Is English an easy language to learn?

[garbon]

German is easier for me to read & write (and to listen to, to some extent) than it is to speak.  I have to rehearse something a few times to speak it correctly and even then I might get it wrong.  I get angrily jealous whenever I hear little German kids speaking it perfectly without effort

It was really useful to me when I took that German conversational course before I'd ever learned how to spell any German words.

[derspiess]

The only remotely useful language to me would be French (we work with a lot of French people in my industry). However I already speak two romance languages; seems overkill.

French is never overkill.   

I can figure out a lot of written French based on what I know of Spanish.  It's like a more elegant form of Spanish.  Italian seems like a "cooler" version of Spanish, while Portuguese is just wacky and not nearly as similar to Spanish as I would have thought. 

[garbon]

It's like a more elegant form of Spanish.  Italian seems like a "cooler" version of Spanish

I think these might say more about your views of Spanish then anything else.

[Admiral Yi]

I tend to agree.  Spanish to me sounds more utilitarian than artsy-fartsy.

[Norgy]

For Scandinavians, English is easier because we are exposed to it a lot.
German is actually a lot easier once you get to grips with the grammar. We Nordic types have more problems learning Latin languages or anything remotely Slavic.
Russian and Polish make me want to just push a pencil so far up my nose I can tickle my frontal lobe.

[derspiess]

I think these might say more about your views of Spanish then anything else.

Well, it's something I've known in some form since 9th grade.  So it's kind of old hat.  I love the language, but it's almost become plain.

[Camerus]

FWIW, I taught English for several years and can speak decent German, French and Mandarin Chinese.  IMO...

French - Relatively easy vocabulary for an English speaker, but tricky pronunciation and certain elements of grammar. Oral language is much harder than written language.  If I were, say, a Chinese speaker learning French or English, I imagine I would find French the more difficult of the two.

German - Words are almost always spelled exactly as they are pronounced, which is wonderful, and I find the spoken language clearer and easier to understand than French.  Personally what I find difficult are the large number of similar sounding verbs but with different prefixes that change the meaning.  I actually find the grammar less complicated than French, in spite of the cases, which are easy enough to get the hang of fairly quickly.  Though it has 3 genders for its nouns compared to 2 for French, I never found learning gender together with a noun difficult for some reason. 

Mandarin Chinese:  Grammar is generally simple and straightforward.  The most difficult parts of learning Chinese are the relatively few sounds that exist in Mandarin, which makes it IMO easy to confuse words, a problem complicated by tones.  Also, the huge number of dialects make understanding Chinese from region to region (especially as spoken by the older / less educated) extremely difficult.  Speaking with young educated people (who can generally speak very good standard Mandarin) is a lot easier.

English:  I can't speak to it objectively because it's my native language.  However, my sense from having taught it for a few years is that common difficulties with English are:  pronunciation of unfamiliar words is difficult given the non-phonetic spelling of many words, past and conditional tenses (especially for non-Indo-European speakers), idioms, and a supposedly larger vocabulary (e.g. pork, pig, swine).

[Valmy]

French - Relatively easy vocabulary for an English speaker, but tricky pronunciation and certain elements of grammar. Oral language is much harder than written language.  If I were, say, a Chinese speaker learning French or English, I imagine I would find French the more difficult of the two.

Huh.  Weird I thought the oral version was much easier, the wacky spelling does not come into play.

[Valmy]

French

I also have French ancestry (yuck), hell, my mother still sort of speaks it.

Man you are lucky I heard this after I could have gone and heckled your friend at SXSW

[Camerus]

French - Relatively easy vocabulary for an English speaker, but tricky pronunciation and certain elements of grammar. Oral language is much harder than written language.  If I were, say, a Chinese speaker learning French or English, I imagine I would find French the more difficult of the two.

Huh.  Weird I thought the oral version was much easier, the wacky spelling does not come into play.

Maybe it's from how I learned it in school, which was all about the reading and less about the listening and speaking.  But for whatever reason, I guess I just found it easier understanding the huge number of cognates in writing rather than by listening.  However, I've gradually gotten better at understanding the spoken language thanks to Radio Canada and Youtube documentaries.   

[Sophie Scholl]

So... what's an easy/easier language to learn?  Any thoughts?  I dabbled with Spanish in High School and Dutch in College.

the one you'll get the more exposure to.  If you live in China or travel there frequently, it won't be so hard to pick up, I guess.
If you try alone to learn Chinese while never having the opportunity to hear it and speak it, you'll likely fail.

Hmm... where I live, Bosnian or Khmer would be popular second languages that I would actually encounter.  Alas, outside of Utica, NY and their native locations, they aren't widely used.  I've contemplated learning French, German, or Polish for a while.  We shall see what I end up with.

[dps]

French - Relatively easy vocabulary for an English speaker, but tricky pronunciation and certain elements of grammar. Oral language is much harder than written language.  If I were, say, a Chinese speaker learning French or English, I imagine I would find French the more difficult of the two.

Huh.  Weird I thought the oral version was much easier, the wacky spelling does not come into play.

I did poorly in French when I took it in H.S., but I found written French much easier than oral.  I think my bad hearing played a part in that, though.  Heck, I have enough trouble making out what people are saying when they're speaking English, even other people from southern WV who are supposedly speaking the same dialect as I am.

[viper37]

Huh.  Weird I thought the oral version was much easier, the wacky spelling does not come into play.

What wacky spelling?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioUK6I73_bk

[mongers]

French - Relatively easy vocabulary for an English speaker, but tricky pronunciation and certain elements of grammar. Oral language is much harder than written language.  If I were, say, a Chinese speaker learning French or English, I imagine I would find French the more difficult of the two.

Huh.  Weird I thought the oral version was much easier, the wacky spelling does not come into play.

I did poorly in French when I took it in H.S., but I found written French much easier than oral. I think my bad hearing played a part in that, though.  Heck, I have enough trouble making out what people are saying when they're speaking English, even other people from southern WV who are supposedly speaking the same dialect as I am.

Same problem here, I was utterly useless at languages at school. I recently got some spanish language 'tapes' to learn with, because they used an authentic spanish speaking woman, I could literally not decipher a single word to repeat and that was with full volume and using headphone.   

Yesterday I was at the supermarket till and the cashier said something and I said, "sorry my hearing isn't good today", which it wasn't and it was a slightly noisy environment, and she thought I was being rude and using it as an excuse not to engage in conversation.

[Razgovory]

From the recent events in Iraq it seems to be a going Caliphate.

Not in Spain.