What's the easiest language for German speakers to learn?

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Nana

Apart from German; either Swedish or Norwegian Bokmal,
English, Dutch and Danish are not as close as these two.

Hanging _ limp _ t i t s _geisha

Swahili

Postman Bernd

English

The Postman

Tombuktu

The Postman

Arabic of course

The Postman

Chinese and Japanese of course what a dumb question

Postman Bernd

Austrian since this is very similar to German

The Postman

Hebrew

Heidi V

I would say Dutch. Because Dutch is most like German, if not considered the same. I understand Dutch and I have never learned it (I was born in Bavaria). Next would probably be English.

~~ little miss horsaholic ~~

English I'd say, the speak it pretty well. :D

lard

i would guess english because these two languages have many words which are similar, also the grammar is not too difficult.

Dangermanmi6

as someone who is trying to learn German I would say that English is easier for German speakers to learn as a lot of the words are similar but there are pronunciation differences. For example das boot an English speaker would see that and pronounce it as das boot as in foot ware boot. A German speaker would elongate the OO and pronounce it like boat.

DER ALTE FIRZ

German rings a bell.

travelhun

When you've grown up in the north and were exposed to some lower German (Plattdeutsch) then Dutch is very similar. The Dutch don't like to hear it but theirs is an old German dialect.
Also Danish, Norwegian and Swedish are easy as Germanic languages, Norwegian the most because their pronounciation is also a close match.
English is considered easy because of its easy grammar and lack of word genders, but it does have its fair share of Latin/French words and a very large vocabulary to learn.

Thomas t

dutch would be comparatively easy.
But nearly noone learns it ;)

LaProxy

Scandinavian languages like Norwegian are very easy to learn for German speakers. A friend of mine (who honestly isn't a natural talent when it comes to foreign languages) spent one year in Norway and only knew about 10 sentences when she went there. And after only 6 months she was able to read Norwegian books and communicate with everyone without any problems. Even I am able to decipher some words when I read Norwegian texts.

Runner-up might be Dutch. I'm not one of the blessed ones who are able to understand it after a while but there are a lot of people who have never learned Dutch but are able to understand what the people are saying.

Third place goes to English. After all, the languages are related and many words look very similar. We are also surrounded by English in our everyday lives - especially because of music.

Manni

I would say French. Being German, but having spoken English from a young age I see my classmates struggle more with English. It's a very hard language to learn, whereas French is more similar to German. On the other hand, learning French is easier for native English speakers than learning German.

pat z

English is the easiest language for almost anybody to learn -- to speak (forget about the spelling!).
For a start, it's everywhere!
All the new technology 'language' is in English, many medical texts are in English, English-language entertainment is pervasive (despite dubbing in Germany, France and other countries).
And many native English speakers (unfortunately) ONLY speak English.....
Ah yes, and many English-speakers are much nicer about non-native speakers 'butchering' the language or speaking it with a heavy accent than vice versa.

fliege52000

English

Haley

english, im learning german and the words are so similar!

Simone

In my opinion it's English. I've also learned French at school, but the grammar was much more difficult for me than the English. I can't say anything about Dutch or Scandinavian languages because I don't speak it, but I know Dutch has a lot of similar words to German.

Learn And Teach

English because both grammar and vocabulary are very similar. Danish and Dutch.

meee

english

Heike

Next to English and Dutch, Scandinavian languages (not Finnish) are quite easy to learn as well as Southern European languages as Italian and Spanish. Plus French, of course. I think all these languages are quite easy to learn because they all are related to each other. Generally, I'd also say English, though, because there are many English expressions used in every day German.

Joschkins

If you live in Germany, English is the easiest to learn because of our history of being occupied by the allied forces, pop culture is mainly in English and proximity to other English-speaking countries.

If all that weren't the case, Dutch would be the next easiest language for Germans to learn because it's most similar to German. Austria and Switzerland speak German in very strong dialects, but it's still German. Dutch is like a mix of English and german.

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