El Mundo, Spanish for the world, is the name of a Spanish newspaper.
When you are overseas, you can gain confidence and have fun everyday picking up a new language. The easy languages are in groups.
Romance Languages
If you speak English as a first or second language, you will find it easy to pick up a group of classical, or romance, or Germanic languages. Easy languages, taking fewest hours, in the sunny south are Spanish, with Portuguese being similar, as well as Italian.
How do we know how long it takes to learn a language? Look in Wikipedia and it will tell you. Wikipedia refers you back to other sources. The American military trains interpreters and translators. Staff are sent on courses. Language schools also know how many lessons are needed to get a class of pupils up to different levels, basic conversation, intermediate and advanced, fluent, bilingual.
Spanish And Related Romance Languages
The romance languages come from Rome and Romans, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and French.
The Spanish for hello, reverse the sounds of the vowels and you get Hola. Remove the H and you get the Portuguese Ola.
Look at the newspapers in Spain every day and you will quickly pick up or be reminded of half a dozen words.
American and Spanish Place Names
If you recognize the city name, Los Angeles, which means the angels, you already know the word for 'the'. In English we add s for plurals. The same goes in Spanish. Notices the s in las Palmas the palms, or es in Los Angeles. A is the feminine ending, like the name Maria, and O is used for masculine, as in the name Mario. You have now learned, and can teach family and friends, three words and one grammar rule.
Swedish, Scandinavian and Germanic Languages
The easy languages are Swedish, similar to Norwegian. Or Dutch (used in The Netherlands and Belgium).
Asian and Oriental Languages
In Asia the easiest languages are Malaysian and Indonesian, which are the same basics with slightly different added vocabulary, like England and American English.
Japanese and Chinese use the same traditional writing.
Classical Languages
The classical languages are Hebrew, Greek and Latin. Many medical terms are Greek. Many plants have Latin names. The Bible was written in Hebrew. The Christians introduced the New Testament, and renamed the bible The Old Testament. Priests would learn and teach Hebrew to read the Old Testament, Greek to read the new Testament, and the Romans adopted Christianity and used Latin in church services. A Priest called Cyril combined Hebrew and Greek letters to make an alphabet for Russian speakers, so their alphabet, called Cyrillic after him, and used in Russia and with a couple of different letters in Bulgaria.
Hebrew, Arabic and Malay
Hebrew is written right to left. So is Arabic. The words for hello are peace, Shalom in Hebrew, Salaam in Arabic. Selamat in Malaysian. Notice the same three consonants, S/SH - L - M.
Hindi
Hindi and Urdu are another pair of languages which overlap. Hindi and Tamil have very pretty writing, but involve more effort, unless have Indian family which is an incentive and an aid. However, I recently discovered a YouTube video which tell you 100 English words used in Hindi.
Esperanto
If all this is still too challenging, the easiest language is a more recently made up language, Esperanto, which means I hope. It is a bit like simplified Spanish. You can stay for a couple of days in homes of other Esperanto speakers worldwide. It is popular in countries whose languages are not spoken by many others, offered as an A level to schoolchildren in Hungary.
Spanish Newspapers
El Mundo
El Pais
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