What are the easiest languages to learn for English speakers? What are some not-too-difficult and not simple, i.e., Moderate foreign tongues to study for Indians?
Let’s face it; You may not have enough time to learn an international language.
After all, not everyone is a full-time student. There are so many things to do in our lives, from a professional commitment to family responsibility.
There’s no embarrassment in clicking that “easy” button sometimes. But, what are those languages?
I’m often asked this question, especially by people contemplating choosing a new language. It’s one of the most common queries for beginners to ask.
So, what’s the answer?
Well, the answer is not that simple.
Why?
The language difficulty level depends on many aspects.
It is usually easier to acquire when it is linguistically related to your mother tongue or the one you’re already fluent in.
Additionally, the available resources, language techniques, complexity, and passion for that language are crucial factors that make any tongue easy or hard.
You can read in detail, “What makes one language harder or easier to learn.”
Before we dive into “most straightforward and moderate languages to learn,” Let’s be honest, language acquisition is never easy, mainly when you are grown up.
No tongue is a small, manageable task or uncomplicated without you consistently putting some time and effort into it.
As per my experience, nearly everyone thinks that all languages are somewhat hard to master – I’m one of them.
Some tongues, however, are easier to learn than others.
Learning a foreign language can be fun, but some can be more enjoyable than others can.
The sheer joy and enthralling experience of language learning make it always manageable!
Here, the easiest languages mean you can learn in 2-3 years with limited challenges. And not 4-5 years by burning the midnight oil for East-Asian Japanese, Korean, or Mandarin, or West-Asian Arabic, Persian, or Turkish.
Are you looking to learn any of the listed ones in 6 to 12 months to get a high-paying language job or to paas a higher level in an international proficiency test? Well, in that case, you might be disappointed.
Table of Contents
- 7 Easiest Languages To Learn
- 1. Spanish
- 2. Italian
- 3. Portuguese
- 4. Swedish
- 5. Norwegian
- 6. Dutch
- 7. Romanian
- 3 Moderate languages to Learn
- 1. German
- 2. French
- 3. Indonesian
7 Easiest Languages To Learn
This article will expose you to some of the simplest and moderate tongues you can learn.
So we start with the most natural one to learn.
The below list is not exhaustive.
1. Spanish
Speak English or one of the romance languages. You will find it very straightforward to study, understand, talk, and write in Spanish.
Both share thousands of cognates – some identical and others very closely related. That is, reading and writing in Spanish are typically straightforward.
Spanish has just fewer diphthong and vowel sounds.
It has no strange phonemes except for the somehow funny letter’ ñ.’ Most of the words that make up Spanish are written as pronounced.
The writing is almost entirely phonetic. That is why learning Spanish is one of the easiest languages of all the choices.
There is just one caveat — The grammar and vocabulary are pretty immense.
Besides, there are many Spanish dialects due to the widespread Hispanic population in 20 Spanish-speaking countries.
- Speaking, Grammar, Writing: Easy
- Conclusion: Straightforward language to learn.
2. Italian
Do you wish to acquire a tongue that is a pleasure to speak and not a complex language to understand?
Well, learn Italian.
Italian is one of the most famous and “romantic” languages to learn.
Fortunately, it has its roots in Latin, which translates into many English/Italian cognates. Example: Ambitious (ambitious), Generosity (Generosità), University (Università), Organization (Organizzazione), Fantastic (Fantastico), to name a few.
Like –ghi and –ace, the Italian phonemes are regular and quite comfortable for English speakers to comprehend.
The sentence structure in Italian is highly rhythmic, and most of its words end up in vowels.
Its musical tone makes it easy to understand better. The majority of its words are also written as pronounced.
It makes learning Italian a no-brainer. You will also have a head-start when you study Romanian.
- Speaking and Grammar: easy
- Writing: mildly easy
- Conclusion: easy to learn
3. Portuguese
The Brazillian economy position is 6th most significant worldwide. That makes the Portuguese language (the official in Brazil, Portugal, and several other countries) a fascinating language to learn.
Interrogative communication in the language is relatively easy. Plus, there are fewer prepositions in Portuguese than in English.
The only delicate part of the tongue is the nasal vowel sound that makes pronunciation a bit tricky. You have to practice extensively to pronounce correctly.
However, the rhythmic tone is simple to acquire.
Portuguese shares similarities with Spanish. If you already know English and Spanish, learning Portuguese is not a daunting task.
But watch out for misleading cognates! For example, “Atualmente” in European Portuguese means “currently” in English.
- Speaking, Grammar, Writing: reasonably easy.
- Conclusion: fairly easy
4. Swedish
Swedish is a tongue spoken by about 10 million people, primarily Swedes and Finns.
The Scandinavian language has a pleasant, highly melodic, singing sound and primarily free of unpleasant ch-sounds.
With lots of similar vocabulary and similar word order to English, it is comparatively easy to learn.
The syntax is identical to English, with a subject-verb-object structure.
Learning Swedish shouldn’t be difficult for English speakers.
Besides, once you know Swedish, the Norwegian and Danish acquisition is like walking in the park. Three for the price of one.
There is one drawback.
English is widely taught in Sweden, starting from primary school. Thus, it might not be an essential tongue to learn in the 20th century.
- Speaking, Grammar, Writing: reasonably easy.
- Conclusion: easy
5. Norwegian
With around 5 million native Norwegian speakers, it has two official written forms, Bokmål and Nynorsk.
Regarding the written part, Norwegian is structurally similar to Danish but with intonation more familiar to English and Swedish speakers. It has a logical system of tonal “pitch accent.”
With no conjugation as per person and number, the verb form is simple.
By adding different suffixes like –e, –s, you can learn past and passive tense. Besides, the word order closely mimics English.
There are two shortcomings.
First, there are enormous varieties of different accents in Norway. Second, the vast majority of the Norway population speaks English.
- Speaking, Grammar, Writing: reasonably easy.
- Conclusion: easy
6. Dutch
Along with Flemish and Africaans, Dutch is part of the low Franconian branch of the West Germanic language family.
Dutch is the third most spoken Germanic tongue after English and German. It is the official language of the Netherlands and Belgium.
The Dutch language is a natural pick for English and German speakers since it uses many words that are more or less the same.
Unlike German, Dutch does not have any case system and complicated grammar rules.
The pronunciation can vary significantly since many words sound different even though they look the same. Due to a large number of vernacular tongues, it has many dialects and slang. It can be overwhelming for language enthusiasts.
- Speaking, Grammar, Writing: reasonably easy.
- Conclusion: fairly easy
7. Romanian
Since Romanian is an Indo-European language originating from spoken Latin. Therefore, those who know another Romance language can learn it in relatively less time.
It also has Slavic and a bit of Turkish Influence.
The Romanian language is written phonetically and is convenient to learn due to its more straightforward structure and grammar.
It is not widespread and less taught languages. It means you won’t get many opportunities to practice as the other languages on my list.
- Speaking, Grammar, Writing: mildly easy.
- Conclusion: fairly easy
3 Moderate languages to Learn
The following are some not-too-difficult and not overly simple languages to learn regarding English:
1. German
A part of the Germanic language family that includes English, German is a very descriptive language.
Like French and Spanish, German is also the most accessible language with more available resources than any other on the list.
Besides, learning German opens a world of language careers.
It has excellent logical grammar featuring lots of overlapping words in English.
However, understanding the language can be challenging—no thanks to its long words, four noun case endings, and tricky sentence formation.
Also, there is a diversity of dialects. For instance, Austrian, Swiss, Lower, Upper, and Central German are not mutually intelligible to a large extent.
- Speaking and Pronunciation: Fairly challenging
- Grammar and Writing: moderate
- Conclusion: Fairly difficult
2. French
Widely known as the language of love, French has greatly influenced a large part of the modern English language.
Many linguists estimate that nearly one-third of English words came from French.
With over 30 Francophone countries, there are over 270 million French speakers worldwide.
French has more gender nouns and more verbs (17) compared to English (12). French grammar and sentence formation are simple to understand. Besides, due to numerous linguistic parts of the language thus shouldn’t be a problem.
If you’re learning French, you will find that pronunciation is the hardest part.
The new sounds, silent letters, ambiguous vowels, the liaisons, French dialects, enchaînement, and contractions combine to make speaking very complicated and confusing.
- Speaking: fairly challenging
- Grammar and Writing: moderate
- Conclusion: fairly challenging
3. Indonesian
It is the only Asian language on my list and one of the rare Asian tongues that use the Latin alphabet.
Indonesian is among the most widely spoken languages in the world, with more than 200 million speakers.
It is moderately easy to learn because it is not a tonal language. The words are written exactly how they sound. It is easy to imitate and direct in its approach.
It also has many prefixes and suffixes, which is suitable for English speakers. Rules of grammar are not that difficult nor too easy either.
That’s the reason I added in the moderate category.
- Speaking and Grammar: moderately easy
- Writing: moderate
- Conclusion: moderate
The Foreign Service Institute language difficulty rankings indicate how long a native English speaker would need to reach proficiency in different languages.
As per FSI studies, Danish, Afrikaans, Malaysian, and Swahili also fall into the easiest languages category of I and II.
On average, it takes 1150 to 1500 hours to reach professional working proficiency. (with 1:1 ratio for classroom and self-study hours).