Posted: Thu Jun 28, 2007 2:12 am Post subject: Easiest languages for English speakers to learn
Other than Scots, and Frisian (spoken by only 200,000 people), I would say Dutch is the easiest. For me, the shared vocabulary is the easiest to spot, as far as core vocabulary is concerned. And Dutch grammar is rather uncomplicated, when compared to the nightmare of learning German grammar.
Dutch and German syntax are definitely a problem for English speakers I would think. Take for instance, this sentence:
Dutch - Zij heeft gisteren de hele dag heel hard gewerkt.
English - They have yesterday the whole day very hard worked.
I hope I translated that right. That's what I thought it said, with my very limited knowledge of Dutch.
Check out this article:
Is Dutch really that difficult?
"Dutch is impossible to learn, it's completely different from English, the grammar is very complicated, the Dutch sounds are impossible to pronounce and, after all, you don't really need Dutch if you're living in the Netherlands, because they all speak perfect English." That's what your English speaking friends may tell you. Moreover, many Dutch people will try to convince you that their language is one of the most difficult ones in the world. Consequently, Boucke and White, writers of The Undutchables concluded: "the more you try to learn Dutch, the more the Dutch refuse to speak Dutch to you, and the more they complain that you haven't learned it."
However, in fact Dutch is not that difficult: the grammar is relatively simple, Dutch is very similar to English, and it is very important to be able to communicate in Dutch if you want to make your stay in the Netherlands more worth while.
Grammar
Both Dutch and English have over the centuries thrown most of their grammatical complexities overboard. English is without doubt the simplest European language. There's only one definite article (the), whereas in Dutch there are two (de, het). French, however, has three (le, la, les) and German has six (der, des, dem, den, die, das), due to the case-system. And if you think German, with four cases, is difficult, try Finnish with more than ten cases. This case-system has almost completely disappeared from English and Dutch. As a result English nouns and adjectives have dropped their endings, and most adjectives in Dutch only have an e-ending. German adjectives can end in -e, -er, es, and -en.
Like English, Dutch has four basic verb tenses (I work = ik werk, I worked = ik werkte, I have worked = ik heb gewerkt, I had worked = ik had gewerkt) and most of the English irregular verbs are irregular in Dutch. With auxiliary verbs like can, may, must etc., the good news is that Dutch doesn't have the rather complex system of can/be able to and may/be allowed to etc.. And there's more good news: we don't use the verb to do in questions and negations (do you work? = werk je?, I do not work = ik werk niet). Nor do we use the "gerund" (I am working = ik werk).
In fact, the only real problem English speakers face when learning Dutch is word order. Like in English, the basic sentence structure is Subject - Verb - Object (I see a film = ik zie een film). But we're in for some trouble. The first problem is that if a sentence doesn't start with the subject, subject and verb change places (on Saturday I see a film = op zaterdag zie ik een film).
Another thing is that the Dutch like to fling their verbs to the end of the sentence. Infinitives and past participles, for instance, are always at the end, and in sub-clauses all verbs are at the end.
This "Dutch" sentence structure was still present in Shakespeare's English: Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended (past participle at the end), What said he? (no to do in questions) or Then goes he to the length of all his arm, and Long stayed he so (inversion).
Pronunciation & Spelling
"Dutch pronunciation is impossible, it will give you a throat ache, and some of the sounds can only be pronounced with your mouth half-full of pea-soup."
In fact there are only a few sounds in Dutch that don't exist in English. One of these sounds is indeed the g/ch sound. But if you're from Scotland (cf. loch), or if you can make a spitting sound, you can also say ggg.
Fortunately, Dutch spelling is highly phonetic. What you see is what you pronounce. English spelling, however, is very inconsistent. A combination of two vowels can sometimes be pronounced in four different ways: ea is a different sound in learn, neat, head and great. Dutch would have four different spellings: u, ie, e and ee.
The Irish writer Shaw proved it was possible to pronounce ghotigh as fish (enough, women, nation, though).
In English you will have to learn the pronunciation of every single word, whereas in Dutch, if you know a few basic spelling and pronunciation rules, you can nearly always deduce the correct pronunciation.
History
You'll be surprised to hear that your problems with Dutch word order and pronunciation were in fact caused by the development of the English language.
After the withdrawal of the Romans in the 5th century, the Celtic king Vortigern entered into an agreement with a few Germanic mercenaries and asked them to help him drive out the Scots and the Picts. But after doing so the continental tribes decided to stay. From the 5th century onwards, English and Dutch were basically dialects of the same language, which explains why they share a basic Germanic vocabulary. Many Dutch words will look familiar to you because they are similar (cf. drink = drinken, sleep = slapen, sun = zon, moon = maan, land = land, father = vader etc.).
If nothing drastic had happened in history since then, we would still be speaking more or less the same language. So what happened?
In 1066 the French invaded Britain and the Duke of Normandy, became King William I. For nearly two hundred years after this invasion, French remained the official language among the upper classes in England. Although English remained the language of the masses, only in the 14th century English won its way back into universal use, but, by then had drastically changed and grown apart from the Dutch language. This transformation of the English language included: loss of grammatical gender, of endings on adjectives and nouns, and of inflections (cases) as well as an enormous influx of French words on the one hand and the disappearance of many native Old English words on the other.
Many Old English words that disappeared from English, however, still exist in Dutch: lichama = lichaam (body), gefaer = gevaar (danger), cnapa = knaap (boy), gesynt = gezond (healthy).
In the 15th century we encounter a phenomenon in the English language that linguistics call "the great vowel shift". This vowel shift is in fact responsible for this strange use of vowel symbols in English spelling: the aa sound from father changed to ee from name, the ee sound from mate changed to ie from meet, the i sound from bit turned into ai from knight. Obviously these are the sounds that English speakers have problems with in Dutch, not because they can't pronounce them, but because the English spelling doesn't reflect the pronunciation anymore.
Vocabulary
Nothing like the Norman Conquest or The Great Vowel Shift occurred in Dutch. Although from 1795 to 1813 the French occupied the Netherlands and French was the official language in that period, apart from importing a great number of French words, nothing drastic happened to the Dutch language. The history of the Dutch language over the last centuries is more a matter of lending and borrowing vocabulary. Many French, German and English words have been imported from our neighbours.
On the other hand it may surprise you that there are more than 2000 words of Dutch origin in English, many of them from the 17th century when the Dutch sailed all over the world attempting to acquire more colonies. Many words from the maritime trade (dok = dock, boei = buoy, wijting = whiting, jacht = yacht, vracht = freight, kielhalen = keelhaul), from painting (ezel = easel, landschap = landscape, ets = etch, schets = sketch) are of Dutch origin. The Dutch assisted the English in the American Liberation War and left words like koekje (= cookie), koolsla (= coleslaw), Yankees (from Jan and Kees) and daalder (now dollar).
In South Africa, also a former Dutch colony, the Dutch left a whole language, Afrikaans, based on 17th Century Dutch and since then quite simplified. Famous words: aardvarken (the first word in most English dictionaries), boer (= farmer), baas (= boss), and (unfortunately) the most famous Dutch word all over the world: apartheid.
Posted: Thu Jun 28, 2007 2:31 am Post subject: Re: Easiest languages for English speakers to learn
Porthos wrote:
Other than Scots,
In many ways, I'm not actually sure that Scots would be the easiest language for English speakers to learn, perhaps because it's almost too similar to English. I find it very difficult to imagine myself learning to 'speak fluent Scots', even though I'm moving to Scotland in less than three months.
Porthos wrote:
I would say Dutch is the easiest.
Even more than Afrikaans?
Porthos wrote:
Dutch and German syntax are definitely a problem for English speakers I would think. Take for instance, this sentence:
Dutch - Zij heeft gisteren de hele dag heel hard gewerkt.
English - They have yesterday the whole day very hard worked.
I don't see why that is 'definitely a problem'. Time, manner, place; infinitive or past participle always go to the end; conjugated verb is always in second place in a main clause, but goes to the end in a subordinate clause. Learn that once and apply it (almost) every time. It's easy.
Porthos wrote:
Dutch and German syntax are definitely a problem for English speakers I would think. Take for instance, this sentence:
Dutch - Zij heeft gisteren de hele dag heel hard gewerkt.
English - They have yesterday the whole day very hard worked.
I don't see why that is 'definitely a problem'. Time, manner, place; infinitive or past participle always go to the end; conjugated verb is always in second place in a main clause, but goes to the end in a subordinate clause. Learn that once and apply it (almost) every time. It's easy.
Let me think this this out, and compare it with a Latin langauge.
English - They worked very hard all day yesterday.
Nederlands - Zij heeft gisteren de hele dag heel hard gewerkt.
Espanol - Han trabajado muy dificilmente todo el dia ayer
The Spanish syntax is much more similar to the English one than the Dutch syntax is in that sentence.
Quote:
Even more than Afrikaans?
I don't know much about Afrikaans truthfully. For me, I might still say Dutch because I've read up on the language, and I know several of the core vocabulary words in Dutch. But I haven't really been exposed to Afrikaans and I've never learned anything in the language. I can count in Dutch, and I know a few common verbs and their conjugations, along with a few dozen core words, but I don't know any Afrikaans. Is Afrikaans more similar to English than Dutch is? _________________ Operation Northwoods - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods
Favorite languages = English/Spanish
Followed by Italian/French/Dutch
Let me think this this out, and compare it with a Latin langauge.
English - They worked very hard all day yesterday.
Nederlands - Zij heeft gisteren de hele dag heel hard gewerkt.
Espanol - Han trabajado muy dificilmente todo el dia ayer
The Spanish syntax is much more similar to the English one than the Dutch syntax is in that sentence.
It's still shouldn't be a 'problem' though. Whatever language you're learning, you still have to learn the word order, even when it's the same as in your native language — you cannot claim, for example, that Spanish word order is always the same as English (or that that of English is consistently more similar to that of Spanish than to that of Dutch). At least in Dutch, word order is consistent and predictable — something which is not the case in some languages.
Porthos wrote:
Is Afrikaans more similar to English than Dutch is?
It's not really a case of being 'more similar to English than Dutch is'. Afrikaans would be easier (from the perspective of a native English speaker) than Dutch in many ways though — no gendered articles, far fewer irregular nouns, no verb conjugation according to person/number, fewer tenses, and only two or five irregular verbs (depending on the dialect).
It's not really a case of being 'more similar to English than Dutch is'. Afrikaans would be easier (from the perspective of a native English speaker) than Dutch in many ways though — no gendered articles, far fewer irregular nouns, no verb conjugation according to person/number, fewer tenses, and only two or five irregular verbs (depending on the dialect).
Some comparitive examples would be nice to illustrate that.
Quote:
It's still shouldn't be a 'problem' though. Whatever language you're learning, you still have to learn the word order, even when it's the same as in your native language — you cannot claim, for example, that Spanish word order is always the same as English (or that that of English is consistently more similar to that of Spanish than to that of Dutch). At least in Dutch, word order is consistent and predictable — something which is not the case in some languages.
Sure it is. When attempting to speak in a foreign language you're not fluent in, you must often first translate in your head from your native language to the foreign language you're attempting to speak. So, you would have to compute the different word order in your brain before speaking, much like solving a math problem. It requires greater memorization and effort to re-arrange word order than when translating, instead of being able to translate word for word, without having to worry about the proper placement of words within the sentence. Even if you know the rules of the different syntax, applying those rules at the speed of oral communication in normal human interaction is not always so easy. Even in something as slow as written communication, foreign speakers of English on this website implement their own native constructs when writing in English.
Depending on the context, Romance languages can still be easier to understand than Germanic ones for English speakers, such as in academic texts, or any situation which calls for the frequent use of advanced vocabulary. Most advanced vocabulary in English is of Romance origin, whereas Dutch/German rely instead on compounds of basic stock Germanic words, which are often not as easily recognizable for an English speaker as the nearly identical Romance cognates are.
Here is a sample comparison of English, French, Spanish, and German direction manuals on the back of a hair styling product spray can I have.
English - Attention: Extremely Flammable
French - Attention: Extremement Inflammable
Spanish - Atencion: Extremadamente Inflamable
German - Warnhinweis: Hochentzundlich
Let it be known that I'm not trying to argue that English is a Romance language, or more similar to Romance languages overall than to Dutch/German. _________________ Operation Northwoods - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods
Favorite languages = English/Spanish
Followed by Italian/French/Dutch
It's not really a case of being 'more similar to English than Dutch is'. Afrikaans would be easier (from the perspective of a native English speaker) than Dutch in many ways though — no gendered articles, far fewer irregular nouns, no verb conjugation according to person/number, fewer tenses, and only two or five irregular verbs (depending on the dialect).
Some comparitive examples would be nice to illustrate that.
Dutch — Afrikaans — English
ik drink — ek drink — I drink
jij drinkt — jy drink — you drink (singular informal)
u drinkt — u drink — you drink (formal)
hij drinkt — hy drink — he drinks
zij drinkt — sy drink — she drinks
wij drinken — ons drink — we drink
jullie drinken — julle drink — you drink (plural informal)
zij drinken — hulle drink — they drink
ik dronk — ek het gedrink — I drank
jij dronk — jy het gedrink — you drank (singular informal)
u dronk — u het gedrink — you drank (formal)
hij dronk — hy het gedrink — he drank
zij dronk — sy het gedrink — she drank
wij dronken — ons het gedrink — we drank
jullie dronken — julle het gedrink — you drank (plural informal)
zij dronken — hulle het gedrink — they drank
ik heb gedronken — ek het gedrink — I have drunk
jij hebt gedronken — jy het gedrink — you have drunk (singular informal)
u hebt gedronken — u het gedrink — you have drunk (formal)
hij heeft gedronken — hy het gedrink — he has drunk
zij heeft gedronken — sy het gedrink — she has drunk
wij hebben gedronken — ons het gedrink — we have drunk
jullie hebben gedronken — julle het gedrink — you have drunk (plural informal)
zij hebben gedronken — hulle het gedrink — they have drunk
ik zal drinken — ek sal drink — I shall drink
jij zult drinken — jy sal drink — you shall drink (singular informal)
u zult drinken — u sal drink — you shall drink (formal)
hij zal drinken — hy sal drink — he shall drink
zij zal drinken — sy sal drink — she shall drink
wij zullen drinken — ons sal drink — we shall drink
jullie zullen drinken — julle sal drink — you shall drink (plural informal)
zij zullen drinken — hulle sal drink — they shall frink
Porthos wrote:
Sure it is. When attempting to speak in a foreign language you're not fluent in, you must often first translate in your head from your native language to the foreign language you're attempting to speak. So, you would have to compute the different word order in your brain before speaking, much like solving a math problem. It requires greater memorization and effort to re-arrange word order than when translating, instead of being able to translate word for word, without having to worry about the proper placement of words within the sentence. Even if you know the rules of the different syntax, applying those rules at the speed of oral communication in normal human interaction is not always so easy. Even in something as slow as written communication, foreign speakers of English on this website implement their own native constructs when writing in English.
When I went to Germany last year, having not really learnt German before, I made word-order mistakes for about the first three days. But after that, it was fine. Unless I'm grossly underestimating myself and am in fact simply brilliant at languages, I don't really think it's that difficult.
ik drink — ek drink — I drink
jij drinkt — jy drink — you drink (singular informal)
u drinkt — u drink — you drink (formal)
hij drinkt — hy drink — he drinks
zij drinkt — sy drink — she drinks
wij drinken — ons drink — we drink
jullie drinken — julle drink — you drink (plural informal)
zij drinken — hulle drink — they drink
ik dronk — ek het gedrink — I drank
jij dronk — jy het gedrink — you drank (singular informal)
u dronk — u het gedrink — you drank (formal)
hij dronk — hy het gedrink — he drank
zij dronk — sy het gedrink — she drank
wij dronken — ons het gedrink — we drank
jullie dronken — julle het gedrink — you drank (plural informal)
zij dronken — hulle het gedrink — they drank
ik heb gedronken — ek het gedrink — I have drunk
jij hebt gedronken — jy het gedrink — you have drunk (singular informal)
u hebt gedronken — u het gedrink — you have drunk (formal)
hij heeft gedronken — hy het gedrink — he has drunk
zij heeft gedronken — sy het gedrink — she has drunk
wij hebben gedronken — ons het gedrink — we have drunk
jullie hebben gedronken — julle het gedrink — you have drunk (plural informal)
zij hebben gedronken — hulle het gedrink — they have drunk
ik zal drinken — ek sal drink — I shall drink
jij zult drinken — jy sal drink — you shall drink (singular informal)
u zult drinken — u sal drink — you shall drink (formal)
hij zal drinken — hy sal drink — he shall drink
zij zal drinken — sy sal drink — she shall drink
wij zullen drinken — ons sal drink — we shall drink
jullie zullen drinken — julle sal drink — you shall drink (plural informal)
zij zullen drinken — hulle sal drink — they shall frink
Hmm, I see.... But it seems that Afrikaans uses "us" instead of "we". I know some British dialects do that as well, and I believe Low Saxon does that too.
Quote:
When I went to Germany last year, having not really learnt German before, I made word-order mistakes for about the first three days. But after that, it was fine. Unless I'm grossly underestimating myself and am in fact simply brilliant at languages, I don't really think it's that difficult.
Lol, that cracked me up. But for most people, mastering word order, (which involves retraining the brain) is a difficult task, especially when the word order doesn't always follow a particular rule. _________________ Operation Northwoods - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods
Favorite languages = English/Spanish
Followed by Italian/French/Dutch
English - Attention: Extremely Flammable
French - Attention: Extremement Inflammable
Spanish - Atencion: Extremadamente Inflamable
German - Warnhinweis: Hochentzundlich
Doesn't the German word 'Warnhinweis' look fairly similar to 'warning'? I think it could be possible to work that word out. The second word though, I believe hoch means high but the rest of it I haven't a clue.
English - Attention: Extremely Flammable
French - Attention: Extremement Inflammable
Spanish - Atencion: Extremadamente Inflamable
German - Warnhinweis: Hochentzundlich
Doesn't the German word 'Warnhinweis' look fairly similar to 'warning'? I think it could be possible to work that word out. The second word though, I believe hoch means high but the rest of it I haven't a clue.
You can say "extremely inflammable" in English, too.
warnen = to warn, hence the prefix "Warn-"
Hinweis = note, hint, reference etc.
As for the "second" word, i.e. hochentzündlich:
"hoch-" as a prefix means "highly"
entzündlich = (in)flammable (in this case - "Entzündung" and "entzündlich" have medical connotations as well) _________________ Az alvástól megéhezem. Az evéstől elálmosodom. Az élet szép.
I started learning Afrikaans last Dec. as my first foreign language. At first, especially with having no experience outside of English, all I saw were the differences, but now almost 8 months later I am having detailed conversations with people in Afrikaans with very passable grammar, and only reference a dictionary for a few words out of the conversation. Now all I can see in Afrikaans are the similarities in English and it just gets easier.
In my experience with Dutch so far (mostly only since I joined this forum), I think Afrikaans may be a bit easier for English speakers for all the reasons Benjamin listed above like no gendered articles, fewer tenses, etc. I did have to learn how to think outside of the continuous tense, but that didn't take as long as I thought it would :P. I have become able to read a lot of Dutch now though, as I learn the differences between Afrikaans and Dutch and can figure out a lot of the Dutch.. Dutch will probably be the next language that I tackle since I feel like I'm already halfway there.
Porthos wrote:
Hmm, I see.... But it seems that Afrikaans uses "us" instead of "we". I know some British dialects do that as well, and I believe Low Saxon does that too.
Actually 'ons' encompasses the english 'we', 'us', and 'our'
We are going to the supermarket.
Ons gaan na die supermark toe.
The car is for us.
Die kar is vir ons.
They are sitting at our table.
Hulle sit aan ons tafel.
Location: San Francisco, Noord-Kalifornië, Noord-Amerika
Posted: Sat Jun 30, 2007 10:53 pm Post subject:
I once had a friend who had to learn Afrikaans because he was a Mormon and his missionary assignment took him to South Africa. He thought it was very easy to learn.
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