Meow

This blog post lists what the reader reckons are the easiest foreign languages for native English speakers to learn.

http://expatchild.com/ten-easiest-languages-learn/

Not sure that Esperanto or Frisian would be much use and even Norwegian is of limited use.

NorthernLad

Why on earth would a native English speaker want to learn another language, there is no need?

Yoohoo

The easiest language I've ever attempted is Indonesian. No genders for nouns, plural is simply a case of saying the singular twice, completely phonetic and consistent spelling....makes it a piece of cake.

There are lots of Dutch and English words in Indonesian too. Makes it very easy....

Bahtatboy

Exactement.

Yoohoo

Pronounced "exact - ee- ment" or "exact- ay - mont" then?

jam25mack

I've 'tried' to learn Welsh (grew up in Wales so had to), French (GCSE) and German. I have also dabbled with Hindi (from the Mrs) and Spanish. So far Spanish has been by far the easiest.

And I am pretty shocking when it comes to languages.

weasel decentral

egzak emon' no long eee.

I have to say I am embarrassed by English speakers normal lack of second language, it's something that should be pushed harder in school.

It's terrible to see a meeting of mainly Arabic speakers all changing to English to accommodate one or two native English speakers in my opinion.

Having said that of course I cannot back it up by actually being able to speak Arabic, my French has gone from terr-ible to terrible and the only other language I am reasonably fluent in, is not spoken outside of Ireland.

I did a course in Arabic with my company and was getting better but then managed to forget in one month what took six to learn. The Arabic was fascinating not because of the actual language but because of the insight it gave to how Arabic speakers thought. Hours for example were divided into quarters, thirds and halves rather than our normal ultra precise to the minute way of giving the time. Which sort of fitted in well with the lax way people kept to deadlines or meeting times.

mikewot

I think German is relatively easy, although I did live there for 6 years.

scot47

Of the other Indo-European languages, Dutch is probably the easiest, although Afrikaans is even easier. Move into the realms of Semitic, Hamitic and African languages and the complexity increases exponentially.

Acquiring competence in a foreign language should be considered a sign that one is cultivated and civilised. "Sun" readers need not bother.

mikewot

Or that you want to be able to order a beer and some food and say thank you to the pretty waitress that you think you've got a cat in hells chance with after 5 of said beers.

Brains1983

I found German relativey easily to learn at school however I'm having difficulties with Portuguese. On the plus side, my wife only speaks Portuguese to my children so I will pick it up.

My parents used to own a hotel in Scotland, and there was a retired Belgian school teacher that used to stay 5 months of the year there, he spoke English, French, German, Russian, Spanish, Portuguese and was teaching himself Japanese! Died from a heart attach on his toilet. Really nice guy. Impressive to be adapt to learning so many languages.

My wife is a native Portuguese speaker (so by default she can claim fluency in Spanish), but also passable German. Her English has an accent, but grammatically she gives most of the people I know a run for her money. Impressive as far as I am concerned!

The Dean

Foreigners are lucky - English is so easy. No masculine, feminine or neuter for nouns (the, the or the), and the sentence follows the same logic of construction ("Der Mann ist zu Hause gegangen", indeed!).

scrubbedexpat141

I was pretty good with Spanish and French when at school. It was improved by summers spent in the house in Spain and working in a bar on the beach though.

I wanted to do German though because Bernie who taught it was piss funny.

NorthernLad

Or a sign of a misspent youth.

scrubbedexpat141

What languages are you fluent in?