What Is The Easiest Language To Learn?
There is an urban legends that suggest some languages are easier than others. Which languages are easier and why, as well as who finds them easier, is another story. In this post, let's go beyond urban legends and discover what the famous easiest language to learn is.
If you've ever been around someone trying to learn a foreign language, you've probably heard the idea that the easiest language in the world is Spanish, and nothing can be easier than that. I've heard this from a) people who have never encountered Spanish speech, b) people who only speak their native language, and c) people who have learned Spanish but haven't studied any other foreign languages.
Although many language learners look at Spanish through these rose-colored glasses of "simplicity," they are not entirely wrong.
Spanish is indeed one of the easiest languages to learn, but only for a portion of humanity. For the rest of the world, the answer would be quite different.
So let's start from the beginning.
Does the easiest language really exist?
The easiest language. Did you notice that definite article there, at the beginning of the phrase? That little "the"?
When thinking about the easiest language, we often imagine something homogeneous: a single language whose linguistic criteria, such as syntactic structure, vocabulary, morphology, phonetics, or typology, are somehow easier than those of all other languages. And easier for everyone.
But what do we typically consider easy?
I'm sure you'll agree with me on this one. Nothing can be more transparent, more evident, and more practical than something you already know.
Consciously or unconsciously, our brains compare everything new to the existing information we have related to the topic. When it comes to foreign languages, you have no choice but to compare a new language to your native language. It's from these differences that you decide whether a language is "an easy one" or whether it should be classified as a "WTF." In case you've never experienced a WTF, here's some Amharic:
A mother tongue differs for each person, so each of us has a unique "initial" language database, and there is no such thing on Earth as the easiest language to learn.
In contrast, there are groups of languages that can be relatively easy to master. Which languages are they?
These are the languages that are closely related to your mother tongue.
How are languages connected to each other?
No language exists in isolation. Languages form groups, branches, and families, much like living species.
This analogy is not coincidental. Similar to living species, languages undergo constant evolution over time. By tracing the origins of living languages, historical linguists have been able to create a language genealogy—a tree model that describes the genetic relationship between different tongues, both living and extinct.
Here's the Indo-European tree in all its glory. Simply click on the image to enlarge it.
Languages within the same branch share a common origin. For instance, all Romance languages such as French, Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese derive from the same "parent" language—Latin. Similarly, all Slavic languages (Russian, Polish, Serbian, and others) evolved from the common Proto-Slavic language. Both Latin and Proto-Slavic, in turn, share a common ancestor—an ancient Proto-Indo-European language spoken during the Neolithic period.
While Proto-Indo-European was not the easiest language in the world to learn, it gave rise to over a thousand other languages. However, it is only the "grandfather" language for a specific part of the linguistic world. On the other side of the globe, language evolution had nothing to do with PIE. If we trace the modern Chinese language back to its roots, we find a completely different language family, namely Sino-Tibetan, which has no connection to the Indo-European languages. The same is true for language families such as Afroasiatic, Altaic, Dravidian, Uralic, and so on.
Languages within the same language family share common features, typically inherited from their ancestor language. This can include shared syntactic structures, lexicon, morphological structures, or phonological systems. Languages within the same branch not only share these "family" features but also possess other characteristics that are unique to that branch and not found at higher family levels or in other language branches. For example, Romance languages earned their name because they possess a significant amount of shared "Roman" vocabulary and distinct grammatical features that evolved from Latin, rather than directly from Proto-Indo-European.
When encountering a sister language (one belonging to the same language branch), you may even find that you can understand certain words. When you begin learning this language, you may already have an understanding of its structure without explicitly studying it.
But there are many more shortcuts.
Why are sister languages the easiest to learn?
When you learn your first language as a child, you develop what is known as a "language database": a reference system that encompasses all the sounds and structures of your language.
Other languages represent different reference systems consisting of elements that may or may not exist in your own language. Since many of these structures will be shared between your native language and its sister languages, you will naturally have less to learn by default. This is not the case when learning a foreign language from a different language family.
Let's closely examine each of the levels:
Syntax and Morphology
Grammar can sound intimidating. If you look into Russian grammar, you'll discover that some languages are designed to make life more complicated. In contrast to English, which doesn't change anything within words, sentences, and phrases, Russian undergoes significant changes.
Russian has six cases, three declensions, three genders, and different word endings for each combination. Adjectives, nouns, and verbs need to agree with each other. Definite and indefinite articles are ignored, word order is flexible, subjects can be dropped from sentences, and phrases like "Да нет наверное" (literally: yes-no-probably) meaning "I doubt that" are used. That's what happens when you choose a language from another branch.
Vocabulary
Languages within the same branch often share a considerable amount of vocabulary. Additionally, they frequently borrow from neighboring branches. For this reason, you can easily find common ground between English, French, and Spanish words. For example, "it depends" in English is "ça dépend" in French and "depende" in Spanish.
However, you can't rely solely on inductive reasoning and simply guess the meaning of a word that looks similar, such as 這取決於.
Phonetics
We all know that French, with its 16 vowels, is not the easiest language to learn. However, there are tonal languages like Thai, where the same /kha:/ can mean five different things depending on the tone—whether it is falling, rising, low, middle, or high. And honestly, for the first few weeks, you might not even hear the difference.
For most European languages, on the other hand, tones are typically used as markers for questions, emphasis, or other prosodic elements. Nothing too complicated.
Writing system
Languages within the same branch often use similar writing systems. Being familiar with the letters can be a significant advantage when starting to learn a language. We unconsciously consider languages that use the Latin script easier than those that use their own scripts because the same letters often represent the same sounds. Not always, but the differences can be easily learned.
However, if the same sounds are encoded in an abugida system (ኮካ-ኮላ / โคคา-โคลา), good luck to you.
(Just in case you're wondering, it's "Coca-Cola.")
Culture
It's not a typical "linguistic" criterion, but let's admit it: a similar culture makes real-time communication much easier.
In English, you don't even have to think about the way you should say simple things like "Good morning" or "Hi!" You just say them. In Russian, you would have to think a bit about whether to use a polite form or an informal speech. In Japanese, you would have to think twice because Japanese actually developed a fairly complex honorific language called keigo, which is built upon various kinds of polite, humble, or respectful speech. Every time you open your mouth, you have to decide which one to use. Pretty tough, eh?
All these factors play an important role when you start learning a language.
If there are enough things in common, you can often benefit from what is called "positive transfer." In other words, you can use your knowledge of one language to help you learn another.
The easiest language for English speakers to learn
English is quite a unique language.
Officially, it belongs to the Germanic language branch. However, since Old English was heavily influenced by Norman French, it also borrowed a lot from the Italic branch. Some linguists even argue that English represents an interesting blend of both Germanic and Romance languages. Others developed the Middle English creole hypothesis and concluded that it's not a language on its own but rather a creole.
I don't desire to lead you into a thicket of comparative linguistics or, worse, the history of the English language (refer to David Crystal for that). So let's just agree that English maintains strong ties with both the Romance and Germanic branches.
Therefore, the easiest language for English speakers to learn would be one of the following:
North- and West-Germanic Languages:
Scots and Frisian
Dutch
Danish
Swedish
Norwegian
German
Afrikaan
The first two are actually the closest to English. So if you want to become a polyglot real quick spend few weeks on Scots and Frisian!
Romance languages:
Spanish
Portuguese
French
Italian
Romanian
As a result, these languages require the least amount of time to learn. According to estimates by the Foreign Service Institute, a native English speaker would only need 24 weeks to start speaking most Germanic and Romance languages at a professional level. Compare that to how many hours you would need to learn languages from other language families like Chinese or Japanese!
I'm not a native English speaker; what about me?
Good news for you, my friend. If you're reading this article and understand at least 80% of its content, you can consider yourself a proficient speaker of the English language. So fearlessly add Germanic and Romance languages to your "to learn" list.
However, your best bet would still be the language branch of your mother tongue.
For example, I'm a happy native Russian speaker. Because of this linguistic background, I have no problem at all in understanding East-Slavic languages. Ukrainian and Belarusian sound to me like slightly distorted Russian (although they are very fascinating languages in their own right). So, for me, the easiest language to learn would definitely be one of those.
West- and South-Slavic languages are obviously harder, but again, it's not impossible. I can still understand about 50% of everyday Serbian, Croatian, Czech, or Slovak speech despite never having tried to learn any of them.
So I encourage you to do a little experiment and check how much of your sister languages you can understand. Wikitongues will give you an amazing opportunity to listen to any of the world's languages. Just search for the one you are interested in and enjoy.
I would also recommend checking English-related languages and comparing how well you understand them. My findings are quite frustrating as I clearly struggle quite a bit, even when it comes to Frisian or Scots. So I would really love it if you could leave your feedback and tell me how you feel about these languages.
A few words in the end:
You may come to the conclusion that the easiest language for you to learn is the one you're least interested in.
And that's completely fine.
We learn languages because we love them, not because they are easy. Your motivation is the only thing that counts. And nothing can be more exciting, wonderful, and inspiring than learning a language you love.
Good luck!
