Esperanto Is Much Easier To Learn Than Other Languages
Even if you’ve not yet tried to learn Esperanto, it shouldn’t be hard to picture that it’s not as hard to learn as natural, national languages. It’s designed to be phonetic and free of irregularities and unnecessary complications, all contributions which make learning easier from the point of view of a learner.
There are figures that back this statement up, such as a study by the Institute of Cybernetic Pedagogy in Paderborn, Germany. They tested how long it took people with French as their first language to learn a series of languages to a comparable “standard” level.
German was the hardest, necessitating some 2,000 hours of study.
English, in spite of its penetration in the world at large outside the classroom, still required an average of 1,500 hours’ study for the students to reach the target level.
Italian, a member of the same language family as French and so genetically “closer” to the students’ own language, still demanded that they invest 1,000 hours of their time in study.
But what about Esperanto? The answer is 150 hours, one tenth of the time needed for English.
(Note: This is from the point of view of French-speakers. The numbers would obviously be different for speakers of other languages. Nonetheless, it’s worth underlining that Italian and French are linguistic siblings, yet Esperanto was far easier (by a factor of seven) to learn.)
So, that’s confirmation that Esperanto is relatively easy. But there’s another thing worth bringing into the discussion: The fact that learning Esperanto first makes it easier to learn other languages later. In other words, if you’re interested in getting proficient in a language, you might be best served to consider learning Esperanto first.
Source for the ICP study: Flochon, Bruno, 2000, « L’espéranto », in Gauthier, Guy (ed.) Langues: une guerre à mort, Panoramiques. 4e trim. 48: 89-95. Cited in François Grin, L’enseignement des langues étrangères comme politique publique (French)