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Ian: You're listening to “Coffee with Gringos.” I’m Ian Kennedy.
Paige: I'm Paige Sutherland.
Ian: Today, Paige and I thought it would be a little bit fun to go the linguistic route here and take a look and talk about some of the easiest languages to learn and the hardest languages to learn for native English speakers. So, I believe this can apply to our listeners as well as they're also learning English, a lot of them as a second language, and usually with the Spanish or maybe a similar language to English as well so, I think it's pretty applicable. So, we're going to have fun talking about a few of those today. So as always, make sure to check out that audio guide and transcript online at www.dynamicenglish.cl. So, Paige, I'm going to go ahead and kick it off for us today with the first one on the list which happens to be Spanish. We both obviously have our own experience with this language. A lot of people in the world speak Spanish as well. So even the number of native speakers is listed at around 480 million. That’s a lot, so Spanish is known as maybe the easiest language to learn. It has a very similar alphabet. There are a few differences. You have the tilde of the “ñ”, you also have some accent marks that we don't have any English. There happens to be a lot of cognates—a lot of words that are very, very similar besides the pronunciation—and things that you can, honestly, a lot of it you can figure out what you think it might be and then once you have it confirmed, you have that word in your brain. So of course, there are some complexities to it. You have some words that came from Arabic as well in other languages, but for the most part, it's listed among some of the easiest languages. So, what do you think about that Spanish?
Paige: I found it very hard to learn. I found it particularly hard coming from the US education system. I was taught by a white, middle-aged American woman, where she had no accent and she spoke very plain and then when I moved to Latin America—specifically Chile—I found everything I learned in the classroom did not apply. I think it helped with writing, I can always read and write fairly well in Spanish but when it came to listening and speaking, I was like, did I take Spanish?
Ian: It’s true and Chile too it's a whole different type of Spanish. So, even though we don't get a great Spanish education in the US education system, I felt the exact way. I tried to study before I came here and when I got here, I was like, is this even Spanish? So, it's got an extra difficulty in its cultural element as well. But do you feel like at least there were some words though, that you could say, “Oh, okay, that's quite similar. It's a cognate to the English word”. And pick things up like that compared to other languages perhaps?
Paige: Definitely. I mean, if I was to read Mandarin or Arabic, I wouldn’t pick out a single thing.
Ian: Yeah. Same here. I agree.
Paige: So, Spanish is the easiest going down that list. One language that I find very beautiful is Afrikaans. That is the native language in South Africa, but it's one of the official languages because they actually I think they have somewhat like 13 languages in South Africa. They have a lot, but Afrikaans is a close relative of Dutch. And so, it's because, as you can guess, the Dutch colonized South Africa in the 1600s and so it took the Dutch language and some indigenous language and then here it came. And allegedly, it's an easy language to learn. I did not learn many words. I lived there in Cape Town, South Africa for six months to not pick up a lick. Afrikaans, I liked hearing it, but I did not pick up words, but it's also given that they have so many languages, there are a lot of people who spoke English. So, it's definitely not at least in Cape Town. It's not a great place to be immersed and pick up Afrikaans because you can easily get to get by in English. So, it looks like a benefit of why they're saying Afrikaans is an easier language to learn is that the verbs don't conjugate by person so, there are fewer endings that change and the noun genders. So, as you know, in Spanish that makes it confusing, especially when you're going from past, present or future and you have to change for every pronoun.
Ian: That would help learning it seems definitely. And a very similar to Afrikaans, we have the origin or sort of the predecessor to that language, which is Dutch. Interestingly enough, they say that Dutch—which has 24 million native speakers—it's actually very similar to English. Dutch is a Germanic language in the Germanic language family, which includes German and also English, so that means there's a lot of overlap. So, there are a lot of the same words that were used in the vocabulary. Actually, the word “cookie” in English comes from the Dutch word. I'm not going to try to pronounce it but it's spelled very similar. It’s interesting too, because there were actually a lot of Dutch colonists that move to North America during the pilgrimage days and so, they were a major influence on American English, at least for us since the 1600s. And there's a lot of, like we said, similar verbs. They're just conjugated a bit differently. So, it's really interesting. It's like they say Dutch is almost like English’s closest cousin and any time that I have heard Dutch, or when I went and visited the Netherlands, back in the day, I had no idea what anyone was saying. I found it to be actually a beautiful but strange sounding language. And so, the idea for me that I read this in multiple different sources, is kind of surprising to me and I wouldn't figure it would be that easy for an English speaker. But I guess there's a lot of similarities we didn't know about.
Paige: Hey, Ian. Did you know besides the podcast, Dynamic English offers one-on-one classes with native teachers from all over the world?
Ian: Really? But isn't it just a bunch of grammar lessons?
Paige: Nope, it's completely discussion-based and focuses on topics the student is interested in.
Ian: That's amazing. But what if I'm not living in Chile?
Paige: No problem. Dynamic does online classes. You can be living anywhere.
Ian: Great, but I'm a little intimidated to take the class alone. Can I join with a friend?
Paige: Of course. Dynamic offers group classes of up to four. Plus, for the next month, Coffee with Gringos listeners get 10% off individual or group classes. So go online to www.dynamicenglish.cl and mention that you are a listener and get your discount.
Ian: Well, I'm sold. Sign me up.
Paige: On to the next. So further down the list, this list is out of 28, so this is #13. So, we're talking about middle of the pack is Swahili—which has 15 million native speakers—is the main language in Tanzania and Kenya and spoken throughout East Africa. Allegedly, Swahili is easier to learn than other languages because it doesn't have, unlike other African languages, it doesn't have a tone. And so, they're saying that makes it a little easier to hear and understand. What makes it unique is that 35% of its vocab comes from Arabic, which I wouldn't have guessed that and it looks like it's quite a mezcla. It's 35% Arabic, it's heavily influenced by Bantu, Persian, English and Romance languages. So, it seems like quite a mix there. I guess, some of the grammar they're saying makes it a little easier. There are not a lot of verb conjugations so that makes it a little easier to learn, which is interesting. I find it almost harder because it's something I'm not used to so; it would make it harder.
Ian: I know you mean by that. It's interesting to read the or hear that you say that it's influenced by languages that really are quite different. You have Romance languages, English, Persian, Bantu, Arabic—quite a mix like you said. So that's quite the melting pot of linguistic influence. Okay, another one we have down here. We're going to go ahead and come down to the ones that are more difficult for native English speakers. And the first one that I see here, I come to, is a very strange language but very beautiful as well. It's known as Basque. So actually, the name of the language is called Euskara and it comes from the Basque region of northern Spain and southern France. So, it's its own autonomous region within the two countries, especially in Spain. And people there feel like they have their own culture, they have their own flag, and they even have their own language. It's considered one of the hardest languages to learn because it's called a language isolate. So basically, what that means is it's only spoken there and it's not connected to any other language family and it's known to be one of the oldest languages in the world. So, for years and years, linguists have sort of been scratching their heads trying to figure out the origin of this language and how it came to be what it is today. So basically, they say, if you are not speaking by the time, you're a small child, probably living there, speaking of with natives, then you're probably never going to learn it just because it's so complicated to try to pick up especially later in life. So, it's just extraordinarily different than any other language. It doesn't simply just change the end of the verb; it changes the beginning. So, you have to conjugate the beginning and the end of a lot of the words. Nouns have tons of conjugation. So, in Basque, there are 12 noun cases, and many different suffixes, prefixes that completely change the meaning. So even have a lot of like “tx” and “z” sounds, and it's just completely different from Spanish or French which it sits right with. So, very difficult to crack the case on the Basque language.
Paige: I mean, before we recorded this, I didn't even know where that was so definitely not a good start. The last one that I have always thought is the hardest language to learn and it seems to be somewhat verified in this article, as it's listed as one of the hardest, is Arabic. 310 million people speak it natively. As I'm reading this more about it, it makes sense why it is so hard to learn. Arabic doesn't include vowels in writing so, you have to fill in the blanks yourself and so, according to the Foreign Service Institute, the estimate that you need 200 hours to learn Arabic, which I don't know what that means in like your lifetime. But that's a lot of studying to learn to learn the language and also that Arabic is read from right to left. So that's very confusing. It has a unique alphabet that requires you to learn new sounds. So, there's another thing to add to the pile. And then it also the big kicker, how it's structured is verb-subject-object. So, the word order is even different than what we're used to. So, it's just it seems just so hard in every turn. And then they said they also have 30 different varieties worldwide. So, it’s not like there's one uniform Arabic. It seems like there's different versions of them. So, man props to people who learn it.
Ian: I'm glad that you mentioned that—the differences in the dialects especially in Arabic. Because we think of in English you have British-English, Australian-English, American-English ,you have all the different varieties—same with Spanish and in every other languages—but it's especially true for Arabic .I've heard that you might speak Egyptian Arabic and you go to speak to someone in Saudi Arabia and it can be quite difficult to understand what each other saying because of vocabulary, because way of speaking, so I can't even imagine the complexities that lie with such a big population of people that speak in the world. So, reading and writing right to left does not sound fun trying to rewire our native English brains to do completely the opposite. So, it makes sense you have to have all those hours to become fluent in the language.
Paige: Its interesting because what's going on in Arabic is so different than what we're used to but I'm curious, native Arabic people what they think about learning English because it's the flip side. They’re like, why is it subject verb object? Or why are there vowels? Why do left to right? So, it is funny to think on the flip side, where they’re like English is really hard.
Ian: Exactly. It's one of those interesting things about language, right? It's just flip flops that way. So, there were just a few of those that we wanted to mention today. Some of the easy ones, some of the hardest ones and there are many, many more on this list and many more we could talk about. So, listeners, go online, do some investigation on some of those easiest or hardest languages and maybe pick another one once you master English to tackle and answer your list. So, as we mentioned earlier in the podcast, check out that audio guided transcript online at www.dynamicenglish.cl. As always, thanks for listening.
Paige: We'll see you next time.
Paige: Coffee with Gringos was brought to you by Dynamic English, where you can learn English simply by using it. If you're interested in taking classes or just want to learn more, go to our website at dynamicenglish.cl. Thanks for listening.
Key Vocabulary, Phrases & Slang:
1. to kick off (phrasal verb): to start something.
a. Let’s kick off the episode with the easiest of the languages.
2. cognate (noun): a word having the same root, origin and sound as another of a different language.
a. There are actually many cognates between the two languages.
3. plain (adjective): ordinary; basic.
a. The teacher taught her classes in a very plain way.
4. to pick up (phrasal verb): to quickly learn and understand something new.
a. Was it easy for her to pick up Italian or was it difficult?
5. lick (noun): a small amount of something; word.
a. He didn’t understand a lick of what they were saying.
6. overlap (noun): a common area and similarities.
a. It is good that there is a lot of overlap between the two languages.
7. to scratch one’s head (idiom): to try to figure out or understand something; to feel puzzled or confused by something.
a. Linguists have been scratching their heads with Euskara for decades.
8. to crack the case (idiom): to discover and understand the truth about something.
a. She was able to crack the case using her skills and contacts.
9. kicker (noun): unexpended and often difficult discovery.
a. The real kicker is that Arabic is read from right to left.
10. props (noun): respect or credit due to a person.
a. I give major props to anyone who learns another language.