English speakers usually have an easy time learning German. FSI ranks it as a Category II language, which calls for 750 hours of study to reach proficiency. German's noun genders and tongue-twisting compound words make it more challenging than a Category I language!
It's much easier for an English speaker to learn the Romance languages or other Germanic languages such as Afrikaans, Danish, or Dutch than to study German. However, according to the FSI (Foreign Service Institute) of the US government which ranks languages in terms of difficulty, German is a tier II language.
1. Mandarin Chinese. Interestingly, the hardest language to learn is also the most widely spoken native language in the world.
In general, Japanese will be more of a challenge to learn than German, and it might be easier to get discouraged as it takes a considerable amount of time to get to a fluent speaking level. If you like a challenge, though, this might be a good choice!
Some parts of German grammar are particularly tricky for English speakers to get to grips with, but German grammar is actually arguably easier to learn than English grammar because it follows set rules that are laid down by the three regional authorities, in Germany, Austria and Switzerland (with small differences ...
Nitty-gritty things like these can make getting started a bit of a challenge – but between the two, French will be a little easier, with (slightly) fewer endings to learn. That said, experts largely agree that the more German you learn, the easier it gets, while French gets more complicated the deeper you dive in.
Since German and English are related languages, they might be easier to learn than Chinese. The longest word in the world is German! Chinese is an official UN language. If you learn Chinese, there is no need to learn the alphabet, since the language does not have one.
“German was very easy compared to Mandarin,” English said. One of the issues was the large number of characters in Chinese. The other was the way Chinese speakers used tone to indicate the meaning of words. “They have far fewer sounds. The words are differentiated by how your verbal tone goes up or down.
Undoubtedly Chinese is more difficult as a language to learn. German language has the same set of letters which we use with a slightly different pronunciation. Besides, the Grammer concepts are also the same in German as in English.
For native English speakers German is one of the easier languages to learn. For native speakers of something Slavic (e.g., Polish, Croatian, Slovenian, etc), Russian will be easier. It depends on your first language. German orthography is also more like how German is pronounced than Russian orthography is.
German has a reputation for being pretty challenging for English speakers. There are many factors that make learning it a difficult task – the grammar, pronunciation, and the numerous verb forms just to name a few. But with enough dedication and practice, anyone can learn to speak this challenging language.
The longest word in the standard German dictionary is Kraftfahrzeug-Haftpflichtversicherung – which is the word for motor vehicle liability insurance.
It's the Most Widely Spoken Native Language in Europe
For centuries the language served as a lingua franca (a common language which unifies different peoples) in large parts of the European continent. It continues to serve this purpose as an important second language in central and Eastern Europe.
It's also the official language of several countries, including Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Both Dutch and German have their challenges, but Dutch is generally considered easier to learn than German. However, your decision should ultimately be based on your goals and interests.
English Partially Originates In Germanic Languages
About 40% of German and English vocabulary are very similar to each other, which makes German one of the easiest languages to learn for native English speakers. So, basically, if you already know English, it should be a piece of cake for you to learn German.
Overall, Spanish might be easier than German at the beginning stages, but the two tend to even out in difficulty once learners get to the more advanced stages. German has more complicated grammar rules that need to be mastered early on, but once learners get familiar with them, they find that they're pretty consistent.
Greek can be a slightly challenging language to learn. For English speakers, it's certainly going to be more difficult than languages like French, German and Spanish, but much easier than languages like Mandarin or Korean.
German is spoken by around 130 million people worldwide. It is the national language of seven countries. You will not believe it, but Chinese is spoken by 1.31 billion people worldwide!
Mandarin. Arabic is considered one of the toughest languages to learn in the world. It is extremely popular in the Middle East and Africa with over 300 million speakers.
English
It is used in global business, worldwide travel, diplomatic affairs, and in computer technology. Not only that, but many of the top global economies are English-speaking ones — the US, Canada, Australia, and the UK.
I have also had more occasions to use German, but only because my fluency in German is greater than my fluency in Japanese. However, Japanese is a more rewarding language to learn. It takes more work to learn grammatical principles of Japanese, but that only makes communication a greater victory.
If you do not go to the end, why to start? If you speak only English then German would be easy to learn. Data from the Defense Language Institute classifies German as Level II Difficulty Language and Korean as Level IV Difficulty language. This means that most English speakers find it easy to learn German language.