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To succeed in learning a new language often depends on the languages you already know. Some languages are more difficult to learn than others so sometimes the language you grew up with can play a big part when learning a new language.
Languages that share some of the qualities of the language you grew up with will assist in the learning of a new language. People who have grown up speaking more than one language will have an advantage over those who only know one language.
In certain instances people who speak Chinese and who are trying to learn English will struggle just as much as an English person trying to learn Chinese. Its not good news for those studying one of the languages at present but just a fact of life.
It's much easier to learn a language that is close to your native language. In South Africa if you can speak Xhosa you will be able to understand and speak Zulu although the two are classified as different languages. With similar languages there are fewer new concepts for one to learn. English being a Germanic language makes it easier to learn Dutch , German and the Scandinavian languages which are all closely related.
Languages such as Spanish, Italian and French are also related to the English language and are therefore easier to learn. Arabic, Korean, Japanese and Chinese are all languages English speakers find difficult to learn as historically they share no ancestry with English.
What makes a language easier to learn is the grammar used. If it is similar to your native language it makes learning the new language simpler and easier. A language such as German has a more complex word order and verb conjugation and therefore is more difficult to learn. The Germans have kept their complex grammar while the English and the Swedes have dropped theirs in favour of a more simple grammar which makes it easier to learn the languages.
French , Spanish, Italian and Portuguese have evolved from latin and share many common characteristics with each other. People studying any one of the languages listed above more often than not will learn one of the languages and then go on to learn another. as knowing one of them makes it easier to learn the others.
Languages that have a common background (Germanic languages) often have similar grammar but this is not limited to them only. Non related languages often share similar qualities.
It's not a coincidence that English and languages such as French, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese have similar vocabularies. Both English and the so called romance languages listed above have borrowed their vocabularies from latin. This is another reason why the above languages are considered easier to learn than other languages. People studying Japanese will be surprised to find a lot of English vocabulary in the language.
People who speak a different language sound different to what you are used to hearing in your native language. All people use the same sounds yet when speaking yet those sounds are used differently in different languages. In French there are some vowel sounds that you will not find in English. Some letters are even pronounced differently. Between English and French there is a large difference in the pronunciation of the letter “r” whereas in Chinese the pronunciation is similar to the way the English pronounce it.
Getting comfortable with new sounds takes some effort and many people appear to be lazy learning this aspect. Because of the lethargy it seems more difficult to learn certain languages than it should be.
In certain languages the use of tones causes difficulty. These voice tones are used very subtlely and people find them difficult to learn. Chinese is one of the languages that uses tones and english speakers especially find them difficlt to grasp. The Swedes also use tones but their tones are not as complex as the Chinese and are therefore easier to learn.
When learning to write a language there are sometimes differences in the writing system and the use of certain symbols is required. In Afrikaans the letter “ e “ sometimes has a “ ^ “ over it and it changes the pronunciation of the letter or word it is found in. Languages such as Greek and Russian have totally different scripts and an English speaker would have no clue as to what letters or words were. The Japanese and Chinese have developed a completely different style of writing to the west.
The most difficult writing system to learn is Chinese where they have hundreds of symbols to learn. To make it even more difficult, the Chinese symbols are not phonetic so someone who has not learnt the symbol will not be able to pronounce it. This is not the case in most other languages as one can read the letters and come up with some sort of pronunciation that would most probably be understood by a native of the language you are trying to speak.
Cultures also play a major part in some languages. Depending on whom you are speaking to a word such as “ you ” could be used in a number of ways and have different levels of respect for the person being spoken to. Japanese speakers take this level of respect to new heights and of course in the process make learning Japanese very difficult.
Do not let these subtleties get to you when learning a new language. Try to learn and absorb the new language as you did when you learnt your native language as a child.
By making your learning process simple the learning of the language will come easily to you.
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