

Which is the best [human] language to learn? - gnosis
http://moreintelligentlife.com/print/4256

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evincarofautumn
The point made about Chinese is harsh, but basically valid. I’m a Mandarin
Chinese language minor, and I’ve been studying it for a couple years now; it’s
really _just_ the writing system that’s difficult, because it’s so heavily
memorisation-oriented. The syntax, morphology, and phonology are _way_ simpler
and more uniform than English. Even my peers with the most pronunciation
difficulties had little trouble with tones. (It’s mainly the affricates and
some vowels that cause trouble.)

If China were to move to a further simplified writing system (as Korea has
already done with Hangul), then sure, it would remove barriers for foreign
learners. But it won’t happen, for basically the same reason that English
spelling reform won’t—the orthography is fairly standard across dialects, and
nobody is willing to accept “breaking” changes.

Now, as for French…I’ve spoken French since I was little, and speaking it lets
me understand Spanish and other Romance languages rather well. But I think
perhaps I would be better off knowing Spanish, because French pronunciation
differs so much from the Romantic norm. You’re much less likely to be
understood speaking French to a Spanish speaker than you are speaking Spanish
to an Italian speaker.

So my votes are for English, Mandarin, and (some variety of) Spanish.

