Easiest language and Hardest language (to learn)

[yxc qwert!]

easiest language for me is -English
-Indonesian (for example: something in plural is somethingsomething)

hardest: -Hungarian (my german friend learns Hungarian)
-German ( my hungarian friend learns German)

[Igor1981]

easiest languages are - Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Czech, Slovak, Serbian, Slovenian, Croatian, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Spanish and Italian.

hardest: - Chinese, Japan, Arabian, French, English, Hungarian.
In Hungarian I can say only one sentence: "Lengyel Magyar két jó barát, eggyütt harcol s issza borát"

[Panzerbear]

English is by far the easiest language to learn. very simplistic grammar structure and small vocabulary.

As far as hardest languages go - we have a problem, because there are a lot of them are very hard for foreigner to learn. especially those who have either a different alphabet (cyrillic, greek) or even asian characters.

[Erwin Rommel]

SMALL VOCABULARY???!!! it hought these laguage can last to a million words!!

[Niles Crane]

English is by far the easiest language to learn. very simplistic grammar structure and small vocabulary.

Since when does English have a small vocabulary? Does the Russian language have more than 500 000 words?

[FirstManOnTheMoon]

Philologists estimate that the Russian language today contains as many as 650000-800000 words.

[Niles Crane]

English has an extraordinarily rich vocabulary and willingness to absorb new words. As the General Explanations at the beginning of the Oxford English Dictionary states:
“ The Vocabulary of a widely diffused and highly cultivated living language is not a fixed quantity circumscribed by definite limits... there is absolutely no defining line in any direction: the circle of the English language has a well-defined centre but no discernible circumference. ”

The vocabulary of English is undoubtedly vast, but assigning a specific number to its size is more a matter of definition than of calculation. Unlike other languages, there is no Academy to define officially accepted words. Neologisms are coined regularly in medicine, science and technology and other fields, and new slang is constantly developed. Some of these new words enter wide usage; others remain restricted to small circles. Foreign words used in immigrant communities often make their way into wider English usage. Archaic, dialectal, and regional words might or might not be widely considered as "English".

The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition (OED2) includes over 600,000 definitions, following a rather inclusive policy:
“ It embraces not only the standard language of literature and conversation, whether current at the moment, or obsolete, or archaic, but also the main technical vocabulary, and a large measure of dialectal usage and slang (Supplement to the OED, 1933).[33] ”

The editors of Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged (475,000 main headwords) in their preface, estimate the number to be much higher. It is estimated that about 25,000 words are added to the language each year.[34]

[Igor1981]

English is by far the easiest language to learn. very simplistic grammar structure and small vocabulary.

English grammar structure isn't very simplistic.
For example English language has 14 tenses. Polish and other Slavonic languages have only 3 tenses - one present tense, one past tense and one future tense. I'm not sure but Slovenian language is exception and has 2 past tenses.
That many tenses are problem for me.
Other example is grammatical cases. Polish, Czech, Serbian, Ukrainian have 7 cases. Some other Slavonic languages like Russian have 6 cases. 6 cases isn't problem for me. English language has only 2 or 3 cases and it's problem for me.
Cyrillic alphabet can be problem because Russians can the same letters in a different manner read. For example we have two Russian words:
спасибо and радио
The last 'о' from the first word Russians read like Latin 'a' but the last 'о' from the second word Russians read like Latin 'o'.
Other example:
литр климат плохо мыло
The letter 'л' from two first words are read like Latin 'l' but the same letter from third and fourth words are read like Polish 'ł'.
Cyrillic alphabet isn't problem. Problem is manner read letters from Cyrillic alphabet. English language isn't easier because there is the same problem with English manner reading
In Polish language, we read all Latin letters like Romans read it. We have some new letter - Slavonic letters - but all Latin letters we read like Romans did it. Englishmen, Frenchmen read it in different way and it's difficult for Poles to learn it.
I needn't learn Ukrainian, Czech, Belarusian to understand people who speak these languages. It's harder to understand Russians but it's possible and it's easier to understand Russians than Serbs or Slovenians.
I will not understand Englishmen unless I learn English.

Slavonic languages are easiest to learn for Slavs, English and French is hard for me, Chinese is very hard.

Small vocabulary isn't quality because ordinary Polish speaking people don't use more than half of words from their language. I think Russians and others too.

[Erax]

I'd vote for us.

Example: run - juosta, then it can flex to these words: juokseminen, juoksin, juokseva, and so on..

[Trax]

Other example is grammatical cases. Polish, Czech, Serbian, Ukrainian have 7 cases. Some other Slavonic languages like Russian have 6 cases. 6 cases isn't problem for me. English language has only 2 or 3 cases and it's problem for me.

The less cases the easier the language.

For example English language has 14 tenses.

And I don't even try to use them all

Anyway, the easiest language is probably esperanto.

[therussian]

Binary

[yxc qwert!]

LOL!

[Duke_of_Bavaria]

It depends what you know to begin with. If you know a Slavic language you're not gonna have such a hard time learning Russian. If you know French, Italian wont be a problem etc.

So it's all about what you spoke when you were growing up and to what language that is related. I'd say the further related, the harder.

And vocabulary says nothing about the complexity of a language, it only says how many words the langauge has. If you want to see how difficult a language is look at the grammar, that's what causes problems when you study a language. You can always learn new words by just repeating them many times or living in a country where the language is spoken.

I guess Uralic languages are known to be rather difficult, especially the sounding. I don't know how Finns can pronounce some of the words that exist in their language, it's madness I tell you (no it's not Sparta!!! It's Suomi!).

I hear simplified Chinese is supposed to be easy though. And yeah English is kinda easy but that might be because I already knew two other Germanic languages before studying it.

[lila-laune-bär]

I'd vote German the most difficult language to learn. It's even a proverb: Deutsche Sprache, schwere Sprache.

[Imperator Sulla]

Easiest: English, because as a child I(and the rest of the western world) watched English tv-shows, cartoons, movies etc., It came/comes very natuaraly to learn the language.

Hardest: Dutch!

Repeat after me: de kat krabt de krullen van de trap met drie droge doeken

[Primvs Sextvs Loverlord]

Mandarin, Cantonese, etc are difficult to learn because of our unfamiliarity to them.

For English speakers, French and German are relatively easier to grasp.

Slavic languages would be trickier for English-speakers.

For someone like me, who speaks both Urdu and Pashto, learning Persian won't be very difficult.

Hence, no language is easy or difficult, it depends on you.

[Erwin Rommel]

yeah it appears japanese, chinese, and alot are lousy learning english
but us filipinos don't well from what i can see hear coz we can safely assume that more than half of the population can speak it.but i hate that accent issue....somehow you can't eleminate that... yet i speak eng. fluently

[Giurza]

easiest... well English beats anything!
hardest... hmmm well I can only say about those languages that I've "tasted", so it would be German...

[Dunecat]

German is by far the easiest.

[Duke_of_Bavaria]

German is so overrated. The Grammar isn't THAT hard, once you grasp the basics it all makes perfect sence.