# What are the easiest / hardest foreign languages for an English speaker to learn? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 6, 2014, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-easiest-hardest-foreign-languages-for-an-english-speaker-to-learn/700594 "2014-10-06T22:31:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-easiest-hardest-foreign-languages-for-an-english-speaker-to-learn/700594/41 "2014-10-07T14:44:45Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > Remember that cognate means merely that the corresponding words in different languages evolved from a common ancestor in some ancestor language, and not necessarily that the words mean the same thing in the different languages today, or even look at all similar when written down. Depending on the languages involved, cognates can hinder more than help. When different, the meanings are usually related conceptually, but not of much help to beginners. > > As an example, _Herbst_ in German means “fall” or “autumn”, but the cognate relationship is with “harvest”… However, they often have a metaphorical link, as seen here. Fall is the harvest season. In English, one can poetically refer to fall as “harvest season” and be understood. There are some weird cognates though, like the thing that [happened](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thing_%28assembly%29) with the cognates to “thing” in many Germanic languages. E.g. Icelandic it’s a political term. Seems that there were a series of metaphorical extensions to the meaning. The relationship may have gone council/legislature -\> specific instance or meeting of a council or legislature (e.g. the “Tenth Congress”) -\> a specific topic or point brought before a council or legislature -\> a topic for discussion in broad social discourse (cf. how one can “sue” someone in the Court of Public Opinion) -\> any random thing. > [@Itself](#): > > It’s not just the lack of cognates… > > Rather, the problem is that Hungarian is about as far from English as you can get. It’s almost a language isolate… No, Hungarian is a Uralic language. It’s related to Finnish and Estonian. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-easiest-hardest-foreign-languages-for-an-english-speaker-to-learn/700594/42 "2014-10-07T15:03:17Z")
> [@thelurkinghorror](#): > > I think of Japanese as being pretty easy to pick up the basics, at least so that you can have the language skills of a child. The more advanced subtleties are however very difficult and it’s not _only_ kanji that is the problem. Certainly, but it’s not impossible, and it’s actually much less of an issue than many people would have you. ---
**Author:** ![kopek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kopek/32/337_2.png) [@kopek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kopek)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-easiest-hardest-foreign-languages-for-an-english-speaker-to-learn/700594/43 "2014-10-07T15:15:16Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > Navajo is nearly impossible. I think that maybe there is no historical record of any non-native speaker of Navajo ever becoming reasonably fluent. I would have gone that direction as well – either a North American or African tribal language. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-easiest-hardest-foreign-languages-for-an-english-speaker-to-learn/700594/44 "2014-10-07T15:15:32Z")
> [@TokyoBayer](#): > > Certainly, but it’s not impossible, and it’s actually much less of an issue than many people would have you. My brother took Japanese in college, and made a point of hanging out with the Japanese student union and speaking it as much as he could, and got very good at conversational Japanese in about two years. He was very determined to learn the language though. He started out as a straight-up art major, but switched to computer graphic arts, and a Film, TV, Radio minor, and knew Japanese would be useful, since he’d be working with computers all the time. It did give him a big foot in the door to have that on his resume. He’s a CGI artist in Hollywood now. Worked on _Avatar_, among other things. Anyway, according to him, the Japanese students were pretty welcoming. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-easiest-hardest-foreign-languages-for-an-english-speaker-to-learn/700594/45 "2014-10-07T15:17:23Z")
Huh, so I suppose my guess of “a different case for every preposition” wasn’t that far off. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-easiest-hardest-foreign-languages-for-an-english-speaker-to-learn/700594/46 "2014-10-07T15:24:25Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Huh, so I suppose my guess of “a different case for every preposition” wasn’t that far off. Yeah, and there [are those who argue](http://core.kmi.open.ac.uk/download/pdf/9064097.pdf) against thinking of it as a case system, but rather as “fused postpositions.” That really is more of what I think of them as. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-easiest-hardest-foreign-languages-for-an-english-speaker-to-learn/700594/47 "2014-10-07T15:42:26Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > Anyway, according to him, the Japanese students were pretty welcoming. This is my experience as well - the Japanese have the oppositie reputation than the French - they seem to get a kick out of foreigners trying to speak Japanese. Not that there aren’t problems - they find it hard to believe that anyone who wasn’t born there can speak Japanese. I trained with a guy who lived in Japan for several years to train at the Kodokan. He spoke fluently, but the clerks in the shops would always giggle and answer him in English (if they could) and could not accept that he might be able to understand them in Japanese. The _sempai_ at the Kodokan were the opposite - they didn’t give a damn if you spoke Japanese or not. If they told you to do something, they expected you to understand and obey even if you only spoke Martian. About the OP - if it counts, I would think that a [pidgin](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pidgin) of some sort would be easiest to learn almost by definition - that’s why they develop. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-easiest-hardest-foreign-languages-for-an-english-speaker-to-learn/700594/48 "2014-10-07T16:23:11Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > French is an easy language to learn to read, but it’s hard, IME, to find people willing to speak French to new learners. for some reason, French people have a low tolerance for people who speak bad French. I have no idea why. I only had that problem with one Frenchman, and it wasn’t because he was French, but because he was an asshole. What I have seen though is that many French people have the same attitude towards language and foreigners that we do in Italy, Spanish-speaking countries (with some exceptions but those are for political reasons) or Greece: if there is another common language we can find, in which the conversation will mean less total effort (for example, if we both speak English), then we try to go for that option. If you explain that you’re trying to improve your [insert language here] and will they please help you, then people will be happy to do so. The German-speakers have changed attitude about that in recent years, although I understand there’s wide regional variations. It used to be that if you said something wrong they’d just stare at you but neither do whatever you needed them to do, nor correct you (according to some German and Swiss colleagues, because they thought that correcting you was offensive, as it would point out that your German was bad; we replied “but we know it’s bad! How can we get better if you don’t help us?”); now they’re a lot more likely to do whatever, correct you or both. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-easiest-hardest-foreign-languages-for-an-english-speaker-to-learn/700594/49 "2014-10-07T16:45:23Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > I only had that problem with one Frenchman, and it wasn’t because he was French, but because he was an asshole. What I have seen though is that many French people have the same attitude towards language and foreigners that we do in Italy, Spanish-speaking countries (with some exceptions but those are for political reasons) or Greece: if there is another common language we can find, in which the conversation will mean less total effort (for example, if we both speak English), then we try to go for that option. If you explain that you’re trying to improve your [insert language here] and will they please help you, then people will be happy to do so… It’s also pretty common in Latin America for locals to want to practice their English with passing gringos. So you go, hoping to practice your Spanish, and find that 3/4 of people you find immediately switch to halfway-decent English once they hear your accent. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-easiest-hardest-foreign-languages-for-an-english-speaker-to-learn/700594/50 "2014-10-07T20:34:50Z")
> [@robert\_columbia](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > Remember that cognate means merely that the corresponding words in different languages evolved from a common ancestor in some ancestor language, and not necessarily that the words mean the same thing in the different languages today, or even look at all similar when written down. > > However, they often have a metaphorical link, as seen here. Fall is the harvest season. In English, one can poetically refer to fall as “harvest season” and be understood. This is true enough, but I still contend cognates like this don’t help the typical foreign language student. Particularly if there are a great many cognates, but each language has undergone (or missed) a significant number of sound changes, they’re usually not recognizable until someone points it out. I chose this particular example because, although I’ve known German for most of my adult life, I completely missed the_Herbst_-“harvest” similarity until about a year ago. At that point I happened to be reading a story in a dialect of Plattdeutsch, in which the word is _Hervest_, and the penny finally dropped. At about the same time, I also learned that until perhaps a couple centuries ago, “stove” in English once meant a room or hut where you could go to get warm in winter, at which point the relationship with the German word _Stube_–a small sitting room or parlor–became obvious. ---
**Author:** ![Itself](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/d07c76/32.png) [@Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Itself)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-easiest-hardest-foreign-languages-for-an-english-speaker-to-learn/700594/51 "2014-10-07T23:26:10Z")
No, Hungarian is a Uralic language. It’s related to Finnish and Estonian. [/QUOTE] Yup, and not much else. It’s certainly not a complete isolate, but the Uralic is fairly small compared to other families. ---
**Author:** ![LavenderBlue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e95f7d/32.png) [@LavenderBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LavenderBlue)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-easiest-hardest-foreign-languages-for-an-english-speaker-to-learn/700594/52 "2014-10-07T23:50:30Z")
A fascinating article on the often massive difficulties Chinese poses for English speakers: [http://www.pinyin.info/readings/texts/moser.html](http://www.pinyin.info/readings/texts/moser.html) ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2014, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-easiest-hardest-foreign-languages-for-an-english-speaker-to-learn/700594/53 "2014-10-08T01:06:57Z")
Actually, there are 38 Uralic languages, but Hungarian, Finnish, and Estonian are the only ones with a reasonably large number of speakers: [http://www.ethnologue.com/subgroups/uralic](http://www.ethnologue.com/subgroups/uralic) ---
**Author:** ![Itself](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/d07c76/32.png) [@Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Itself)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2014, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-easiest-hardest-foreign-languages-for-an-english-speaker-to-learn/700594/54 "2014-10-08T02:15:39Z")
Ah, nifty. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2014, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-easiest-hardest-foreign-languages-for-an-english-speaker-to-learn/700594/55 "2014-10-08T02:26:14Z")
> [@robert\_columbia](#): > > It’s also pretty common in Latin America for locals to want to practice their English with passing gringos. So you go, hoping to practice your Spanish, and find that 3/4 of people you find immediately switch to halfway-decent English once they hear your accent. Yeah, it’s one of the groups I mentioned. If circunstances allow it, ask for an exchange (you use your Spanish and they correct it, they use their English and you correct it): it will be slower than regular speech but both parties benefit. ---
**Author:** ![hibernicus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hibernicus/32/2802_2.png) [@hibernicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hibernicus)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2014, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-easiest-hardest-foreign-languages-for-an-english-speaker-to-learn/700594/56 "2014-10-08T22:50:29Z")
> [@thelurkinghorror](#): > > I don’t speak either, but it seems to my shallow study that Scottish is worse. Irish has had a more recent reform where words have been simplified (e.g. Gaedhilge \> Gaeilge; Scottish Gàidhlig). It helps if you realize that these languages do not have a letter “H”. When you see an H, it means that the sound of the previous letter is altered, so e.g. “bh” might be a “v” sound as in Cobh. Once you understand the basics, things are rather regular. You might’ve advanced beyond this point though. I think you are just talking about spelling, which is probably a relatively trivial issue when it comes to learning the language. My own experience (having learned Irish 5 days a week for 14 years, and other languages more effectively in a much shorter time) is that it is genuinely very difficult. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2014, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-easiest-hardest-foreign-languages-for-an-english-speaker-to-learn/700594/57 "2014-10-09T00:15:49Z")
My experience with French in France was that they were very patient with me trying to speak French. I suppose they are in Montreal too, but they nearly all speak better English than my French. This morning, the packer at the supermarket asked me, “Ca va?” (How’s it going?). “Plus ou moins” (more or less), I answered. He asked me something, I have forgotten his exact words, that meant, what’s the problem? “Mon dos”, I replied. “Your back?” he asked. I said yes and the conversation continued in English. Typical. Lots of cognates helps at first, but in the long run I don’t think it matters for true fluency. For example, Hungarian has 18 cases? Well, English has more than 18 prepositions and those prepositions function the same as the cases in Hungarian, I am sure. Between English and French, for example, correct translation of prepositions is really, really hard. Not something I could ever get right. For example, I can never guess whether “of” is going to be “a” or “de”. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2014, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-easiest-hardest-foreign-languages-for-an-english-speaker-to-learn/700594/58 "2014-10-09T01:14:20Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > Lots of cognates helps at first, but in the long run I don’t think it matters for true fluency. For example, Hungarian has 18 cases? Well, English has more than 18 prepositions and those prepositions function the same as the cases in Hungarian, I am sure. Between English and French, for example, correct translation of prepositions is really, really hard. Not something I could ever get right. For example, I can never guess whether “of” is going to be “a” or “de”. Well, no. That’s a typical problem no matter what language you’re dealing with. There is not an exact one-to-one correspondence between words expressing temporal or spatial relations in one language and another. Correct translation between these words is just as difficult between English and Hungarian as English and French as English and Polish, etc., from my observation. You really need to hunker down and learn the situation in which they are used. For example, in English you might say you are going somewhere “by train.” In Hungarian you would say “with train.” Expressions that use “in” or “on” in English don’t correspond one-to-one with how Hungarian uses them. Same deal with Polish. In English, you may use the word “for,” but in Polish, it might be “dla,” “po,” “na,” and maybe something else I’m forgetting off the top of my head. This is a pretty typical issue when dealing with different languages. ---
**Author:** ![henker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/46a35a/32.png) [@henker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/henker)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2014, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-easiest-hardest-foreign-languages-for-an-english-speaker-to-learn/700594/59 "2014-10-09T03:23:29Z")
Swedish= very easy Next door, Finland= hard Hebrew is not that hard to learn if you wanted to. All verbs are 3 letters. Most words are short. The “dots” (vowels) get removed for the fact that the words become easy to memorize. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2014, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-easiest-hardest-foreign-languages-for-an-english-speaker-to-learn/700594/60 "2014-10-09T03:27:49Z")
> [@henker](#): > > Hebrew is not that hard to learn if you wanted to. All verbs are 3 letters. All roots (well, almost all) are 3 letters. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-easiest-hardest-foreign-languages-for-an-english-speaker-to-learn/700594.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-easiest-hardest-foreign-languages-for-an-english-speaker-to-learn/700594.md?page=4)