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The 5 Easiest Languages for English Speakers
Already speak English? Great! Here are 5 of the easiest languages for English speakers to learn.
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Fortunately, Norwegian does not require verb conjugation according to person or number, making different tenses very easy to learn. In addition, its word order does not differ to that of English.🥰🥰🥰🥰
@memsom
2 жыл бұрын
It does for a few cases. The reverse order used for questions and when the pronoun comes after the verb. “Går du?” “Ja! Nå går jeg”. This is something very un English.
@aspiretoinspire9679
2 жыл бұрын
@@memsom ah ok what's your native language?
@TheRodco
2 жыл бұрын
would you say Swedish is as easy as Norwegian for an English speaker?
@VazeulEzren
2 жыл бұрын
@@TheRodco My dad has been learning Swedish for a few years because he has distant family there. Sometimes he accidentally posts Norwegian web comics/cartoons with jokes on Facebook(he can understand them) and they start asking him if he speaks Norwegian now too. I also had started learning Norwegian at one point and compared notes with him and almost all that I learned seemed to translate the same in Swedish. The point I'm making, the 2 languages are nearly identical with some slight differences. It seems that if you speak one of the two you can mostly understand the other one.
@TheRodco
2 жыл бұрын
@@VazeulEzren that's very interesting. Thank you for your answer! I'd like to learn Swedish in the foreseeable future, once I'm done learning German
Indonesian Dutch & Norwegian are tempting 2me😍
@The-Greek-Zeus
9 ай бұрын
Do dutch it's pretty easy
Can't believe it you put Indonesian in your 3rd rank, thanks for it. On ther hands, as native, it is easy because what write and you should pronounce it same, also some of words influence from Sankrit, Chinese, Arab, and Dutch as well🙇
As an italian, the main problem I had studying english was the silence letters, which didnt exist here in italy besides english/french universal words like Hotel and the verbs "io ho" and "lui/lei ha" (I have and he/she has). Or also the pronounce of the vowals and the differents forms of verbs
@charisma-hornum-fries
2 жыл бұрын
Then Danish is probably going to be hard too. We are much less phonetical than Norwegian. So much that is written is sometimes absolutely nothing you can hear.
@lukecalos4442
2 жыл бұрын
@@charisma-hornum-fries 😱😂good to know
@asgerhougardmikkelsen8770
2 жыл бұрын
@@charisma-hornum-fries i once tried to learn Danish on duolingo for fun (it's my native language) and every time I had to pronounce something it said I was wrong, not once, every time it said I was wrong
I have been learning Swedish again since the end of September. I am slowly being able to read quickly but that is because I study for 5 plus hours a day. I know it’s not sustainable long term. It’s just until after the holidays. However, it’s satisfying to read and speak full sentences!
@alanguages
2 жыл бұрын
What are the name of the resources you use?
@MDobri-sy1ce
2 жыл бұрын
@@alanguages I posted comment before. Duolingo, Babel, Kulturebloggen, KZread, audiobooks. Basically, a mix.
@robbybobbijoe
2 жыл бұрын
@@MDobri-sy1ce Intressant! Vilket är ditt moderspråk? Eftersom Svenska, likt som Norska knappt har några konjugationer och har samma ordföljd som Engelska så är det en av de enklaste språken du kan lära dig. Alla språk är svåra att lära sig men jag tror du fattar :)
@MDobri-sy1ce
2 жыл бұрын
@@robbybobbijoe I can only pick out a few words here and their I had to translate the rest maybe in a few years. My mother tongue is English but probably after I am probably most comfortable with Russian speaking not reading. I am Canadian so, I had to learn English and French but not fluent in French. I wanted to learn Swedish years ago because I kind of liked the language but I did not have the resources back then to learn so, I learned Russian instead because of part of my Slavic heritage. However, I reconnected with an old Swedish friend and since I have more resources compared to when I was in high school I am learn to connect with him. He told me Swedish can be tricky. Any language is if you don't grow up speaking it. However, I think if, I can learn Russian with no teacher I can handle almost any language lol. Except maybe Hungarian and Icelandic.
@robbybobbijoe
2 жыл бұрын
@@MDobri-sy1ce Keep going man I believe in you! I can tell you, and this goes for most people - learning a language is possible for everyone if you just do research on HOW you’re going to teach yourself first. I’m currently studying french, and It’s a lot of fun. Don’t get let down by the words you can’t read, and instead feel excited by the words you actually can read. Pro tip on learning a language is that you don’t need to spend an excessive amount of money on it. I’ve spent around €30 on books and that’s what I’m going to use in order to learn French. And I’m sure I’m going to reach fluency without spending much more than that. Hell, I reached fluency in English without even studying it, without living in an English speaking country nor being spoken to in English, that is my own proof and motivation to that I can actually achieve my goals in French!
i'm not really sure italian should be on that list. true, there are many similar words, but verbs conjugations, articles and prepositions are really complicated and different from English
@grovermartin6874
2 жыл бұрын
True. Getting a toe in the water in learning a language is a big help for introducing oneself, though. If you have a bit of Spanish, muddling through becomes possible, being open for amusing misunderstandings. One hopes!
@lukecalos4442
2 жыл бұрын
I agree... As an italian was a little difficult to study english, but I think that the opposite is even more difficult. The main differences are also the silent letters and the complex verb system. In italy they didnt exist, exeption for the "h" in "lui/lei ha" and "io ho" (he/she has and I have) which are the only. For the ferbs tho, italian is really difficult with a lot of forms
@alanguages
2 жыл бұрын
Italian is easier to communicate initially, like Spanish. It is just becomes increasingly more difficult the deeper one goes.
@lmatt88
2 жыл бұрын
Yes, it should be. The Romance languages are among the easiest for English speakers.
@lukecalos4442
2 жыл бұрын
@@alanguages yes i agree
I started learning Norwegian (native North East English speaker) and I am amazed at how many Norwegian words are so similar to not just typical English words but slang words we use here in the North East. Jeg synes Norsk er et av det mest interessante språkene
I never knew about the Norwegian language cafés, but that sounds really interesting! 😮
Groete vir julle almal in die eerste taal wat hy genoem het. As julle die taal wil leer kom Suid-Afrika toe.
Having not learnt Norwegian I can't really say, but to me it always seemed that little bit HARDER than Swedish because "my house" is "house my", and then there's this weird thing where it has cases on like, very few words (but actually English has that too, like "golden fleece"). I think the accent is probably a bit easier than Swedish though. You just start low and keep going up until you hit a plane or the stratosphere, and then keep going up.
@HalValla01
2 жыл бұрын
Yea, "my house" would in Norwegian be "huset mitt" (house my), but saying "mitt hus" is in no way incorrect. Take the sentence "My house has four walls". A native Norwegian would most likely say "Huset mitt har fire vegger", but you're also correct saying "Mitt hus har fire vegger".
@daysandwords
2 жыл бұрын
@@HalValla01 Ah ok I didn't realise that it could be both ways around. I just noticed in series that it seemed to be "backwards" from the Swedish, and also in Swedish books and series if someone is a bit of a country bumpkin kind of character, they they often use that form too, like "Pojk' min har aldrig varit lätt..."
@erikeriksson1660
2 жыл бұрын
@@daysandwords That is of they come from Värmland.
@lmatt88
2 жыл бұрын
the plurals in Norwegian are a piece of cake as opposed to those in Swedish though
@HalValla01
2 жыл бұрын
@@lmatt88 Yea, fancy way of saying we're better than them xD
I'm native English speaker learning Spanish right now. I feel this this language should have been on your list too. There are oh so many Spanish words share the same root as English words and you can decipher them easily like: population -> poblacion, to communicate -> comunicar, elephant -> elefante, etc The list goes on and on so English speakers at zero hours of study will already know like 1000 words. The only hard things some English speakers my find is the pronouncing the rr sound and becoming familiar with all the different verb tenses and moods as they are a bit more complicated than English For example: I speak, You speak, He/She/It speaks, We speak, They speak Notice the only two forms are speak and speaks In spanish the same line would be: Yo hablo, Tú hablas, El/Ella/Eso habla, Nosotros hablamos, Ellos hablan That's 5 different conjugations whereas english only has 2- And that's only the present indicative tense. It can feel overwhelming to a beginner learner when you realize just how many different forms you have to learn- I know I felt like I would never learn it all. But practice makes perfect and learning language is a gradual process. Put in the hours consistently and you will see success. ¡Buena suerte!
@AhmetArdaCoskun
Жыл бұрын
And in European Spanish there is "Vosotros" form which can be translated as "You, you all(y'all) or you guys" so: In English: I speak, You speak, S/he/It speaks, We speak, You speak, They speak In Spanish: (Yo) Hablo, (Tú) hablas, Él/Ella/Usted habla, Nosotros/as hablamos, Vosotros/as habláis, Ellos/as/Ustedes hablan
Afrikaans and Indonesian are the most beautiful ones for me! 😍
@tjazz979
2 жыл бұрын
@Zane Goebel - Everyday Indonesian it might be harder to learn, but still beautiful und interessant for me. Language is always alive, with mixes from different people and their contexts. 😁
@jovanfisher3072
Жыл бұрын
Nee regtag dit is 'n baie mooi taal en dankie❤
I would say Dutch, Afrikaans, Norwegian, Swedish and Spanish in that order
@bhami
2 жыл бұрын
Swedish has those wacky pitch contours, which Norwegian does not. ☹
@lmatt88
2 жыл бұрын
@@bhami If you mean the tones both have them.
@inlandish
2 жыл бұрын
Dutch has lots of weird rules, and even the rules have rules. Plus pronunciation (unique sounds), flattening vowels, lots of slang, and Dutch speakers automatically switch to English when they notice someone is struggling with their Dutch.
@lmatt88
2 жыл бұрын
@@inlandish The grammar is a piece of cake for an English speaker
I speak English, German, Spanish and currently learning European Portuguese and Bahasa.
@winconfig
2 жыл бұрын
Curious one here... How's your EU Portuguese going? I'm learning Brazilian and am having a difficult time with the concept as a whole, still. I'm just trusting that hopefully one or two hours a day will have me understandable in about a year.
@berg8970
2 жыл бұрын
@@winconfig The grammar is easy since I speak Spanish, the pronunciation and silent letters are a bit of a challenge but not insurmountable. Do you speak other languages?
@winconfig
2 жыл бұрын
@@berg8970 This is my first, serious attempt.
@alanguages
2 жыл бұрын
@@winconfig Your 1st 2nd language will be the most difficult, regardless which one you pick. It gets easier after that though.
@josuaerick9670
Жыл бұрын
As an Indonesian, I'd like to thank you for learning our language, a little correction "bahasa" is an Indonesian word that only means "language" so if you want to say you speak Indonesian, just say "Indonesian" or "bahasa Indonesia".
Nice list. I think the focus is on easiness as an English speaker. If that is not a condition, my recommendations would be Esperanto, Indonesian, Turkish, Persian, Sanskrit/Bengali (in this order) as the candidates for the easiest languages. All have the simplest and most logical possible grammar and a phonetic alphabet/script. Peace PS: Esperanto is an artificial language, but one of the best out there for it. The rest are/were spoken by the biggest empires or the most populous agglomerations of our planet. Perhaps there is some relationship between running, managing a huge empire, building and maintaining a strong, unifying culture, and the creation of a simple yet powerful language to keep it all together.
Italian was very easy for me, like an accessory to English, languages are not my strength. But my daughter lives in Maastricht and is struggling with Dutch, even though her boyfriend is German/Dutch and she has a knack for languages speaking Greek, and some French, German and Italian. Wonder what’s up.
Hi Olly! I'm thinking of getting a Christmas present for my mother to learn Spanish. As she is quite busy and mostly takes the car everywhere, doesn't really read any paperback books, I was wondering if you are also selling CDs to listen to?
Dutch and Afrikaans are the same language. German is *NOT* the closest language to Afrikaans.
the biggest obstacle when learning Indonesian is only about prefixes and suffixes that make nouns, adjectives, adverbs, etc. as a native speaker of Indonesian, I can confirm this absolutely :D
I am German and English was pretty easy for me to pick up, you can probably guess that languages like Dutch and Afrikaans were easy to pick up, I also found Norwegian quite simple to pick up but I have tried to root out and try more difficult languages well for me at least, I picked up Japanese through watching anime, I picked up Korean through gaming with Korean people, I learnt languages like Russian and French at school, I learnt Portuguese while working in a restaurant speaking with the Portuguese chefs. I’m not claiming I’m fluent in all of these however I am very comfortable in being able to communicate with locals and make my way around the country if needed
@grovermartin6874
2 жыл бұрын
How exhilarating that must be, Michael! You can flow so freely through the world!
@kiddbrm
2 жыл бұрын
@@grovermartin6874 I think learning languages is exciting, it does help when travelling abroad being able to communicate with the locals etc.
For indonesian I feel it depends on whether we are talking about basic understanding or native understanding. The basics are easy but there is such a subtlety to it. I have found it much easier than Arabic and Mandarin to get the hang of but massively harder to truly get fluent in.
Scots is easy for English speakers once you master pronouncing "loch" you're golden
@paper2222
2 жыл бұрын
nah you gotta remember that "water" isn't even "wa'er", it's "wa"
@DaWorldGuardian001
2 жыл бұрын
@@paper2222 Waluigi intensifies
@Black-Re4per
2 жыл бұрын
@@paper2222 a Bo'Oh'O of wa
@paper2222
2 жыл бұрын
kzread.info/dash/bejne/eZeZsNWomtGzlpM.html
I'm surprised Malaysian wasn't put on the list, it's very similar to Indonesian but has more English influence, whereas Indonesian has more of a Dutch influence because of the colonial history. Keep up the great videos mate, I enjoy watching.
as someone who knows 4 languages (bulgarian,turkish,english and german) i can confirm i can try to match my dads total languages he has ever spoke (he speaks 5 languages)
I’m russian, so it’s easy for me to learn slavic languages like Ukrainian, Polish, Serbian, Czech, which are considered very hard to most of the people
Malaysian here. I highly advocate people to learn malay language . Since even if you cannot speak it very well while in Malaysia . We can understood you perfectly just fine in english .
@hkrohn
10 ай бұрын
It's the same as Indonesian. And I speak Indonesian, and was excited to practice it in Malaysia, but everyone there only seems to speak Chinese, Arabic or Hindi, so it's impossible to practice.
Hope you speak about Hindi sometime . You're doing a great job 👍
I wanna learn Dutch, Norwegian, Greek, Latin, Icelandic, and Tagalog. Can anyone give me an order to learn them
@notexxone5595
7 ай бұрын
When learning Dutch and Norwegian I recommend learning German I'm currently learning both and I speak English and German and believe me it is way easier
@aqua-762
7 ай бұрын
@@notexxone5595 alr
Takk
So I’ve narrowed it down to Norwegian or Italian! They are both beautiful languages and of course each have their own allure. I’m having trouble deciding which one. Any thoughts?
@mingyu9092
Жыл бұрын
Definitely Norwegian!
Italian is amazing ❤️😍
Indonesian speaker 273 million native speaker just 44 million because it's lingua franca for 700 languanges in Indonesia. Indonesian is easy they don't have singular/plural like english just say the word twice Mouse = Tikus Mice = Tikus tikus No gender she/he just one word = Dia No grammar past, presence, future just one verb Eat, ate, eaten = Makan And so many ioan word from dutch, english, portuguese, arabic,etc
danish is also not too hard, sharing many words with english and german and also being very similar to norwegian
@sevret313
2 жыл бұрын
The problem with Danish is listening and pronunciation.
@memsom
2 жыл бұрын
And counting.
Well, unfortunately I'm stuck with German now, and it's an all-out battle!
@kiddbrm
2 жыл бұрын
I know I may sound biased as I am German but I find German quite an easy language to learn
@sloppytightbottom
2 жыл бұрын
Dein Kampf. :-)
@ihavenoname6724
2 жыл бұрын
@@kiddbrm Hehehe, you do sound extremely biased !!! 😁Merry Christmas,.
I have to learn Swiss German which u would think would be easy given I grew up speaking high German but it’s rlly not easy at all I’m struggling. And I live in Switzerland so that is quite unfortunate
Italian alphabet is the same as the english one, the one you put in the video is not used anymore. Now we have also words which contains J, K, W, X and Y, (example: winx club, a popular italian cartoon)
Personally I think the Sintic languages are actually the easiest languages to learn. The grammar structure is extremely easy and there’s literally no verb congugation at all. I think people are just intimidated by the sounds of the pronounciation. The Chinese writing system is also a hurdle, but besides that, they are often extremely simple compared to other languages
Indonesia is easy to talk, not so to write. cos the sound is different from english pronounce its letters, esp vocals. I am Indonesian. Can you suggest anything to speak MSA Arabic easier?
So, if Italian and Norwegian are in the list, then you definitely forgot Swedish, Spanish and Portugal. French and Danish are harder considering phonology, but can definitely make the list, and also of course you forgot the greatest language of all times - Almighty Scots🏴
1. Norwegian (relative of English) 2. Dutch (relative of English) 3. Indonesian (simple thus easy) 4. Italian (Romance language*) 5. Afrikaans (Dutch simplified) *English takes about 30% from Latin & 30% from French making it about 60% Romance not to mention many Italian loan words in English & many English loan words in Italian.
Is is difficult to learn Romanian?
Esperanto?
Awesome video!!
What about Spanish?
Pidgin is very easy for people that don't speak English and Pidgin is similar to English but Simpler
Which one would you suggest for someone to learn, want to start a language but idk what to start
afrikaans is spoken in some parts of South Africa . Other countries don't really speak afrikaans
@alanguages
2 жыл бұрын
No, but the Dutch can understand Afrikaans. They can have a sufficient mutual intelligible conversation, if the Dutch speaker speaks slowly.
Ha good luck with the grammar and pronunciation for dutch
Whwt are thd 5 countries that speak Afrikaans? I thought it was only in SA?
How come you mention Norwegian instead of Swedish? The language has two written forms, nynorsk and bokmål, and can be very different in one valley to the next. Swedish has the same grammar and one written form in Sweden and Finland
I thought Spanish was going to be in the ranking, as it seems to be slightly easier than Italian
Can you imagine Norwegians and Dutch reacting to native English speakers speaking their language ? Hahaha they'd never allow it
No mention of Frisian?
Why Italian has the word "rocket"? Instead "razzo".
In my mind Spanish and Portuguese are even easier than Italian.
Wait a sec. Dutch is definitely harder than German. We have way more irregularities and tend to have harder to follow dialects than German dialects. And Dutch has the "Ui" sound which English doesn't have. Not to forget the Mega Guttural-G and Sch sound. PS: Even some Dutch people don't understand Limburgs.
@sebe2255
Жыл бұрын
Well it depends, a lot of the rules for which there exceptions matter nothing in the spoken language. And Dutch grammar is simpler and thus easier. I would say that pronunciation, especially the the R is more difficult than in German though, at least based on my experience with native English speakers learning Dutch
Why wasn't Spanish on the list.
French is missing out... Dutch and Afrikaans is almost the same...
Jag lär mig svenska
Bro Norwegian and English were both based off of Greek and Latin so duh most languages are easy to learn
You forgot about Esperanto. Surely that is the easiest language to learn.
@jimmerd
2 жыл бұрын
-not a natural language -not the easiest language to learn, especially for English speakers
@Kanguruo
2 жыл бұрын
@@jimmerd Have you seriously tried to learn Esperanto or is it just a guess? Surely it is much easier for English speakers to learn it than Italian, for example.
@jimmerd
2 жыл бұрын
@@Kanguruo haven't tried, there's plenty of natural languages, but I agree, it's probably easier than Italian, but I doubt it's easier than Afrikaans (for English speakers of course)
@Gregory_12
9 ай бұрын
Jes!
I’m not sure Norwegians really want to welcome English speakers, I’ve watched “Lillehammer”...
Indonesian is easy to learn, but hard to master because of the locals 🤣
I'm surprised French wasn't on the list considering almost half of English words are French cognates.
@calebw8189
2 жыл бұрын
There are other things that make it tough, but yeah, cognates are nice.
@bhami
2 жыл бұрын
Because French phonology is wacky, evil, and ugly for most English speakers, and does not match spelling in many cases.
@DiggerWhoops
2 жыл бұрын
@@bhami "Wacky, evil, and ugly?" I've heard French described in a number of ways, but never that.
@user-bi4eo3ys1f
Жыл бұрын
How easy do you say the French word "point"?
Isn't Norway the reason modern English doesn't make sense
Norwegian is virtually exactly the same as Swedish isn’t it
Why you're not trying hands on our indo-european family's forgotten language, hindi.
I found that learning Esperanto is THE most easiest language to learn
@user-bi4eo3ys1f
Жыл бұрын
ĉu vi parolas Esperanton?
@danielturcotte9146
Жыл бұрын
@@user-bi4eo3ys1f Jes mi ankoraŭ lernas kiel paroli Esperanton
As a native English speaker who has studied German, I do *not* find Dutch easy when I encounter it! It is *not* "halfway between English and German". It is its own weird animal!
Afrikaans comes from dutch....
I always heard that Spanish is the easiest language to learn if you already know English.
poor indonesian language its always on the list of easiest language. they don't give some challenge for learners.
Pokemon!!!
I'm surprised Spanish didn't make the cut, but Indonesian did.
@hkrohn
10 ай бұрын
Indonesian is much easier than Spanish (I say that as a person who has learned both).
Italian is so easy it’s not funny
First comment!