Easiest Languages For English Speakers To Learn
So youve decided to learn a language. Your next task, if youre up for it: Choosing among many options. Should you go for a more widely spoken language like Spanish or Mandarin, a politically relevant one like Russian, or one you can use on your next vacation? These are all valid motivations, but heres another: Youre busy. We all are. Why not tackle a language that will be relatively easy to learn? With the help of Babbels team of language-learning experts, weve determined the easiest language to learn for English speakers. Well, lets just say weve narrowed down the list to 9 of them. Hopefully, this will help you narrow down your options, so you can start learning right away.
So Whats The Easiest Language To Learn
Some of the languages with the fewest speech sounds are the most remote and grammatically complex. Others entirely lack tenses or cases or inflections of any kind and are riddled with guttural sounds nearly impossible for speakers of most languages to pronounce.
More than anything, it depends on your mother tongue and the languages you already know. And you also must take into account the sociological and international significance of a language: How much media is available in the language, and how many other speakers are there for you to reasonably practice with?
The easiest language for a native Spanish speaker to learn will be totally different than the easiest language for a native Vietnamese speaker, and it can even differ vastly between two native English speakers from the same region but who have different learning styles.
With the resources and some of the examples given in this post, you should be able to get started identifying your low-hanging linguistic fruits. No matter how busy you are or how difficult you think itll be, theres a language out there for everyone!
What do you find challenging about learning a language? Is it the new sounds, the grammar rules, finding chances to practice or something else?
Jakob is a full-time traveler, obsessive language learner, and dedicated language teacher. He writes about language, travel and the many places they meet on the road at his blog Globalect.
How To Learn A Language Faster
As we highlighted in our introduction there are many reasons why a person may want to learn a new language. Ask yourself some questions:
Why is it important to you that you embark on this learning journey?
What will help you to persevere even when it starts to get difficult?
These things will help you to stay focused and will motivate you to keep going, even when there are days where the learning is less enjoyable.
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Easiest Languages For English Speakers To Learn In 2021
by Olly Richards
Have you ever wondered what the easiest languages to learn are?
As we enter the new decade, maybe youve decided its the perfect time to attempt one of your long-term goals and try to learn a foreign language.
Except you dont want to be too ambitious. Youd prefer to start learning something that gives you a reasonable chance of success.
If that sounds like something youve been mulling over, or even if youre just curious, heres my list of the easiest languages to learn for English speakers.
Oh and stick with me till the end to find out how to make learning any language easy, even the so-called hardest ones.
If you’re in a hurry, discover the 5 easiest languages to learn in the video below. Otherwise keep reading to discover all 13 languages.
Polyglot Opinions On The Easiest Language To Learn
You might be surprised to learn that not a lot of polyglots have outright stated which languages they believe are the easiest to learn. Nor have I.
Many polyglots understand that trying to rank languages according to difficulty involves too many variables to be worthwhile.
That said, there is one language out there that I think comes closest to being âobjectively easyâ: Esperanto.
Most of the features that help make other languages easy can be found in Esperanto, including:
- Spanishâs consistent spelling rules.
- Mandarinâs lack of verb conjugations and noun gender.
The reason Esperanto is so easy is that it was designed to be. Itâs an artificially constructed language. But donât let its âartificialityâ turn you off from studying it. The Esperanto community is huge, and active all over the world. I found it a very fulfilling language to learn.
In fact, if youâre new to language learning, then I highly recommend that you study Esperanto, even for just two weeks, before starting any other language. It will open up a worldwide community of Esperanto speakers, and expose you to the language-learning process so that your next language will be noticeably easier to learn.
Like myself and many other polyglots, Judith ranks Esperanto as the easiest language to learn for the most number of people worldwide. Considering sheâs the head organiser of the Polyglot Gathering and a representative of the World Esperanto Youth Organization, you can bet she knows her stuff!
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Mysql And Sql For Beginners From Techrepublic Academy
The MySQL and SQL for Beginners database administration course from TechRepublic Academy starts off our list because it tackles two of the most powerful database technologies: the SQL language and the ever-popular MySQL database system. The course is 18 hours long and features 136 separate lectures, taught by expert software developer, John Purcell.
Students will learn basic SQL syntax and commands, including how to query, update, and manipulate information in MySQL databases. They will further learn how to configure and setup a MySQL relational database, including how to secure a database and create users. Additional database management principles like transactions, database isolation, triggers, views, and stored procedures will also be discussed.
Another great thing about this course is that it sets would-be database administrators and database programmers up to learn other relational database models and platforms, like advanced SQL, Oracle, and more. Further, it comes with a certificate of completion, which is a nice addition to your resume and LinkedIn profile.
You can learn more about this online MySQL and SQL course by visiting its TechRepublic Academy page: MySQL and SQL for Beginners.
Physical And Cultural Distance
How far away the country that the language belongs to can also be an influencing factor in how easy or difficult a language can be to learn.
This is because you have less chance of being able to interact with other speakers as you go about your daily life, and also because the language may incorporate cultural concepts that you are not familiar with.
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The Easiest Languages To Learn And Why You Should Consider Starting With One Of Them
A note about English
For obvious reasons, I didnt include it on the list. If youre reading this article, its assumed that you already know how to speak and understand English, and so it would make little sense to mention it here.
It does go without saying that due to Englishs ubiquitous nature, and the fact that most native English speakers are monolingual, it would be at the top of the list in terms of ease and accessibility any learners of the language would have plenty of opportunity to practice.
Focus Only On Critical Concepts
As you begin learning the language, dont spend hours upon hours studying things that arent crucial to basic understanding.
Follow the 80-20 rule instead. About 80% of your results will come from 20% of your efforts. Dont be afraid to shoot for the low-hanging fruit and master things like verb tenses, basic vocabulary, and useful phrases first.
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Which Language Has The Biggest Vocabulary
This is difficult to ascertain, as words can have different forms and meanings depending on inflection in some languages.
How to count compound words makes answering the question more challenging still, as does any attempt to figure out the number of words in languages that are considered to be non-alphabetic, like Chinese.
English began life as an offshoot of the Germanic language family tree and evolved to merge with Latin and Norman-French as the years went on, more and more words from these, and other languages, were added to the English vocabulary a process that is still ongoing today.
If the number of entries in a dictionary is viewed as determining which language has the greatest vocabulary, then English would take the medal: the Oxford English Dictionary contains over 600,000 words.
A Language Can Have A Mix Of Easy And Hard Properties
| Because languages vary across so many properties , learning a new language can be easy in some ways but difficult in others. For an English speaker, the sounds of Japanese might be familiar, especially since it doesn’t have tones like Chinese or Vietnamese. But the three Japanese writing systems can be hard to learn, and so can its politeness categories and word order . On the other hand, Chinese has a really challenging sound system for English speakers, but itdoesn’t have verb tenses and that might sound like a relief to any English speaker who has studied Spanish! |
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The Javascript Dom Game Developer Bundle
One of the best ways to learn how to learn any programming language is by using is to create games. The JavaScript DOM Game Developer Bundle makes our list for just that reason. Not only will you learn JavaScript and game development fundamentals, but, by the end of the series of courses you will have created several games and web apps that you can use as your portfolio when you begin searching for web developer or game developer jobs.
There are 8 JavaScript courses included in this bundle. During each, students will learn the following:
- How to use HTML5 Canvas to create 5 video games and 5 projects
- How to create 5 word games in JavaScript
- Learn JavaScript math principles by developing a math game
- How to create dynamic and interactive web pages and games using JavaScript Document Object Model
- How to create 5 more HTML games
- How to create a Pacman-style game with JavaScript DOM
- How to create 5 unique JavaScript apps from the ground up
You can learn more and sign up for this 50 hour JavaScript course bundle by visiting its page: The JavaScript DOM Game Developer Bundle.
Is It Difficult Or Just New
This is my favourite question to ask students when they complain that something is hard. Because usually, they consider my question for a second and say ah, its just new.
Think about tying your shoelaces. Its easy now, but you probably struggled at the beginning.
It takes time to develop a new skill. That doesnt mean its too hard, you just need practice.
But if you think its going to be hard, it probably will be. Research suggests that when we expect tasks to be difficult, were more likely to lose motivation.
Your attitude to learning matters. By adopting the mantra its not difficult, its just new you can get the benefit of what psychologist Carol Dweck calls the growth mindset: instead of thinking this is too hard, you can turn your focus to a little, but powerful word: yet I dont know how to do this, yet.
But with perseverance, you will.
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Heres Why I Believe That Any Language Can Be Easy
Ultimately, all languages have the same absolute difficulty.
As far as Iâm concerned, things like âgrammar complexityâ, âtonesâ, âwriting systemâ and other aspects of a language donât come into play when thinking about how difficult or easy a language is to learn.
In other words, there is no language thatâs inherently more difficult to learn than any other.
How do I know this?
If some languages were more difficult, then children would take longer to pick up those languages. But they donât. Kids around the world start speaking their native languages at around the same time.
With all that in mind, weâre now ready to dip our toes into the question âwhatâs the easiest language to learn?â.
Fcil O Difcil Depende De Los Idiomas Que Ya Conoces
Somos capaces de transferir elementos de nuestra lengua materna al nuevo idioma que aprendemos, que pueden incluir el vocabulario y la gramática . También transferimos otras propiedades, como los sonidos , gestos y movimientos de manos , reglas de cortesía y conceptos y significados La transferencia puede ser muy útil si las propiedades son compartidas entre dos idiomas, pero puede ser todo un desafío si son diferentes.
Según el momento y la forma en la que aprendiste un idioma, tu cerebro podría tratar a tu segundo idioma como una especie de plantilla para todos los otros idiomas. Si estás aprendiendo un tercer o cuarto idioma, ¡quizás sea más probable que transfieras propiedades de tu segundo idioma en lugar de tu lengua materna!
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Whats The Easiest Language To Learn For Fluent English Speakers
Weâve established that âWhatâs the easiest language to learn?â is a subjective question. It depends on your native language, other languages you speak, and especially your passion and motivation. But if you speak English fluently, then we can get more specific about which languages are easier.
Letâs take a look at what academic research, polyglots, and language learners all say about what the easiest language is for English speakers to learn.
Goodbye Grammar Book: Languages With Simple Structures
Just like some languages love to play with diverse and complicated sounds, some seem to have an endless love affair with rules and grammar.
Ive always shied away from German for this reason. Its four noun cases, infinite list of adjective declensions and word order rules are enough to send me running to the nearest biergarten.
Other languages, thankfully, arent quite so strict and demanding. You learn some vocabulary and a few basic usage rules, and youre good to go. Here are some of those languages:
7. Mandarin Chinese
This is probably the first time youve seen Chinese on a list of easy languages, right? Thats a shame, because structurally speaking, its a cinch. Almost every word of Mandarin has one and just one meaning. It also generally follows a subject-verb-object word order, common to most of the worlds larger languages, so no new tricky syntax for most learners.
8. Afrikaans
We mentioned Dutch above, but Afrikaans is like a grammatically boiled-down version of its parent language. Whereas Dutch demands verb conjugations like those in Englishfor instance, I am, you are, it isAfrikaans doesnt bother you with the details. In South Africa its ekis , jyis , syis . What could be easier?
9. Malay
10. Esperanto
I confess: I hate learning grammar. Its not just me, right? If youre a free-spirited language learner who cant be bothered with the details, then go for one of these simply structured languages.
11. Bonus Easy Language: English
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What Is The Easiest Language To Learn For English Speakers
If youâre wondering âwhat is the easiest language for English speakers to learn?â or âwhat language is easiest to learn?â youâve seen thereâs no easy answer. To sum it up, the easiest language to learn is the language youâre most motivated to learn. If you have a clear reason or purpose for learning a language, itâs easier to stick with a language through the more challenging moments.
So there you have it, the answer to what language is easiest to learn for English speakers: the language that strikes a chord with you.
Top 10 Programming Languages For Beginners To Learn In 2023
Are you searching for some of the best programming languages for beginners? If yes, then stay tuned with this blog post to explore these programming languages.
Programming is running the world. We are all highly dependent on programming to perform our day-to-day activities, from our mobile phones to the working machine. All are highly dependent on programming. Apart from that, the new and innovative technologies also work with programming languages.
Now you can have an idea of the importance of programming and the future scope of programming. That is why most of the students are showing an interest in programming languages. But there are tons of programming languages in the world.
It is quite hard to pick the best ones among the many options. So, what should you do as a beginner? Dont worry, we are here to help you to discover some of the best programming languages for beginners in 2023.
All these programming languages are useful not just for current scenarios but also for the future. So before we start, lets have a close look at what a programming language is.
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The Top 5 Easiest Languages To Learn According To Busuus Experts
Now, as weve mentioned, there are also languages that are generally considered to be easier to learn than others.
Check out Busuus top five picks, judged by three main factors: spelling , pronunciation and grammar .
- Pronunciation: Very challenging
- Grammar: Very challenging
But remember: While these are universally considered the easiest languages to learn, they may not necessarily be the easiest ones for you.
Now, back to the quiz: there were a handful of factors we considered when putting together this quiz. Heres the low-down on our logic.
Use The Goldilocks Rule To Get The Level Just Right
Imagine trying to talk about politics or read a newspaper in the language youve only just started learning. Youd probably get discouraged and give up pretty quickly.
Now imagine spending several lessons learning to count from one to ten. Youd probably get bored and give up pretty quickly.
In his article The Goldilocks Rule: How to Stay Motivated in Life and in Business James Clear talks about the importance of setting goals which are just right: achievable enough that you dont feel discouraged, but challenging enough that you dont get bored.
Finding the optimal challenge level, when youre working hard, but not too hard is key to staying motivated.
Keep this in mind when youre using textbooks and other resources. If youre losing interest, could it be that the content is too easy or difficult?
Aim for something that stretches you just beyond your current level, without being overwhelming.
Another way to make difficult tasks more appropriate for your level is to break them down into smaller chunks. For example, if studying grammar for 30 minutes feels too hard, why not go for 15 minutes instead? Or even 5?
A few minutes can add up to a lot of progress, when you do it every day.
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