9 Easiest Languages to Learn for English Speakers

The first-ever language was spoken around 250,000 to 200,000 years ago when the first Homo Sapiens evolved to become upright. In the time since then, we’ve evolved to speak some 7,100 languages. That’s way more languages than countries, as you might expect.

Interestingly, it’s Papua New Guinea, the 98^th largest country in the world, that has the most languages with 851. With only around 9,000,000 inhabitants, that’s a huge number of languages spoken.

So, what can we take from this as language learners? Well, while some languages are much more difficult to master than others, the concept of being ‘rubbish at languages’ (as many English speakers claim to be) just cannot be true!

If you believe yourself to not be a linguist, it’s time to rethink! In this article, we’ll introduce you to the 9 easiest languages for English speakers to learn. Firstly, though, let’s look at how we define the difficulty of a language. 

Language Difficulty Rating Explained

The FSI (Foreign Service Institute), which is a United States federal training institution, came up with criteria to determine the difficulty of a language for English speakers. They ranked the languages according to how long they take to master to a level of professional proficiency.

Here’s what the FSI determined:

1. Easiest languages to learn for English speakers [professional proficiency in 600 hours] – languages that are closely related to English. This includes Romance languages like French, Portuguese, Catalan, Galician, Spanish, Italian, and Romanian. It also includes other languages that have historically influenced our language like Danish, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, and Afrikaans. 
2. Other similar languages to English [professional proficiency in 750 hours] – German
3. Culturally or linguistically different languages [professional proficiency in 900 hours] – Malaysian, Indonesian, and Swahili, for example.
4. Significantly culturally or linguistically different languages [professional proficiency in 110 hours] – Polish, Urdu, Greek, Russian, and Turkish, for example.
5. Extremely different and difficult languages [professional proficiency in 2200 hours] – Cantonese, Arabic, Japanese, Korean, and Mandarin, for example.

Easiest languages to learn for English speakers

1. Dutch – the easiest language to learn for English speakers

Many people believe Dutch to be the easiest language for English speakers to learn thanks to its shared similarities with our language.

It is particularly similar in terms of vocabulary. There are many so many cognates between the two languages, and perhaps more shared words than any other English mix. What’s trickier for English speakers is getting the pronunciation right. 

Learning Dutch means you’ll be able to communicate with 24 million people around the world. It’s not just the Netherlands where this language is spoken, but many luxurious Caribbean spots too, like the Dutch Antilles and Aruba. What’s more, in the Flanders region of Belgium, Flemish is almost identical to Dutch too!

2. Norwegian 

Just like English and Dutch, Norwegian is also a Germanic language, which means we also have quite a lot of vocabulary in common. Norwegian also has similar grammar and word order that is almost always the same as English.

If you’re traveling in Norway and spot these signs, you’ll probably know what you’re reading: Turistinformasjon, Busstasjon, and Politistasjon. And could you guess Butikk (shop) and Sykehus (hospital – sick house!). 

As for pronunciation, this is much more forgiving than other languages because there are loads of different Norwegian accents so there is usually more than one way to pronounce a word!

3. Swedish

Our next easiest language for English speakers to learn is also a Germanic language – and it also shares a lot of cognates with English. For example, “house” in English is hus in Swedish, and “household” is hushåll.

Just like Norwegian, this language also has simple rules for its grammar and word order. And – if you’re into your home décor and furniture – you’ll already know some Swedish because of IKEA. This article tells you all about how IKEA names its items! Be wary though, Billy doesn’t mean ‘bookcase’; the item was simply named after an employee called Billy!

Unlike English, there are nine vowels in Swedish (like å and ö), which can cause pronunciation confusion. The sje sound is also unique to this language but once mastered, you’ll find the language to be melodic.

4. Spanish

As a Romance language, Spanish is part of the easiest languages for English people to learn. I’d argue that it’s the easiest of the Romances too given that it is a phonetic language with only ten vowel and diphthong sounds – unlike the twenty in English. This language also seems to have fewer irregularities compared to other similar languages.

What also makes Spanish easier to learn is just how many speakers there are worldwide. The Instituto Cervantes estimates that there are 591 million Spanish speakers in the world. This is made up of 493 million native speakers too. Because there are so many speakers, finding resources and people to talk to is so easy!

5. French

Having taught both Spanish and French to English people, I placed French after Spanish in this list of easiest languages to learn for English speakers. The reason for this is that the structure of French is slightly more complicated.

In Spanish, for example, to make a sentence negative, you just add the word no in front of the verb. In French, though, you need to sandwich the negative structure ne … pas after the subject pronoun and around the verb, which causes new learners lots of problems – especially when we come to tenses and auxiliary verbs.

That said, French is still an easy language for English people to learn. After the 1066 Norman Conquest, England was under the influence of Norman-speaking leaders, specifically in the property and landowning sectors. While this language wasn’t used exclusively, it led to some interesting language doublets.

Consider the words sell/vend, start/commence, trade/commerce, meet/encounter, go on/continue, and withdraw/disengage. They’re all a pair of words that both have the same meanings – and are both in use today. The first in the pair is of Anglo-Saxon origin, while the second is of Norman origin. Some people predict that as much as 45% of English words have a French origin.

So, if you’re considering what might be the easiest language for English speakers to learn, French is certainly up there!

6. Portuguese

There are some 234 million Portuguese speakers across the world, and it is the official language in eight countries, including Portugal, Brazil, Mozambique, Cape Verde, and Angola. 

Like Spanish, you’ll have an advantage learning it as an English speaker due to it being a Romance language with a Latin alphabet. 

Just like there are differences between American English and UK English, you’ll find differences between the language in Portugal and Brazil both in terms of vocabulary and pronunciation. Don’t let this deter you, though! After all, it’s still the same language. 

7. Italian

The great thing about learning Italian is that you’ll already know lots of vocabulary items. Have you ever been to an Italian restaurant? Then you’re good to go!

With words like pizza, macaroni, spaghetti, ravioli, calzone, and tagliatelle being used in English-speaking countries, you’ll never go hungry in Italy! Be careful, though, peperoni means peppers and not the spicy sausage we’re accustomed to in the English-speaking world!

As well as these food-related words, we also have a lot of other borrowed Italian words in English like finale, solo, fiasco, and diva. And, if you’ve ever learned a musical instrument, you’ll know loads of other words too! Examples include andante (walking), accelerando (gradually getting faster), da capo (from the beginning), forte (loud/strong), fortissimo (very loud), and rallentando (gradually slowing down).

Another great thing about Italian is that once you’ve learned the pronunciation rules, you’ll be able to sound Italian really quickly. 

8. Romanian

If you’re looking for a more unusual easy language to learn, how about Romanian?

Even though Romania is encased by Slavic countries like Hungary and the Czech Republic, its language is a Romance language that is similar to French, Spanish, and Italian. It’s also a phonetic language so the majority of words are pronounced exactly how they’re written.

One of the hardest things about learning Romanian is the lack of materials due to low demand. But, thanks to the internet, you’ll still be able to find enough resources to learn Romanian. Finally, Romanian is the closest language to Latin for anyone who knows this language!

9. Esperanto

Our final easiest language to learn for English speakers is Esperanto. Esperanto is a conlang, which means ‘constructed language’, and by its design, it’s easy to learn. Conlangs are wonderful for lovers of language learning because they tend to combine all of the things we love about languages and none of the things we don’t – like irregularities. 

Esperanto is the most famous conlang and it was created in the late 1870s and 1880s by L. L. Zamenhof, a Polish-Jewish ophthalmologist.

Even though Esperanto was an invented language, it actually has some native speakers now. However, there are still only 100,000 speakers of the language globally. 

Final thoughts

As English speakers, we have so many opportunities to learn another language, and we’re so fortunate that our language is made up of lots of parts of other languages.

Modern English has been influenced by so many different countries and languages, with the most prominent influences being Latin-based languages and Germanic languages. What this means for us is that we’ll find lots of recognizable elements, whichever language we choose to learn. 

Finally, deciding which language to learn shouldn’t just come down to choosing the easiest language for English speakers to learn, you should also weigh up the opportunities you’ll have with that language and what else you could gain from it. Most of all, have fun learning!