Easy non-Romance languages?

Hi /lang/. English speaker here. Can you think of any languages outside of the Romance language family that could be classified as "easy?" I want to learn a language that has fairly good online documentation, isn't Swedish, German, or Dutch, and also isn't constructed. I know these are strict filters, but you guys ARE the experts.

If you take out the having to learn at least 2000 kanji, Japanese, in my opinion is pretty easy. Even then, the kanji part isn't really that hard anyways. Other than that I don't know the 'easiness' of the other non-romance languages.

There's one really easy one I can think of which fulfills all those requirements: Indonesian.  I'm not sure how well documented it is, but given it's one of the world's top 10 spoken languages, it had better be.

>>1
If you want to learn a language just because it's "easy," not thinking about what you even want to do with it, then you won't get very far. Stop thinking about easiness or hardness, and just pick a language you like and stick with it. Even if it's some goddamn hellish Arabic, you'll find it easy and fun if you're motivated enough to study it.

>>4

OP here. Pardon me, Anon. I see what you mean and I respect your opinion, but I simply cannot get myself to learn a language with radically different concepts. I just can't stay motivated. It would be great to learn Arabic but the different dialects confuse me. Korean, too, would be a good choice, but one day I just stopped trying to learn. I just can't stay motivated! It might be because I mostly use online resources (which become more scarce every day) and I can't teach myself very well in that format.

>>2
I'm not sure why, but I've never had even a small interest in learning Japanese. It might be because I'm intimidated by big, black languages, or just because I'm afraid of commitment. Thanks for the suggestion, though. Much appreciated.

>>3
Indonesian? I've never ran into someone speaking Indonesian but I'll take a look. Thanks anon.

OP, am I correct in inferring that you've a mind to learn a language just for the sake of learning it, and for the various benefits that are said to accompany bilingualism, other than the obvious benefit of being able to communicate with another group of people?

They say that the second language you learn is always the hardest, so mitigating that somewhat by "practicing" learning an easy language before you proceed to one you intend to use might well be a workable strategy. My understanding is that invented languages tend to be easier to learn due to their regularity, so you might start with one of those?

Learn an African language. Maybe Swahili. Or learn Hindi.

Come on, if you're learning a language just for the sake of learning a language you may as well pick something that not so many westerners learn. Indonesian's good as well, but really I'd like an Anon to learn an African or an Indian language.

>>4 here
>>5

First of all, it's not an opinion, it's a fact.

Anyway, why not try Mandarin Chinese? The grammar isn't that hard (actually, it's so simple that some people have claimed that Chinese doesn't even have a grammar (which is incorrect, of course)). Tones might be a problem at first, but the more you get exposed to the language the easier it becomes. Ditto the characters. Mandarin Chinese is also a well-documented language online (just google "learn mandarin," or search for torrents).

>>6
OP here again. I'll confess that I'm very, very misguided. I should be learning a language that I want to learn, rather than something that's just "easy." I do want to communicate with another group of people, and that should have been my original reason in the first place. (Yes, I do realize I'm repeating what others have said before, but now it's starting to really get inside my head.)

>>7
I had never even thought of learning an African language. I'll read up on Swahili and other African languages. After all, more Africans are coming onto the internet each day and most don't even know it.

>>8
Ah! Mandarin Chinese. I've had interest in this language in the past and the first thing I did was study tones. I stopped myself when I was given the choice to begin study of Chinese characters or dabble in pinyin. I've heard that in some languages, such as Korean, the romanization is counter-productive. Is that so for Mandarin Chinese?

Thanks for your opinions everyone. I appreciate your feedback.

You need the pinyin to learn pronuncation, but you want to use it only for that and otherwise learn the simplified characters. See the link I posted to the book in the other thread on Mandarin.

>>10

Awesome; thanks a lot!

>>11

Not to be pessimistic, but be warned that unless you have a native speaker to converse with, getting sentence patterns and tones down will be near impossible.  Because of Mandarin's alleged lack of grammar, there are many ways to construct the same sentence, most of which make sense.  But if you want to talk to a Chinese speaker and not end up saying things like "Do together you go want to restaurant?" you should try to find a native.

Also, if your tones aren't _almost perfect_, and the Chinese speaker you're speaking with doesn't also speak English, he or she will probably not understand you.  Hell, I'm American, and my first year Chinese students utter toneless sentences that I can't even decipher.

So, in short, _get your tones down_, and then listen to native speakers to understand how sentences are usually formed.

All that said, it's tough, but extremely rewarding.  Wish you best of luck!  好好学习吧！加油！

>>10
learn both simplified and traditional radicals. it makes it easier if you're traveling to different parts of china as well (eg Taiwan, who prefer to use Traditional)

>>13
Taiwan is not a part of China

>>12

Wow! Juicy info. Thanks very very much.

>>14

Someone's not a supporter of the one china policy.

>>13

I hear it's better to learn the traditional script first for fairly obvious reasons.

>>14
they can speak mandarin too. in fact it is used more by some people

>>16
Irish people speak English. Does that mean they should be part of the UK?