I have read (although I cannot remember where) that the Romance languages are the easiest to learn French, Spanish, Italian, etc.) followed by the Germanic languages (German, English, Dutch, etc.) followed by the Slavic languages (Czech, Slavik, Polish, etc.) followed by Chinese, Japanese, etc. followed by languages such as Arabic.

Very useful website discussing many of the resources and issues raised on this page, including the Judith Liskin-Gasparro chart Alice C. Omaggio's book, Teaching Language in Context, gives the different levels on page 21. It is my understanding that German is ranked in Group II, more difficult than Spanish or French, because it takes a longer time to become proficient in speaking. We all know that our German I, II, III, etc. classes are no more difficult than their Spanish or French equivalents. They all have to teach the basics and grammar is difficult for our students no matter what language they are studying. This is my answer when questioned as to which language is harder.

It was my impression that this came out from the Foreign Service and the German was in the second easiest group for English speakers; that is, it took more contact hours to reach a "survival" level. As I recall, there were 5 or so levels of how long it would take to reach "survivial". The quickest languages were the Romance languages, German was in the second group. Languages with other writing systems (Greek, Russian, Chinese, Arabic, Japanese) were in the 3rd, 4th and 5th group. Since I obviously don't share this infomation with the kids, guidance counselors, parents and the like, I don't have it to hand. I could try to look it up if anyone needs it.

I repeat: the "government" has not "proven" that German is "harder" to learn than French or Spanish, only that, on average, it may take slightly longer for learners of German to reach an undefined "basic" level of oral proficiency that may or may not be important enough to lose any sleep over. And, I repeat again: nowhere is there any hard evidence presented to back up the Group I vs. Group II classification. After all, in Group I is Swahili, while in Group II there is Hindi-Urdu. Since so few English speakersever make formal acquaintance with these languages, I can imagine it taking them a tad longer to reach "basic" oral proficiency, regardless of the nominal "ease" of being in the same groups as French, Spanish, and German. By the way, here is an insight given to me by a student a number of years ago. Yes, German has "difficulties" for English speakers, such as three noun genders and a bewildering array of noun plural markers, but these involve material that is learned early in the process. In other words, whatever difficulties German may present are "frontloaded", at a time when learners know relatively little about the language and can therefore devote all their mental time to it. Once you get passed these "difficulties" learning becomes easier. After all, unlike French, there is no obligatory subjonctif, meaning that German students can express wishes, doubts and speculations much earlier than their French counterparts. And, unlike Spanish (or French), there is no obligatory distinction between two or three past tense verb forms. In other words, if you stick with it long enough, the difficulties and the simplicities cancel out. Just because two languages are different doesn't mean that one is "harder" an sich to learn than another. And, in the final analysis, why do we learn other languages in the first place: to communicate with one another! Here's another thought, though admittedly not much of one: someone once told me, with a straight face, that Chinese didn't have as much grammar as English. Say what? He meant that Chinese doesn't have the elaborate verb tense systems of Indo-European languages, or, for that matter, Japanese. Nor does it have grammatical gender or noun plurals, etc. OK, I countered, but have you ever looked at all those particles and those elaborate sentence structures ... Etc. Der langen Rede ....: Chinese has as much grammar as it needs. All languages do., including French, German, and Spanish. CJJ

Related website You're probably referring to the chart in Alice Omaggio (Hadley)'s Teaching Language in Context, where on page 21 (p. 28 in the second edition) she reproduces a chart from Judith Liskin-Gasparro's ETS Oral Proficiency Testing Manual from 1982 which is supposed to be the "government"'s classification of languages into four groups. Group I was supposed to contain languages like Dutch, French, Spanish and Swahili [sic]. Group II was supposed to contain languages like Farsi, German, Greek, Hindi-Urdu, Bulgarian, and Indonesian-Malay [don't laught; I'm not making this up!]. Group III contained languages like Bengali, Burmese, Czech, Finnish, Hebrew, Russian, and Turkish [related languages?]. Group IV included Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. For years this chart has been held up as government-sanctioned "proof" that German is a "difficult" language. What the uninformed don't tell you, because they don't know anything more about this chart than its existence, is how the various languages are grouped. Here is the simplest way to explain it. If you are a native speaker of English, with an "average" "Aptitude for Language Learning" [no, I'm not sure how that is measured; don't ask!] and you learn a Group I language, it will take you 24 weeks or 720 hours to reach a "2+" (Advanced High) on the ILR Scale (ACTFL OPI Scale) in speaking. If you learn a Group II language, it will take you 24 weeks or 720 hours to reach a "2" (Advanced) on the scales. If you learn a Group III language, it will take you 24 weeks or 720 hours to reach a "2" (Advanced) on the scales. If you learn a Group IV it will take you 24 weeks or 720 hours to reach a "1+" (Intermediate High) on the scales. If you are of "superior" "Aptitude", the OPI Levels are 3, 2+/3, 2/2+, and 1+ respectively.2+/3, 2/2+, and 1+ respectively.
What the chart and accompanying prose do not tell you is:
1) who the learners were on whom these statistics are based
2) what kind of instruction (instructors) the learners received
3) what kind of materials were used
4) what motivations backed up learning these languages
5) what tests other than the OPI were used along the way
6) when the data was generated (it had to be before 1982, that's for sure!)
and, most important, whether a 2 vs. 2+ is significant, statistically or otherwise, and/or sustainable beyond the 720 hours in question. Also, if French and Spanish are supposed to be so "easy", how come learners of German can attain approximately the same Level of proficiency after approximately the same amount of time, OR, for that matter, why don't Spanish/French kids rise higher, say, into the Superior (3) range after x-number of hours? Yes, I do know the answers to some of these questions, but I'm engaging in polemic here, not reasoned debate! Finally, what is Swahili doing in with French and Spanish? I don't know all that much about it except that it ain't Indo-European! And what do Farsi and Indonesian have in common with German? Farsi may be Indo-European, but it uses the Arabic alphabet and is chock full of Arabic root vocabulary, while Indonesian is neither European nor Indo-European.

In other words, meine Damen und Herren, the "government" has "proven" absolutely nothing about the relative "difficulty" of one language versus another. Besides, in all the years that I have been talking to folks at the DLI, nobody can show me any data to back up this misguided chart. I suspect - but don't tell anybody - that reliable data simply doesn't exist. The four "Groups" are probably just guestimates based on pedagogical environments that are at least 20 years old. What, how, and why were we teaching 20 years ago? What, how, and why were our students learning 20 years ago?
CJJ

My opinion (for what it's worth) is a second language is as difficult as the teacher makes it. If I chose to, I could teach one German word a day, and then let the kids play games talk the rest of the hour. I could teach nothing but the numbers all year, and play bingo. I could do any number of things that would not challenge the kids. And yet, there would still be kids who think "German is difficult" because that's what everyone says. After going back and forth on this issue for the past 14 years, I have decided not to try to buck the "common knowledge". It is like beating your head against the wall. A few years ago, I tried to convince kids that "German is easy", then I got the kids who thought German would be a slough-off class. That was no fun for me, because I was constantly dealing with discipline problems. I'd rather have the kids who take German despite the "common knowledge", and then have fun teaching them. I currently teach an English class called "creative writing" (I have an M.Ed. in English), and the teacher before me taught it as a slough-off class. I personally can't live with that. In the registration guide, it's listed as an "upper-level ability" class, and that's how I teach it. After the first day of introductions and expectations, about 40% of the kids decide it's not for them and drop. But the ones that remain really learn. We even delve into some college-level materials on writing. And I would not have that class any other way.
Rob W