Interesting that Dutch and north Germanic languages are significantly easier than German
I wonder if they are using The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR), which is a pretty good tool, to judge language skills and if so, whether they are thinking A1, A2, B1 or B2.
I’m very surprised people are able to learn Danish in 24 weeks…
Why is Romanian so ‘easy’?
Lol apparently Welsh doesn’t even register on the State Departments level of difficulty. Truly *boss music* level of difficulty
I like how the uralic speaking countries are basically their own separate category.
So by this time next year I can learn two new languages
Interesting how “speaking and reading proficiency” relates to European language levels and if this time means full-time learning?
I think German has more near-cognates to English as they are both Germanic languages, but the three genders and the various different verb rules, tenses and cases take a while to get your head around.
Danish with green 😂😂😂
Wtf. Finnish is not hard. Even children in here speak that.
Surprised Greek and Serbo-Croat are both at 44 weeks. Would also think Czech and Polish are relatively easier than Russian for obvious reasons.
We need 0* for certain English dialects. Also can confirm that Arabic is hard as hell. I love the 3-letter root system but lord it makes it difficult to remember which word is which.
Italian here. My German teacher used to tell me: “gut, you already speak English. English is German for beginners. “
He was 100% right (and still today when I am in Germany I always speak English and that’s why my German still remain the same – Mittelstufe 1)
Oh yeah, Finnish in Vaasa, Turku, and Helsinki are much easier to learn than finnish in rest of the country.
For those who don’t know, this is worked out on the basis that said person has *instruction* every single day in this language. It is not a “in 24 weeks you can self-study and learn Italian”.
The FSI courses for language learning require considerable daily amount of effort and repetition, as well as guided instruction from a professor. It is done intensively, with lots of homework expected as well.
24 weeks learning they equivalate with about 600 hours. That’s a *lot* of fucking time. Most everyday people probably wouldn’t commit more than two hours a day, so we’re talking an entire year for them.
And for those asking, from my understanding this is meant to be with the aim of Speaking and Reading being at an ILR 3 level, which is approx. C1 on the CEFR scale.
Finnish not being in the dark red is an absolute shock. I’m an American expat who has dabbled in a lot of different languages; there’s no way I’d ever achieve fluency in Finnish. Too many cases, far too many unfamiliar terms. Watching TV with Finnish subtitles has helped me be ever so slightly conversational, but that’s about as far as I think I will get.
No way in hell a native english speaker learns hungarian in 44 weeks same goes for finnish
Speaking and reading **proficiency**?
US diplomats must be hogging the whole country’s ability to learn languages or these are crazy low.
Portuguese is green? I know English people that lived here for half a decade and they still have issues speaking simples phrases…
No shot you can learn Lithuanian in 44 weeks as an native English speaker.
In my experience I found Spanish and Italian much easier to learn and understand than I did French, even though I had more years of French lessons. Spanish and Italian seemed so much more logical and ordered to me whilst French words, much like English, seemed completely arbitrary when it came to spelling and pronunciation. Sadly, I’ve lost the use of them for lack of use. I especially struggled with listening and understanding spoken languages, though generally speaking and reading the language I was always content with.
The most surprising part for me is the implication, that British actually want to learn foreign languages
Why are a few tiny parts of Finland marked as easy? Are those primarily Swedish speaking areas?
Try learning lithuanian. Good luck.
I looked this up when Covid hit, which led to be spending every day of lockdown in the UK trying to learn Norwegian.
Unsurprisingly, I haven’t learned :/
As somebody who is learning German as third language I came to accept I’ll likely never truly master articles except for clearly feminine ones ending with -in and I’ll likely have problems with declination. But my goal is not to be perfectly fluent but rather to be able to communicate and understand German. So if I have to go to a restaurant and ask for cow rather than beef and use wrong gender for trousers in store but understand public announcement on train, read signs and can understand most and decipher rest in an article then I’ll be satisfied. If I can ask for and understand directions but can’t discuss the intricacies of Weimar economic policies dealing with Great Depression I’ll be satisfied as well.
Languages are basically always judged by how hard it is for a native English speaker. I want to see one based on native German speakers, native Chinese speakers and so on.
I would like to challenge whoever to be proficient in Portuguese having just 24 weeks… 😁
No surprises that Finnish, Estonian and Hungarian are the hardest in Europe
Currently learning French and it’s… Easyish ? It helps that a lot of the words are similar to English, however spelling is harder to remember and definitely writing a sentence in a proper fashion is difficult for me. Don’t get me started on oral French either… C’est très difficile
This only applies to Americans since Spanish is spoken so widely over there, if you’re an English monolingual I highly doubt Italian would be easier to learn than German.
Ireland shouldn’t be blue. We have a native language that a quarter of a million people speak.
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Celtic ire intensifies.
Interesting that Dutch and north Germanic languages are significantly easier than German
I wonder if they are using The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR), which is a pretty good tool, to judge language skills and if so, whether they are thinking A1, A2, B1 or B2.
Here you can read about the levels:
https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/documents/other/language-skills-self-assessment-grid_en.pdf
I’m very surprised people are able to learn Danish in 24 weeks…
Why is Romanian so ‘easy’?
Lol apparently Welsh doesn’t even register on the State Departments level of difficulty. Truly *boss music* level of difficulty
I like how the uralic speaking countries are basically their own separate category.
So by this time next year I can learn two new languages
Interesting how “speaking and reading proficiency” relates to European language levels and if this time means full-time learning?
I think German has more near-cognates to English as they are both Germanic languages, but the three genders and the various different verb rules, tenses and cases take a while to get your head around.
Danish with green 😂😂😂
Wtf. Finnish is not hard. Even children in here speak that.
Surprised Greek and Serbo-Croat are both at 44 weeks. Would also think Czech and Polish are relatively easier than Russian for obvious reasons.
We need 0* for certain English dialects. Also can confirm that Arabic is hard as hell. I love the 3-letter root system but lord it makes it difficult to remember which word is which.
Italian here. My German teacher used to tell me: “gut, you already speak English. English is German for beginners. “
He was 100% right (and still today when I am in Germany I always speak English and that’s why my German still remain the same – Mittelstufe 1)
Oh yeah, Finnish in Vaasa, Turku, and Helsinki are much easier to learn than finnish in rest of the country.
For those who don’t know, this is worked out on the basis that said person has *instruction* every single day in this language. It is not a “in 24 weeks you can self-study and learn Italian”.
The FSI courses for language learning require considerable daily amount of effort and repetition, as well as guided instruction from a professor. It is done intensively, with lots of homework expected as well.
24 weeks learning they equivalate with about 600 hours. That’s a *lot* of fucking time. Most everyday people probably wouldn’t commit more than two hours a day, so we’re talking an entire year for them.
And for those asking, from my understanding this is meant to be with the aim of Speaking and Reading being at an ILR 3 level, which is approx. C1 on the CEFR scale.
Finnish not being in the dark red is an absolute shock. I’m an American expat who has dabbled in a lot of different languages; there’s no way I’d ever achieve fluency in Finnish. Too many cases, far too many unfamiliar terms. Watching TV with Finnish subtitles has helped me be ever so slightly conversational, but that’s about as far as I think I will get.
No way in hell a native english speaker learns hungarian in 44 weeks same goes for finnish
Speaking and reading **proficiency**?
US diplomats must be hogging the whole country’s ability to learn languages or these are crazy low.
Portuguese is green? I know English people that lived here for half a decade and they still have issues speaking simples phrases…
No shot you can learn Lithuanian in 44 weeks as an native English speaker.
In my experience I found Spanish and Italian much easier to learn and understand than I did French, even though I had more years of French lessons. Spanish and Italian seemed so much more logical and ordered to me whilst French words, much like English, seemed completely arbitrary when it came to spelling and pronunciation. Sadly, I’ve lost the use of them for lack of use. I especially struggled with listening and understanding spoken languages, though generally speaking and reading the language I was always content with.
The most surprising part for me is the implication, that British actually want to learn foreign languages
Why are a few tiny parts of Finland marked as easy? Are those primarily Swedish speaking areas?
Try learning lithuanian. Good luck.
I looked this up when Covid hit, which led to be spending every day of lockdown in the UK trying to learn Norwegian.
Unsurprisingly, I haven’t learned :/
As somebody who is learning German as third language I came to accept I’ll likely never truly master articles except for clearly feminine ones ending with -in and I’ll likely have problems with declination. But my goal is not to be perfectly fluent but rather to be able to communicate and understand German. So if I have to go to a restaurant and ask for cow rather than beef and use wrong gender for trousers in store but understand public announcement on train, read signs and can understand most and decipher rest in an article then I’ll be satisfied. If I can ask for and understand directions but can’t discuss the intricacies of Weimar economic policies dealing with Great Depression I’ll be satisfied as well.
Languages are basically always judged by how hard it is for a native English speaker. I want to see one based on native German speakers, native Chinese speakers and so on.
I would like to challenge whoever to be proficient in Portuguese having just 24 weeks… 😁
No surprises that Finnish, Estonian and Hungarian are the hardest in Europe
Currently learning French and it’s… Easyish ? It helps that a lot of the words are similar to English, however spelling is harder to remember and definitely writing a sentence in a proper fashion is difficult for me. Don’t get me started on oral French either… C’est très difficile
This only applies to Americans since Spanish is spoken so widely over there, if you’re an English monolingual I highly doubt Italian would be easier to learn than German.
Ireland shouldn’t be blue. We have a native language that a quarter of a million people speak.