What is The Easiest Natural Language For A Native English Speaker to Learn?

[Grant A.]

I've been wondering about this for a while... thoughts?

Natural means that the language evolved through natural means, nothing like Esperanto.

[lisati]

I'd say that "English" could be one of the hardest languages for a native English speaker to learn - too many regional variations, for one thing.

If you're looking for a challenge, a Polynesian language might prove interesting: the sentence structure is very different.

[Eviltechie]

It isn't latin, I can tell you that much.

[swoll1980]

I've heard Chinese is an easy one. This crazy smart autistic gut on Discovery Chanel learned Icelandic in a week.

[smartboyathome]

It isn't latin, I can tell you that much.

+1. I think Esperanto would be. :)

[ninjapirate89]

I've heard Chinese is an easy one. This crazy smart autistic gut on Discovery Chanel learned Icelandic in a week.

I saw that. He is the same guy that can do crazy math problems in his head. He is also the guy that correctly recited pi to something like 10,000 digits. It said on the show however that Icelandic is one of the hardest languages to learn.

[tgalati4]

Ebonics

[Firestem4]

I've been wondering about this for a while... thoughts?

Natural means that the language evolved through natural means, nothing like Esperanto.


The easiest language to learn is the language that you WANT to learn. Not what someone tells you.

Trust me. You will be much more apt to learning a language you like, than not. You will enjoy it, stay interested and excited.

[Bölvaður]

I'd say that "English" could be one of the hardest languages for a native English speaker to learn - too many regional variations, for one thing.

If you're looking for a challenge, a Polynesian language might prove interesting: the sentence structure is very different.

yes but he said evolved naturally so that would rule out languages like esperanto and english.

It may depend on how much you know about languages, but Dutch would be easy to learn as you will discover the undoubted similarities of words in english and dutch.

[Firestem4]

yes but he said evolved naturally so that would rule out languages like esperanto and english.

It may depend on how much you know about languages, but Dutch would be easy to learn as you will discover the undoubted similarities of words in english and dutch.

Not just dutch either. Modern English evolved from Anglo-Saxon culture (old old english). Which is an amalgamation of germanic languages (Dutch, Norwegian, etc) latin. and many others. there are very many similarities that if anything, are fascinating when comparing languages.

[rucadulu]

I have studied two Spanish and German. I would have to say German for me was far easier to learn.

[ninjapirate89]

I think German would be my first choice for a second language.

[inobe]

Italian and Spanish.

[the8thstar]

+ 2 for Latin. And if you don't like to be bothered, avoid French too.

[linuxguymarshall]

Any language in Scandinavia. I moved to Sweden when I was 8, learned the language, moved back to the US barely using the language (EVERYONE SPEAKS ENGLISH!!!). I am 14 now and taking French which I hear is easy and it is, but Swedish, and Danish are soo much easier. Very close to English.

[Daisuke_Aramaki]

Icelandic is tough, and i will also add Finnish in that category. if you speak and read German, you can do fairly good in Dutch as well, at least in my experience it is so. But when grammar is taken into account, I would say Japanese grammar was a bit tough for me to get my way around, and that stinks when you are 1/4th Japanese yourself.

[azredwing]

Any Romantic language will be difficult to learn for English speakers. Conjugation and noun gender typically throw off English speakers.

I would say Vietnamese. The only difficult part about it is that it is very tonal - ie., how you pronounce a word is just as, if not more, important as the word itself. That said, the various accents above and below letters tell EXACTLY how to say a word - no silent e's or anything like in English. All the words are monosyllabic (the country Canada in Vietnamese is litterally Ca-Na-Da), there is no conjugation, and questions are spoken just like sentences but with an extra word attached.

[dbbolton]

Frisian

[ninjapirate89]

You could always give Klingon a try!:lolflag:
http://www.kli.org/

[Ticketoride]

Frisian
Yup ... that and Dutch are probably the closest.

[SomeGuyDude]

I think German would be my first choice for a second language.

This. English is so Germanic it's not even funny. A lot of words you won't even need translated, they look remarkably like their English counterparts.

[pwnst*r]

ebonics

lol

[thisllub]

Pidgin is loosely based on English with some regional vocabulary.
Indonesian seems pretty straightforward too.

During my first trip to Germany last year I managed a couple of conversations in German as a legacy of my high school German from 35 years ago.

[Ticketoride]

English is so Germanic it's not even funny. A lot of words you won't even need translated, they look remarkably like their English counterparts.
Unfortunately Pronunciation & grammatical Complexities are worlds apart.

[thewolfman]

I have studied two Spanish and German. I would have to say German for me was far easier to learn.

I am English and live in Bavaria, if you think German is easy then move here, you need to be a "Rocket Scientist" to understand the locals sometimes!.

Servus machs gut.

thewolfman

[lisati]

[...] Dutch would be easy to learn as you will discover the undoubted similarities of words in english and dutch.

I remember back in the 1970s when some relations from Holland were visiting there was the occasional moment of consternation when times were being discussed: for example, what we'd call "half past eleven" would be referred to (in Dutch) as "half twelve" (i.e. half before twelve)

(In a way I'm sad I never learned Dutch, it's part of my heritage. My Dad figured that since we live in a country where English was one of the main languages, it made better sense to use that instead.)

[Daisuke_Aramaki]

I am English and live in Bavaria, if you think German is easy then move here, you need to be a "Rocket Scientist" to understand the locals sometimes!.

Servus machs gut.

thewolfman


oh man! Some people there get offended when you call them Germans, they prefer to be called Bavarians! I live in Stuttgart, where the accent is equally strong and especially when you go to places like Black Forest, or the Swabian Alps, it would be very difficult to understand what they are saying. Although I can understand a lot and speak a little bit with a Swabian accent, it is still difficult for me. It took me a while to get used to Swiss German as well.

[SunnyRabbiera]

Any Romantic language will be difficult to learn for English speakers. Conjugation and noun gender typically throw off English speakers.

Thats why I didnt learn Spanish that much, the masculine and feminine terms for the same word seem so odd and unusual.
La and El both mean "The", then you have Los, Las and Lo again all meaning "the"
In English the word the is the rather if its male or female, or used in a sentence.

English for me makes more sense then most of the languages out there, I know its not perfect as there are a lot of words that can throw one off.
The word there is a good example, there is used in words like "there is a building"
There is their too, their is used in things like "that building is their property"
And they're as in "they're going on a date!"
But each one has its own meaning and is spelled differently, but still makes more sense then the so called "romantic" languages to me at least.

[szymon_g]

I think Interlingua would be one of easiest languages to learn for english speaker.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interlingua

"(..) The expansive movements of science, technology, trade, diplomacy, and the arts, combined with the historical dominance of the Greek and Latin languages have resulted in a large common vocabulary among Western languages. With Interlingua an objective procedure is used to extract and standardize the most widespread word or words for a concept found in a set of control languages: English, French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese, with German and Russian as secondary references. Words from any language are eligible for inclusion, so long as their internationality is shown by their presence in these control languages. Hence, Interlingua includes such diverse word forms as Japanese geisha and samurai, Arabic califa, Aboriginal kanguru, and Finnish sauna.[4]

Interlingua combines this pre-existing vocabulary with a minimal grammar based on the control languages. People with a good knowledge of a Romance language, or a smattering of a Romance language plus a good knowledge of the international scientific vocabulary can frequently understand it immediately on reading or hearing it. Educated speakers of English also enjoy this easy comprehension.[7] The immediate comprehension of Interlingua, in turn, makes it unusually easy to learn. Speakers of other languages can also learn to speak and write Interlingua in a short time, thanks to its simple grammar and regular word formation using a small number of roots and affixes.[8]

Once learned, Interlingua can be used to learn other related languages quickly and easily, and in some studies, even to understand them immediately. Research with Swedish students has shown that, after learning Interlingua, they can translate elementary texts from Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish. In one 1974 study, an Interlingua class translated a Spanish text that students who had taken 150 hours of Spanish found too difficult to understand.[1] Gopsill has suggested that Interlingua's freedom from irregularities allowed the students to grasp the mechanisms of language quickly.[1][8]

Words in Interlingua retain their original form from the source language; they are altered as little as possible to fit Interlingua's phonotactics. Each word retains its original spelling, pronunciation, and meanings. For this reason, Interlingua is frequently termed a naturalistic IAL. (The term "naturalistic" is used in another sense with respect to artistic languages; in this sense Interlingua is not naturalistic.)

(...)"

and, personally speaking (as Slavonic native speaker) - its really easy to learn- you just have to 'get' its grammar /which is easier than spanish or italian/, its vocabulary its easy, same as its pronunciation.

[Giant Speck]

Thats why I didnt learn Spanish that much, the masculine and feminine terms for the same word seem so odd and unusual.
La and El both mean "The", then you have Los, Las and Lo again all meaning "the"
In English the word the is the rather if its male or female, or used in a sentence.

I guess you wouldn't like Russian, either, considering in Russian, there are masculine nouns, feminine nouns and neuter nouns, and there isn't a word for "a" or "the." Also, the verb "to be" is not conjugated in the present tense.

For example, instead of saying "John is a doctor," it would be like saying "John -- doctor."

Not to mention, you'd have to learn the six noun cases: nominative, accusative, genitive, prepositional, dative, and instrumental.

[deanjm1963]

I worked for Club Med for 12 years as a G.O. in the resorts. My first ever Club Med resort was in New Caledonia (French speaking pacific territory). I was there for 12 months and I learned French quickly. After there I went and did a few seasons in Mexico and picked up Spanish in less than 4 months. But believe it or not, the easiest for me was Japanese. It's so completely different to any roman language, I haven' spoken it in over 5 years but I can still read and write hiragana and katakana.

[sim-value]

English is one of the Simplest languages around so no matter what language you are probably going to have a steep learning curve ...

German is a good idea though actually its a very complex language and you cannot mix its english and german grammar rules ... though when you do something i call "English German" comes out. (Recognizable of a total ignoring of gender rules in articles)

/me

[Scruffynerf]

German

[lisati]

English is one of the Simplest languages around Try telling that to my Samoan-speaking extended family!

[Giant Speck]

English is one of the Simplest languages around

Maybe if you're learning it as your first language...

[Ticketoride]

German is a good idea though actually its a very complex language and you cannot mix its english and german grammar rules
Its kinda tough to mix, since the many Word Forms in German derive from the Masculine/Feminine/Neuter Grammatical Style, and such Words do not exist in English.

Even some Adjectives & virtually all Verbs in German, as in Spanish & French, vary drastically between 1, 2 and 3rd. Person.

In English we often just have (2) Forms ...

Run --> I run --> You Run ---> We/They Run ---> He/She It Runs.

Lauf ---> Ich laufe --> Du läufst --> Wir/Sie laufen --> Er/Sie/Es läuft.

... that's (4) "Person" Forms.

Then each Article (a, the) is varied depending on theGender of the Object in Question.

A Dog (Hund, Ger) would be masculine and the Article "Der" applies.

A cat (Katze, Ger) would be feminine and the Article "Die" applies.

A Pig (Schwein, Ger) would be masculine and the Article "Das" applies.

And although Rules do apply as to what constitutes which Gender, even an 8 Year old has this down cold entirely from Memory by how other People say it. A Foreigner still can't get it right after 25 Years ... lol

... and lets not visit the dative, accusative & nominative Cases ... lol

Because of these grammatical Word Forms, by the Time someone has learned German, he'll probably have learned twice the Vocabulary of his English Counterpart.

I studied the full 10 Yards of core Grammar for most Romance Languages too, and its rough 'n tough Stuff. Even though English may appear difficult to many Foreigners, its a Walk in the Park in Comparison.

It should be noted when the Angles & Saxons left the North of Germany some 1,200 Years ago for England, they brought these German Grammar Forms with them, as can be witnessed by many early Writings, but were later abandoned by Integration with the native Tongues of the Isles, and the influx of Latin & French much later.

[billgoldberg]

I would presume other Germanic languages like Dutch or German.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanic_languages

[mark0495]

DUTCH! DUTCH! DUTCH!
:biggrin:
Well, actually.... NOT DUTCH! NOT DUTCH!
Sorry, I'm biased because I'm Dutch myself. Some kind of research pointed oot Dutch is one of the most difficult languages to learn :shock:

However, I think every language is difficult to learn when you're not completely into it. At school, I'm in a bilingual course. This means I'm talking English and getting teached everything in English for more than 50% of the lessons. This is my second year, and I can easily speak English. With a few mistakes once in a while, but I can. I'm still learning, but it was easy because you are using the language all day ;)
That's what I think; it just depends on how often you speak the language.

[billgoldberg]

DUTCH! DUTCH! DUTCH!
:biggrin:
Well, actually.... NOT DUTCH! NOT DUTCH!
Sorry, I'm biased because I'm Dutch myself. Some kind of research pointed oot Dutch is one of the most difficult languages to learn :shock:

However, I think every language is difficult to learn when you're not completely into it. At school, I'm in a bilingual course. This means I'm talking English and getting teached everything in English for more than 50% of the lessons. This is my second year, and I can easily speak English. With a few mistakes once in a while, but I can. I'm still learning, but it was easy because you are using the language all day ;)
That's what I think; it just depends on how often you speak the language.

We had to learn 3 languages in high school, French, German and English.

As a result I can take care of myself in German and French, but master none.

English is something different because it's so closely related to Dutch, and most of the tv shows here are English with Dutch subtitles, which makes it easier to pick up.

[lisati]

DUTCH! DUTCH! DUTCH!
:biggrin:
Well, actually.... NOT DUTCH! NOT DUTCH!
Sorry, I'm biased because I'm Dutch myself. Some kind of research pointed oot Dutch is one of the most difficult languages to learn :shock:


Angenaam kennis te maken.

My Dad could speak four languages: Dutch (his first language), German, French and English. My wife can manage English and Samoan. I did French and a little Latin at school but didn't retain much of either; currently I have a few words and phrases in Maori, and went to night classes for introductory Samoan.
Here in my home we generally use a mixture of English and Samoan (mostly English).

[runnner]

I think French and Spanish are easy for a native English speaker to learn

[szymon_g]

DUTCH! DUTCH! DUTCH!
:biggrin:
Well, actually.... NOT DUTCH! NOT DUTCH!
Sorry, I'm biased because I'm Dutch myself. Some kind of research pointed oot Dutch is one of the most difficult languages to learn :shock:


you think that dutch is hard? try polish :)

[SomeGuyDude]

Its kinda tough to mix, since the many Word Forms in German derive from the Masculine/Feminine/Neuter Grammatical Style, and such Words do not exist in English.

Even some Adjectives & virtually all Verbs in German, as in Spanish & French, vary drastically between 1, 2 and 3rd. Person.

In English we often just have (2) Forms ...

Run --> I run --> You Run ---> We/They Run ---> He/She It Runs.

Lauf ---> Ich laufe --> Du läufst --> Wir/Sie laufen --> Er/Sie/Es läuft.

... that's (4) "Person" Forms.

Well this is going to be true for most non-English languages. And that's only the present tense. English tends to add words to change tenses for example.

I talk, I talked, I am talking, I was talking, I will talk.

Spanish: hablo, hable, hablando, hablaba, hablare.

And that's before we start getting into really bizarre forms like the subjunctive and the various pluperfects, etc. In English you just start expanding the phrase like "I will have been talking" and "I had been talking", Spanish throws new conjugations on. Very confusing.

[HermanAB]

American English of course.

You just need to learn how to spell some words wrong and make some basic grammar mistakes with there/their, then/than, forget/forgot and rent/lease.

[mark0495]

you think that dutch is hard? try polish :)

No, I don't think Dutch is hard. I only said what researchers say. As I said earlier, I think every language is difficult to learn, except when you use it very often.

[mips]

I have studied two Spanish and German. I would have to say German for me was far easier to learn.

Thats should be obvious. English is a Germanic language after all, they are very similair. Spanish on the other hand falls in the same category as French & Italian as they are derived from Latin.

If you are a native English speaker languages like German, Dutch, Afrikaans should be really easy to learn. Danish, Swedish & Norwegian will be a bit harder.

[mikeize]

Just pick something you like, as another poster said. If you enjoy it, you will not have too hard a time with it. I've studied Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Sanskrit and Hindi. Now I don't really *speak* any of those conversationally (well, Spanish and Thai pretty good), but they are all fun to learn. In my opinion, it is ESPECIALLY fun to learn a language with a totally different writing system than yours. It is really satisfying to be able to make sense out of something that used to be just 'weird looking symbols'.

[the8thstar]

Well this is going to be true for most non-English languages. And that's only the present tense. English tends to add words to change tenses for example.

I talk, I talked, I am talking, I was talking, I will talk.

Spanish: hablo, hable, hablando, hablaba, hablare.

And that's before we start getting into really bizarre forms like the subjunctive and the various pluperfects, etc. In English you just start expanding the phrase like "I will have been talking" and "I had been talking", Spanish throws new conjugations on. Very confusing.

French has both actually :

I talk, I talked, I am talking, I was talking, I will talk.

French: je parle, je parlai, je parle, je parlais, je parlerai.


you talk, you talked, you are talking, you were talking, you will talk.

French: tu parles, tu parlas, tu parles, tu parlais, tu parleras.


Eaaaaasy.

As a French native, I find it fairly easy to understand Italian and Spanish when I read or I hear them. Speaking it back is of course harder.

[chucky chuckaluck]

+1 for german being easiest and english is a germanic language. that, or pig latin.

[mousestalker]

Frisian is the closest spoken language to English. The easiest language I ever learned was Welsh. But that was the only language I ever bothered to learn properly.

To learn a language properly, you need to date/live with/marry a native speaker of that language. :)

French, German and Spanish aren't especially difficult. I've never studied Afrikaans, but it is my understanding that it is a simplified Dutch in much the same way that English is a simplified German. Really, most Indo-European languages are very similar and should be relatively easy to learn. The underlying concepts are similar.

[eragon100]

Japanese.

People say it's difficult to learn because there are so many charachters, but seriously, there are only 7000, of which you need to know around 3000 to understand any text, even complex literature. These characters act as WORDS, not letters. They are all made from the same of strokes, which basically act as letters.

Compare 3000 characters in Japanese with 50 000 words in english (around 18 times as many), most of which you will know, and it isn't that much anymore at all :wink:

[Irihapeti]

I believe that the easiest language to learn is one that you have to -and want to.

For most English-speaking people, in most situations, there is the knowledge in the back of their minds that they can just revert to English if the going gets too tough. So they tend to do just that.

Get yourself in a total immersion situation, and I think you'll pick up any language fairly quickly - as long as you don't talk yourself into believing you're no good at learning.

[MikeTheC]

I've been following along in this thread basically out of academic curiosity. I'm in my freshmen year at an Associate's level in a local state college, and I know if I am to pursue a Bachelor's level degree (which it would seem one would have to have in this job market any more), I will have to take three semesters of a language.

As I don't have any plans to travel to or live in any foreign country (and certainly not one who's own native language is something other than English) it's hard for me to really "get into" learning another language. My interest in other languages has always been "academic" in nature; that is, I'm curious about the functioning and I'm curious about the speaker's linguistic thought process, but I have no desire to actually speak it.

Tentatively I am going to be taking German (whenever). Sadly, the only choices in my college are German, French and Spanish. I have a passing interest in German since part of my ancestry hails from that country. The other two I couldn't give a darn about, honestly. I've actually thought in the past about learning something constructed, like Klingon, but if I'm going to bother to invest my time, energy and effort into learning a language, it might just as well be one I can actually use in public.

[Dr Small]

piglatin, of course. I'm eryvay uentflay in it. ;)

[Sef]

The hardest language to learn is your first foreign langauge. The more you learn the easier they get.

[dnns123]

Learn Filipino. The morphology of the words will kill you :lolflag:
But its VERY easy to read and speak it. It doesnt use the letter C, and what you see is how you pronounce it. Grammar is quite similar to English, the verb is just placed in the front, the rest of the structure is the same.
Ex: I'm going to Wallmart - Pupunta ako sa Wallmart - Going I to Wallmart
Take for example "walis" means broom. Noun.
It's easily morphed in to a verb by just changing it to "nagwawalis" it means sweaping or brooming. LoL

The biggest plus in Filipino is that you just need to learn the until the intermediate level. Most of the native Filipinos use Taglish or Tagalog-English and can barely speak 100% fluent Talgalog.

Ex: I'm going to take a test tomorrow.
Magttest ako bukas - Going to take a test I tomorrow.
Magttest is pronouced mag-t-test.
The real word for test in Tagalog is pagsubok, but thats too long, 3 syllables. Test is shorter so we use it more often:lolflag:

[chucky chuckaluck]

piglatin, of course. I'm eryvay uentflay in it. ;)

erdway, omehay oybay!

[Sublime Porte]

Hence, Interlingua includes such diverse word forms as.. Arabic califa


Words in Interlingua retain their original form from the source language; they are altered as little as possible to fit Interlingua's phonotactics. Each word retains its original spelling, pronunciation, and meanings.

These two statements are contradictory. The word "califa" in Arabic is khaleefah, nothing like the Interlingua spelling you've offered. Sounds more like they've adopted the word from Spanish, in which it is spelled more like that (and from where we get 'California').


Research with Swedish students has shown that, after learning Interlingua, they can translate elementary texts from Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish.

That's because interlingua is heavily based on the Romance languages (Italian, Portuguese and Spanish being 3 of the main Romance languages). Far from being a universal tool which helps to understand diverse languages, interlingua is very euro-centric and specifically latino-centric.

[Arathorn]

I think that learning one romance language first and then some others will give you the same results as learning interlingua first, without first having to learn a "language" that you'll never use to converse with anyone anyway.
Someone earlier in this thread said that the first foreign language you learn is the hardest, then it gets easier every time. I think that's true.

[Rackstar]

I think the biggest problem for English speaking persons, is getting rid of their accent!(especially Americans).

I speak Flemish (same as vocabulary as dutch, but different accent), and I notice it's for us easier to leave our accent behind, as we in Belgium need to speak Flemish/Dutch, French and English. (We have a German speaking part too)

[HappinessNow]

I've been wondering about this for a while... thoughts?



Without hesitation, second thoughts or doubts:

ǃXóõ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C7%83X%C3%B3%C3%B5_language)

[Sublime Porte]

Well I would suggest Arabic is a great language to learn. I've been learning it now for about 9 years, and have found it very interesting. It's a very logical language, with a really sound and easy to learn system of grammar that is a little more complex than English grammar (and more versatile) but which has far less exceptions to rules, meaning that once you learn the basic system, you can understand a lot.

The main hurdle will of course be the script, which is very different to the Latin script that English and most European languages use. But which again follows a fairly logical system, and which is almost perfectly phonetic, so no silent letters and all that other annoying stuff that Latin-based alphabets have. Arabic is almost like reading music, an Arabic text is like a musical score, in that any reader should be able to faithfully reproduce the same sounds from the same given text.

Arabic is spoken in dozens of countries, so is quite useful like Spanish in this respect, compared with most other languages which are only spoken in 1 or maybe 2 countries.

[hobo14]

I've(Australian) learnt Chinese, it was hard for me and my western (American, German) classmates, but easy for my Korean classmates.

I'd say French or German would be the easiest choices.

[gn2]

Parliamo Glesga?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0rgETg2Hoo

[octotom]

German is actually really difficult to learn. I'm learning it right now because I live in Germany. Germany is difficult because of the case system, which English lacks, and the adjective declension.

[xavierp94]

Français and Español!

[Vostrocity]

German is actually really difficult to learn. I'm learning it right now because I live in Germany. Germany is difficult because of the case system, which English lacks, and the adjective declension.

I'm also learning German right now, as my third language, and I actually think it is very easy. I'd say over half of the words have similar spelling and pronounciation as English.

[BslBryan]

Spanish was simple for me to learn, and so was Russian.

[benj1]

i can't believe no one has suggested american ;)


i would probably say french, but thats probably because ive spent quite alot of time there over the years, although my girlfriend disagrees, as she hasn't, she has better pronunciation than me as well, mines a bit rubish, yorkshire-french isn't good

[Chemical Imbalance]

Thats why I didnt learn Spanish that much, the masculine and feminine terms for the same word seem so odd and unusual.
La and El both mean "The", then you have Los, Las and Lo again all meaning "the"
In English the word the is the rather if its male or female, or used in a sentence.


Same goes for Deutsch (German).

It's got feminine, masculine and neuter.

German is much more complex than English.

[Vostrocity]

Same goes for Deutsch (German).

It's got feminine, masculine and neuter.

I found word genders to be pretty easy. But pretty much every European language is that way, so you're doomed if you want to learn something good. :D

[Chemical Imbalance]

I found word genders to be pretty easy. But pretty much every European language is that way, so you're doomed if you want to learn something good. :D

What I dislike is the extra memorization that goes along with the extra genders.

I'm a minimalist kind of person. :)

[MikeTheC]

As someone who is a native English speaker, I have to say that the concept of grammatical gender is a very alien and awkward concept. In German, for instance, you have die, das and der. With das being the neuter, why not just it and forget screwing with the other forms?

Now, I know this is going to completely go against the grain for any native German speaker, but I really cannot see why, fundamentally, you can't just say:
das Computer;
das Toilette;
das Person;
das Tisch;
das Tastatur;
das Maus
and so on and so forth. That's how it would appear in English, effectively.

[Chemical Imbalance]

As someone who is a native English speaker, I have to say that the concept of grammatical gender is a very alien and awkward concept. In German, for instance, you have die, das and der. With das being the neuter, why not just it and forget screwing with the other forms?

Now, I know this is going to completely go against the grain for any native German speaker, but I really cannot see why, fundamentally, you can't just say:
das Computer;
das Toilette;
das Person;
das Tisch;
das Tastatur;
das Maus
and so on and so forth. That's how it would appear in English, effectively.

I personally agree completely. But you have to admit, it is a bit more elegant and "sophisticated"--that is until you hear German spoken :D.

I apologize to any native German speakers. I'm learning at the moment and actually love it, but its aggravating!

I admire German. Much of my favorite music is German. I'm not trolling or anything.

[Vostrocity]

That's why I think English will eventually become the dominant language. But not in our lifetimes, so it's still good to know some other languages.

[Frak]

I say German. Not the easiest, but you will appreciate how easy it is to learn any Germanic language thereof. Though, the genders WILL THROW YOU IN THE WATER WITH CROCODILES. German has to have the oddest array of genders for words (Sun is female, Moon is male; Girl is neuter while multiple people, or plurals, are female).

It's a fun language, but it will definitely be confusing at first.

EDIT
BTW, I use LiveMocha to learn languages along with a reference (usually just Google). Don't use the Rosetta Stone. I bought all 3 discs to German, and it was the biggest money pit I've ever tossed my dollars into. It will happily make you annoyed at any language.

[Grant A.]

Alright, after reviewing this topic I have chosen these two languages:

1) Scots (For heritage reasons, as my mother's heritage comes from lowland Scotland)

2) German


I would like to thank everyone who helped me decide to learn German, hopefully, I won't bust my *** trying to learn it. :D

BTW, Frak, thank you for mentioning LiveMocha; it looks very helpful. :)

[arm-c]

OK. Given the topic, easiest language to learn for a Native English Speaker.

Clearly it would be Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, French. These languages have simple gender (masculine and feminine) AND the language is word order dependent. Not many difficulties for an English speaker to deal with. Also, while English is Germanic, the vast majority of words in Eng have romance language roots... so a lot of cognates (words that are very similar to English and have similar meanings).

Second category would contain German and probably Romanian. English is Germanic in nature and you will see a ton of basic words that are clearly of germanic origin. Even more when you learn to pronounce a German word correctly (V = F:: Vatter = Father). Diffuclty comes in when dealing with Cases. English dropped all case reference. Romanian is a romance language but has influence in language from Hungarian (odd ball language with no other European roots) and slavic languages... so those bump it up to being on par with German in diffculty.

Third Category would be languages such as Czech, Russian, Serbian, Bulgarian. These languages are Slavic. If you are a slavic speaker, learning another slavic language would be easiest for you. These languages tend to throw a english speaker. Every word changes endings, it is a strongly cased language (6-7), mostly word order independent because the endings tell what the word is doing, and the necessity to learn at least two verbs for every action in order to speak in all tenses. Banged my head on it considerably!! :) Also in this category are languages such as Thai and Vietnamese, but don't ask me why.

The 4th Category in difficulty would be languages such as Arabic, Chinese, Korean, and Japanese. These all have difficulties in one form or another that make it rather hard for an english speaker. Korean, for example, uses a very simple alphabet (Hangul) that is Phonetic (as opposed to Chinese which tends to be, in my words, symbolic -- a symbol to a word and you must learn to speak it separately from symbol). Before Korean's developed the Hangul alphabet, they used chinese writing as did Japanese. Korean adds complexity of "levels" of speach, where you must address people and use language appropriate for the social setting. Finally, the word order is generally Subject-Direct Object-Verb. A bit odd to me... but hey, it is their language and culture.

Ultimately, success will depend upon your motivation to learn. Start easy (say Category I) and experience success. Pick a widely used language (Spanish) where you will likely be able to use it in practice (very rewarding).

If I had the ability to learn, I'd choose the following language in the following order for the reason of being able to use it! English, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Chinese. Get those under your belt, and you can go most anywhere and really surprise people. I know, French for many places in Africa, but hey, who really wants to learn French (Just JOKING!!!).

[arm-c]

Oh... for fun and giggles, since it sounds like you have went with German (which I have studied), read "The Awful German Language" by Mark Twain.

http://www.crossmyt.com/hc/linghebr/awfgrmlg.html#x1

[Arup]

Any Indo-European language for that matter.

[Frak]

After you learn German (which I thought you said you'd learn), try learning Russian. I'm having a great time with it right now. I went here (http://knol.google.com/k/david-petherick/learn-to-read-the-russian-alphabet-in/3gtd3hu64fjvx/2#) to learn the alphabet.

+1 for Google Knol.

EDIT
I just thought, since I'll know English, (some) German, and Russian, I should be able to reenact WWII in my head :P

[Chemical Imbalance]

Oh... for fun and giggles, since it sounds like you have went with German (which I have studied), read "The Awful German Language" by Mark Twain.

http://www.crossmyt.com/hc/linghebr/awfgrmlg.html#x1

LOL

That is a good read, and one I can sympathize with at the moment.

[jonobr]

BASIC,

But you know what, I think a lot if it also down to your heritage and what you immersed in.,

I speak english, Irish, a bit of Dutch and Italian, and a tiny bit of french and german.

I think most european kids pick up languages easily as they all have the same root, whereas to pick up a language like Chinese tigali your really starting on a brand new page (if your European).

Since I am here in the US , I am picking up spanish a bit more, and again, its not a huge world away from what I have learned in the past.

[Sublime Porte]

Frak,


Sun is female, Moon is male

So do quite a few other languages. Arabic treats the sun as female and moon as male also.


The 4th Category in difficulty would be languages such as Arabic, Chinese, Korean, and Japanese.

Lumping Arabic with the far east Asian languages is a bit much. Middle eastern languages have far much more in common with European languages than with far east Asian languages. The concept of alphabet comes from middle eastern languages ('aleph' 'beh' being the first two letters in most ME languages) and also after Latin/French and Greek, Arabic is probably the language which English has borrowed the most words from. ME languages also use suffixes and prefixes extensively like European languages, instead of changes in tone and pitch like far east Asian languages.

[Grant A.]

After you learn German (which I thought you said you'd learn), try learning Russian. I'm having a great time with it right now. I went here (http://knol.google.com/k/david-petherick/learn-to-read-the-russian-alphabet-in/3gtd3hu64fjvx/2#) to learn the alphabet.

+1 for Google Knol.


Thanks, but Russian looks like it may make my head explode. >.<



EDIT
I just thought, since I'll know English, (some) German, and Russian, I should be able to reenact WWII in my head :P

Don't forget the other languages that were used in WWII, French, Polish, Italian, Spanish, Welsh, Navajo... ;)


Frak,



So do quite a few other languages. Arabic treats the sun as female and moon as male also.


It's the exact opposite in Spanish.

El Sol is the Sun, and la Luna is the moon.

Rather interesting, considering that a lot of Spanish's vocabulary comes from Arabic.



after Latin/French and Greek, Arabic is probably the language which English has borrowed the most words from.

Wikipedia begs to differ. ;)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/18/Origins_of_English_PieChart_2D.svg/600px-Origins_of_English_PieChart_2D.svg.png

[philcamlin]

go for yukoslavian i think thats what it is :popcorn:

[Sublime Porte]

Wikipedia begs to differ.

Actually that diagram doesn't contradict what I stated. I lumped Latin/French together, since most Latin in English actually comes via Norman French, and English is already a Germanic based language, so the Germanic words generally aren't borrowed, they're already the basis of the language, so that leaves unknown/other, most of which are probably Arabic :)

[arm-c]

Frak,

Lumping Arabic with the far east Asian languages is a bit much.

Not really. The question is simply based on difficulty to learn from an English Speaker's perspective. Sure, they are different and Arabic probably is closer to Indo-Euro languages than Asian languages; but the point has simply to do with difficulty... not number of common words.


Middle eastern languages have far much more in common with European languages than with far east Asian languages. The concept of alphabet comes from middle eastern languages ('aleph' 'beh' being the first two letters in most ME languages) and also after Latin/French and Greek, Arabic is probably the language which English has borrowed the most words from.

You know, not disagreeing with you. Hell, did you know that Shakespeare was actually an Arab? His real name was Sheik Subir. :D


ME languages also use suffixes and prefixes extensively like European languages, instead of changes in tone and pitch like far east Asian languages.

Hate to disappoint you... but Asian languages use much more than tone/pitch. Actually, Chinese is more dependent on tone/pitch than Korean/Japanese.... AND, in case you didn't know, Korean language falls in the Turkish family.... as do many of the languages in the "Stans" (ie: Kyrgiz). Hmmm

Anyway, my categories are not something I dreamed up. They are based upon hard facts/empirical data. These are the categories used by the Army in their language programs. Each language program is designed to reach the same level of proficiency (ILR 2/2/1+). Consequently, Category 1 languages are 6 months, Cat 2 are 8 months, Cat 3 are 12 months, and Cat 4 are 18 months. Believe me, that it takes all 18 months for an english speaker to learn Arabic to a 2/2/1+ and the same for a english speaker to learn Korean / Chinese / Japanese to a 2/2/1+.

[magmon]

Im gonna have to go with Canadian.

[Mithradates]

One of the first posters that said the easiest language to learn is the one that you really like is 100% correct, since we're talking about an endeavour that takes at least a number of years.

One language not mentioned in the thread though is Persian, which is surprisingly easy:

http://www.pagef30.com/2008/08/detailed-explanation-of-why-persian.html

I'm learning it myself and it's a real treat. No grammatical gender, verb conjugation is incredibly easy (especially past tense). Here's one example:

-all verbs end in -dan or -tan
-to conjugate in the past tense, take off the -an at the end and add a suffix for person: I is -am, you is -i, he/she/it is nothing, we is -im, you (plural and formal) is -id, they is -and.

Now take the verb to be: budan.

I was - budam
You were - budi
It was - bud
We were - budim
You were - budid
They were - budand

NO exceptions.

raftan - to go

I went - raftam
You went - rafti

and so on. Now you know how to conjugate in the past tense.

The script takes a while to learn but besides that it's surprisingly simple.

[Mithradates]

By the way, a good way to explain Persian might be that it's kind of the opposite of German from the POV of the student. German has a lot of cognates with English and a more recent shared history, so it's easier to follow along when someone else is using it, but when it's time for you to construct a sentence all of a sudden you're working with three genders, cases and all the rest. If you see something like "Sind Sie von der Polizei?" (are you from the police?) you might draw the conclusion that Polizei is masculine, but it's actually feminine (die Polizei) and is changed to der here because of von preceding it. Tricky things like that make it harder to use than to understand.

Persian is the opposite - it's an Indo-European language so you have a certain number of cognates with English, but due to being more distant as well as the large number of Arabic/Turkish/etc. loanwords it's mostly incomprehensible at first. On the other hand, its grammatical simplicity means that you feel much more confident in using it yourself.

[Chemical Imbalance]

By the way, a good way to explain Persian might be that it's kind of the opposite of German from the POV of the student. German has a lot of cognates with English and a more recent shared history, so it's easier to follow along when someone else is using it, but when it's time for you to construct a sentence all of a sudden you're working with three genders, cases and all the rest. If you see something like "Sind Sie von der Polizei?" (are you from the police?) you might draw the conclusion that Polizei is masculine, but it's actually feminine (die Polizei) and is changed to der here because of von preceding it. Tricky things like that make it harder to use than to understand.

Persian is the opposite - it's an Indo-European language so you have a certain number of cognates with English, but due to being more distant as well as the large number of Arabic/Turkish/etc. loanwords it's mostly incomprehensible at first. On the other hand, its grammatical simplicity means that you feel much more confident in using it yourself.

I like the sound of that. My sister is actually learning Farsi.
I'll have to borrow her learning materials.

Farsi is the same as Persian, is it not? What would a native speaker call it in English?

[Grant A.]

I like the sound of that. My sister is actually learning Farsi.
I'll have to borrow her learning materials.

Farsi is the same as Persian, is it not? What would a native speaker call it in English?

Farsi is the local (Persian word) for Persian. Persian is the proper name in English. Like how in English, Spanish is "Spanish", and not "Español".

Persian comes from the name of the country that Iran used to be, the Persian Empire.

[Chemical Imbalance]

Farsi is the local (Persian word) for Persian. Persian is the proper name in English. Like how in English, Spanish is "Spanish", and not "Español".

Persian comes from the name of the country that Iran used to be, the Persian Empire.

I ask because there are debates over whether Persian or Farsi is the proper term to use in English. I'm aware of what Persia was and Iran is.

[Sef]

I ask because there are debates over whether Persian or Farsi is the proper term to use in English. I'm aware of what Persia was and Iran is.

Farsi is what you would call the language of Iran.

[Sublime Porte]

His real name was Sheik Subir.

Yeh and his first name Bill, was short for Bilal... so I've heard.


Hate to disappoint you... but Asian languages use much more than tone/pitch.

Perhaps it was an over-simplification, but it's a much larger part of their language than word appendages like in European and Semitic languages.


AND, in case you didn't know, Korean language falls in the Turkish family.... as do many of the languages in the "Stans" (ie: Kyrgiz). Hmmm

You're referring to the Altaic language family, which is not unanimously recognised as a single language family anyway, it is disputed. Anyway I can hardly see what on earth that's got to do with what we were discussing??

Just a note, the languages of most of the 'stans' is Turkish anyway. It may be a slightly different dialect than Anatolian Turkish, but it's still Turkish, since those countries encompass most of the historical homeland of the Turkic peoples.


and the same for a english speaker to learn Korean / Chinese / Japanese to a 2/2/1+.

I personally didn't find Arabic all that difficult. Not to say it wasn't challenging, it was. I've learnt a little Spanish and tried a little Chinese, and I'd say learning Spanish was much more like learning Arabic, whilst trying to learn Chinese was just a nightmare.

[arm-c]

Just a note, the languages of most of the 'stans' is Turkish anyway. It may be a slightly different dialect than Anatolian Turkish, but it's still Turkish, since those countries encompass most of the historical homeland of the Turkic peoples.
Well, it is amazing what migration can influence can do to languages. Pockets of languages out of place (Hungarian / Finish)... etc. I find it interesting. Sure, it may be disputed,... but being disputed doesn't make it automatically false... LOL


I personally didn't find Arabic all that difficult. Not to say it wasn't challenging, it was. I've learnt a little Spanish and tried a little Chinese, and I'd say learning Spanish was much more like learning Arabic, whilst trying to learn Chinese was just a nightmare.

When it comes to learning another language, fact is that SOME people have greater aptitude that others.

Still, aptitude is not THE deciding factor. I'd say deciding factor is motivation.

A small side story. I studied Spanish for 6 months intensively. 6 hours of class a day. My homework and learning of vocabulary usually took me about 2 hours a night. In comparison, there was one person in class that could learn his vocab by reading through once. Not me!

After graduating that class, I studied Czech for one year. Also 6 hours a day. My homework, however, took me 3-5 hours a night and I never really got it. I passed the course, but I worked my *** off and if I had more ***, I'd have worked more. Regardless, I was worst in class (even thought I had B/A- grades, which is not very motivational to be putting so much effort and almost always being last. LOL My aptitude for Czech and slavic languages just isn't there... LOL I apologise for my lack of precision for the language groups... and I hope my joke about Shakespeare wasn't offensive (heard it from one of my friends from the middle east).

Too the Originator of the Thread: Pick a language that you are motivated to learn and one in which you love the culture. Put forth the effort and remember that language requires effort and use. Seek opportunity to use the language in spoken form. Listen to news broadcasts and watch movies in the language. Even if you are using subtitles, it lets you hear the language. Very important. If you don't have a tutor, pick a "big" language that has a lot of resources. I have been trying to refresh Czech after 8 years and there are hardly any learning resources available and hell, how many times do you meet a Czech speaker? Point there is if it is too hard to find a speaker, you won't really learn it very easily. Go live in the country... immerse yourself in the language and culture. :) By all means,.... HAVE FUN!!!

[Mithradates]

I ask because there are debates over whether Persian or Farsi is the proper term to use in English. I'm aware of what Persia was and Iran is.

Persian is the preferred term by the academy that presides over the language:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academy_of_Persian_Language_and_Literature

The arguments given are that the word Persian actually means something in English (Farsi sounds like some new language of an unknown country), it has a historical precedent, and if one were to call it Farsi you'd also have to change the Persian Gulf to Farsi Gulf, Persian rug would be Farsi rug, etc.

In Persian it's sometimes even called Parsi (پارسی), because the only reason it has an f is because Arabic doesn't have a p and it somehow got arabicized in that way. Pars (location) + -i = adjective, and in English Pers + ian (language of Pers) = adjective.

That's cool that your sister is learning the language. You should steal a textbook and read it over for a bit to see what you think.

[Sublime Porte]

Well, it is amazing what migration can influence can do to languages. Pockets of languages out of place (Hungarian / Finish)... etc.

Well if you'd like to add those languages to the equation, then you'd be referring to the supposed Ural-Altaic superfamily, this one has even less support than the idea of a supposed Altaic family. Today the Uralic languages are usually left by themselves, and not lumped with the Altaic languages.


I find it interesting. Sure, it may be disputed,... but being disputed doesn't make it automatically false... LOL

Even if it's true or false, it's still got nothing to do with European/Semitic/East Asian languages :)


Still, aptitude is not THE deciding factor. I'd say deciding factor is motivation.

This point I'll have to agree on strongly. Motivation is a huge factor in learning a language, and if there's no motivation then there's unlikely going to be much progress.


and I hope my joke about Shakespeare wasn't offensive (heard it from one of my friends from the middle east).

Of course it wasn't offensive. Yeh it's often used as a joke by Middle Easterners.

[Mithradates]

I think my favourite Turkic group abroad is the Gagauz, who live in an autonomous region (Gagauz Yeri) in Moldova, and are also Orthodox Christian:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CR2zQvCT34w

Apparently there's some disagreement over whether they were originally Greeks, but nevertheless the language is almost the same as Turkish - much easier to read even than Azeri.

[Grant A.]

In Persian it's sometimes even called Parsi (پارسی), because the only reason it has an f is because Arabic doesn't have a p and it somehow got arabicized in that way.

Well, considering the former Persian Empire's location, it makes sense that it got arabicized along the way, because of all of the arabic-speaking countries in between there and England.

[Chemical Imbalance]

Persian is the preferred term by the academy that presides over the language:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academy_of_Persian_Language_and_Literature

The arguments given are that the word Persian actually means something in English (Farsi sounds like some new language of an unknown country), it has a historical precedent, and if one were to call it Farsi you'd also have to change the Persian Gulf to Farsi Gulf, Persian rug would be Farsi rug, etc.

In Persian it's sometimes even called Parsi (پارسی), because the only reason it has an f is because Arabic doesn't have a p and it somehow got arabicized in that way. Pars (location) + -i = adjective, and in English Pers + ian (language of Pers) = adjective.

That's cool that your sister is learning the language. You should steal a textbook and read it over for a bit to see what you think.

Thank you for the clarification.

I'll have to get started learning sometime, when I have time.

I know someone who speaks it as his first language... I should have a talk with him.

[mynameinc]

I say Scots is the easiest to learn, and one of the Polynesian languages as the hardest.

[Irihapeti]

I say Scots is the easiest to learn, and one of the Polynesian languages as the hardest.

That I find intriguing. I would not have thought of Scots (I'm assuming you mean Gaelic?) very easy to learn. In the last few years I've learned some Maori (a Polynesian language) and recently started on Mandarin Chinese. I would definitely say that, for me, Mandarin is the more challenging. By the way, I'm not Maori, although my forum username is.

I wonder if it comes down to this: that the most difficult languages to learn depend on who's doing the learning. Differences in learning style, motivation, even cultural background would make a difference. And I'd agree with the poster who said that your first foreign language is going to be the hardest.

[Frak]

and i'd agree with the poster who said that your first foreign language is going to be the hardest.

+1

[Grant A.]

That I find intriguing. I would not have thought of Scots (I'm assuming you mean Gaelic?) very easy to learn.

He means this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scots_Language

Scots is the closest living relative to English, and can be read by a native English speaker without knowing the Scots language beforehand.

Scottish Gaelic, or Gàidhlig, is something totally different. As Scots is an Anglo-Frisian language, and Scottish Gaelic is an Insular Celtic language.

[Sublime Porte]

Well, considering the former Persian Empire's location, it makes sense that it got arabicized along the way, because of all of the arabic-speaking countries in between there and England.

What has England got to do with it?

Persia was Arabicised because it was the empire which directly bordered the north-east of the Arabian peninsula, when the Islamic empire began expanding.

[Grant A.]

What has England got to do with it?


The word had to somehow get to England to be formally adopted as a mainstream English word, back in those times.



Persia was Arabicised because it was the empire which directly bordered the north-east of the Arabian peninsula, when the Islamic empire began expanding.

Didn't I say that it was because of all of the Arabic-speaking countries between England and Persia? Your statement is more precise, but technically, we're both right.

[Sublime Porte]

The word had to somehow get to England to be formally adopted as a mainstream English word, back in those times.

Ahh, I see your meaning now, sorry I was lost before as to what you actually meant by it. Actually, Arabic became the language of Persia, that's why it was Arabicised, not because of any Arabic countries in between. The Byzantine empire (Greek speaking) was between Persia and the rest of Europe in those times, not Arabic speaking lands. And the English actually uses the original Persian 'P' anyway, not the 'F' that Arabic uses, so again, I'm lost as to how Arabic has anything to do with the English? The English comes via Latin, via Greek, long before the Arabs even considered leaving their herds of goats and dominating the entire Middle East.

[HermanAB]

Hmm, I think the easiest language for an English speaker to learn, would be American. The grammar is the same and about ten words are spelled differently...
;)

[Grant A.]

Ahh, I see your meaning now, sorry I was lost before as to what you actually meant by it. Actually, Arabic became the language of Persia, that's why it was Arabicised, not because of any Arabic countries in between. The Byzantine empire (Greek speaking) was between Persia and the rest of Europe in those times, not Arabic speaking lands. And the English actually uses the original Persian 'P' anyway, not the 'F' that Arabic uses, so again, I'm lost as to how Arabic has anything to do with the English? The English comes via Latin, via Greek, long before the Arabs even considered leaving their herds of goats and dominating the entire Middle East.

Nevermind, I was wrong.

[Gizenshya]

I've studied French, Spanish, German, Chinese, and Japanese (with an emphasis on the latter two). (I'm a native English speaker, btw).

For me, Japanese was by far the easiest to study as a whole. The thing that tips in its favor the most is pronunciation. All of the sounds in Japanese are very easy for native English speakers to pronounce clearly. I started studying Chinese before Japanese, so I already knew many characters going into it. (The Japanese got their first written (phonetic) characters from the former rulers of the land area we now refer to as "China." Hiragana and Katakana came much later, and are primarily reserved for particles, conjugations, and foreign words. But the vast majority of verbs and nouns use Chinese characters (Kanji).) Some characters have very different meanings, though... For instance, a personal favorite of mine is the Japanese character meaning "I" (私). In Chinese that character means "selfish." :D

Chinese has the simplest structure, and is unique in the languages that I've studied in its lack of conjugation. Chinese would have taken the cake if it weren't for the pronunciation. It was incredibly difficult to teach myself to keep strict tonality and inflection while trying to speak at anything faster than an infantile rate... while having the listener understand. And there are many sounds that are not in the native English speaker's natural range. There are still a few things that I just have to write down for people to understand me lol

German is similar to English in a lot of ways, but the pronunciation of Japanese is still easier. I find myself thinking more when speaking German, whereas the proper words flow much more easily in Japanese and Chinese.

Spanish is easier than German for me, but not nearly as interesting. I only studied Spanish and French for two years each before I got bored and moved on. I suppose it is because I just don't find their culture (read: women) interesting/appealing. What good is a language if I don't have anything in particular to say in it?

[Mithradates]

After all the discussion on Persian I realized I never answered the first question: the easiest language (besides creoles like Bislama and Tok Pisin) for English speakers to learn is probably Norwegian. Detailed explanation here:

http://www.pagef30.com/2008/08/why-norwegian-is-easiest-language-for.html

Afrikaans is quite easy as well and doesn't have grammatical gender, but this is balanced out by its somewhat irregular plurals. Norwegian also has a much more similar word order to English whereas Afrikaans and Dutch are more like German. There is also far more content online in Norwegian compared to Afrikaans.

The Afrikaans Wikipedia is surprisingly good though. The number of articles is quite small but the users there are doing a wonderful job at writing lengthy and insightful articles.

Norwegian has a lot of dialects, but then so does German and most other languages. One of the few languages that has almost no variation by region is Icelandic, so even though it's quite complex compared to the continental Scandinavian languages it's also the only one where you are guaranteed to be able to understand speakers from anywhere in the country by learning only one standard.

Finally, there is a lot of financial incentive to learn Norwegian. The population is quite low (under 5 million) but they have the second-largest GDP per capita in the world so if learning Norwegian can get you a job there it's definitely worth studying.