Re: Is Norwegian the easiest for an EN native speaker?
Posted: Fri Mar 03, 2017 9:39 pm
It might be quite "easy" because many words are related, but the more I learn languages, the more I find availability of resources to be a huuuuuge factor in my motivation and how easily I learn something. I don't travel often, so I often think about languages in terms of how easily I can access audio media and, especially, books from the US where I live. I'm interested in the Scandinavian languages (I studied a little Swedish at one point), but I don't know how I can have ready access to a wide variety of lots and lots of books.
I studied Dutch pretty deeply, and yes, it was easy in terms of memorizing grammar and vocab, but I only own one physical book in Dutch aside from Harry Potter (my language learning stand-by), and it's been very difficult to find more. And thus, my motivation has lagged a bit because of that. Afrikaans is "easy" too, but I haven't been able to find a consistent talk radio station in order to listen to it! In contrast, I'm able to find many books in both French and, obviously, Spanish in the US. I know online and brick-and-mortar stores where I can easily find Japanese, Chinese, Russian, and Polish books for reasonable prices. These languages are more "difficult" for English learners, but I think I could learn them much more easily because I have the opportunity to expose myself to them far more.
Out of the Nordic languages, Icelandic might be easiest for me, because I've been to Iceland and brought back a goodly sized suitcase of books
I studied Dutch pretty deeply, and yes, it was easy in terms of memorizing grammar and vocab, but I only own one physical book in Dutch aside from Harry Potter (my language learning stand-by), and it's been very difficult to find more. And thus, my motivation has lagged a bit because of that. Afrikaans is "easy" too, but I haven't been able to find a consistent talk radio station in order to listen to it! In contrast, I'm able to find many books in both French and, obviously, Spanish in the US. I know online and brick-and-mortar stores where I can easily find Japanese, Chinese, Russian, and Polish books for reasonable prices. These languages are more "difficult" for English learners, but I think I could learn them much more easily because I have the opportunity to expose myself to them far more.
Out of the Nordic languages, Icelandic might be easiest for me, because I've been to Iceland and brought back a goodly sized suitcase of books