[Nyororin]

Originally Posted by Susanne

I apologize if my original statement came out quite a bit too general, but with "easiest to learn" I meant to express something more in the sense of being able to communicate with it in a relatively short amount of time after having studied it. I have few friends in Spain who got to the level where they can defend themselves in English rather quickly, thus the fact became one of the motivations for my writing of this thread.

The thing is though, even without exposure in daily life, English shares roots and has borrowed an incredible amount from other European languages. There are deep similarities that make it much easier to go from one to the other than, say, from a non-related language like Japanese. Japanese isn`t a particularly "difficult" language, but it`s lack of similarity tends to make it very hard for a native speaker of a European language to master.
It all comes down to background.

I had no idea there existed such a language! Not to sound rude, but I would surely die if I had to communicate in such a way! "I school go." Haha, no way! It's almost like watching Tarzan.

But you already have an established native language, and a set of "rules" in your head about how language should be spoken. Those are shaped by culture and, of course, your own language. To a native speaker of that language (I will have to dig out old textbooks to find it`s name - it was always brought up as a counter to the common definition of "language" as requiring grammar rules), it would seem perfectly normal and efficient. The "unnecessary" complications of other languages likely wouldn`t make sense. The *meaning* of "I school go" in that language would be exactly the same as you saying "I go to school" in English.