When easier languages are harder

[Jamie (K)]

Has anyone ever had the experience that learning a language that people say is "easy" is harder than learning a language that people say is more difficult?

Americans always claim that Spanish is the "easiest" foreign language to learn, and that language is always the choice of kids who have to take a foreign language course and don't want to study much. Meanwhile, American students avoid German, because they think it's difficult. Most of them will never even go near a Slavic language, because they think those languages are impossible to learn.

Even though I'm American, I learned German and French easily, learned Italian even more easily, and I developed a high level of proficiency in one Slavic language with a bit of effort. Other Americans think I've achieved the impossible. However, no amount of effort seems to make me proficient in Spanish, because even though my conscious intellect understands the logic of that language, my subconscious doesn't seem to accept certain aspects of it, such as third person forms of verbs that end in "-o", two indirect objects in the same sentence, and other eccentricities of the language.

So for me, the "easy" language is harder, and the "harder" languages are easier.

[Yankee]

Hi Jamie

The first foreign language I learned was French. I loved it, and didn't think it was too difficult. Next came Spanish, which I thought was harder. (That's a completely subjective evaluation, though.) German initially had me worried because of the mile-long words and sentences, and also because of those "pieces of verbs" that turn up "unexpectedly" at the ends of sentences. However, today my impression is that German is easier than French, especially for a native speaker of English. Interestingly, the Germans themselves seem to be very fond of telling foreigners how difficult the German language is: "Deutsche Sprache, schwere Sprache". I can't even begin to tell you how often I heard that little saying repeated during my 18 years in Germany -- just that it was incredibly often.
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Amy
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ESL teacher, translator, and a native speaker of American English

[Jamie (K)]

Some Albanians in my classes told me that in their country teachers say there are languages that "make you cry at the beginning and laugh at the end" (i.e., they seem horribly difficult at the beginning but get easier and easier the deeper you get into them), and languages that "make you laugh at the beginning and cry at the end".

They said that English is an example of a language that makes you cry at the beginning (hard spelling, so many verb tenses) but laugh at the end (the higher you get, the easier it becomes).

They said Italian is a language that makes you laugh at the beginning and cry at the end. This means that, according to them, Italian is deceptively easy when you first start, and horribly difficult as you get farther into it.