What is the easiest language for an English speaker?

I wouldn't say that Belizean creole would be cheating. Almost everyone speaks some English in Belize but sometimes they don't know when a word is "Bileez" and not English.

If they are speaking straight creole you will not be able to understand them. It has truly become a separate language. They offer classes and when I go back after a year in Guatemala I will be taking it.

It is not necessary of course but it makes them feel that you are truly more concerned if you bother to learn their language.

chico

OK, you obviously meant 'hen's teeth'. Wow, I am a native speaker and have never come across that saying lol. I thought you might have translated it directly from French, but just googled it and see it is indeed a saying. Very good! And it's pretty funny, imagining huge fangs hidden within their beaks lol

Actually, we should both have written 'hens' teeth' though, or 'a hen's teeth', not 'hen's teeth'.

<<West Frisian has 700000 speakers,
Dutch has about 27 million speakers.>>
OK you got me, an order of magnitude-and-a-half :)

<<You compare incommensurable things.>>
But you just quoted a common standard by which to measure them.

However, I do get your point; I doubt the original poster wants to learn Frisian. I was just wondering if Frisian is easy, should some English speaker want to learn it for some remotely fathomable reason.

Dutch is not marginal language.

Well, I guess following on from my post about German, morphologicaly simple languages like Afrikaans, and to some extent the Scandinavian languages, would be easier for an English speaker to grasp in the first stages of learning a foreign language, and therefore less likely to scare them off at the start. But we don't tend to learn them of course. But it is a pity, because with perseverence, English speakers can become familiar with somewhat alien grammatical concepts, and see that they can learn languages in general just as well as any one else. Having said that, native English speakers don't tend to fare that badly with the Romance languages from the outset, as complex verb conjugation still seems more familiar than complex declension.

Moreover, thanks to German and French I tend to use the subjunctive tense more often in my English and Dutch (still alive, but rarely mentioned in grammars).

Frisians are unique nation.They were Frisians,when English,German,French ,Italian,or Spanish nations didn't exist. They were Anglo Saxons,Franks,Allamani, Vandals, Gauls,Romans,Iberians and so on.

Sorry, I want to say:
"Frisians are unique nation.They were Frisians,when English,German,French ,Italian,or Spanish nations didn't exist (they were Anglo Saxons,Franks,Allamani, Vandals, Gauls,Romans,Iberians and so on.) "

<<English is close to nothing and everything. English is unique. It's a mixture of CELTIC, SAXON, NORDIC, LATIN tribes all mixing together forming a new language called English. It is a mixure of germanic languages with romance languages mix with celtic languages. So technically it's a truelly a creol language. >>

um, no, this is wrong.
this is 100% fallacy; the perpetual product of misinformation and bogus hype.

English is no more a mixed language than any other in the world. The same statement above can be said about any other languages you name (more or less, with different languages in the mix of course). English is in no way unique in this regard.

To byspel, French is a mixture of CELTIC, LATIN, FRANKISH, GOTHIC, NORDIC, GREEK, ARABIC ...so what again makes English so specially sundered?

Spanish is LATIN, CELTIC, GOTHIC, ARABIC, BASQUE, GREEK, AMERINDIAN ...sounds kinda familiar too doesn't it?

Where on earth some people get the notion that English is some sort of concoction made up of various other languages' spare parts, all jumbled together to produce a new language that never before existed, and call it English, is totally beyond me. This is ridiculous. Holding to such a view only shows how little one knows about language.

Where do the following words come from?
word
beacon
anneal
borrow
the
green
follow
to
understanding
knowledge
self
body
reading
written
span
with
upbringing
reckon
overbearing
behaviour
this
some
fallen
a
funny
dog
bottom
dark
hired
over
bridal
eye
me
you
us

These words are *English*. English is a selfstanding language. Wis there are elements from other tongues added to it, as all languages have, but again, English is not unique in this respect.

Dutch is influential enough to have most world literature translated in this respective language and produce hundreds of bestsellers on a yearly base (and thousands of new titles) in the original language. Also our primary and secondary educational system is of high quality (and its entirely in Dutch). Higher education is sometimes in English sometimes in Dutch, but that's because the knowledge of English is high here and translations take time to develop. English after all has taken over the contemporary role of Latin until the XIXth century.
Also Anglophones living in the Dutch-speaking world mostly all learn Dutch with success, but I also meet people on the internet learning our language. Those who don't are heavily frowned upon (I yet have to meet them).

rep,
I understand now, Sorry for using the word "marginal" for Dutch; Dutch is a very healthy language. I was trying to convey to its low profile in the UK as a foreign language to learn, due to a perception that it's not particularly useful outside the Netherlands and ex-colonies, Belgium, and arguably South Africa. I have no agenda against Dutch.

Personally, I like the rhythm of Dutch (though I only speak a few words). It is much more pleasant to my English ears, for whatever reason, than German. Dutch doesn't have the same rhythm as English, though, in the way that Frisian does.

Maybe there's something in a language's rhythm, in addition to grammar and vocabulary, that affects how easy it is to learn for English speakers?

>>Moreover, thanks to German and French I tend to use the subjunctive tense more often in my English and Dutch (still alive, but rarely mentioned in grammars).<<

Is Dutch similar to English then in not being too keen on the subjunctive? Of course American English maintains it more, but there's still no distinct form. Does Dutch have a morphological subjunctive form?

<<It is much more pleasant to my English ears, for whatever reason, than German.>>

--This is because English is a dialect of Dutch.

<<Dutch doesn't have the same rhythm as English, though, in the way that Frisian does. >>

--Frisian is a dialect of English. Therefore as such, it is also a sub dialect of Dutch.

<<Is Dutch similar to English then in not being too keen on the subjunctive? Of course American English maintains it more, but there's still no distinct form. Does Dutch have a morphological subjunctive form? >>

In a way Dutch is indeed not too keen on the subjunctive. Especially in Biblical language you still see this form used. But yes, we have a morphological suffix in the singular tenses (both in the past and present; like in German) to express a subjunctive.
Example:
English: I rather had him stay here.
Modern Dutch: Ik heb liever gehad dat hij hier zou blijven.
Modern 'archaic' Dutch: Ik heb liever gehad dat hij hier blijve. (it's not actively used and surely not considered correct, but it used to be used in our written language some decaded ago).

In some linguistic fossils it IS used however, like for example:
English: God have his soul
Modern Dutch: God hebbe zijn ziel.

English and Dutch both use the subjunctive here, but the Dutch one differs morphologically, as the indicative mood would have made it 'heeft'.
English only seems to have it with the verb 'to be', but subconsciously it still exists in those forms that don't show it morphologically.