What are the easiest and hardest languages to learn for a native English speaker?
Western European languages (e.g. German, Spanish) would be easier to learn, as they have very similar alphabets and sounds. Asian, African and Eastern European languages (e.g. Chinese, Swahili, Russian) would be more difficult for the opposite reason – they all have very different alphabet systems (Asian languages often include pictorial symbols representing one word, for instance), and so would take much more time to learn. For Asian languages such as Chinese, intonation can also matter. Whilst in English, all a change in tone usually means is a difference in comprehension. But in Chinese, changing tone can lead to a complete reversal in meaning – such a new layer of language learning can lead to even more difficulties in learning the language for those not used to it.
