🤔 What is the easiest language to learn if you’re a Spanish speaker?
What is the easiest language to learn if you are a Spanish speaker? And the most difficult?
If among your resolutions or purposes for this new course that has just started is to study a new language, the question that immediately arises is where to start? As a Spanish speaker, do you think there are some languages that are easier than others or more difficult to study?
In this article we will try to answer these questions, given the accumulated experiences in the world of language.
What is the easiest language for a Spanish speaker?
The specialists assure that it is impossible to establish criteria of better or worse due to the ease or difficulty in learning a foreign language; However, it cannot be hidden that there are some generalities that are worth highlighting.
They also agree that languages with the same origin , that is, romances (Portuguese, French, Italian, Catalan, Galician, Romanian, etc.), having very similar structures, are easier for a Spanish- speaker to learn.
It is quite clear that if the teaching is based on grammatical comparison or contrast, it can be straightforward for an adult who has basic knowledge of their own grammar, the related languages.
It sounds easy, but is it?
It seems logical that when a Spanish speaker studies a language such as Portuguese, for example, it may be easy for him to understand it, however, according to specialists, what seems easy, it is not always . The apparent ease of the first moment, on many occasions makes us forget the many difficulties, because they tend to go unnoticed.
Perhaps, to a large part of the Spanish speakers who do not know that Romanian is a Neo-Latin language “it may seem exotic and distant”. But when confronting written Romanian without prejudice, as has happened so many times, they will realize that there is a certain closeness even if the language is not known, as happens with other languages of the same linguistic family.
According to studies carried out at the University of Granada on the adaptation of migrant children from Romania to Spain, “the high level of adaptation that these children have in the European educational system, especially in French and Spanish, is surprising.”
What are the main language disorders and how to detect them
For many who have Spanish as their native language, studying English is a great challenge , because students have assumed that English is quite a complicated language, until they finally understand that English grammar is based on a logical sequence and much more simplified than the Spanish grammar you are used to. In summary, learning a new language can be easy at some of its levels and not at others.
In the case of German , it can be much easier for a Spanish speaker in terms of pronunciation than French and Portuguese, but not in writing. However, when it comes to German grammar, it is very different from Spanish and becomes extremely difficult.
For a Spanish speaker there are difficulties in learning languages whose phonetic system differs from that of Spanish , as is the case with French. Now, outside of the set of Romance languages and in terms of sounds, contrary to popular belief, there is a language that would be easier for a Spanish speaker to learn: Japanese.
Indeed, Japanese boasts very basic sounds that are also very similar to those of Spanish. So the pronunciation is very similar between both languages.
The hardest
Languages that do not have our alphabet are often the most difficult for a Spanish speaker to learn. Of course, the languages furthest from the grammar of Spanish are the most complex to learn, as is the case with Arabic or Chinese.
- “First, because they are not languages that are spoken on a daily basis”, in the context in which we live.
- “Second, because there is no measurement system that allows the student to feel that he is making progress.
- And third, because Spanish has 27 spellings, while Mandarin, for example, has more than 250 thousand ”.
Other factors that affect the study of a language
There are other factors in the success of learning a second language. Like the volume of exposure outside the class, or the history of languages that the person has. For example, studying English can be difficult at first for a Spanish speaker. However, once the structures are understood, learning the language is easy enough.
Some experts assure that the more languages are handled, even without mastering it fully, the easier it is to learn and master another.
Certain aspects such as the obligation and survival in that foreign language, makes the person look for other methods to communicate.
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