> English's place in the world really seems to be the result of a snowball effect of socio-economic factors, rather than anything linguistic. Exactly. Not to m

> English's place in the world really seems to be the result of a snowball effect of socio-economic factors, rather than anything linguistic. Exactly. Not to mention that ease of learning is an extremely relative thing, and often comes down to what a person's native language is. Mandarin speakers would likely find Cantonese easier than English, for instance. And of course interest and necessity play a part in it as well; I actually met someone from Japan once who I could only communicate with through __Irish__. He found it much easier to learn because he was genuinely interested in it, so he could stick with it and focus on it.