IYO, what's the easiest language to learn for English speakers?

[#TheShadowyAbyss]

I always assumed Dutch or Spanish would be the easier ones since even though English is a West Germanic language, its French/Romance influence makes it a Germanic-Romance hybrid language.

[Mr. Smith]

Spanish

- Weak R's allowed (no gargling or constant trilling [although the "rr" kinda calls for it]) and rhoticity is useful rather than a hindrance

- Almost everything is sounds as it is spelled, and most of it works together, not so many consonant clashes nor too many really really long words

- Not too many articles and just the Masculine and Feminine for genders, and the articles don't move all over the place depending on the case

- Lots of cognates [although not quite to the same extent as French or German]

[Xing]

I think that the easiest language for anyone to learn is the language they are the most motivated to learn. Lack of motivation/investment/interest is the biggest obstacle in language learning, in my opinion.

[Mr. Smith]

I think that the easiest language for anyone to learn is the language they are the most motivated to learn. Lack of motivation/investment/interest is the biggest obstacle in language learning, in my opinion.

True, but grammatical, alphabetical, phonetic, and syntax similarities do help quite a bit.

[KingSweden]

Spanish is a remarkably straightforward language, IMO

[Crumpets]

I had a very easy time in French. I know more French after two years of study than I do Spanish after five years. I'm sure that already being familiar with one romance language helped with the other, but French was really refreshingly easy.

[Blue3]

I took Spanish in grades 7-10, and then 2 classes of French in college.

French was incredibly difficult. Even put aside the speaking... they had many letters in words that were silent, and there were sounds included in words but those letters weren't included. So many exceptions to rules.

I've always heard Spanish and German would be easiest for an English speaker.

[TDAS04]

Probably Spanish.  Italian might also be relatively easy, at least easier than French. 

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Not Polish.

[Meclazine for Israel]

Probably Portuguese.

When I worked in Brazil, I picked it up pretty easy.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Esperanto

[SUSAN CRUSHBONE]

surely it'd be tok pisin or something of that nature?

[Kingpoleon]

Spanish

- Weak R's allowed (no gargling or constant trilling [although the "rr" kinda calls for it]) and rhoticity is useful rather than a hindrance

I mean, I have a rhotacism - the inability to form rhotic rs.

1. Friesian(unquestionably)
2. Dutch
3. Afrikaan
4. Flemish
5. German(?)

[Lechasseur]

The only foreign language I speak fluently is French, although I have some knowledge of German, and a bit less of Dutch and Spanish. Assuming I didn't already speak French, I'd assume that the easiest languages for a native English speaker to learn would be Dutch, followed by Spanish and then French (German's actually pretty difficult).

[Unapologetic Chinaperson]

I would say Dutch. The Spanish speakers I know actually say that Spanish is hard to learn. I guess it's due to the large amounts of verb conjugations.

Interestingly, if we're ONLY talking about grammar, I would say Chinese (of all varieties) is the easiest, due to the complete lack of conjugation/inflection of any sort. Also because word formation is very straightforward (e.g. petroleum = "rock oil").

(And since Arabic and Japanese are poll options, why the heck is Mandarin not one either?!)

[Lechasseur]

I always assumed Dutch or Spanish would be the easier ones since even though English is a West Germanic language, its French/Romance influence makes it a Germanic-Romance hybrid language.

It's most likely Dutch followed by Spanish and French, due to English being a Germanic-Romance hybrid as you said.

[Frie mennesker og kraner]

I'm currently learning Norwegian and I have to say that it is very easy for me, as a sort-of bilingual English speaker. The grammar is straightforward and very similar to English, as is a lot of the vocabulary. The only thing that might be a problem is the pronunciation, but it's still much more intuitional than the English one. The only language that I can say is even easier is Esperanto, but I guess it would be better to learn a language on an official level in a country, and in the case of Norway, whoa... what a country you get!

[Helsinkian]

I'm not a native English speaker, but I would imagine that Swedish/Norwegian/Danish would be the easiest languages: Germanic languages with a relatively simple grammar.

[Storebought]

No other Indo-European language is particularly easy to learn for an English speaker since it always involves instruction in formal grammar, which English lacks completely. English speakers had to be taught Latin just to gain an appreciation of it.

Speaking for myself, the most difficult languages to speak are (1) French (2) those that lack the schwa and require opera-singer annunciation of every vowel. I always found "trilled r" and "gargled r" easy to do, but I'm aware most English speakers can't produce them at all.

[JA]

I think that the easiest language for anyone to learn is the language they are the most motivated to learn. Lack of motivation/investment/interest is the biggest obstacle in language learning, in my opinion.

True, but grammatical, alphabetical, phonetic, and syntax similarities do help quite a bit.

Both of these ^^

I'd also add that perhaps the easiest languages for a native English speaker are Esperanto, Frisian, Afrikaans, then Dutch and Norwegian. Just listen to this Boer song sung in Afrikaans with English subtitles; you'll hear many similarities between English and Afrikaans, and even be able to understand some of the song without reading the subtitles. Frisian is even more similar...

Frisian: Bûter, brea, en griene tsiis is goed Ingelsk en goed Frysk.
English: Butter, bread, and green cheese is good English and good Fries.

Wat is dit? What is this?
Wat kostet dit? How much is this?
Wat is jo namme? What's your name?
Wêr komme jo wei? Where are you from?
Ik hear dy. I hear you.

[Lechasseur]

I think that the easiest language for anyone to learn is the language they are the most motivated to learn. Lack of motivation/investment/interest is the biggest obstacle in language learning, in my opinion.

True, but grammatical, alphabetical, phonetic, and syntax similarities do help quite a bit.

Both of these ^^

I'd also add that perhaps the easiest languages for a native English speaker are Esperanto, Frisian, Afrikaans, then Dutch and Norwegian. Just listen to this Boer song sung in Afrikaans with English subtitles; you'll hear many similarities between English and Afrikaans, and even be able to understand some of the song without reading the subtitles. Frisian is even more similar...

Frisian: Bûter, brea, en griene tsiis is goed Ingelsk en goed Frysk.
English: Butter, bread, and green cheese is good English and good Fries.

Wat is dit? What is this?
Wat kostet dit? How much is this?
Wat is jo namme? What's your name?
Wêr komme jo wei? Where are you from?
Ik hear dy. I hear you.

Agreed, Frisian is the language closest to English so it would be the easiest to learn, but I wasn't counting it because I doubt there are manu English speakers who would learn it. Afrikaans would probably be a bit easier than Dutch because I heard the grammar is simpler than in Dutch but I'm not familiar enough with it to say.