Languages

I obviously speak English and it is my first language and have been learning Spanish. I am in Spanish three, I take it seventh hour. For me, learning Spanish has helped me with my English. When I started Spanish in eighth grade it improved my knowledge of English. This is because we had to know all about verbs, nouns, sentence structure and other similar stuff, and I had been struggling to learn that.

Some of the world's easiest languages to learn in order are Spanish, Italian, French, Portuguese, German, Hindi, and Mandarin. This is ranked on speaking, grammar, writing, and overall. The last one on the list (Mandarin) ranking difficult or very difficult in all categories. One reason for this is because it is a tonal language. What that means is the pitch or intonation the word is said affects its meaning. The same word means something different depending on the way it is said.

Part of the reason Spanish is so high up (ranging from very easy to easy on the scale) is because everything is spelled how it is said. So writing in Spanish in theory is a very straightforward task. Though some people who have taken a Spanish class could argue that even though it is spelled the way it is said it is still very hard to spell and write. I think that if you can learn a somewhat easy language like Spanish you should. I think this because for some jobs the starting wage is higher if you can speak another language. Another thing is that if you can take it while you are still younger it is better than waiting until you are older. It is a lot harder to learn another language once you are older, almost like how you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.

There are also some very big differences between languages. I used to think that you just had to learn different words that that was all but I was very wrong. There are some words in Spanish that do not exist in English. There are also some things that are the same in English but different in Spanish. An example of this would be how there is a difference in past tense, saying I did this or whatever else and it is the exact same word in English but in different context means something totally different in Spanish. This is one of the harder concepts for English speakers to learn and people who have Spanish as a first language just explain the difference as whatever sounds better which does not help an English speaker.

I feel that if people can learn a language they should. I also know that some people struggle with it a lot more than others and some people might never be able to be fluent in another language and some people find it extremely easy to learn another language. In the end it is just personal. Some people will just take another language class just for college and some are genuinely interested and are able to learn many. I personally enjoy learning Spanish but most likely it will be the only other language I learn.

Questions - Which person are you? Are you learning a new language for college, because you want to, or are you not learning a language?
Would you ever consider learning a new language that wasn’t on this list or have you learned a language other than your first language?

 

Source - https://www.jumpspeak.com/blog/easiest-languages-to-learn

You need to be a member of History 360 to add comments!

Join History 360

Replies are closed for this discussion.

Replies

  • Great topic choice and well done Erin! +5

  • I am learning spanish for college, and becasue I think it is a good thing to know two different languages. Personally, I think that it is cool to learn another language because then you can talk to other people in it and I think that can be useful sometimes.

  • In my opion learning a new language is difficult but I believe that it is fun to learn a new language. If someone doesn't want to learn a new language they shouldn't have to. People should be able to take any class they want to. But I am enjoying learning something new.

  • Learning a new language is normally a good thing. I personally think it's ridiculous that you would have to learn a second language to make it into and through a four- year school. Unless you're very interested in learning a certain language for your own pleasure, I don't think you should HAVE to learn it. If people want to come and live in America for the opportunities, they should learn English.

  • I think that learning a new language is great. This can open multiple opportunities for many different things like you can go to a four-year college and you can speak to someone in that language if you need to. I personally love learning a new language I think its fun and I can say that I know two languages.

  • I am learning spanish just to be able to get into a good four year college, and as soon as I'm done with spanish two sophmore year I'm never speaking spanish again. I would never consider taking a class to learn anything, but I would maybe learn one of these for fun.

  • I am currently in Spanish three. Personally, I find learning about different cultures interesting so most of the time I don’t mind learning spanish. However, the main reason I decided to take it was because most colleges do require having at least a few years of a foreign language. I think knowing a different language can be useful in day-to-day life outside of school too. Especially a language like Spanish that is commonly spoken by a lot of people.

  • I am not learning a new language because I think in school they throw it at you for all at once and don't really give you a break like most school classes and that is why I dropped out of spanish 1 with a barely passing D. However, I can understand the reason why it would be useful to know another language. But, since translators and other languages are making Enlgish more common I don't think I will ever need to use one. 

  • If I didn't have to do spanish for college then I don't think I would be in it. I'm in spanish 1 right now and I don't think it's fun and I it is pretty hard to me. I'm only in Spanish for college. I'm not interested in learning another language I just want to do spanish for college not really to fluently speak spanish. 

  • I think that learning new languages is a great thing to do, not only is learning a language a testiment to ones own intelligence. It also could help in situations. I do think learning a language like spanish or chinese could be really helpful because they are used alot by other countries.

This reply was deleted.
eXTReMe Tracker