Part 1: What Easy New Language to Learn? Italian? Spanish? Think farther...

My goal, despite my blog's name, isn't to learn as many languages as humanely possible. I have always believed in QUALITY before QUANTITY when concerning language learning. But, there are occasions when I myself like to step outside my current language learning frames, French and Spanish, and to dip my toes in the fresh pools of another language, similar languages usually fit the bill, allowing me to see in essence a different rendition of the current language I'm studying. Linguistically, written French and Italian aren't all that different. From seasoned polyglots to amateurs however, quantity matters. Indeed, Spanish, Italian and French all learned consecutively, greatly reduces their respective learning times. That will surely rack up your number...

Here, however are my suggestions... all of which should be easier learned than expected, and if you care, look vastly more impressive under your belt than the much sought after Romance Languages...So, let's roll on language number 1.

NORWEGIAN

You may be wondering... Norwegian, Why Learn Norwegian? Only around 5 million people speak Norwegian, and those are mainly in Norway... Norway's a cold, desolate place.

Here are reasons to make you think again...

Norway's standard of living has been voted one of the highest in the world for many years. In fact, Norway isn't how you entirely imagine it... a quick Wiki search or the Norwegian Facebook group will change your mind.

LANGUAGE DIFFICULTY

Norwegian, being a Germanic language, contains many English cognates that will help you on your way when trying to build a sizeable vocab.

Here are some examples...

tre - tree

busk - bush

gress - grass

hund - dog (hound)

katt - cat

mus - mouse

regn - rain (sounds like 'Rhine' - as in the river)

snø - snow (said, 'snuh')

vinter - winter

sommer - summer

Norwegian Grammar

Norwegian grammar is surprisingly straightforward... easier than French or even Spanish.

Norwegian verbs are among the easiest to conjugate with any language in Europe.

With the Present Tense, one but only has to add -r to the end of the infinitive, regardless

of who's doing the the action.

ex. Ha - to Have

Jeg har - I have

du har - You have (singular)

han har - He has

vi har - We have

dere har - You have (Plural)

de har - They have

Past Tense has the -te suffix, whereas English has -ed

Plurals are formed by adding -r to the end of a word that ends in a vowel, and -er to a word

ending in a consonant.

Word Order is similar to that of English, often SVO

and so on...

Mutual Intelligibility (source)

Norwegians can... understand 88% of SPOKEN Swedish. (Swedes -> Nor = 48%)

understand 89% of WRITTEN Swedish. (Swedes -> Nor = 86%)

Norwegians can ALSO... understand 93% of WRITTEN Danish. (Dan->Nor=89%)

understand 73% of SPOKEN Danish. (Dan->Nor=69%)