Language learning is surprisingly easy today. It’s great that you’ve already decided to learn a language for whatever reason you have! Our diverse cultures, traditions, landscapes, and people associated with them are outright beautiful to explore.
I guess that learning a new language isn’t that laborious in today’s tech world. We have tons of options on the internet and millions of tutors out there to teach us a new language every day, but what’s exhausting is to discover the right language to learn.
For English speakers, learning foreign languages might be a little daunting task, but acknowledging the challenges in learning is the simplest way to pick a pace. People always aim for perfection (fluency, in this case), but it’s okay to learn beyond communication and, below, becoming a translator, depending upon your choice of learning.
However, let us familiarize ourselves with some of the easiest languages to learn in this article.
Easiest Languages to Learn: A Quick Overview!
If you aren’t a profound reader who could consume the entire information of languages and their other detailed stuff, go through the below-mentioned table to get a quick overview of which are some of the easiest languages and their largely spoken country at once.
| Sr. No. | Languages | Largely spoken country |
| 1. | Spanish | Argentina, Columbia, Olivia |
| 2. | Dutch | Netherlands |
| 3. | Norwegian | Norway |
| 4. | French | France |
| 5. | Portuguese | Portugal, Brazil |
| 6. | Italian | Italy |
| 7. | Swedish | Sweden |
| 8. | Romanian | Romania |
| 9. | Afrikaans | South Africa |
| 10. | German | Germany |
| 11. | Swahili | Kenya, and Tanzania |
| 12. | Hindi | India |
| 13. | Danish | Denmark |
You might wonder if you have never actually heard some of the abovementioned languages, but they just exist! Every language has characteristics, structure, vocabulary, and other fundamentals embedded in it that everyone cannot acknowledge. You must observe the perspectives of learning it rather than identifying every syllable and remembering it hard.
While more than 7000 languages exist in this world, some prevail over others regarding speakers and countries. Foremost, decide precisely why you are learning the language you’ve decided before actually getting into the subject to identify the obvious approach to it. If you’re multilingual, you scored a point already.
Without any due, let’s get to know more.
1. Spanish:
Spanish is one of the most known and spoken languages, with more than 500 million speakers (300 million among them are native speakers) worldwide. Spanish is more of a romantic language than Germanic, and it is fairly easy to learn for English speakers because the Spanish alphabet is the same as English. Also, more or less, both languages are pronounced just like they spell.
Spanish is the official language of 18 countries, making it popularly known around the globe. The fair advantage comes from being a phonetic language; the language has lesser syllable irregularities. As mentioned, it is a romance language, and most of the words are derived from Latin, making it very familiar for English speakers to pronounce.
Another cool benefit to learning Spanish is that you can sometimes arrange sentences in any order, like the collection of words together at once, sentence is done. Also, Spanish will enhance your travel exposure and employability as it is widely spoken and has greater attraction.
2. Dutch:
Largely spoken by the people of the Netherlands and Belgium, Dutch is a Germanic language spoken today by more than 25 million people globally. The Dutch language derives from the language speech of Western Franks, and the language reconstruction dates back to 700 C.E.
Dutch is a very familiar language for English speakers, and it does sound like a combination of German and English, maybe because of their shared vocabulary. Both languages mirror each other even though they pronounce them largely differently. However, Dutch is widely spoken after German, and English is the Germanic language.
Dutch speakers are so familiar with English words that they use them daily. The practice is also named Dunglish. That being said, some words still stay far from the language barrier. Many differences distinguish both languages, like idioms, pronunciation, and others, but dutch speakers can understand a large part of English and vice versa.
3. Norwegian:
Norwegian or ‘Norsk’ is also a Germanic language like English, derived from Old Norse. The two ways of writing Norwegian are bokmål and Nynorsk. Norwegian also shares a decent amount of vocabulary with English, and its pronunciation is pretty straightforward, unlike other Germanic languages. Norwegian is one of the easiest languages to learn for English speakers.
Easy for beginners, as mentioned, Norwegian is a straightforward language with consistent pronunciation without any conjugation requirement. Also, the sentence structure is most familiar in English. More than 5 million people speak the Norwegian language, and the number is largely restricted to its origin country Norway.
Coming to pronunciation, the language has different accents within its roots Old Norse. If you are trying it for the first time, you might be fascinated with trying each accent, but anyway, there’s always a person there to correct your mistakes. On the other hand, the country has a rich history in culture and mythology.
4. French:
I’m sure you must have heard the word ‘Bonjour’ now and then. French is indeed one of the extremely popular and widely spoken languages worldwide. People also relate French as the synonym for Love. French is the official language of 29 countries, and more than 400 million people speak it from France to Madagascar, including the western regions of Canada.
French is a Romance language from the Indo-European language, so beginners probably usually stumble and find it difficult to learn at once. However, the Foreign Service Institute’s (FSI) school of language studies categorized French as the Category Ⅰ language for English speakers for its similarity to English.
It sounds similar when French natives use the common words associated with the English language in their regular phrases, but they have an entirely different meaning. Even though French highly influences the modern English language, its pronunciation and vocabulary take significant time and practice to become more familiar with it.
5. Portuguese:
Portuguese is the official language of Portugal and eight other countries like Angola, Brazil, Mozambique, etc., and it is spoken by more than 300 million people worldwide. For English speakers, learning Portuguese can be almost unchallenging as it contains a very handful of prepositions and interrogatives.
The fact that Portuguese has two different accents, Brazilian Portuguese and European Portuguese, cannot distinguish the language as both have the same vocabulary and pronunciation. Learners could even feel the difference between both, so one must learn according to their choice of interest.
Just like Spanish, Portuguese also derives from Latin and also have the same English alphabet. Learning Portuguese can be extremely advantageous as it is one of the rising economies in the global market with pop couture and films. Moreover, it is also pretty easy for English speakers.
6. Italian:
We all know how popular Italy is for its food, culture, and Art. As an English speaker, you must already be familiar with some popular Italian words like Ciao, Amore, Cosa, and others. It is also one of the Romance languages, and English speakers can learn Italian effortlessly within weeks.
Italian vocabulary is extremely popular in music, food, and films. Over the years, many native English speakers explored Italian food and culture by making Retro filmography and documentaries. Italian vocabulary is completely rooted in Latin, and many well-known food words are directly adapted into English.
English and Italian languages mostly share similar structure formations and pronunciations but not every time. Also, Italian phonetics is very accurate to pronounce, and English speakers barely misspell its vocabulary. Over 100 million people today speak Italian as their first language, and it is also spoken widely across other continents.
7. Swedish:
Swedish is popular for its pleasing music worldwide, but roughly 10 million people speak the language. While most are in Sweden, few speakers also exist in Finland. Swedish is another German language in our list, also known as ‘Svenska.’
Although the Swedish language shares some common vocabulary with English, and it’s also pretty easy to learn for English speakers, it has different syntax, grammar, and other conjugation rules. They are, however, not overly complicated. It won’t take much time for you to master the language pronunciation.
The retail giant IKEA also made the language popular by naming some of its products after its mother tongue. There might be some unfamiliar compounds, and extra vowels lie in the language, and you must acknowledge them as fast as you can to increase your learning speed without any bumps.
8. Romanian:
Romania’s language has a unique style in its nature. Although the language is rooted in Latin, it shares very common vocabulary with English, French and Italian. The Romanian language is a Romance language spoken by not more than 30 million people worldwide.
The language is also a culmination of Turkish, German, and Bulgarian. People also assume that the language is derived primarily from Slavic influencers, but it only confines to Latin. Romanian is also a phonetic language like English. This makes it easy for English learners to absorb and pronounce words similarly.
The language’s grammatical structure is also not problematic for English learners as its syllable function and pronunciation are quite the same as English.
9. Afrikaans:
Afrikaans is a family of west germanic languages descending from Dutch. The language gradually developed to distinguish its characteristics from German and french. More than 10 million people speak Afrikaans today, whereas 7 million are native speakers.
Afrikaans is the only Indo-European language among the other South African languages, along with English. Although the language sounds similar to Dutch, both are separate languages with different standards and sound systems. Afrikaans is the easiest language to learn for English speakers because of its common origin with English.
Afrikaans language vocabulary and pronunciation are strongly similar to English. Most language words share a strong structure and don’t change based on gender, number, and tense. It also has only three tenses eliminating verb conjugation, making it easier to learn for beginners.
10. German:
People generally have this strong feeling that learning German is exhausting, but it is one of the easiest languages to learn for English speakers. As the name suggests, German is a Germanic language. Including all 42 countries, the German language is also one of the most widely spoken languages around the world, with more than 130 million speakers.
The German language is the mother tongue of the European Union, and it is also the official language of seven countries. German shares the common alphabet with English making its vocabulary more familiar for English speakers.
Although it has a common vocabulary and sentence structure, pronunciation hits you as a beginner speaker, especially compound words. I agree with the fact that German is comparatively hard to learn, unlike Afrikaans, Dutch, and Latin, but you can excel in it in no time if you are consistent in learning.
11. Swahili:
Swahili, also known as Kiswahili, is the native language of people living in Kenya, Tanzania, and Mozambique. Swahili is also one of the easiest languages to try for English speakers, and it is widely spoken in Uganda.
The language sounds soft, and their pronunciation is easy to pick up by English speakers. As the language is the same phonetic, you get the language very quickly. Most of their vocabulary is taken from English, and it is also straightforward with its grammar.
Having fewer verb conjugations and logical prefixes makes the language easier to understand quickly. Although the language is not widely spoken, you can try it if you are passionate about language exploration. Swahili’s vocabulary is also heavily influenced by Arabic.
12. Hindi:
Hindi is one of the most spoken languages in the world, and there are over 580 million speakers of it all over the world. It is mostly spoken in India, and apart from that, it is also spoken in Nepal, Fiji, Mauritius, Guyana, Trinidad & Tobago, and Suriname. The grammar of this language is moderately difficult, but it can easily be learned by anyone, and they can start speaking it in a very short time.
There are many English words that are of Hindi origin, like yoga, avatar, cheetah, guru, karma, jungle, and many more. There are also many Hindi words that are of English origins, such as डॉक्टर which is pronounced doctor in English, and स्टेशन, which is pronounced station. Learning to speak Hindi is not very difficult, but to master it in writing too, you will need proper knowledge of the language.
13. Danish
Danish is a North Germanic language that originated in Denmark and southern Sweden. It developed from Old Norse, the common language of the Vikings during the Viking Age between 800-1050 AD. Danish and Swedish diverged as separate languages in the 12th-13th centuries.
Some key events in the development of Danish:
- Around 800 AD – Old Norse spoken by Vikings developed into the earliest forms of Danish and Swedish. Runic inscriptions show features of these early Scandinavian languages.
- 12th century – Danish begins to diverge significantly from Old Norse and Swedish due to Low German and High German influences. The first Danish texts appear, including translations of liturgical texts.
- 1350s – The Black Death plague devastates Denmark, leading to a decline in monasteries and religious texts. This causes a temporary setback in the written form of Danish.
- 1513 – Christiern Pedersen publishes the first complete translation of the Bible into Danish, helping to standardize the language.
- Early 17th century – Danish replaces Low German as the official language of the royal court, administration, and church. This cements its status as the predominant language of Denmark.
- Late 18th century – Purist linguistic reforms shape modern Danish by removing many German and French words, bringing the language closer to its Old Norse roots. Spelling is also reformed.
- Mid-20th century – Major orthographic reform of Danish spelling enacted in 1948. The modern version of the Danish alphabet is established.
Today, Danish is the official language of Denmark and the Faroe Islands, as well as one of the official languages of Greenland. There are around 5.7 million native speakers of Danish worldwide, with the majority residing in Denmark. About 12,000 German-Danes also speak it in Southern Schleswig, a region on the border with Germany. Danish is mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Swedish to some degree.
Related Read:
Final Thoughts On Easiest Languages To Learn (2024)
There you go, all the easiest languages that are interesting in their respective ways. You might have heard some of them before on various occasions and places, but I see you are here because you’ve been thinking about what to learn, which gives you more exposure and experience worldwide.
From sharing similar vocabularies to common pronunciations and nativity, each piece of luggage has its unique identification and connection to English. You must acknowledge the fact precisely why you are trying to learn a new language before getting into learning from anywhere. That being said, adios, amigos!
FAQs:
I guess it is Afrikaans because it shares the same origin as English. And it shares a strong vocabulary and pronunciation connection with English, making learning easier.
In the case of popularity, Spanish, Italian, and French top the list as they have been heavily influenced by other native speakers and passionate linguists with their unique cultural appearance and some phenomenal art collections.
English is the most spoken language in the world, and Mandarin is the second most spoken, followed by Hindi, Arabic, Russian, and others.
