# Easiest language to learn. **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 24, 2014, 7:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easiest-language-to-learn/702333 "2014-10-24T07:15:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2014, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easiest-language-to-learn/702333/61 "2014-10-28T18:33:55Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > - Horrible phonetics. It’s like there isn’t a single word that everybody will say the same way. > - “The spelling thing” means that it’s actually two separate languages, for learning purposes; three if you take into account the variant spellings. You can’t figure out how to spell something based on how it’s pronounced, but you also can’t figure out how to pronounce it based on how it’s written - congratulations, it makes French easy! > - No impersonal form. The existing impersonal structures are divided between “unknown to large amount of users” (the passive voice), “not evidently impersonal and often leading to misunderstandings” (the impersonal you) and “unclear” (the “someone”-type orders, which are also unclear in other languages). > - Phrasal verbs. While they’re actually a cross between a collocation and what in other languages would have been a new verb formed by the “central” verb plus some added-on particle, they’re a serious bitch. > - Countables vs uncountables. No, damnit, you don’t fucking create “one equipment”, it’s “one piece of equipment”! _froths at the mouth_ > - The custom of writing accents doesn’t really help people understand how does that person pronounce unless they are already familiar with the pronunciation represented, and it makes reading a lot harder than using standard spellings throughout. Note that most people will encounter it when they’re already pretty advanced: you’re at a point at which in other languages you’d be reading as quickly and widely as in your own language, but in English suddenly this new barrier comes out of nowhere and sets your reading back several years. > > Like every language, it’s easy once and if you know it. From the outside looking in, and in the immortal words of Jackie Chan, “I hate English!” Well, I can tell you that English was the second of four foreign languages my dad learned as an adult. His native language is Hungarian, and he learned German, English, and French, in that order. He always said that English was the easiest. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2014, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easiest-language-to-learn/702333/62 "2014-10-28T18:36:35Z")
If we’re going to cross anecdata, my uncle JM spoke Spanish, Basque (four dialects), English, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, French and Italian. He claimed English was the hardest. ---
**Author:** ![cwthree](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9de0a6/32.png) [@cwthree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cwthree)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2014, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easiest-language-to-learn/702333/63 "2014-10-30T02:09:57Z")
I found standard Persian (Farsi) reasonably easy to pick up. Only one gender, reasonably consistent verb conjugation, mostly phonetic spelling. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2014, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easiest-language-to-learn/702333/64 "2014-11-01T23:30:38Z")
> [@cwthree](#): > > I found standard Persian (Farsi) reasonably easy to pick up. Only one gender, reasonably consistent verb conjugation, mostly phonetic spelling. You’re quite right. No gender at all, in fact, even less than English—the 3rd-person singular pronoun _u_ does for he, she, and it alike. The grammar is simple and easy to learn for a beginner. It’s clearly Indo-European, and the conjugation will have recognizable similarity with European verb structures, only much simpler. The funny thing about Persian,\* though, is how it’s _deceptively_ simple and easy. There are infinite depths of hidden subtleties than can only be learned through long acquaintance. It’s one of the very easiest languages to learn for beginners—for purposes of conversation and general utility. It’s one of the _hardest_ to learn vis-à-vis the finer points of belles lettres, and the real difficulties are not at all apparent. As I learned when translating Persian poetry. \*Please don’t call it Farsi. Its native speakers themselves call it Persian when speaking English, and they get irritated when Americans insist on changing the name, a hyperforeignism. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easiest-language-to-learn/702333.md?page=3)