At school, many of us were faced with the fact that they were divided into groups of different foreign languages according to completely incomprehensible criteria, calling some languages simple and others complex, some children capable of learning English, and others German. We often hear from different people that this language is simple, and this one is complex. But how can one really assess whether a language is complex or simple? Which language should I choose for my child to make it easier for him to learn? Which language should you teach yourself as a second or third language, to make it easier again? Which European language is more difficult for a Russian to learn, and which is easier? I myself used to often ask myself these questions, and this is what I think about it now.
What parameters are important when learning a foreign language?
Below you can see a summary comparative table of foreign languages, which summarizes data on the degree of difficulty of learning these languages for a Russian person
| Language | Pronunciation | Reading | Spelling | Vocabulary | Grammar |
| English | Difficult | Very difficult | Difficult | Very difficult | Just |
| German | Very simple | Very simple | Very simple | Very simple | Very difficult |
| French | Average | Average | Very difficult | Just | Difficult |
| Spanish | Just | Just | Just | Just | Just |
| Italian | Very simple | Just | Just | Just | Just |
Pronunciation
The most important thing in pronunciation is the presence of special sounds that are not in the native language. These sounds are difficult to pronounce when you first start learning a language because different sounds use different facial muscles and use the tongue differently as a muscular organ. When we actively use only part of our facial muscles, the rest atrophy. Some of these atrophied muscles are very easy to “launch” and start using them, others are more difficult. It takes practice, it takes habit. It is for this reason that the faces of foreigners and people who have lived in another country for a long time are often very different from our compatriots, while some elusive similarity can be found in their faces. It arises precisely due to the fact that people speak the same language and actively use the same facial muscles.
German and Italian do not have any particularly difficult sounds for Russian people. In Italian, sounds simply need to be pronounced brighter and more emotional, but in German they are harsher and more specific. Of course, there are some pronunciation nuances. For example, in German there is a burr [r] and a muffled soft [x], but these sounds are familiar to Russian people and do not need to make any special effort to master them.
The Spanish language has several special sounds:
- Interdental [s] (you need to put your tongue between your teeth and say [s], i.e. such a lisping [s]), but this sound is used only in European Spanish; in Latin America they pronounce the usual [s])
- Something between the sounds [b] and [v] (both of these sounds are very muffled and they sound very similar)
In the French language there are more special sounds and you “break your language” more strongly when you just start learning French. There are the following special sounds for a Russian person:
- Burry r
- Nasal sounds
- Unusual combination of vowels and consonants
English is the most difficult of this group of languages for a Russian person to pronounce. It contains the following new sounds for us:
- Interdental s and z
- Nasal n
- Special sound r
- A wide variety of vowels that cannot even be expressed in Russian letters
- The presence of long and short sounds that influence the meaning of the word
Therefore, without an accent it is much easier for a Russian person to speak Spanish, Italian and German. But in French and especially in English it is much more difficult. But with practice anything is possible. Still, Russian people are lucky; our language has a lot of different sounds that allow us to train our facial muscles, and we are able to quickly start speaking other languages without a strong accent. For example, the Spaniards cannot boast of this. Russian pronunciation is very difficult for them, due to the fact that their language does not have such a variety of consonant sounds.
Reading
Reading in a foreign language is considered simple if there are few reading rules and there are practically no exceptions. Accordingly, it is considered complex if there are many reading rules and exceptions to them.
According to this rule, German couldn’t be simpler. You will always be able to correctly read any new unfamiliar word with almost one hundred percent probability.
But English is a complete disorder in this regard. You can almost never be sure how a new word is read. English is a mixture of several other languages (it contains many French, Spanish and German words), so there are many rules for reading, and even more exceptions to them. Moreover, in English, even the context influences how to read the same combination of letters. For example, the phrases “I read” and “I read” are written the same way “Iread”, and in the first case they are read [ai read], and in the second [ai rad], and if you do not know the context of this phrase, then how to read it correctly completely unclear. In general, to read English correctly, you just need to know how each word is read. Therefore, English becomes easy to read only when you have a sufficiently large vocabulary.
Reading French is not very difficult, but it has its own peculiarities. Some letters are not readable at all, and some are read only in certain cases, and there is also such a thing as word concatenation, that is, a group of words in certain situations is read as one word. But if you know all these features, then it gradually turns out that reading French is not so difficult.
Spelling
Spelling refers to how difficult it is to spell a new word correctly by ear. In this regard, the Russian language itself is very complex, since we often say “a” and write “o”, or say “i” and write “e”, and there are a bunch of other rules. This is why few people achieve “excellent” grades in Russian at school. But not all languages are like this.
It is generally difficult to make a mistake in German. It is possible to make a mistake in Spanish and Italian, but it is also very rare.
But writing in French and English is very difficult. In the French language there are a lot of letters that are not pronounced, but are written, and also one sound is conveyed by three or even four letters. A simple example, the word beaucoup (many) is read [sideways], and there are twice as many letters.
In English, the same sound can be conveyed by several different letter combinations, and the same letter can be read in different situations using as many as 7 different sound options.
To write correctly in French you just need to know a lot of rules, and in English you just need to know how to spell EVERY word, otherwise you have a lot of chances to make mistakes.
Vocabulary
Vocabulary is vocabulary. The complexity of vocabulary can be assessed by how easy it is to learn new words. It’s easy to learn new words if they are short, if they consist of several other words you already know, or if many other words can be formed from one root using different prefixes and endings.
In this regard, German is again a very simple language. There are few short words, but there are a lot of cognates or compound words. Therefore, you gain vocabulary very quickly, and even gradually you yourself learn to come up with German words that you have not heard before.
You are unlikely to succeed in this in English. There are a lot of short words in the English language, especially those used in everyday speech, so starting to learn English words is very easy. But it is very difficult to gain vocabulary, since there are practically no words of the same root or compound words. Each word needs to be learned again, associations do not work. Moreover, due to the fact that English is a mixture of several languages, it has a lot of synonyms from different languages that you have to learn in order to simply understand your interlocutor. In order to speak, you can have fewer words in your active vocabulary.
Grammar
Knowledge of grammar is understood as the ability to correctly connect words together into meaningful phrases, not at the level of “mine is yours to understand.” It is not easy to assess the complexity of the grammar of any language at first glance; each has its own difficulties, and each of them, on the contrary, simplifies something. Therefore, it is better to compare them in several parameters. See the table below first.
| Word order | Verbs | Place-names | Nouns | Articles | Adjectives | |
| (statement, question) | (conjugations and tenses) | (gender, number, case) | ||||
| English | Difficult | Just | Very simple | |||
| German | Very difficult | Difficult | Difficult | |||
| French | Average | Average | Average | |||
| Spanish | Very simple | Average | Just | |||
| Italian | Very simple | Average | ||||
Please note that I give this assessment only from the point of view of spoken language, that is, I consider only those grammatical structures that are regularly used in speech. For example, out of 9 English tenses, only 3-5 are used in real life. And in German and Spanish, verbs in the present tense can be used with the appropriate context to convey the future tense.
In English, only word order is relatively complicated, since the question is not asked by simply changing intonation, but also requires rearranging words, and sometimes adding auxiliary verbs. The conjugation of verbs in colloquial speech is very simple: only the ending in the 3rd person singular changes, and in the future and past tense, you can generally use the same construction for all persons and numbers (will + verb, verb + ed). The only difficulty with English verbs is the presence of a relatively large number of irregular verbs that are not declined according to the rule, and their forms just need to be remembered, but these irregular verbs exist in all languages, and you can’t hide from them anywhere J Pronouns, articles, nouns and adjectives They generally do not decline according to gender and cases. The plural of a noun is formed using the same ending -s. The form of adjectives never changes at all
In Spanish, Italian and French, all the grammar rules are very similar. Only the Spaniards and Italians are more relaxed about word order, there are practically no rules (only the place of the verb and adjectives play a role), and you can ask a question simply by changing your intonation. Although the French are increasingly beginning to simplify their speech in colloquial speech. Verbs in these languages are conjugated by gender and number, their endings change, but to convey the future tense, you can use present tense forms and add only context, and the past tense is formed using the verbs to be/to have in the appropriate conjugation + the participial form of the semantic verb, that is, you only need to know the conjugation of the verbs to be and to have in the corresponding language. Pronouns, articles, nouns and adjectives are declined in a similar way in these languages, but there are more exceptions in French.
The German language does not please us with its grammar. There are many difficulties in it. But it all obeys clear rules, there are few exceptions. The word order is strict; intonation can't help much. Verbs, especially compound ones, have a special place in a sentence. The plural of nouns is formed according to several rules. Nouns, adjectives, articles and pronouns are declined according to gender, case and number, just like in the Russian language. But, for example, German does not have auxiliary verbs like English.
In general, every language has grammar that is simple or complex in its own way. But still, of these 5, the record holder for the rules that you need to know in order to speak correctly in a spoken language, German is ahead of the others. But in all other respects (reading, spelling, pronunciation, vocabulary) the German language is very simple.
There are no completely simple languages. Perhaps for Russians Belarusian or Ukrainian :) But you can choose for yourself those parameters that are easier for you and use them to choose a foreign language for yourself or for your child if you are going to teach him.
In Russia, most people prefer English. This is due to the demand for this language in the world and its international status, but English is not the easiest language for Russian people to learn. Perhaps you also learned English, perhaps it was difficult for you, and this article helped you understand why. So maybe you and your children should choose another foreign language to study, and return to English later. A second foreign language is always much easier to learn than a first.
You may find other articles on this topic useful:
You can find even more information about each language here.
Learning foreign languages can bring you enormous benefits, including:
- Enhance analytical skills, learning ability and memory.
- Expanding personal horizons, getting to know new cultures, getting rid of prejudices.
- Increasing personal competitiveness and demand in the labor market.
- Improved communication skills by gaining a deeper understanding of the language.
- Improving problem solving skills and abstract thinking.
- Exciting travel and the opportunity to feel confident in an unfamiliar city.
The only problem with learning a foreign language is that it requires a lot of time, self-improvement and diligence. Tens, hundreds, thousands of hours of training and exercise can pass before you feel that you can communicate and write fluently in another language. And yet, research by linguists has shown that some languages are still easier to learn than others. Why is this so?
What makes some languages easy to learn?
Firstly, it will be really easy to learn a language that is similar to your native one. For example, Spanish and Italian languages have a lot of similarities, both in sound and grammatical rules. If you know Spanish, you can easily master Italian and vice versa.
All languages that will be listed in this article are derived from Latin. If you already know English - the recognized language of international communication - then it will be easier for you to notice that all languages rooted in Latin are extremely similar. This is why European languages can be difficult for residents of Asian and Arab countries.
Grammatical features
Another factor that determines whether a language is easy to understand or not is its grammatical complexity. The rules in some languages are well structured and easy to understand, in such languages there are no outdated forms, and the rules have practically no exceptions (by the way, the English language is a whole sea of exceptions).
A study by the Overseas Service Institute in the United States has identified languages that can be learned by anyone who speaks English comfortably.
The Swedish language has many similarities with English, including syntax and lexical forms. Thus, the word “telephone” sounds and is written almost identically in these two languages:
English - Telephone
Swedish - Telefon
The Swedish language is no-frills, it is as functional as the overall Scandinavian way of life, in which everything serves a purpose and has a rational basis.
And besides, Swedish is also a very rhythmic, sonorous language, so it becomes even easier to learn by listening to songs and watching video clips.
Italian is another easy language for English speakers. It is probably even simpler than Swedish and may be more useful to you since more people speak it (but of course it all depends on the purpose of learning). In its rhythm, this language is close to English; if you look in the dictionary, you will also find many similarities, for example:
music - musica
family - familiar
Simple and perhaps the most useful and in demand of all of these, Spanish can be shared with you by another 400 million people around the world. Spanish is second only to Chinese in number of speakers! The spelling of this language is incredibly similar to Italian, the words are written and read very similarly. There is so much passion and music in the tonality of Spanish that it is simply impossible not to fall in love with the language!
Lexically, the French language has many similarities with English; the centuries-old history of the difficult but very interesting relations between these two nations may have created so many “points of contact” between two different worlds. French is conventionally divided into different levels of proficiency. Thus, advanced French, in its grammatical rules, is much more complex than English, but to master the remaining “stages” of this language you do not need to have a special talent for learning languages.
In terms of sound, the German language never ceases to be a subject of debate, and indeed, in its melody it is unlike any other European language. And yet, German is recognized by many language institutes as the first easiest language to learn after English. In addition, its grammatical structure is much simpler than English, although pronunciation may be difficult for some people.
Conclusion.
Learning a foreign language should be fun! Experts are confident that learning requires immersion in the culture and environment of a new language. But for this it is not at all necessary to leave the borders of your country. Watch movies, get inspired by songs in a foreign language, clearly define for yourself why you are taking up learning a foreign language, and off you go! Of course, it takes effort and motivation, but change doesn't just happen. In order to make language learning even more effective, create a learning plan, set and complete daily, monthly and annual goals, track your own success, and if it’s difficult to control your progress yourself, find yourself a partner who wants to learn the language with you.
Language is a sign system consisting of sounds, words and sentences. The sign system of each nation is unique due to its grammatical, morphological, phonetic and linguistic features. There are no simple languages, since each of them has its own difficulties, which are revealed during the study.
Below are the most complex languages of the world, the rating of which consists of 10 sign systems.
10.
- This is one of the most difficult to pronounce. The sign system is also considered one of the most ancient languages. It contains linguistic units used only by native speakers. One of the biggest challenges in learning Icelandic is its phonetics, which only native speakers can convey accurately.
9. Finnish language
Finnish language deservedly considered one of the most complex sign systems in the world. It has 15 cases, as well as several hundred personal verb forms and conjugations. In it, graphic signs completely convey the sound form of a word (both written and pronounced), which simplifies the language. The grammar contains several past tense forms, but no future tense forms.
8. Navajo
Navajo- the language of the Indians, the peculiarity of which is considered to be verb forms formed and changed by persons with the help of prefixes. It is verbs that carry the main semantic information. The Navajos were used by the US military during World War II to transmit encrypted information.
In addition to vowels and consonants, the language contains 4 tones, which are called ascending - descending; high Low. At the moment, the fate of the Navajo is under threat, since there are no linguistic dictionaries, and the younger generation of Indians is switching exclusively to English.
7.
It is one of the ten most difficult languages to learn. It has 35 case forms and is replete with vowel sounds, which are quite difficult to pronounce due to their length. The sign system has a rather complex grammar, in which there is an innumerable number of suffixes, as well as stable expressions characteristic only of this language. A feature of the dictionary system is the presence of only 2 tense forms of the verb: present and past.
6. Eskimo language
Eskimo and is considered one of the most complex in the world due to its numerous tense forms, of which there are up to 63 in the present tense alone. The case form of words has more than 200 inflections (word changes using endings, prefixes, suffixes). The Eskimo language is a language of images. For example, the meaning of the word “Internet” among the Eskimos would be “a journey through layers.” The Eskimo sign system is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as one of the most difficult.
5.
One of the few languages listed in the Book due to its complexity. Its peculiarity lies in its numerous cases, of which there are 46. This is one of the official languages of the inhabitants of Dagestan, in which there are no prepositions. Postpositions are used instead. There are three types of dialects in the language, and each of them unites a certain group of dialects. The sign system contains many borrowings from different languages: Persian, Azerbaijani, Arabic, Russian and others.
4.
One of the oldest in Europe. It is owned by some residents of Southern France and Northern Spain. Basque contains 24 case forms, and does not belong to any branch of language families. Dictionaries contain about half a million words, including dialects. Prefixes and suffixes are used to form new linguistic units.
The connection between words in a sentence is traced through changes in endings. Verb tense is indicated by changing the endings and beginnings of the word. Due to the not widespread use of the language, it was used by the American military during World War II to transmit classified information. Basque is rightfully considered one of the most difficult languages to learn.
3. Russian
Russian one of the three most difficult languages in the world. The main difficulty with “great and mighty” is the free stress. For example, in French the stress is always placed on the last syllable of a word. In Russian, the strong position can be anywhere: in the first or last syllable, or in the middle of a word. The meaning of many lexical units is determined by the place of stress, for example: flour - flour; organ – Organ. Also, the meaning of polysemantic words that are written and pronounced the same is determined only in the context of the sentence.
Other linguistic units may differ in writing, but are pronounced the same and have a completely different meaning, for example: meadow - onion, etc. Our language is one of the richest in synonyms: one word can have up to a dozen linguistic units that are close in meaning. Punctuation also carries a large semantic load: the absence of one comma completely changes the meaning of the phrase. Remember the hackneyed phrase from school: “Execution cannot be pardoned”?
2. Arabic
Arabic– one of the most complex sign systems in the whole world. One letter has up to 4 different spellings: it all depends on the location of the symbol in the word. The Arabic vocabulary system does not include lowercase letters, does not allow word breaks for hyphenation, and does not display vowel characters in writing. One of the individual features of the language is the way words are written - from right to left.
In Arabic, instead of the two numbers familiar to the Russian language, there are three numbers: singular, plural and dual. It is impossible to find identically pronounced words here, since each sound has 4 different tones, which will depend on its location.
1. Chinese
Chinese is an incredibly complex language. The first difficulty, if you want to study it, is the total number of hieroglyphs in the language. The modern Chinese dictionary contains about 87 thousand characters. The difficulty lies not only in the sign system of the language, but also in the correct spelling. A single incorrectly depicted line in one hieroglyph completely distorts the meaning of the word.
One Chinese "letter" can mean an entire word or even a sentence. A graphic symbol does not reflect the phonetic essence of a word - a person who does not know all the intricacies of this language will not be able to understand how to correctly pronounce a written word. Phonetics is quite complex: it has numerous homophones and contains 4 tones in the system. Learning Chinese is one of the most difficult tasks a foreigner can undertake.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mp2jtyyCF0
Sooner or later, many people are faced with the need to learn a foreign language. And if there is no choice at school or other educational institution, then adults can already give preference to a specific language at their own discretion.
But which one? I really wouldn’t want to be disappointed and fail my first attempt at learning a foreign language. This means you should start with the simplest. How to define it?
It should be borne in mind that there cannot be “absolutely” simple languages. Each of them is simpler in some respects, but more difficult in others. For those who already speak, at least at a minimal level, some language, it will be simpler and easier to master languages similar to it.
In general, Italian is the easiest to learn, followed by (in order of difficulty) Spanish, German, French, and English, which is the most difficult.
The main difficulty in pronunciation is caused by sounds that are not present in the original language. Practicing their speaking starts out quite difficult, as various facial muscles need to be developed. Without high-quality and long training, this will not be achieved.
The sounds of German and Italian are not too difficult for residents of Russia. Almost the entire difference lies in the fact that the sounds of Italian speech are pronounced more emotionally, while German ones are pronounced briefly and harshly. In Spanish, the interdental “s” can cause difficulties (but if you are sure that you are learning the language for use outside Europe, you can not be particularly distracted by it). And also something similar at the same time to muted b and v.
The French language is distinguished by a large number of specific sounds - burr r, nasal pronunciation in many cases, and an unusual combination of vowels and consonants. But English is even cooler - the sound r is unlike anything else, there are many vowels that cannot be expressed in Cyrillic, long and short pronunciations of sounds change the meaning of many words. But don't worry: practice and diligence will successfully solve all problems.
If the language is not studied for conversation (or it is not a priority), then it is best to start with German, in which reading is very simple. But English for those who don’t know how to read this or that word is a real nightmare, and even the context affects the pronunciation. What can I advise here? Increase your vocabulary as much as possible, and this problem will no longer be so acute. Reading French texts is simpler, but with “peculiarities”. Some letters are not readable, others are readable in some cases, individual words are linked and read together.
Well, what about writing texts? German is also most convenient here, Italian and Spanish are a little more difficult. Difficulties will arise when mastering English and French writing. In the first case, you need to thoroughly know the correct spelling of EVERY word, and in the second, you need to master a lot of rules.
When you are faced with the task of learning a language, you often wonder which language is the easiest? TravelAsk decided to make a small selection.
How the easiest languages were determined
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs classifies simple languages as those that require approximately 600 hours of study. Of course, we are talking about quality ownership.
First of all, they classify the languages of the Germanic and Latin language groups as light. However, German itself will be more difficult: on average, to master it sufficiently, you need to spend about 750 hours studying. The grammar here is quite complex.
But do not forget that the degree of difficulty is still individual for everyone and in most cases depends on personal motivation and interest.
English language
English is considered one of the simplest languages. Judge for yourself: its grammar is not so complicated, it has no cases or gender, and words do not need to be coordinated. And the words themselves are quite short and concise. Add to all this its widespread use: it is spoken almost everywhere. Well, native English speakers who live in different parts of the world are completely calm about the mistakes of foreigners.
French
The French speak as if they sing, don't they? But from the outside it seems that one cannot approach him, such a pronunciation... But, according to experts, it only seems so. After all, many words in French are similar to English. In addition, the language is very popular and is used in many places.
Spanish
Spanish is perhaps one of the easiest languages to learn. It is very similar to English, and its spelling is much simpler: I write as I hear. Many native Russian speakers who memorize vocabulary spellings from the first grade will only envy this rule)
Well, Spanish is quite popular, and its pronunciation is simple. So does grammar.
Italian language
Another language included in our rating is Italian. There are no cases, the pronunciation is quite simple, the emphasis is fixed. Well, the language itself has Latin roots, so it will be familiar to many people. It is also related to Spanish, so if you want to become a polyglot, then choosing similar languages will help you achieve your goal in a shorter time)
Esperanto
Well, Esperanto is considered the easiest language to learn. Some may even be surprised by the existence of this language, but yes, it exists. And do you know why it is the simplest? Because it was developed specifically as a second language for every person, it was even called that way initially - international or language for humanity. According to various estimates, from one hundred thousand to ten million people speak it.
Esperanto grammar is very simple, there are no exceptions at all. And, of course, its undoubted advantage is that it is neutral, since it is not tied to any state. Perhaps its only drawback is that it is not as widespread as English).
