Learning a second, third, or even fourth language is a rewarding challenge that we’d encourage everyone to take on. With bilingualism and multilingualism particularly prized traits amongst employers these days, learning a foreign language is about so much more than being able to speak to the locals on your gap year abroad.
Mastering another language has been proven to boost brain power, improve communication skills, provide better cultural understanding, widen job opportunities, and ultimately broaden horizons on both a personal and professional level.
Learning a new language isn’t easy, however. It takes a lot of time and effort to achieve complete fluency. But thankfully, not all languages are equally as difficult to learn.
Whilst no language is easy, choosing a language that is similar linguistically to your mother tongue is the key. Here we reveal the 5 easiest languages to learn for English speakers looking to add to their foreign language repertoire and reap some of the rewards mentioned above.
1. Spanish
The second most spoken language on the planet after Mandarin, Spanish is a great language to learn for those looking to travel the world. It’s also relatively easy to learn for English speakers.
Even the Spanish and English alphabets are similar with just a few letters differing between the two. Its pronunciation is straightforward and words are generally said how they are written for extra ease. Grammatically, there are far fewer irregularities in Spanish than in other Latin-based foreign languages.
Study in Latin America or Spain by exploring our Spanish homestays.
2. Portuguese
Like Spanish, Portuguese only differs from English when it comes to the formation of words. The rhythm of Portuguese is much easier to follow when learning for English speakers. Although mastering those nasal vowel sounds will take some practice!
3. French
With France and England only separated by the Channel, French had to feature in our easiest languages to learn list.
As well as being close enough to indulge in a quick day trip to practice with the locals, there are many French words and phrases you will be familiar with as an English speaker thanks to our long history as allies.
At one point in history, we had a French-speaking government and with this came a number of early French influences. It’s estimated that around one-third of the modern English language is influenced by French.
Heading to France for a homestay or language exchange? Don’t forget to visit these pretty places on your trip.
4. German
It isn’t just France that has been a major influence, the country’s close relationship with Germany makes German an easier language to master than others for English speakers.
German belongs to the same family of languages as English, along with Dutch and Afrikaans. It is also a very logical language with an orderly syntax.
5. Dutch
As previously mentioned Dutch belongs to the same family of languages as English. Whilst it’s well known that Dutch natives are natural non-native English speakers, with most able to speak English without a foreign accent at all, the same can be true when learning Dutch as an English speaker. Here Culture Trip explains why:
“It makes sense because Dutch is one of English’s closest relatives in the Germanic family. Like English, it contains many loan words from Romance languages, so much of the vocabulary will be familiar. Dutch is spoken natively by about 22 million people in the Netherlands, Belgium and a number of former Dutch colonies.”
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