There's a thread on the forum which asks which language is closest to French. My question is not which language is closest linguistically to English, but which is the easiest European language for a native speaker of English to learn.
It doesn't really apply to anyone who grew up with two or more languages from birth, nor does the question apply to those whose parents spoke another language either natively or at all well.
The idea is for those who had no exposure at all to a language other than English until they started learning another European language, at school, university or by specific course to relate their experiences.
For example, I was introduced to French and German at age 13, and studied both, at school and university, for several years; I found French far easier to learn, both written and spoken. I have no ancestors who spoke either French or German, and neither of my parents had any knowledge of a language other than English.
I also found French reasonably easy to pick up. The only other language I was studying at the time (started at age 11) was Latin.
Never tried to learn German, but was surprised, and very disappointed at how much harder Spanish was to learn (especially speech), several years later. I thought it would be a breeze, knowing a fair bit of French and Latin, but it wasn't, so I changed to Italian, which proved a much better choice.
The most closely related major language to English is Dutch. It's writing is similar, but spoken is quite a bit different than English.
But THE most closely related language to England more than any other is the little language of Frisian.
So I suppose Frisian would be the easiest. None of the Romance languages would be. Italian has about 6 ways just to say "the" - il, la, i, le, lo, gli - which seems a bit pointless.
The pronunciation of the Frisian languages, though, is quite a handful, Adam. I would say that at least pronunciation-wise, German would be significantly easier to pronounce, for most English-speakers, than the Frisian languages, even though it has rounded front vowels, /x/, and /C/, which most English-dialects lack (even though many do have [C] as an allophone of /h/ when it is followed by /j/, though).
French is pretty easy to pick up, even though the pronunciation is quite different from that of English. More than half of English vocabulary today comes from French, and so does most of the grammar.
Neil : "My question is not which language is closest linguistically to English".
Adam : "The most closely related major language to English is Dutch".
Adam again : "But THE most closely related language to England more than any other is the little language of Frisian".
Adam : hard to quit copy-paste ?
Old Frisian was highly similar to Old English, and historically, Frisian is classified as the closest existing language to English. For example, the Frisian for "green cheese" is "griene tsiis", whereas in Dutch it is "groene kaas".
One rhyme demonstrates the similarity of the two languages:
"Bread, butter and green cheese is good English and good Friese," which is pronounced more or less the same in both languages
Frisian: "Brea, bûter, en griene tsiis is goed Ingelsk en goed Fries."
Also, the days of the week -
English - Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday
Frisian - Snein Moandei Tiisdei Woansdei Tongersdei Freed Sneon (Saterdei)
Other words -
English - world
Frisian - wrâld
English - hand
Frisian - hond
English - would
Frisian - wolde
English -stand
Frisian - stonda
"Adam again : "But THE most closely related language to England more than any other is the little language of Frisian".
Adam : hard to quit copy-paste ? "
Where have I copied and pasted?
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"The pronunciation of the Frisian languages, though, is quite a handful, Adam. I would say that at least pronunciation-wise"
Nope. The pronounciation of Frisian is almost exactly like that of England. Frisian is very much like Middle English, and it is possible for Frisians to read texts written in Middle English.
The English would find it MUCH easier to read Frisian than to read French. In terms of closeness of language compared to Frisian, French is a million miles from English.
The - Tha
They - Tha
A/an - En
He - Hi
Twelve - Twolve
They fought so grimly - Tha fugtin se alsa grimlike
The Frisians - Tha Fresan
Thisse bref ma tha fri fresa iof and sine hond - This letter they gave the free Frisian in his hand.
Is French easier than Spanish? I had heard that it was harder.
I don't know if it's because I'm Scottish, but I found French not only reasonably easy to learn, but also a pleasure.....it's so beautiful. I'm not referring to the grammar really but to the sounds..they seem to come easier to a Scot than to an English English speaker I reckon. I must practise it more, as schooldays French is not much good if you don't keep up with any form of person to person conversation. Like everything else it will just deteriorate with lack of use.
German grammar seems to be much more complicated than French, but I don't think I would have any problems with the pronunciation...again, we have very similar sounds...the most obvious being the "CH" which the English have great probs with, as we Scots well know. "LocK RannocK" and all that stuff!
I'd probably handle the Scottish or German "ch" better than I do the Spanish "rrr".
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.
Yes,adam...the writing is quit similar,oh the sarcasm is dripping on my keyboard.
I've found Spanish to be pretty easy.
>I don't know if it's because I'm Scottish, but I found French not only reasonably easy to learn, but also a pleasure.....it's so beautiful
Yes, I also loved the sound of French, so perhaps that helped. It was a pleasure to try to speak, even in the early days of trying.
I'm not Scottish, apart from ancestrally (along with Irish and English), so perhaps it's a Celtic thing...