Learning a new language can be a challenging task. There are so many factors that can interfere with your success, but you can take some steps to help you overcome these obstacles. By following these steps, you will be able to learn the most basic language in no time at all.
Easiest Languages for English Speakers to Learn
Learning a new language is like learning a new tool. And if it’s not used, you won’t get good at using it. Only through constant use will your brain know how to make the connection between the sounds and what they mean without having errors in translation when you want or need to communicate
Most people give up on learning a language due to outgrowing their ability before they even start making progress towards fluency and communication proficiency with greater words than strings of random letters
9 Easy Languages to Learn
1. Chinese Mandarin
The language that is spoken in China and many surrounding countries can seem like it would be one of the hardest languages to learn, but this cannot be further from the truth. Not only is it relatively common for people over there to speak English, but most are also able to understand you as well! So even if your first attempt at learning a new language didn’t result in success fast enough considering how hard it seems at times, learning Chinese Mandarin will be much less difficult than you may expect.
2. Spanish
Next up comes our number 2 easy language, spoken in North America and South American countries alike: Spanish! Being an official language of more places around the globe than any other second language on this list, learning a new one is never going to prove as time-consuming or challenging for most people as languages like French or Italian can be!
3. French
Another Convenient Language for the United States of America Several U.S.-based countries have opted to allow other languages on local ballots besides both English and Spanish, which is where your next easy language comes in: French! Though the country it’s spoken in consists entirely — 99% actually — of regions that speak either one or those two aforementioned languages, only about 10-15% softened up with French as an official language.
4. German
It’s spoken in Switzerland, Germany, Austria, and Liechtenstein. The fourth of the top five best languages to learn will be none other than German! Now speaking only about countries where English is not accepted onto an official ballot with your second language choice, you have Germany as an option by itself (95% with another nationalistic language like it’s still spoken). This makes up approximately half of Europe but besides many things has been ruled by a number of nations at one point these last thousands of years!
5. Swedish
And one more European language that is on English-speaking countries’ ballots can be found in the fifth spot — Swedish.
(Though considering its relative smallness, it only really amounts to 4% of all spoken native languages when compared to French and German). Now, this may still fall under some people’s definition for an easier language and doesn’t match up with what we’ve established so far but despite how easy or hard certain languages are ( or un!) to learn, it’s definitely worth the time and effort.
6 . Portuguese
“Portuguese” is widely spoken in countries like Brazil and has close ties to Portugal (both are common home countries for many with this language). It still gets used within some European nations as well, which makes it a very widely known foreign language — especially amongst non-Francophic pupils! Although it’s not quite at the same international level as French, being most often dubbed difficult until the later stages of learning.
7 . Danish
Now obviously Denmark is always a high-index country in almost anything as we just discussed but more specifically it comes out at 8th place. Given how few people there are within its borders that can quickly speak and understand this language, being so far down still gives some significant recognition to those who do have the ability.
8 . Finnish
“Finnish” is a language that’s spoken widely across Finland, and has its own country-wide government (though due to many other international allegiances, it’s not officially recognized as the one you can use over multiple nations).
9 . Icelandic
“Icelandic” should be self-explanatory from the name, as it’s very much a Scandinavian language (think Norwegian in terms of what we’re talking). As Iceland has ties with many other countries and therefore people who speak this are “international”, being so far down on the list is still widely recognized.
How to make any language easy to learn?
Having a good base of speaking skills, preferably not having had any prior exposure and at least knowing the most essential vocabulary for such an introduction. Now coming into it—the other thing that really really makes and breaks languages is grammar! As long as your start off as a beginner and simply practicing to use words you’ve learned, then the hard part almost outstarts itself since this will depend on what kind of language (if derivative or original). The structure however I feel is perhaps entirely the hardest for most people and toughest to master in a first-place ever.
How useful to learn another language if you are an English speaker?
It’s very important that I mention this because there are some people who know just enough English to get by, but it is why they think learning a language completely independent and therefore “in-fixed” of their mother tongue will or can be easier.
‘the’ reason when you take out the actual grammar section specifically—it all comes down to culturally speaking with how we function in everyday life; unlike languages (generally) which have always been mutually intelligible and therefore universal, there is simply too much cross-pollination with cultural differences which does permeate a lot of discourse to warrant the idea of another language being learned for that reason.
Just how easy are the easiest languages?
It is a completely subjective opinion as to how easy you think some languages are and what is meant by “easy” because I would simply take that term for English. Attaining fluency in another language can stretch back generations if not centuries with our semantics being so entrenched into us at an early age—we have been accepted or allowed to learn those linguistic roots from families but the benefit of this, likely isn’t that we should communicate well among ourselves across these languages but that ourselves become more well-rounded citizens with a broader understanding of the world.
What makes a language easy or difficult?
The difficulty is certainly greater than “simple”, but not as hard as some people make it out to be, with the tools and teaching materials available today from beginner courses through advanced books. The truth behind learning a language isn’t really about how difficult that code itself will pose; in some ways I would say Spanish or French are far harder for us to learn simply for the amount of grammar, the alphabet, vowel, noun, and verb conjugation we must wrap our heads around then English does ( don’t get me wrong, it can be difficult but for the sake of understanding I’ll put down a side by itself). What makes language learning hard or easy is how that code will interact with our way of thinking.
In summary, I think it is important to note that “easy” languages do not necessarily make language learning easier. The complexity of a language, in and of itself, doesn’t mean you can’t learn it as a learner; the real question is how much we are willing to put into learning that code. In other words, the more you want to understand the code and the culture behind it—the more difficult it will be for you.