Man, being an animal of custom (or by custom an animal) as we say in Chile, will learn to speak a language much faster if
1. one lives in a foreign country and has to speak an alien language on a daily basis
2. one has some exposure to foreign languages at younger ages

By these standards, English does seem a very hard language to learn to speak for those students whose national language is not english and who do not enjoy daily use of what they have learnt. Why? would you ask. Well, because English has no fixed rules for pronunciation: two words may be written alike, but may be pronounced differently.

Just take the case of ROUGH, DOUGH, and THOUGH. Same ending, and just that.

Do not get me wrong, English does seem to be a very easy language to learn TO READ. To speak it fluently is something else.

for example.

in English you have the verbs to say and to tell, in spanish the idea of those verbs, is actually the same, you translate those verbs into Spanish the same way “Decir” or “contar” for to tell, but generally you just say “decir”. but in English each one have it particular use.

in English you have the verbs to see, to watch, to look at. these verb translate generally “ver”, “mirar”. in spanish “ver” and “mirar” are practically the same, but in English these verbs have their particular use. etc. etc.

in English you have the verbs to Speak and to talk, these verbs translate generally the spanish “hablar” or “conversar” for to talk, but “hablar” is the general way you use in spanish. and like the others, these verbs have their particular use in english.

and………..

Pero tenemos que recordar que el español es una lengua transparente, es decir; que siempre se corresponde de manera directa y unívoca la escritura con la pronunciación. de tal modo, podriamos escribir mal las palabras en español y aun asi serian comprensibles, como por ejemplo: ola-hola(anque son dos palabras diferentes, una es ola del mar y la otra un saludo, al leerlas dependiendo del contexto, el uso de una u otra seria irrelevante para comprender la idea. (a lo mejor he escrito muchas palabras mal y/o sin acento, y aun asi esta claramente comprensible)

por lo tanto, podemos decir que en español tenemos 5 vocales con un unico sonido cada una. en ingles las vocales tienen varios sonidos y los diptongos tambien, hasta las consonantes tienen su tajada en la fonetica. en conclusion, la fonetica inglesa es muy amplia y un poco complicada (al menos para las perosnas de habla española) y la española yo diria demasiado simple. aunque la verdad es que tu lengua materna es determinante para que un idioma te sea mas facil o dificil que otro.

Here’s another one – in engish we have 2 commands – affirmative + negative. How would you translate “ask me for it” and “don’t ask me for it”? In Spanish there are a wopping 16 possible ways to say it! (I won’t bore you with all the responses).

Here’s something to ponder: A soccer coach in Madrid, a native of England, has lived there for over 10 years and he STILL hasn’t mastered the spanish grammer (just listen to him when he gives interviews). Like most foreigners to spanish he has the most problems with the “subjuntivo” tense.

English has dumbed down their grammer over the years (in a good way)…1 way to say “the” (lo, la las los). 1 verb “to be” (ser,estar). 1 verb for “for” (por, para). 1 verb “to know” (saber, conocer),etc.

Just translate a random verb in english and spanish and look how in english it barely changes: I SWIM, you SWIM, he SWIMS, we SWIM, they SWIM…wow, that was hard!

It goes on to say, “Among such speakers [educated speakers of English] one hears much variation in pronunciation.”

If we are going to ask others to learn our language as their second language, shouldn’t we be willing to learn theirs? I think if we both would do this, then the world would be a better place.

As for grammar, doesn’t that depend a lot on what your first language is?

English is my first language so would I really know if it the easiest to learn?

It looks like from this discussion that Spanish is the easiest language to learn, and English is not the easiest language to learn.

Obviously Spanish people can understand themselves. Perhaps if we studied Spanish better or earlier in life, we would be able to understand it too.

What is the reason you started this discussion?

Good luck with everything everybody.

As far for English having quirks, join the rest. All languages have quirks but they also have hard grammar etc. The fact that some native speakers can’t spell correctly only speaks for their stupidity.