Is English an easy language to learn?

[viper37]

I'm considering attempting some basic level of Spanish - it would be useful if I keep up with the 'visiting Mayan ruins' hobby. Is Spanish considered a hard language to learn?

depens on the teacher, I guess.  I had a Che loving anti-american socialist teacher for my introductory class to spanish.  And a class filled with people who already spoke spanish.  An experience similar to your mandarin class, in that regard.

[Siege]

When I was in school, our teachers told us that English was a very difficult language to learn.  I didn't quite buy that, I mean I get by with it.  Hell I picked it up fairly early.  Now that I'm older I look at other languages and it doesn't have things like grammatical gender, or bizarre cases like "instrumental".  It's not tonal and has an alphabet which seems to make it easier then say, Chinese.    Spelling and syntax can be a bit of a chore, but "good enough" acceptable in most settings.  Now I know a lot of your learned English in school, so this is more directed at you guys.  Was it difficult?


Also, I had a teacher that taught us that when no one is looking, the French secretly speak German rather then their ridiculous difficult language and that the French language is actually a way to trip up foreigners.  I don't know if that's true either.

Englese is very easy to learn to read, somewhat easy to write, hard to spell, and extremely dificult to pronounce correctly.

[Malthus]

I'm considering attempting some basic level of Spanish - it would be useful if I keep up with the 'visiting Mayan ruins' hobby. Is Spanish considered a hard language to learn?

depens on the teacher, I guess.  I had a Che loving anti-american socialist teacher for my introductory class to spanish.  And a class filled with people who already spoke spanish.  An experience similar to your mandarin class, in that regard.

I'd probably try the self-study thing, with something like Rosetta Stone.

Anyone here attempted that?

[Siege]

I'm considering attempting some basic level of Spanish - it would be useful if I keep up with the 'visiting Mayan ruins' hobby. Is Spanish considered a hard language to learn?

depens on the teacher, I guess.  I had a Che loving anti-american socialist teacher for my introductory class to spanish.  And a class filled with people who already spoke spanish.  An experience similar to your mandarin class, in that regard.

Why would people who already spoke spanish go to a spanish class?
Are spaniards stupid?

[derspiess]

One thing I would warn you about Malthus, is if you get used to listening to Latin Americans speak Spanish, Spaniards can sound like bees buzzing.

Explain.  For me it's a breath of fresh air to hear Spaniards speak.  It's the way I learned it.

[Admiral Yi]

Explain.  For me it's a breath of fresh air to hear Spaniards speak.  It's the way I learned it.

Hablan muy rapido.

[derspiess]

I'd probably try the self-study thing, with something like Rosetta Stone.

Anyone here attempted that?

Everyone I know who has used it seems to have liked it.  I haven't used it but I've played around with that Livemocha free crowd-sourced language learning site that they bought. 

[Siege]

One thing I would warn you about Malthus, is if you get used to listening to Latin Americans speak Spanish, Spaniards can sound like bees buzzing.

Explain.  For me it's a breath of fresh air to hear Spaniards speak.  It's the way I learned it.

Me too. I cannot understand mexicans no matter how slow they speak.

"Andele guero, meta cochinga!"
"Hummm...que dijo?"

[Valmy]

Why would people who already spoke spanish go to a spanish class?
Are spaniards stupid?

They do it all the time in Texas. They want an easy A. But it makes Spanish classes pretty crap if you actually want to learn the language.

[derspiess]

Explain.  For me it's a breath of fresh air to hear Spaniards speak.  It's the way I learned it.

Hablan muy rapido.

In my experience they speak more clearly and I can't recall much of a difference in tempo.

[Siege]

Explain.  For me it's a breath of fresh air to hear Spaniards speak.  It's the way I learned it.

Hablan muy rapido.

Everybody does, in every language.
When I say somebody speaks fast, its ussually because I do not speak that languish that well, like italian. Have you ever seen a calabresi speaking slow?

[Josquius]

With French.... It is just so disheartening to try to learn. People don't attempt to understand poor grammar and bad pronunciation , it's just  straight to "you can't speak French".

Huh. Everybody in both Angers and Nice practically gave me a hug when they found out I spoke French, even heavily American accented French. But maybe it is as Viper says and it is just Paris.

But on the Riviera it was usually 'Oh thank God a foreigner who speaks French!'

I'm in Romandie.
Though half of the people here do seem to be from Paris.

[Duque de Bragança]

Explain.  For me it's a breath of fresh air to hear Spaniards speak.  It's the way I learned it.

Hablan muy rapido.

Everybody does, in every language.
When I say somebody speaks fast, its ussually because I do not speak that languish that well, like italian. Have you ever seen a calabresi speaking slow?

Siege has a point there, but Mexicans actually speak faster than Spaniards . As to what Spaniards speak, careful about the Andalusian dialect.
Anyways, it's not like there's a unified Latin American speak. At least Castilians make it easy to distinguish s from c/z before vowels and some even keep the ll/y different (distinction is disappearing though unfortunately).

[Duque de Bragança]

With French.... It is just so disheartening to try to learn. People don't attempt to understand poor grammar and bad pronunciation , it's just  straight to "you can't speak French".

I'm in Romandie.
Though half of the people here do seem to be from Paris.

As a matter of fact, the Romands are supposed to speak way slower than other Francophones.

[Josquius]

So I'm told. But its rare to meet them.