Most English speakers learning German and one or more Romance languages will claim that German is harder due to the cases and adjective endings. Is this really so? I am a native English speaker who has learnt German. I have learnt a bit of Spanish and French, and although I don't know much, it seems that the verb conjugations in these languages are a nightmare in comparison to German. When I see the tables of the huge number of forms verbs can take in these languages, I wonder how people can find them grammatically much easier than German. Verb conjugation in German, while unsurprisingly more complex than English, appears to be much simpler than that in the Romance languages, plus German has a very simple tense/aspect system. Why does German have the reputation of being much more complicated than the Romance languages?
Grammatical complexity of German and Romance languages
In Spanish, once you get past the verbs, the rest of the grammar isn't too bad, although it's still a whole heck of a lot lot more complex than English (as are almost all languages).
Of course, there's gender, but there's noun declension only for the plural, and that appears to be even more regular than English (hard to believe). Adjectives are declined in gender (often/sometimes?) and for number, to match the noun, but this never seemed terribly complex. Missing are the -er and -est adjective endings found in English, so here's another area of relative simplicity.
Spanish spelling isn't perfect, but it's somewhat simpler than English (but what alphabetic language isnt?).
Of course, there's gender, but there's noun declension only for the plural, and that appears to be even more regular than English (hard to believe). Adjectives are declined in gender (often/sometimes?) and for number, to match the noun, but this never seemed terribly complex. Missing are the -er and -est adjective endings found in English, so here's another area of relative simplicity.
Spanish spelling isn't perfect, but it's somewhat simpler than English (but what alphabetic language isnt?).
In some aspects English is easier than Spanish, and in some others Spanish is easier than English but in general Spanish is been proven to be by far the easiest language to learn.
http://www.language-learning-advisor.com/easiest-language-to-learn-survey.html
http://www.language-learning-advisor.com/easiest-language-to-learn-survey.html
I swore I wouldn't be one of those annoying people but here I go...
One can't PROVE that one language is easier than another, much less that it is "by far the easiest language to learn." Sorry, I couldn't help myself.
In my opinion, English has Spanish beat, but I'm a native English speaker so my opinion isn't all that credible in this case.
One can't PROVE that one language is easier than another, much less that it is "by far the easiest language to learn." Sorry, I couldn't help myself.
In my opinion, English has Spanish beat, but I'm a native English speaker so my opinion isn't all that credible in this case.
It's not me saying it, is a survey asking people which language was the easiest, because in fact languages are meant to be learnt by people, and people themselves were the ones that said that Spanish was BY FAR the easiest language to learn, like it or not, English is not THE easiest one like most native English-speakers think.
<<It's not me saying it, is a survey asking people which language was the easiest, ...>>
It looks like this survey was directed towards English speakers, asking them which foreign language was easiest.
I suspect the easiest language to learn will depend on your current language. If your native language is Portuguese, Gallego, Catalan, Italian, etc., I suppose learning Spanish might be easier than English. But for most others, I'd guess that English ought to be easier.
I suppose a better test for ease of learning would be to have a survey like this in China, Korea, Japan, Turkey, etc.
It looks like this survey was directed towards English speakers, asking them which foreign language was easiest.
I suspect the easiest language to learn will depend on your current language. If your native language is Portuguese, Gallego, Catalan, Italian, etc., I suppose learning Spanish might be easier than English. But for most others, I'd guess that English ought to be easier.
I suppose a better test for ease of learning would be to have a survey like this in China, Korea, Japan, Turkey, etc.
I'm not necessarily a NATIVE speaker of English, but I'm pretty close to a native speaker, considering how it has become my mother tongue.
I took four years of Spanish in high school and I also dabbled in a semester of German at a community college recently.
I absolutely love German, but it was a NIGHTMARE!
In comparison to Spanish gender which is easily identifiable because of -o or -a, German gender for nouns was all rote memorization, which made it incredibly difficult. Also, German has three genders while Spanish has just two.
In comparison to Spanish adjective "declensions" which only involve changing the ending to -o/-os for masculine and -a/-as for feminine, German adjective declension is based on gender, number, and case.
In comparison to Spanish pluralization which only involves adding -s to words, German pluralization involves vowel changes, addition of umlauts, sometimes adding -n, sometimes adding -s, sometimes adding -e, etc.
In comparison to Spanish which has no case system, German has the nominative case, accusative case, genitive case, and dative case. You have to remember how to decline the words to follow the right case.
For words following prepositions, you have to memorize which prepositions trigger which cases.
German word order is less intuitive than Spanish word order.
...I'll add to the list when I think of more.
I took four years of Spanish in high school and I also dabbled in a semester of German at a community college recently.
I absolutely love German, but it was a NIGHTMARE!
In comparison to Spanish gender which is easily identifiable because of -o or -a, German gender for nouns was all rote memorization, which made it incredibly difficult. Also, German has three genders while Spanish has just two.
In comparison to Spanish adjective "declensions" which only involve changing the ending to -o/-os for masculine and -a/-as for feminine, German adjective declension is based on gender, number, and case.
In comparison to Spanish pluralization which only involves adding -s to words, German pluralization involves vowel changes, addition of umlauts, sometimes adding -n, sometimes adding -s, sometimes adding -e, etc.
In comparison to Spanish which has no case system, German has the nominative case, accusative case, genitive case, and dative case. You have to remember how to decline the words to follow the right case.
For words following prepositions, you have to memorize which prepositions trigger which cases.
German word order is less intuitive than Spanish word order.
...I'll add to the list when I think of more.
<< It looks like this survey was directed towards English speakers, asking them which foreign language was easiest.
I suspect the easiest language to learn will depend on your current language. If your native language is Portuguese, Gallego, Catalan, Italian, etc., I suppose learning Spanish might be easier than English. But for most others, I'd guess that English ought to be easier.
I suppose a better test for ease of learning would be to have a survey like this in China, Korea, Japan, Turkey, etc. >>
Good points.
I suspect the easiest language to learn will depend on your current language. If your native language is Portuguese, Gallego, Catalan, Italian, etc., I suppose learning Spanish might be easier than English. But for most others, I'd guess that English ought to be easier.
I suppose a better test for ease of learning would be to have a survey like this in China, Korea, Japan, Turkey, etc. >>
Good points.
<<Is German or Russian harder? >>
It may depend on who's doing the learning. For a native Dutch speaker, I assume Russian would be harder. It's not clear if that's still true for someone who already speaks Ukrainian, Belorusian, etc.
To get a less biased opinion, the best bet would be to ask a native speaker of a language that doesn't use the Latin or Cyrillic alphabets.
It may depend on who's doing the learning. For a native Dutch speaker, I assume Russian would be harder. It's not clear if that's still true for someone who already speaks Ukrainian, Belorusian, etc.
To get a less biased opinion, the best bet would be to ask a native speaker of a language that doesn't use the Latin or Cyrillic alphabets.
It isn't just alphabets but also language family. Ask the question to me, a native Turkish and Arabic speaker, I'd say definitely Russian , the Slavic group...
To Seljuk
Which is easier, English, Spanish or French? You have a less biased opinion.
Which is easier, English, Spanish or French? You have a less biased opinion.
I think that English is the easiest. The second Spanish. French is the most difficult because of the disgusting sound.
So, have we established the following ordering of European languages, from easiest to hardest for learners whose first language is unrelated to any of them?
1) English
2) Spanish
3) French
4) German
5) Russian
Where would Portuguese, Italian, Catalan, Dutch, Icelandic, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Polish, Lithuanian, Estonian, Latvian go? How about Basque, Hungarian, Finnish, Turkish?
1) English
2) Spanish
3) French
4) German
5) Russian
Where would Portuguese, Italian, Catalan, Dutch, Icelandic, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Polish, Lithuanian, Estonian, Latvian go? How about Basque, Hungarian, Finnish, Turkish?
BS, Spanish is easier than English, and all your biased opinions shouldn't count, I've already presented proof of it which you have not.
It takes you seven years to really learn English as for Spanish that only takes you one, or Esperanto that takes you seven months, but the most important thing, how can you say that English is the easiest language when people don't even know how to spell!, and it's not cuz they're stupid but cuz the language was “fucked up” since the beginning, you have to learn twice as much, besides having to learn the written word you also have to learn the pronunciation.
It takes you seven years to really learn English as for Spanish that only takes you one, or Esperanto that takes you seven months, but the most important thing, how can you say that English is the easiest language when people don't even know how to spell!, and it's not cuz they're stupid but cuz the language was “fucked up” since the beginning, you have to learn twice as much, besides having to learn the written word you also have to learn the pronunciation.
<<To get a less biased opinion, the best bet would be to ask a native speaker of a language that doesn't use the Latin or Cyrillic alphabets.>>
I learnt English as the second language and, actually, Mandarin some years later but my Mandarin easily surpassed the level of English ever since. I've had a good grounding of German (at least enough for small talks) and dabbled with a couple of European languages...
I don't know how difficult the grammars of Romance languages are, but I'm sure that German should be an easy option for English speakers (and ESL learners), despite all sorts of troubles about grammar... There are a lot of discounts of learning German, considering my linguistic background.
Indeed, for Chinese learners, tenses would appear to be a difficult part, compared to cases and genders. Although German is riddled with a lot of case endings, when you try starting small talks / simple reading, you won't bother too much about them... the knowledge of cases would gradually sink in with your patience - and English does have some rudimentary traces of cases for me to follow the case logics. Plural endings are really a nightmare, but I personally won't bother with it too much.... somehow, after learning a few hundred words in context, I have developed some automatisms in my brain to guess the plural endings... and not knowing the ending without a dictionary (or I can't/don't bother to use one) won't matter much, as long as I still learn in context and don't do any drudgery.
At least for the Chinese, many of which don't even know what "grammar" is and believe Chinese has no grammar (and, really, no tenses), would have more troubles with tenses. Again, knowing English enables me to decipher the German tenses with some discounts and... fortunately, the German tenses are even easier.
I learnt English as the second language and, actually, Mandarin some years later but my Mandarin easily surpassed the level of English ever since. I've had a good grounding of German (at least enough for small talks) and dabbled with a couple of European languages...
I don't know how difficult the grammars of Romance languages are, but I'm sure that German should be an easy option for English speakers (and ESL learners), despite all sorts of troubles about grammar... There are a lot of discounts of learning German, considering my linguistic background.
Indeed, for Chinese learners, tenses would appear to be a difficult part, compared to cases and genders. Although German is riddled with a lot of case endings, when you try starting small talks / simple reading, you won't bother too much about them... the knowledge of cases would gradually sink in with your patience - and English does have some rudimentary traces of cases for me to follow the case logics. Plural endings are really a nightmare, but I personally won't bother with it too much.... somehow, after learning a few hundred words in context, I have developed some automatisms in my brain to guess the plural endings... and not knowing the ending without a dictionary (or I can't/don't bother to use one) won't matter much, as long as I still learn in context and don't do any drudgery.
At least for the Chinese, many of which don't even know what "grammar" is and believe Chinese has no grammar (and, really, no tenses), would have more troubles with tenses. Again, knowing English enables me to decipher the German tenses with some discounts and... fortunately, the German tenses are even easier.