Which European Language can an English Speaker learn most easily?

Adam, I was not speaking of textual appearance, I was speaking of pronunciation. The vowel system of West Frisian, for example, makes that of Dutch look clean and straightforward in comparison, which I wouldn't exactly call it. Go take a look at it, if you doubt me: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Atrium/6641/vowel.htm

Also, here is a thing on the West Frisian orthography, just to give you some information on it as well: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Atrium/6641/staver_e.htm

Now please tell me that that is simple from a pronunciation and orthographic standpoint. It may be superficially similar to Middle English, which was phonologically rather straightforward, but fundamentally it is /very/ complex as vowel systems, and their orthographic representation, go.

"More than half of English vocabulary today comes from French, and so does most of the grammar."

I've read the figure is closer to 30% for vocabulary, though mostly from older forms of French.

English grammar is practically exclusively Germanic, and most definitely does *not* come from French. And even though a large quantity of vocabulary in English today is from North Romance forms from one stage or another, or from Latin or Greek, most of that vocabulary is primarily literary in nature, and the core vocabulary of English has been influenced by such in a very limited fashion, a few loans like "second" or "person" aside.

Travis : no comment.

=>The vowel system of West Frisian, for example, makes that of Dutch look clean and straightforward in comparison<=

But Frisian,has a lot of vowels,which arent their own,but which they adopted from Dutch,this is (too) clearly noticeble in modern WF...according to a frisian friend of mine.

I don't know what the absolute easiest is, but Spanish was really frickin easy for me.

andre in usa,you not the first native english speaker whose said that!There has to be a reason.


But according to Adam,dutch is the easiest...I totally disagree.

The most closely related major language to English is Dutch. It's writing is similar, but spoken is quite a bit different than English.

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De meest dicht verwante taal aan het Engels is Nederlands.Het schrift is gelijk,maar gesproken is het toch wel anders dan het Engels.

Adam is a noob,ignore him.

What's a 'noob'?

<=What's a 'noob'? =>

Internet slang for "newbie".

Ah...