Easy language to learn

[halocog]

What is an easy, but useful language to learn?

[OregonNative]

If you are a native English speaker, I'd recommend one of the following.

German
French
Spanish

All three are useful, and easy enough to learn. French may be the most difficult on the list, but it's not terrible.

[fcamel]

What is an easy, but useful language to learn?

Spanish.

[Jean]

English is probably the easiest.
French is difficult.
Swedish seems to be one of the easiest languages, but its usefulness is debatable.
I'd recommand Italian.

[halocog]

I'm a native English speaker. Right now I'm thinking either German or Swedish. Is Russian hard?

[Jean]

Yes, Russian is quite hard, and German is not so easy.
Take a look at Swedish: http://www.ielanguages.com/swedish.html
It doesn't look too difficult, at first sight at least.

[OregonNative]

Look at German, seriously. It's super easy. There are so many words that are similar that you could almost guess what people are saying 1/2 the time. I speak both English & German (grew up in a German-American family) and can vouch for the ease of German. If you are a native English speaker (which you said you are) then you will have little difficulty picking up German.

German is also a great business language as there is a ton of business being done within Germany and through trade with Germany. It's a very widespread language in Europe, and it is even common in some parts of the United States. All the love in the world to our Swedish brothers & sisters, but you will find much more use with German compared to Swedish.

German vs. Swedish

German
100+ million speakers
Native language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, & many parts of Belgium.

Swedish
10 million speakers
Native language in Sweden, & Finland.

What it boils down to is, what do you want to use the language for? I grew up with English & German, but I use Germany to communicate with family. I've spent 3 years in/out of China and learned Mandarin as a business language. I've learned some Arabic for friends, travel, and simply because it's a beautiful language and it's something I've wanted to learn for ages.

If you want to learn just for fun, then learn whatever you want bro! If you wanted something functional then I'd suggest German, Spanish, or French. Being in the United States, those would be the 3 you would most likely come in contact with (Spanish obviously being the most likely). If you are looking at a business language, I'd suggest German, Mandarin/Cantonese (Chinese), Arabic, or Japanese.

[Jean]

German is more useful than Swedish, certainly.
It's also pobably relatively easy from English.
Likewise, Italian is relatively easy from French.

[halocog]

I'd like to learn for fun, possible business and immigration purposes. I'd like to get citizenship somewhere, and most places require you know two languages.

[OregonNative]

I'd like to learn for fun, possible business and immigration purposes. I'd like to get citizenship somewhere, and most places require you know two languages.

So ask yourself bro, where do you want to live? Once you figure that out, it'll be an easy answer.

[Skell18]

German and Spanish are gateway languages, once you know Spanish, Italian is easy to learn, once you can speak German, dutch and Afrikaans are simple. I found German realitvely easy as I can speak Afrikaans, I can read dutch easy enough but some pronunciations are different from Afrikaans to Dutch, German is just simply changing a few bits here and there from Afrikaans and you can bumble through.

Don't learn welsh though, only about 3 people speak it in the whole world, bad enough I have to put up with the road signs being bilingual here without being in the post office and hearing someone say 'position number 4 please' then something that sounds like a footballer clearning his nose said afterwards, that would be welsh! lol

[halocog]

LOL, I considered Welsh, because I'm Welsh (both mother and father's family a couple of generations back). If I understood correctly, aren't they sort of the rednecks of the United Kingdom? haha

[Skell18]

LOL, I considered Welsh, because I'm Welsh (both mother and father's family a couple of generations back). If I understood correctly, aren't they sort of the rednecks of the United Kingdom? haha

Sheep shaggers yes lol Seriously though, don't learn it, those that do speak it would want to sacrifice you to some pagan whatever and are a rather odd bunch! The majority of people in wales don't speak it or want to, you would be better learning how to speak cat

[devilock76]

Since you are in the US I would suggest Spanish. Chinese is also very valuable to learn but from the bit I have tried to capture it is much harder for a native english speaker to grasp.

Ken

[lxskllr]

Irish is incomprehensible, but interesting. I';d like to live in Ireland.

German seems easy to me as an English speaker, but I've heard from others it's difficult. I'd like to live in Bavaria.

You really should know some Spanish because a large portion of people in the USA speak it exclusively. It's also fairly easy. I don't especially want to live anywhere Spanish is commonly spoken.

Scandinavian languages are interesting. Not very useful, but I'd live in any of the countries. I've heard Icelandic is closer to old Norse than Norwegian is. I'd learn that.