Language Hurdles? Jump Over with Top 10 Simple Tongues

If you are curious by definition and passionate about life-long learning, this is probably among the top 1,000 most essential questions you asked or will ask yourself during your life: what is the easiest language to learn? But what about the hardest? Well, since we already answered your second question in a previous post , today you are focusing on thetop 10 easiest languages to learn by an English speaker.

As a general rule, when you are doing a hierarchy or a top of any kind, you should first research and consult the highest authority in the field. When talking about the hardest or the easiest languages to learn, ranked, the Foreign Service Institute (FSI) of the US Government holds the responsibility of having the most pertinent results. As you probably already guessed, the FSI is preparing American diplomats and other professionals to advance U.S. foreign affairs interests overseas. With around 800 language learning courses in 70 languages, the FSI has over 70 years of experience in instructing people to learn languages.

As the FSI confirms , a native English speaker would need about 575 hours or 23 weeks to achieve professional working proficiency (level 3 on the Interagency Language Roundtable scale) in one of the easiest languages to learn.

Just to put things into perspective, the same native English speaker would need around 2200 hours or 88 weeks to reach the same level of fluency in one of the hardest languages to learn: Arabic, Chinese, Japanese or Korean.

Read on and discover the top 10 easiest languages to learn for English speakers, languages you could learn in less than six months. If you want to start learning any of them, just use Mondly , or better yet, Mondly VR if you’re the adventuring type.

Danish

Danish, the official language of Denmark, is spoken by around 6 million people principally in Denmark and in some minor communities in northern Germany, Sweden, Norway, Spain, Canada, The United States, Argentina, and Brazil. Due to immigration, around 20% of the population of Greenland also speaks Danish as a first language.

What makes Danish easy to learn by English speakers is the fact that there are around 900 Danish words we already use in English. Plus another 900 other words that linguists can’t yet decide if they were borrowed from Danish or just simply resemble their Danish equivalent.

Check out t h e 6 best Danish films to learn Danish !

Swedish

Spoken by 10 million people in both Sweden and Finland, the Swedish language is known to be mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish (to some extent). Good news, right?

An important characteristic of Swedish grammar that makes it different from English is the placement of the definite article after the noun. However, its vocabulary contains many loanwords from German, French, and English. That means you’ll have a better chance at mastering it faster if you already know the above-mentioned languages. Everywhere you look in the world of languages, there’s a connection that can help you learn faster. Make the most of it!

Norwegian

“Lofoten Islands, Svolvær, Norway” by John O’Nolan©

With around 5 million native speakers,Norwegian has an interesting story behind its two distinct norms: Bokmål (also known as Dano-Norwegian or Riksmål) and New Norwegian (also known as Nynorsk).

The story started back in the 15th century after the union of Norway with Denmark. That’s when Old Norwegian writing traditions gradually began to die out, and Dano-Norwegian took over. Then, in 1814, Norway became independent, and although the linguistic union with Danish persisted, the people felt they needed a language of their own. That’s when the New Norwegian norm began to be used. Today, the people of Norway learn to read and write in New Norwegian, but only about 20% of them use it as their language of choice in writing.

Afrikaans – the easiest language to learn for both English and Dutch speakers

Afrikaans, the same as English, Dutch, Danish, Norwegian and Swedish, is a Germanic language. This is what makes it obviously easier to learn by a native English speaker. These languages use the same alphabet as English, have comparable stress and intonation patterns, and sometimes even share some vocabulary words.

The Afrikaans language is spoken in South Africa, Namibia, and in some regions of Botswana and Zimbabwe. But the most exciting thing you must know about Afrikaans is that 90 to 95% of its vocabulary is of Dutch origin as a consequence of Dutch settlers establishing in Cape Town in 1652. As a result, the Afrikaans language gradually arose in the Dutch Cape Colony during the course of the 18th century.

Thus, if you are a language nerd that also wants to become a polyglot , with Dutch you can kill one and three-quarters of a bird with one stone because you’ll also understand a big part of the Afrikaans language. If simplicity isn’t enough for you, here are 7 more reasons to learn Afrikaans!

Dutch

As we already mentioned, Dutch can be considered Afrikaans’ oldest sibling since they share almost the same vocabulary (90-95%). With around 24 million speakers, Dutch is the third most widely spoken Germanic language – the first two being English and German – and the official language of the Netherlands and Belgium (together with French and German).

Careful though! The spoken language of Dutch is tricky as it has many dialects. While Standard Dutch is used for official purposes, its dialects are used in a great variety of informal situations. Sometimes you’ll find villages that use a Dutch dialect of their own.

The Romance languages are almost just as easy to learn

For a native (or not) English speaker such as yourself, French, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, and Spanish are practically just as easy to learn for you as the Germanic languages. To achieve a professional working proficiency level in any of these languages, you’ll need about 600 hours or 24 weeks of study. That’s only an extra week! So, let’s find out more about the top easiest R omance languages to learn for English speakers.

French

‘Strasbourg, France’ by Patrick Robert Doyle©

A favorite among Romance language learners, French has a massive amount of shared vocabulary with English, due to both linguistic roots, but also territorial conflicts. We agree, that French pronunciation is no picnic at first, but pop culture is a real help in perfecting your skills.

We must also mention some differences: 17 verb forms as opposed to 12 in English, gendered nouns, and some tricky accents. But given the cultural and even professional opportunities it presents, it’s really worthwhile to learn French !

Italian

Some people get interested in Italian due to the culinary aspect, some recognize the fact that Latin roots really do help English speakers learn Italian . To each his own, we say.

Seriously now, Italian is also highly readable, with a shorter alphabet than English: 21 letters instead of 26.

Spanish

Since we talked about Italian, Spanish couldn’t be far behind, right? The same advantages as with Italian apply here as well, the many cognates making the learning experience a lot easier.

When it comes to pronunciation, things are also pretty straightforward, as it’s a phonetic language through and through. But keep in mind that, same as with French, grammar could be a little bewildering at first: we’re talking about different verb tenses, grammar rules, and exceptions. What more incentive do you need to learn Spanish , aside from the fact that it is the second most spoken language in the world?

Romanian

Horror stories aside, Romanian is a lot more than the language of Bram Stoker’s Dracula ! This language has a unique history, being the only Romance language in the Eastern part of Latin Europe . Its roots make it similar to the above-mentioned languages, and indeed similar to English.

While not as popular as France, Spain, or Italy, Romania is an interesting destination for English speakers. The only problem with learning Romanian is that you won’t have many opportunities to practice it, outside of conversing with natives.

Portuguese

Spoken both in Brazil and Portugal, this member of the Romance language family is very similar to Spanish and Romanian and shares a large number of vocabulary with English. There are however some false cognates as well, so one should be careful when learning Portuguese .

Given the rise of Brazil’s economy and the many pop culture references, Portuguese learners will have many opportunities to learn a language that is incredibly similar to Spanish.

Speak a new language in just 10 minutes a day

Well, not that you know what are the easiest languages to learn for a native English speaker, you can get to work becausebeing a polyglot is so much easier when you have Mondly. Download the app , choose any of the 41 languages available and go wild! You’ll get to expand your vocabulary while also practicing REAL conversations with a chatbot with speech recognition.

If you need more tips on how to learn a foreign language faster, here they are:

Discover your reason for learning the language and keep motivated;
Find a partner. Competition is a great driver for improvement!
Talk to yourself, even if it seems weird. This can keep information fresh in your mind and give you more confidence for the next time you talk to someone;
Think of fun and creative activities that help you with language learning. Watch a movie, listen to music, write. There are countless possibilities;

Try Mondly now and learn the easiest languages faster than you could ever imagine.

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Language Hurdles? Jump Over with Top 10 Simple Tongues