As a native English speaker, I hear things like “this” language is hard/easy to learn. Does this mean it is only hard/easy to learn coming from an English background, or would someone who speaks Spanish also find it similarly harder/easier to learn as well?
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It will be WAY easier to learn Dutch as an English speaker than say Mandarin Chinese. Very broadly languages within the same sprachbund (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprachbund#:~:text=A%20sprachbund%20(%2F%CB%88sp,geographical%20proximity%20and%20language%20contact.) will be a similar difficulty between them. The challenges for an English speaker will be similar to a Spanish speaker trying to learn Mandarin, with the minor difference being Chinese uses a similar syntax to English (SVO construction) which would make it moderately more simple for an English speaker to understand Chinese grammar. I say that because most Spanish speakers know enough English to understand SVO/non-gendered language, to isn’t a huge lift. Both speakers will be challenged by the massive number of Chinese characters and Chinese tonality. Similarly, since Chinese doesn’t utilize tenses (Chinese is grammatically simple even compared to English), Chinese speakers face years of challenge matching tenses and plurality in a sentence, they simply aren’t necessary in Chinese and it is a major obstacle for Mandarin speakers learning any standard average European language.
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