& : Danish Norwegian & Swedish
Welcome to the world of the North Germanic languages, otherwise known as the Scandinavian languages. Combined, there are 21 million native speakers of these languages in Northern Europe.
There are around 6 million native Danish speakers. The majority of them can be found in Denmark, and its also a protected minority language in Germany.
There are 5 million native Norwegian speakers in the world, most of them in Norway, though some can be found in Denmark.
Swedish comes in at 10 million native speakers found mostly in Sweden, but also in Finland.
Reasons to learn the Scandinavian languages
Youll become the ultimate polyglot. Seriously. The similarities shared among these languages are unbelievable. If language domination isnt really your goal, sorry. Youll have a hard time avoiding being a polyglot even if you learn only one of these languages, because the languages are mutually intelligible.
Each respective language has several dialects depending on which region of whichever particular country youre in. However, the differences arent so great that it will hinder your ability to understand and converse with the locals.
Norwegian, however, seems to be the central link for all of them. Norwegian speaker understand written Swedish and spoken Danish extremely well. So to start, Norwegian is the best bet.
The Easiest Language To Learn Comes From Europe
English is a Germanic language, so it has common grammar rules and syntax with Danish, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian and German.
These languages also share a series of cognate words , which allows you to learn any of these languages faster and with less effort. Depending on your previous learning history and your preferences any of these may be the easiest language for you.
Furthermore, English shares almost 40 percent of its vocabulary with French , because of the Norman Conquest of England in 1066. As a consequence, you can recognize and remember hundreds of words in the Romantic languages Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian and Romanian.
In fact, the US Department of States Foreign Service Institute lists nine of these ten languages as Category I World languages the easiest to learn. It seems that native English speakers need between 24 and 30 weeks to learn in any of these languages . Yet, if youre not skilled in learning languages, you could need a little more time to gain proficiency.
Why Learn A Second Language
There are tons of benefits to learning a second language. For starters, its been said time and time again that learning a second language makes you smarter. We all want our minds to stay young and sharp, and this is a great way to give ourselves a rejuvenating boost in the brain department.
Employers love it. Corporations, international organizations and government agencies jump at the chance to hire bilingual or multilingual employees. Learn a new language and you can open a whole new world of opportunities for yourself. One day, you can even become a special agent for the CIA. We dream big here.
Still not convinced theres value in learning a second language? Well, heres this. Once you pick up a second language, youll find it much easier to pick up a third and fourth and fifth. Also, with more than one language under your belt youll find that youll want to start traveling more, meeting new people and exploring new cultures.
You can change your perspective on life and the world.
Its time to stop hiding behind those crazy excuses: Im too old. I dont have the time. Im not talented with language. It costs too much money. All of these translate to one thing: Im afraid. Well, dont be! Picking up a second language is much easier than you think.
You just have to want it and make it happen!
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Associate Each Definite Article With A Colour
Associate each article with one colour. For instance, DER will be blue, DIEwill be yellow, and DAS will be red.
Now, whenever you need to learn a German noun together with a definite article, just look at which article the noun has and then imagine this noun in your head with the colour of the article.
Revealing Map Shows How Long It Takes To Learn The Most Popular Languages In Europe
Have you ever wondered what the hardest language to learn is? Although its different for everyone, theres a general sense that some languages are more difficult to grasp than others. For English speakers wanting to expand their proficiency in another tongue, the Foreign Service Institute has ranked languages around the world by how many weeks it takes to learn them. To visualize this, Redditor Fummy that displays this data in part of Europe.
The language map spans from Portugal to Ukraine, and the difficulty rankings run the gamut from Category I to Category IV . So, if youre looking to learn a new language with relative ease, why not try Spanish or French? In less than a year, you can have a good grasp on both of them. But if youre looking for a tougher linguistic challenge, try learning Hungarian. It will take you about 44 weeks of instruction, as its considered a language with significant linguistic and/or cultural differences from English.
Check out the FSIs full list of languages on the next page. And for Spotify users, its easier than you think to start your lessons. The program has French, Spanish, Chinese, German, and more available for free.
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The Romance Languages: Spanish French Italian Portuguese And Romanian
Why are they easy? Romance languages have their roots in Latin. As the majority of English vocabulary comes from French or Latin, when you start learning a Romance language, youll realise that you can already say loads of words by simply putting on a hammy accent. Je suis sérieuse. Did a little pout as I was writing that,to make it more French.
Spanish, Italian and Romanian have simpler spelling systems and fewer vowel sounds than English, making pronunciation comparatively straightforward. Heres an example of how similar the Romance languages can be to English:
The 11 Easiest Languages To Learn For English Speakers
What do weight loss after Christmas, expired peanut butter and learning Spanish have in common?
Apparently, they all take around 5 months.
Which seems like a long time to hold onto festive pudge and an exceedingly short time to learn a language.
Spanish is considered relatively easy for English speakers: it has 1000s of similar words and the grammar, pronunciation and spelling is simpler than in many other languages.
Thats why the US Foreign Service Institute the guys who train diplomats rank Spanish as one of the fastest languages to learn for English speakers, together with others like French, Italian and Dutch.
The FSI estimate that languages in this group can take 23-24 weeks to reach professional working proficiency. At this level you can:
- understand almost everything people say when they speak at normal speed
- communicate comfortably in most situations
- use a broad vocabulary and rarely stop to search for words
In other words, you can function perfectly well in most situations. Lets call that fluent.
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Which European Language Should I Learn First
Spanish has the most speakers and it is believed that Spanish will continue to have the most speakers for a long time to come. So, if you want to speak the European language that most people speak, after English of course, Spanish is your best bet.
Goodbye Grammar Book: Languages With Simple Structures
Just like some languages love to play with diverse and complicated sounds, some seem to have an endless love affair with rules and grammar.
Ive always shied away from German for this reason. Its four noun cases, infinite list of adjective declensions and word order rules are enough to send me running to the nearest biergarten.
Other languages, thankfully, arent quite so strict and demanding. You learn some vocabulary and a few basic usage rules, and youre good to go. Here are some of those languages:
7. Mandarin Chinese
This is probably the first time youve seen Chinese on a list of easy languages, right? Thats a shame, because structurally speaking, its a cinch. Almost every word of Mandarin has one and just one meaning. It also generally follows a subject-verb-object word order, common to most of the worlds larger languages, so no new tricky syntax for most learners.
8. Afrikaans
We mentioned Dutch above, but Afrikaans is like a grammatically boiled-down version of its parent language. Whereas Dutch demands verb conjugations like those in Englishfor instance, I am, you are, it isAfrikaans doesnt bother you with the details. In South Africa its ekis , jyis , syis . What could be easier?
9. Malay
10. Esperanto
I confess: I hate learning grammar. Its not just me, right? If youre a free-spirited language learner who cant be bothered with the details, then go for one of these simply structured languages.
11. Bonus Easy Language: English
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Easiest And Hardest Languages To Learn For English Speakers: Bottom Line
The most important thing that we want you to take away from this article is that even though some languages may be easier for a native English speaker to learn than others, it does not mean the harder languages are out of your reach.
With dedication, motivation, lots of passion, and enthusiasm to learn, you will be able to master any language you want. The only barrier you need to overcome is yourself.
Follow our tips in the section above to help you learn your chosen language a little quicker, and always keep in mind that good things take time. You will have noticed that even the easiest languages on this list can take between 575 and 600 hours.
That is a huge amount of time, and even then you will only be at intermediate, conversational level.
Learning a language is a lifelong skill and you will be learning it forever but guess what?
That is what makes it so wonderful. It is something you can keep on developing over time and once you have learned a second language, you will have an appetite for learning more, which will become even easier when you have more languages under your belt!
Above all, have fun. There will be times where you feel like giving up, but keep persevering. You will be glad you did when you hold your first conversation in your new language with a native speaker!
The Easiest Language Is The One You Like Most
Some languages are easier because their grammar is less complex than English. Or because you already have a rich vocabulary in a similar language. But there are people who struggle learning Spanish, despite all statistics, so you shouldnt get scared if you have hard times with conjugating verbs.
If youre looking to study a second language for professional reasons only, you should choose Spanish or German. Theyre the easiest languages for native English and employers prefer them to other languages.
But, remember that motivation is an important factor when learning a language. The easiest language in the world for you could be Chinese, if youre willing to dedicate your time to study. It all depends on how much youre willing to explore and learn about a language and the culture behind it.
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Example Of German Nouns & Colours
For example, lets say we have a noun: Apfel. Apfel in German means apple, and its definite article is DER. Since we attributed the blue colour to the article DER, you must imagine that an apple is blue. So if you imagine in your head that an apple is blue, youll automatically know it uses article DER.
Or, lets say, a car uses the article DAS. We attributed red colour to the article DAS. So now, imagine that a car is always red. This way, youll know that car uses DAS as an article.
A Few Examples Of German Nouns With Definite Articles
an apple= DER APFEL
a book = DAS BUCH
So whenever youre learning nouns in the German language, always associate them with the colour of a respective article. This way, it will make it much more fun and easy for you to remember definite articles.
Best European language to learn: German language
The Easiest Languages To Learn
There is no one-size-fits-all answer to the question of which is the easiest language to learn, as this will vary depending on your personal strengths and weaknesses.
Different languages will present different challenges. These rest upon a variety of factors, including the similarity of the target language to your native language, how much time you are willing to dedicate to learning, and what your goals for learning the new language are.
If your aim is practicality, then you might want to pick one of the easiest languages to learn for English speakers.
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More Tips On German Learning
Now that you know German is the best European language to learn, its time to get round to learning it. First, check out my article about the best language learning method for adults and start learning German with my step-by-step guide. Also, I highly recommend you read about what to learn in a new language as a complete beginner. It will guide you through the topics and vocabulary youll need to learn as a beginner in German. Then, once you learn the basics, check out the best way to learn a language independently.
Also, my article about how to learn a language fastwill give you ideas for fun and exciting activities to learn new vocabulary.
Top 10 Easiest Languages To Learn
Aloha! Are you wondering what is the easiest language in the world? Since we have so many languages globally, there must be some relatively easy ones, right? If you are looking for a language to learn and wish to start off with one of the easiest , youve come to the right place. This article will offer you some useful information.
First of all, its important to note that the difficulty level of these languages can vary from person to person, based on a number of factors like your mother tongue, your previous language learning experiences, your motivation to learn a language, etc. So in this article, well go through 15 languages that are generally considered easy to learn for English speakers. All of them are classified by FSI as Category I and Category II, which are the easiest groups of languages for English speakers to learn, requiring less than 36 weeks to acquire Professional Working Proficiency.
So what are these easiest languages to learn? Lets see!
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Interested In Learning More European Languages
If youre interested in learning more or another European language, check out my article about the best European language to learn in general. Go to my language blog for inspiration for language learning. Youll learn how you can learn vocabulary fast and how to set up achievable language learning goals.
If youre interested in reading about language families and which languages are the best to learn together, read more in my separate article.
Is English The Simplest European Language
Learning an English Language is Less Easy on the Easy Way English is a Germanic language with common grammar rules and syntax with countries such as Germany, Japan, Belgium, Sweden, Norway, and Netherlands. You will likely find any of these easiest for you because they are based on your previous knowledge of the language and your preferences.
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Is It Difficult Or Just New
This is my favourite question to ask students when they complain that something is hard. Because usually, they consider my question for a second and say ah, its just new.
Think about tying your shoelaces. Its easy now, but you probably struggled at the beginning.
It takes time to develop a new skill. That doesnt mean its too hard, you just need practice.
But if you think its going to be hard, it probably will be. Research suggests that when we expect tasks to be difficult, were more likely to lose motivation.
Your attitude to learning matters. By adopting the mantra its not difficult, its just new you can get the benefit of what psychologist Carol Dweck calls the growth mindset: instead of thinking this is too hard, you can turn your focus to a little, but powerful word: yet I dont know how to do this, yet.
But with perseverance, you will.
How Long Does It Take To Learn The Russian Alphabet
It generally takes around a month to learn the Russian alphabet. Take it easy and spend at least 15 minutes a day practicing and pronouncing the letters. But dont be in a rush. The Russian alphabet is the foundation of the language. So make sure you understand it and learn it well.
The more you practice writing and pronouncing each letter, the sooner youll master the Russian alphabet. If you listen to the pronunciation of each letter, it will make the process even faster.
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Why Should I Learn Spanish
Spanish is one of the most spoken languages in the world. With Spanish speakers across the globe, when you learn Spanish, you will unlock opportunities all over the world.
You should learn Spanish to:
- Improve professional opportunities
- Open the world of travel
- Find new interests and hobbies
- Gain an appreciation for numerous cultures