What languages ​​are the easiest to learn for a Russian person. "Just like an orange!" The easiest foreign languages ​​to learn

Unfortunately, there is no universal answer to the question of which language is easiest to learn. First, it depends on what language is your native language. Secondly, on whether you already know any foreign languages. Thirdly, on your motivation: are you enthusiastic enough to start regular classes?

But suppose we are talking about a Russian-speaking person who is determined to learn a foreign language.

The easiest way for a native speaker of Russian will be to learn one of the languages ​​​​of the Slavic language group: Eastern (Ukrainian, Belarusian), Southern (Bulgarian, Serbo-Croatian, Slovenian) or Western Slavic (Czech, Polish, Slovak).

Next come the Romance languages: French, Portuguese, Italian, Spanish and others. Even English, many experts recommend studying after French to simplify the learning process. Dutch, for example, is best learned after English, and Yiddish after German.

Due to the complexity of Russian grammar, it is quite easy for native Russian speakers to master other languages, but there are stumbling blocks for us too. Thus, the Turkic languages ​​(Turkish, Azerbaijani, Tatar, Uzbek and others) or Finno-Ugric languages ​​(Hungarian, Finnish, etc.) are not easy for native speakers of the Russian language. It is not easy for foreigners (not only Russian speakers) with Chinese. At the same time, apparently, the most difficult thing is not to memorize hieroglyphs or cramming grammar - all this is quite comprehensible - it is most difficult for foreigners to cope with colloquial speech. The tonal system of pronunciation and the huge number of dialects make it difficult to interact with native Chinese speakers. It takes students several years to simply learn to understand Chinese speech. Many never reach the level of fluency in the language.

However, in some way, the division of languages ​​into simple and complex is nothing more than a convention. Polyglots say that after mastering three foreign languages, you can say that you will receive all the rest as a gift. At the very least, their study will be given to you very simply. In addition, it makes sense to focus primarily on the demand for languages ​​in general and on the need for these languages ​​specifically for you. Any language will be easy to learn when you are motivated, and not easy if you yourself do not fully understand why you are learning it.

There is also an opinion among scientists that the main thing in learning foreign languages ​​is to acquire basic knowledge: the most popular grammatical constructions and the minimum lexical set. Everything else, as they say, is a matter of technique, or rather, your perseverance and perseverance.

Teacher's advice:

Learning a foreign language becomes easier when you practice it a little every day. Each language has its own special sound. The more you listen to the language, the easier it is given. Reading helps build grammar and your vocabulary, so read every day. It doesn't matter if you listen to the news or music, whether you read a book, a magazine or a website, the most important thing is to do it a little every day.

Learning a language becomes easier when you practice a little every day. Every language has a different sound and the more you listen the easier it gets. Reading improves your grammar and vocabulary so read a little every day too. It doesn't matter if you listen to the news or music, or read a book, magazine or website, the important thing is to a little every day.

At school, many of us were faced with the fact that they were divided into groups of different foreign languages ​​according to completely incomprehensible signs, calling some languages ​​simple and others complex, some children capable of learning English, and others German. We often hear from different people that this language is simple and this one is complex. But how to evaluate, in fact, whether a language is complex or simple? What language to choose for a child so that it is easier for him to learn it? What language to learn yourself as a second or third, so that it is again easier? Which European language is more difficult for a Russian person to learn, and which one is easier? I used to ask myself often these questions, and here's what I think about it now.

What parameters are important when learning a foreign language?

Below you can see a summary comparative table of foreign languages, which summarizes the data on the degree of difficulty of learning these languages ​​for a Russian person

1. Pronunciation

In pronunciation, the most important thing is the presence of special sounds that are not in the native language. These sounds are difficult to pronounce at the time of the beginning of language learning, since different facial muscles are used to pronounce different sounds and the tongue is used differently as a muscular organ. When we actively use only part of our facial muscles, the rest will atrophy. Some of these atrophied muscles are very easy to "start" and start using them, others are more difficult. It takes practice, it takes habit. It is for this reason that the faces of foreigners and people who have lived in another country for a long time are often very different from our compatriots, while some subtle similarity can be found in their faces. It arises precisely due to the fact that people speak the same language and actively use the same facial muscles.

In German and Italian, there are no particularly difficult sounds for Russian people. In Italian, sounds just need to be pronounced brighter and more emotionally, and in German, harder and more specifically. Of course, there are some nuances of pronunciation. For example, in German there is a burry [p] and a muffled soft [x], but these sounds are familiar to a Russian person and it does not take much effort to master them.

Spanish has a few special sounds:

• Interdental [s] (you need to put your tongue between your teeth and say [s], i.e. such a lisping [s]), but this sound is used only in European Spanish, in Latin America they pronounce the usual [s])
• Something between the sounds [b] and [c] (both of these sounds are very muffled and they sound very similar)

In French, there are more special sounds and you “break the language” more strongly, while you are just starting to learn French. Here are the following special sounds for a Russian person:

• burry r
• nasal sounds
• Unusual combination of vowels and consonants

English is the most difficult of this group of languages ​​for pronunciation by a Russian person. It has such new sounds for us:

• Interdental s and s
• Bow n
• special sound r
• A wide variety of vowels that cannot even be expressed in Russian letters
• The presence of long and short sounds that affect the meaning of the word

Therefore, without an accent, it is much easier for a Russian person to speak Spanish, Italian and German. And in French and especially in English it is much more difficult. But with practice, anything is possible. Still, Russian people are lucky, our language has a lot of different sounds that allow us to train our facial muscles, and we are able to quickly start speaking other languages ​​​​without a strong accent. For example, the Spaniards cannot boast of this. Russian pronunciation is very difficult for them, due to the fact that their language does not have such a variety of consonant sounds.

1. Reading

Reading in a foreign language is considered easy if there are few rules for reading and there are practically no exceptions. Accordingly, it is considered difficult if there are many reading rules and exceptions to them.

According to this rule, German is nowhere easier. You will always be able to read any new unfamiliar word correctly with almost one hundred percent probability.

But English in this regard is a complete disorder. You can almost never be sure how a new word is read for you. English is a mixture of several other languages ​​(it has a lot of French, Spanish and German words), so there are many rules for reading, and even more exceptions to them. In addition, in English, even the context affects how to read the same combination of letters. For example, the phrases “I read” and “I read” are written in the same way “Iread”, and they are read in the first case [ai read], and in the second [ai red], and if you do not know the context of this phrase, then how to read it correctly completely unclear. In general, to read English correctly, you just need to know how each word is read. Therefore, it becomes easy to read in English only when you have a large enough vocabulary.

Reading French is not that very difficult, but it has its own peculiarities. Some letters are not readable at all, and some are read only in certain cases, and there is also such a thing as word chaining, that is, a group of words in certain situations is read as one word. But if you know all these features, then it gradually turns out that reading French is not so difficult.

1. Spelling

Spelling refers to how difficult it is to write down a new word correctly by ear. In this regard, the Russian language itself is very complicated, since we often say “a” and write “o”, or we say “i”, and write “e”, but there are a lot of other rules. That is why few people at school have “excellent” in the Russian language. But not all languages ​​are like that.

It's hard to get it wrong in German. In Spanish and Italian, you can make a mistake, but also very rarely.

But writing in French and English is very difficult. There are a lot of letters in French that are not pronounced, but written, and one sound is transmitted by three or four letters. A simple example, the word beaucoup (a lot) is read [side], and there are twice as many letters.

In English, the same sound can be transmitted by several different combinations of letters, and the same letter can be read in different situations as many as 7 different sounds.

To write correctly in French, you just need to know a lot of rules, but in English you just need to know how EVERY word is spelled, otherwise you have a lot of chances to make a mistake.

1. Vocabulary

Vocabulary is vocabulary. Vocabulary complexity can be judged by how easy it is to learn new words. It is easy to learn new words if they are short, if they consist of several other words you already know, or if many other words can be formed from one root using different prefixes and endings.

In this regard, German is again a very simple language. There are few short words, but there are a lot of single-root words or compound words. Therefore, vocabulary is gained very quickly, and even gradually you yourself learn to invent German words that you have not heard before.

This is unlikely to work for you in English. There are a lot of short words in English, especially those that are used in everyday speech, so it is very easy to start learning English words. But it is very difficult to gain vocabulary, since there are practically no single-root and compound words. Each word needs to be learned anew, associations do not work. In addition, due to the fact that English is a mixture of several languages, it has a lot of synonyms from different languages ​​that you have to learn in order to simply understand your interlocutor. In order to speak, one can have fewer words in the active vocabulary.

1. Grammar

Knowledge of grammar is understood as the ability to correctly connect words together into meaningful phrases, not at the level of "my yours to understand." It is not easy to assess the complexity of the grammar of any language at first glance, each has its own difficulties, and each of them, on the contrary, simplifies something. Therefore, it is better to compare them on several parameters. See the table below first.

Please note that I give this assessment only from the point of view of spoken language, that is, I consider only those grammatical structures that are regularly used in speech. For example, out of 9 English tenses, only 3-5 are used in real life. And in German and Spanish, present tense verbs can be used with the appropriate context to convey the future tense.

In English, only word order is relatively complicated, since the question is not set by a simple change in intonation, but a rearrangement of words is also necessary, and sometimes the addition of auxiliary verbs. The conjugation of verbs in colloquial speech is very simple: only the ending in the 3rd person singular changes, and in the future and past tense, you can generally use the same construction for all persons and numbers (will + verb, verb + ed). The only difficulty with English verbs is the presence of a relatively large number of irregular verbs that are not declined according to the rule, and you just need to remember their forms, but these irregular verbs are in all languages, and you can’t hide from them anywhere J Pronouns, articles, nouns and adjectives generally do not decline by gender and case. The plural of a noun is formed using the same ending -s. The form of adjectives never changes at all.

In Spanish, Italian and French, all grammar rules are very similar. Only Spaniards and Italians have a simpler attitude to word order, there are practically no rules (only the place of the verb and adjectives play a role), and the question can be asked simply by changing your intonation. Although the French in colloquial speech are increasingly beginning to simplify their speech. Verbs in these languages ​​are conjugated by gender and number, their endings change, but to convey the future tense, you can use the present tense and add only the context, and the past tense is formed using the verbs to be / have in the appropriate conjugation + participial form from the semantic verb, that is, you only need to know the conjugation of the verbs to be and to have in the corresponding language. Pronouns, articles, nouns and adjectives decline in similar ways in these languages, but French has more exceptions.

The German language does not please us with its grammar. There are many difficulties in it. But it all obeys clear rules, there are few exceptions. The order of the words is strict, the intonation is not particularly helpful. Verbs have a special place in a sentence, especially compound ones. The plural of nouns is formed according to several rules. Nouns, adjectives, articles and pronouns are declined by gender, case and number just like in Russian. But, for example, in German there are no auxiliary verbs, as in English.

In general, in each language, grammar is simple or complex in its own way. But still, of these 5 champions in terms of the rules you need to know in order to speak correctly in spoken language, German is ahead of the others. But in all other respects (reading, spelling, pronunciation, vocabulary), the German language is very simple.

There are no simple languages. Unless for Russians, Belarusian or Ukrainian 🙂 But you can choose for yourself those parameters that are easier for you and use them to choose a foreign language for yourself or for your child if you are going to teach him.

In Russia, most people prefer English. This is due to the demand for this language in the world and its international status, but English is not the easiest language for Russian people to learn. Maybe you studied English, maybe it was difficult for you, and this article helped you understand why. So maybe you and your children should choose to study another foreign language, and return to English later. The second foreign language is always much easier to learn than the first.

You may find other articles on this topic useful:

More information about each language can be found here.

It would seem that the answer should be obvious - the easiest way would be to learn English. For beginners, however, it is unlikely to be elementary - if you took your first steps in it back in school, then you simply don’t remember how much pronunciation, irregular verbs and numerous exceptions to the rules cost you how much torment.

Oddly enough, experts recommend learning German first, learning English after that will be an easy task. In addition, with knowledge of German, all the Scandinavian languages ​​\u200b\u200bare much easier for you, as well as Dutch (if you suddenly want to master it for some reason).

Which language is easier to learn first

If we talk about you and me, native speakers of the Russian language, then, of course, we will quickly master the languages ​​​​of the Slavic group. These are Ukrainian and Belarusian (although why learn them?), then Bulgarian and Serbo-Croatian come in ascending order of difficulty, and Czech and Polish will become the most difficult, but within the normal range.

European languages ​​are the next among those that are easily submitted to the Russian people. If your goal is to speak as quickly as possible, then choose Spanish and Italian. You will have to tinker with the grammar of German, as well as with the pronunciation and spelling of French.

Scandinavian, Turkic and Finno-Ugric languages ​​are the next level of difficulty for Russians. Hebrew, Arabic and Oriental languages ​​(Chinese, Japanese) close the rating.

What is the best language to learn second?

English for beginners will not be such an easy task, but after it all European languages ​​will go a little easier, which cannot be said about, for example, oriental ones - everything has to be mastered again. It is worth learning German for the sake of the subsequent development of Czech, Polish, English and Scandinavian languages.

Forewarned is forearmed

Don't be afraid of difficulties: learning foreign languages ​​is not easy, no matter which one you choose. In addition, your desire, ability to speak languages, the amount of time that you are willing to devote to classes is of great importance. The complexity of grammar or pronunciation is a purely subjective concept, based on the opinion of the majority. It is possible that you are brilliant at reproducing unfamiliar speech aloud or have a phenomenal memory, and therefore are able to master any grammar.

Fear nothing - any language will submit to those who have a strong desire for knowledge!

Read about how to choose a foreign language for learning.

At school, my foreign language was French. At the same time, most of them studied English as a foreign language. In our class, 5 people were chosen, who were assigned French. And I was extremely lucky with the first French teacher. Then just as lucky with the teacher at the Lyceum. And already at the university, passing the language exam, I often talked on the topic of foreign languages ​​with students from the Faculty of Linguistics. And often argued about which language is easiest to learn.

What is the easiest language to learn

There are a lot of languages, more or less popular in the world - about 40. It is clear that it is unrealistic to compare 40 languages, so I will try to compare the most-most, namely:

• English.
• French.
• Spanish.
• Italian.
• German.
• Chinese.

Chinese is the most popular language in the world, with about 2.5 times more native speakers of this language than native speakers of English. I remember turning a Chinese explanatory dictionary in my hands, so I didn’t even understand how to use it. Definitely the hardest one on my list. German has always seemed to be a very difficult language., and this opinion was confirmed by some of my friends who moved to Germany for permanent residence.

But, at the same time, according to statistics, Germany is popular for Russian-speaking emigrants, and all of them, in general, despite the grumbling, successfully master German. And, in addition, students from the Faculty of Linguistics, whose profile was German language, they assured me that it not as complicated as it seems at first glance, and that for a Russian-speaking person it is not at all so difficult to learn it.

There are many people who think that it is easiest for a Russian person to learn Italian. Because Italian pronunciation will be the least of all problems. Well, the language is beautiful. I have never learned this language, but considering that, say, our football players (and football players are not chess players after all - I think you understand what I mean) Italian is mastered much faster than German, I can believe that it is not so difficult.

English is at least morally easier to learn than others, after all, the language of international communication, you immediately understand all the advantages of knowing English. French is considered difficult by many. In French, unlike the same English, words are declined, plus very often at the end of words many letters are not readable. Based on my experience and communication with people who have studied foreign languages, I think that Italian is the easiest to learn. A little more difficult German, English and Spanish. French is even more difficult.

Who among us has not dreamed of learning at least one foreign language? But someone was lucky enough to chat almost from birth in several languages, and someone cannot learn English for a lifetime, which is spoken on all continents.

There are many reasons why a foreign language is not given: lack of ability, poor memory, laziness, incorrectly drawn up educational programs, lack of motivation and the difficulty of a particular language for you. The more similar this foreign language is to your native language, the easier it is for you to learn it. If you know Russian, you will quickly learn another of the Slavic languages. If you speak Farsi, you can easily master Arabic, one of the most difficult languages ​​in the world.

Of course, it is easier for Europeans to learn languages ​​that are written in Latin or Cyrillic rather than in hieroglyphs. But everything is relative. The determining factor in any new business, including language learning, is motivation. If you like to learn Japanese or Arabic, you will find this language much easier than, for example, English or German, which you had to cram for 10 years at school.

TOP-5 from American researchers

And yet, the US Department of Foreign Affairs compiled the TOP 5 easiest languages ​​\u200b\u200bof the world. There was only one criterion - the language is simple, if it takes no more than 600 hours of intensive study to study it. If more time is needed, the language is difficult. It is important that this rating was compiled for those who speak English.

According to this classification, one of the easiest is considered English language. Because there is no gender and case in it, the words do not need to be coordinated with each other. In Russian, we do not hesitate to change the endings of words, but for foreigners it is more difficult than solving problems in higher mathematics and quantum physics combined.

English words are relatively short compared to, for example, Finnish. The grammar is very simple, and in colloquial speech it is further simplified. Often, native speakers themselves deviate from academic rules and specifically do not use complex speech structures. Confirmation that English is a simple language is obvious - it is spoken by the whole planet. Over 60 countries! Even in India, it is the second state.

It is considered simple Spanish language. There is no need to learn transcription: as the word is written, so it is read. It also has a simple grammar, with almost no exceptions. It is easy to learn for those who know English - these languages ​​are similar in many ways. If you want to learn a foreign language, start with Spanish. Connoisseurs say that he learns easier than all European ones. Today it is spoken by approximately 0.5 billion people, many of whom live in Mexico and Argentina.

Similar to English and Spanish yet Italian, which is also called one of the easiest. He, like the rest of the Indo-European languages, "grew" from Latin. Therefore, it also lacks cases, declensions, and agreement of words. Italian words are written the same way they are heard. If you want to learn as many languages ​​as possible, after Spanish, start learning its "relative" - ​​Italian.

To simple languages, American researchers include French. But this is a moot point, because the grammar in it is more complicated than in English. It is also difficult for a foreigner to learn to “burr” and pronounce the grassing “r” correctly. French is easy for those who know English or German. But, if it becomes your first foreign language, you will have to spend a lot of time learning it. By the way, French was once more common than English, but then took second place. Today, French is spoken in 14 countries, and in total - 130 million people.

Completing this list is an artificial language. Esperanto, designed specifically for international communication. It is based on words that are understandable without translation, and in total 16 grammatical rules are used. To master it, you will need no more than 6 months. It is not official in any state, therefore it is not very common. Esperanto is spoken by no more than 3 million people - almost none compared to English.

Polish is considered one of the easiest languages ​​for Russian speakers. And Greek will be easier to learn for those who know the Slavic languages. But the English language of Hellas will be more difficult.

The ease of a language also depends on the environment in which you learn it. It is ideal to go to the "homeland" and study it there. In three months in Germany, you can learn German better than in all the years of study at school and university. If there is no opportunity to go to a language practice, you can try to artificially immerse yourself in the language environment: watch films without translation and read books, communicate with foreigners online. Today, the Internet gives us endless possibilities for learning any language. The main thing is your desire and motivation. If this is not the case, any foreign language will seem difficult.

It is believed that any language is easier to learn in the game than cramming and trying to remember new words and grammar. To be honest, I couldn't put it down! Try it! I am sure that one difficult language will be less for you!

I wish you good luck in learning your favorite foreign languages!