If you’re interested in learning the Samoan language then you may want to know a little bit more about it before starting.
This post will cover if it is hard to learn Samoan as an English speaker and the similarities and differences between English and Samoan. It will also answer how long it takes to learn Samoan.
Table of Contents
Is Samoan Hard To Learn?
Language Families
English is part of the Indo-European language family which means it has lots of similarities with other languages that are part of that family including French, Spanish, Italian and German.
Samoan is part of the Austronesian language family. Other languages that fall within this category include Indonesian, Malay, Tagalog, Hawaiian and Tahitian.
Samoan falls under the Polynesian branch of this family meaning it’s more closely related to other Polynesian languages like Hawaiian and Tahitian.
These language families group together languages that descend from a common ancestral language.
Learning languages from the same language family tends to be easier as these languages share many similar characteristics with one another.
The similarities vary between languages but can include vocabulary, word order, grammar, pronunciation and word composition.
By definition, no Austronesian language shares any ancestor with any Indo-European language.
As English and Samoan are members of different language families, this means it’s harder to learn than some other languages. For example, it will be harder to learn Samoan compared to learning French or Spanish as an English speaker.
If you already know another Polynesian language such as Hawaiian, Tahitian, Tongan or Māori then you would find Samoan very easy to learn.
Features of Samoan
That being said Samoan isn’t a particularly hard and confusing language to learn.
For example, Samoan grammar is relatively simple making it easy to learn. They also have limited tenses that don’t have tons of different forms.
Samoan has a relatively small total vocabulary (compared with other languages) and many of the more complex words are actually just compounds of simpler words with endings added onto them.
This makes it very easy for learners to understand the meaning of a word they’ve never come across before if you have a solid grasp of basic vocabulary.
Speakers Of Samoan
One thing that makes Samoan difficult to learn is that it is not widely spoken. There are only approximately 500,000 speakers of Samoan in the world.
When learning a language, one of the best and most important ways is to immerse yourself in the language and practice with native speakers as often as possible. This can be very difficult with Samoan, especially if you don’t live in Samoa or American Samoa.
If you do live in Samoa/American Samoa or in another community with native Samoan speakers then this shouldn’t be an issue for you.
Resources For Samoan
Resources such as books, courses and classes are really important when learning a new language.
Another thing that makes Samoan really difficult to learn is that there are not that many resources out there for Samoan.
Compared to other languages like Spanish and French where there are hundreds of courses and books to choose from, the Samoan resources available are very limited.
Even popular language learning platforms like Duolingo don’t have a Samoan course.
There aren’t many great textbooks out there for Samoan. You could get a Samoan dictionary which has lots of common words in Samoan to get you started.
There are a few useful YouTube channels that can help you learn Samoan such as Islandize, they make fun videos aimed at kids that teach you Samoan words and phrases.
Unfortunately, if you don’t know anyone who speaks Samoan you may find it very difficult to learn Samoan due to a lack of good resources.
Similarities Between English And Samoan
Writing
One aspect of Samoan that you should find easy is the writing system. Samoan is written using the Latin script (the same as English).
This means you should be able to start reading and pronouncing words in Samoan from day 1.
Whilst the pronunciation of some letters in Samoan does vary from English, you can’t go too far wrong.
Here are some sample Samoan words:
- Yellow – Samasama
- White – Pa’epa’e
- Red – Mumu
- Purple – Viole
- Pink – Piniti
- Orange – Moli
- Gray – ‘Efu’efu
- Green – Meamata
- Blue – Moana
Try to say these words and then check out this video (YouTube) to hear the actual pronunciation of them.
Your pronunciation may not be perfect if you haven’t studied the alphabet but you’ll have a general idea of how to say the words.
Most words in Samoan are pronounced how they look, which is great for learners!
Differences Between English And Samoan
Word Order
Word order in Samoan is a bit different to English.
In English the standard word order is subject-verb-object.
Example:
John throws the ball.
John = subject, throws = verb, ball = object.
Samoan is different as it is an ‘action verb’ focused language and it’s standard word order is verb-subject-object.
Quoting the same example as above, in Samoan the phrase ‘John throws the ball’ would be worded as ‘Throws John the ball’.
This may take a while to get used to for a native English speaker.
Formal Forms
Respect is very important in Samoan culture, so much so that they have a respectful version of the language.
This just means that depending on who you’re speaking to, you may need to show a different level of respect and this means you’ll use different words.
As an example, the common word for ‘name’ in Samoan is ‘igoa’ however the respectful term for ‘name’ is ‘suafa’. If you’re speaking to a stranger for example, you’d use the respectful term.
This can be difficult for an English speaker to grasp as you’ll need to learn the different scenarios of when to use which form.
It will also take you much longer to learn vocabulary as you’ll need to learn 2 versions of most words and know which one is the formal version.
Words Are Unrelated
As Samoan and English began with separate origins and developed along separate paths, words in Samoan aren’t related to English words.
Having similar words does usually make the learning process much easier.
For example, an English speaker learning Spanish can already make sense of lots of words such as ‘la televisión’ which means ‘television’.
Unfortunately, you won’t find this with Samoan so it will be a bit harder to learn new words.
How Long Does It Take To Learn Samoan?
Unfortunately there isn’t enough statistical data available to determine how long on average it takes to learn Samoan.
However, we are able to provide a rough estimate based on the research done by the Foreign Service Institute.
It will probably take between 36 weeks and 44 weeks to learn Samoan. This is the equivalent of 900 – 1100 classroom hours.
This assumes you do 25 hours of studying a week. If you’re not able to dedicate this much time to learning Samoan it may take you longer.
Your progress may actually be much faster if you already speak a similar language such as Hawaiian, Tahitian, Tongan or Māori.
The Foreign Service Institute has a language classification system that categorizes how long it takes for a student to reach ‘professional working proficiency’ in a language.
This is one of the best and most accurate language classification systems out there as they’ve spent decades analyzing how long it takes their students to learn new languages.
Samoan isn’t listed on their language list, however it is expected that it would fall under either category II or category III.
Category II – 36 weeks (900 classroom hours)
Category III – 44 weeks (1100 classroom hours)
This is based on the fact that other Austronesian languages such as Malay, Indonesian and Tagalog fall under these categories. These are the most closely related languages to Samoan on the list.
Malay and Indonesian fall under category II whereas Tagalog falls under category III. We would expect Samoan to fall somewhere in between.
Keep in mind that these estimates are based on reaching ‘professional working proficiency’ and it would take much less time to get to a basic conversational level.
Is Samoan Worth Learning?
The answer to whether Samoan is worth learning is really up to you.
As I mentioned previously, it would take you roughly 36 weeks – 44 weeks to learn Samoan to ‘professional working proficiency’ if you do 25 hours a week.
This is a lot of time and effort and you have to have a lot of motivation and discipline to achieve this.
If you do decide to learn Samoan you will get a lot out of it.
Samoan is spoken by around 500,000 people around the world.
Only about 50% of Samoan speakers actually live in Samoa & American Samoa. The rest live elsewhere with big minority communities living in the USA, New Zealand and Australia.
By learning Samoan you would be able to communicate with over 500,000 people and enjoy their vibrant and interesting culture. This can range from music to books and much more.
Samoan is a very beautiful language, rich in culture and heritage.
If you’re interested in learning Samoan, why not start by learning how to say hello in Samoan or the numbers in Samoan.
You can check out our other Samoan content here.
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