5 Languages English Speakers Could Learn Easily
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There are plenty of reasons to start learning a new language. Some want to enhance their career; some just want to follow their passion. But sometimes choosing a new language can be a difficult task. You have to think in advance how hard it would be for you to learn it, how much time it will take and if pronunciation will be a real struggle or not. Here’s a list of 5 languages English speakers could learn easily according to linguists.
1 .Norwegian
Although Scandinavian languages are considered to be some of the hardest on the planet, it seems that English speakers have fewer difficulties learning it. Studies show that from the three well known Northern languages, Norwegian is the one that resembles English the most. Verbal forms are even easier to learn than the English ones, as they have no conjugation according to person or number. To point out how easy the Norwegian tenses are compared to the English ones, it`s worth mentioning that the past tense is formed with simply adding the suffix –e, while the future is formed with the auxiliary –vil. Pronunciation is also easy for English speakers due to its Germanic influences.
2. Swedish
The following Northern language in the hierarchy of difficulty for English speakers is Swedish, another Germanic language. With a quite similar syntax and some common vocabulary, it should not be much of a struggle for English people to learn it. The only problem is that pronunciation is really different. They use 9 vowels and they have the characteristic –sje sound, which is unique to Swedish. Swedish has a very difficult grammar but there are plenty of similarities with English such as expressing the future and present.
3.Danish
The list continues with the hardest of Scandinavian languages, Danish. The reason why it might be harder to learn compared to Norwegian and Swedish is its difficult pronunciation. Compared to the other two languages, Danish is spoken faster and it`s also flatter and quite monotone. In terms of grammar, things should be easier though, as Danish has only nine verb forms including the passive, a feature it shares with the English language.
4. French
It may come as a surprise, but French is actually one of the languages that English speakers learn quite easily. The reason might be the presence of French`s Latin derivations in English spoken language (village, edifice, castle etc.). Research shows that almost a third of English vocabulary has French influences. Obviously pronunciation and grammar will not be that easy to learn, but due to these similarities, English speakers will be able to adapt.
5. Afrikaans
Afrikaans and English are surprisingly similar, as they both derive from the West Germanic language. Pronunciation is fairly easy, as well as phonetics and grammar. What is striking about Afrikaans is that conjugation of verbs is virtually inexistent, nouns don’t have a gender and pronouns do not even exist. We are basically talking about a language with almost no grammar rules, probably the dream of those who hate learning the conjugation of verbs.
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Danish and French are certainly very interesting languages to learn, and their close similarity to the english language will certainly make learning them easy. True you have to put some effort with the accents and vocabulary, but adapting to them will be quite easy enough.