Today’s world is home to many different languages. Actually, there are more than 6,000 of them! Deciding which one (or two) to learn can be challenging. Start with a language that’s simple for English speakers to learn if this is your first time learning a language!
Having a clear sense of why you are learning a language will help you approach the task more effectively. To help you get ready for a new profession, a relocation across the world, to communicate with friends and family, or just as a new interest, are just some of the reasons you might be taking language classes.
If English is your native language but you’re ready to take the linguistic leap into another language, here are some of the easiest (and best) languages to learn!
What makes some languages easier to learn?
Similarity to mother tongue
Learning a target language will be simpler if it shares roots, usages, and pronunciations with the native tongue of the speaker.
As a result, you’ll notice that while the easiest languages to learn are all members of the Indo-European language family, which includes English, many of the hardest languages for English speakers to learn are from other language families.
Exposure in modern world
The amount of exposure English language learners receive is one of the reasons why English is such a widely used language. English predominates across a wide range of media, including social media, TV, popular films, and worldwide news.
Practice
Since you must practise in the language’s native environment, languages that are only spoken in a person’s home country can be more difficult to learn. It is simpler to learn a language that is spoken more extensively since you are more likely to locate native speakers nearby with whom to practise.
5 languages easy for an English speaker to learn
The following languages are most closely related to English, and are therefore the easiest for native English speakers to learn:
French
One of the romance languages, French is the third most spoken language in Europe and is a very popular language to learn.
It’s considered familiar territory for a native English speaker because roughly one-third of the present English language has been affected by French.
English and French share more lexical similarities than any other Romance language, making it simpler for English speakers to understand French vocabulary.
This shared vocabulary was shaped in part by the numerous conflicts and conquests between France and England, in which language was a clear indicator of who won or lost, depending on which side you were on.
Learning French opens up fantastic business opportunities as it is spoken not only in France, but Canada, Belgium and also parts of Africa.
Spanish
Spanish is a particularly popular language to study since it is so widespread: It is the official language of 18 countries, has 500 million native speakers, and appears in thousands of TV series.
Spanish is fortunately a phonetic language, which means that words are pronounced exactly as they are written. It also has fewer linguistic quirks than other Romance languages.
It shares a Latin ancestor with other Romance languages and many English words. As a result, there are numerous recognisable cognates—words related by their shared linguistic ancestry.
Dutch
Dutch is spoken by 23 million people worldwide, mostly in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname.
Dutch is a West Germanic language that syntactically and structurally resembles English. Dutch sounds like a blend of German and English because of shared vocabulary. Even if they are pronounced differently in Dutch and English, many words have the same spelling in both languages. The terminology between the two is comparable as well; in English, groen is green, while oude man is old man.
Italian
Italian must be the language of cuisine if French is the language of love. Many Italian words will already be familiar to English speakers, especially cooks. Spaghetti, passata, and (in the freezer) gelato are frequently discovered in kitchen cabinets and have entered the English vocabulary.
Another widely spoken language with over 60 million speakers across the globe, learning a new language like Italian is a no-brainer for success.
Italian has a basic alphabet with only 21 letters (compared to English’s 26), making it extremely readable and allowing students to quickly acquire the letters.
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Hindi
India’s official language is Hindi, which at the time of the last count was spoken by more than 500 million people (or more than 50% of the population).
Hindi will take the typical English learner a little longer to master because it is a little more challenging to learn. However, several loanwords from Hindi have been incorporated into English, including jungle, guru, and karma. Loanwords are words that have been borrowed without major linguistic changes.
Even though they appear differently in the Hindi writing system, Hindi also uses a large number of English terms that are read and spoken in the same way as in English.
Looking to learn a language fast?
From Germanic languages to romance languages, we hope the above guide has given you some inspiration on your new language learning journey. If you’ve decided which language you’re eager to learn, why not learn it fast with a Simon & Simon intensive language course?
Since all of our instructors are English speakers with extensive training and years of experience teaching their target language, you only get the finest tuition.
We offer intensive courses in Spanish, French and Arabic, and Business Language Courses in a range of languages to suit your needs.
Contact us today to get started!
What is the easiest language to learn for English speakers FAQs
What are the top 3 easiest languages to learn for English speakers?
Spanish, Italian and French are some of the easiest languages for English speakers to learn as a second language.
What is the hardest language to learn for an English speaker?
Interestingly, the native language that is most commonly spoken around the world is also the one that is most difficult to master. For a variety of reasons, learning Mandarin Chinese is difficult. First and foremost, anyone used to the Latin alphabet (including English speakers) will find the writing method incredibly challenging.
Is it easier to learn French if you know English?
Being an English speaker, learning French may seem quite challenging. Fortunately, learning is considerably simpler than you might imagine. You have a significant edge when learning French if you are a native English speaker. You already know a lot more than you think you do because the two languages are similar to one another.