Please rate these languages in order of difficulty in your opinion:
English
Afrikaans
Swedish
Dutch
Indonesian
Spanish
English
Afrikaans
Swedish
Dutch
Indonesian
Spanish
Hardest to easiest
For what reason do you rate Dutch as easier than Swedish and Indonesian?
Personally I think Dutch is easier to pronounce than Swedish and it doesn't have cases, I think Swedes articulate less. Indonesian is non-Indo-European, also my bias.
English
Afrikaans/Dutch
Spanish/Swedish
Indonesian
English (my native language)
Afrikaans/Dutch=Close to English
Spanish/Swedish-more distant from English
Indonesian=Not an IE language. Said to be "easy", but it would still involve learning a lot of new words, not just cognates.
Afrikaans/Dutch
Spanish/Swedish
Indonesian
English (my native language)
Afrikaans/Dutch=Close to English
Spanish/Swedish-more distant from English
Indonesian=Not an IE language. Said to be "easy", but it would still involve learning a lot of new words, not just cognates.
My list is from easiest to "hardest", btw. If you start out with another native language, your list will likely be different.
In my view Swedish is much easier than Spanish even for an English speaking person. But I agree that Indonasian must be the hardest one, at least for a speaker of the IE languages
I'm spaniard and only major lenguages, ok?
1) Spanish (native so very easy ;-) ).
2) Portugues (latin as spanish, and mutually intelligible without learning especially brazilian one).
3) Italian (latin as spanish, i understand 50% more o less without learning)
4) French (latin as spanish, i understand 33% more o less before i started learning)
5) English (german lenguage but very easy grammar, more easy than latin one and no accent at all.I understood only some words without education).
6) Romanian (latin as spanish but i understand only some words, quite away from western latin lenguages, i guess compatible latin grammar).
1) Spanish (native so very easy ;-) ).
2) Portugues (latin as spanish, and mutually intelligible without learning especially brazilian one).
3) Italian (latin as spanish, i understand 50% more o less without learning)
4) French (latin as spanish, i understand 33% more o less before i started learning)
5) English (german lenguage but very easy grammar, more easy than latin one and no accent at all.I understood only some words without education).
6) Romanian (latin as spanish but i understand only some words, quite away from western latin lenguages, i guess compatible latin grammar).
) Romanian (latin as spanish but i understand only some words, quite away from western latin lenguages, i guess compatible latin grammar).
This is not completely true. Italians can generally understand Romanian better than Spaniards and Portuguese. Italian can be considered in between Romanian and Spanish/Portuguese. Grammatically It's more similar, such as plurals, some verb endings and so on. Even FRench is more similar to Italian lexically than Spanish and Portuguese. However, Spanish , particularly some American variants are extremely easy to understand for an educated Italian.
This doesn't mean that all these languages are easier to learn than others, particularly at an advanced level. Similar languages can easily get confused: syntax and vocabulary are the most difficult aspects to master.
This is not completely true. Italians can generally understand Romanian better than Spaniards and Portuguese. Italian can be considered in between Romanian and Spanish/Portuguese. Grammatically It's more similar, such as plurals, some verb endings and so on. Even FRench is more similar to Italian lexically than Spanish and Portuguese. However, Spanish , particularly some American variants are extremely easy to understand for an educated Italian.
This doesn't mean that all these languages are easier to learn than others, particularly at an advanced level. Similar languages can easily get confused: syntax and vocabulary are the most difficult aspects to master.
Harman What about CAtalan and Galician? Can you understand them?
Catalan is not that intelligible for a Spanish speaker as people may think. Galician is 100% intelligible, even more than Andalusian Spanish.
Catalan is not that intelligible for a Spanish speaker as people may think. Galician is 100% intelligible, even more than Andalusian Spanish.