create possessive, pop on -s too (just like English). To start, Hungarian has a reputation for complex grammar. . This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you It’s not called the Germanic language family for nothing. Not to mention that compound words are likely to freak you once in a while. Danish is favorite for polyglots and one of the easiest languages for English learners. In addition, their verbs have three persons, two numbers, two tenses and two moods. All these traits make Indonesian one of the easiest languages to learn quickly. For instance, Basque doesn’t simply change the end of the verb, it changes the beginning too. Turkish is a distinctive language with some quirky rules. In addition, their writing system, Devanagari script, has 47 characters including 14 vowels and 33 consonants. Kanji can be notoriously difficult to master because it’s a character-based system, so you have to memorize how words are written. While Spanish grammar is distinct from English, it’s simpler and has some basic overlap. Besides that, however, Hindi has some challenging differences in terms of grammar, pronunciation and writing. After Japanese, Spanish is the 2nd fastest spoken language –, Dutch is in the Germanic language family, which includes German and English. which has six syllables. In 2010, the volcano Eyjafjallajökull erupted in Iceland, throwing TV reporters in turmoil. Health information in different languages and formats - including BSL, Easy Read and translations. It also tacks on participles and pronouns to show subject and object within the verb. Finally, spelling is super intuitive, with many words written halfway between Dutch and English. Finally, Mandarin is known for its many homophones and idioms, which can be culturally distant from English. The only tricky part? Last but not least, Swedish is one of the easiest languages because it shares Germanic roots with English. Even better, it has no grammatical categories for gender, number or tense. Whether you are planning a trip to a foreign country, have a friend who speaks another language, or are looking for a unique way to say thanks, there are many ways to express your appreciation.. As a Germanic language, Norwegian and English share tons of cognates (like welcome). I thought it was a really handy list and told myself next time I go abroad I would learn those phrases. In the 1600s official language of your efforts from the icelandic geysir those phrases already there. 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