Easiest Foreign languages for English speakers to learn

 Many of us have thought about wanting to learn a different language. It helps us stretch and expand our reach in different countries. It was common in most successful people before the introduction of the internet, even after it. Even though targeted apps help us understand the local dialect better or make our lives easier, we need to know and understand as many languages as we can in our time.

Some people will learn a language to understand its culture and country better. Some would explore professional opportunities. While others will do it because their work requires them to. Anyone who picked Spanish over Mandarin Chinese or French over Arabic can tell you how some languages are easier to learn than others. One important aspect to consider is the time, i.e., the length of the training. It differs for every language, which makes the difference. Any English teacher online can tell you why it is easier to learn English.

To be equally fluent as someone who has been studying Spanish for 26 weeks, a similar course for a student in Russian would take approximately twice the time that is 48 weeks of study. A student trying to learn German would need somewhere in between, or 35 weeks. Whereas an individual learning Korean would need a good 64 weeks. Languages can be categorised into four categories; the first category contains the easiest languages to learn, and category 4 contains the hardest languages:

Category 1 (26 weeks): French, Portuguese, Spanish
Category 2 (35 weeks): German, Indonesian
Category 3 (48 weeks): Hebrew, Hindi, Persian Farsi, Russian, Serbian / Croatian, Tagalog, Turkish, Urdu
Category 4 (64 weeks): Arabic (Modern Standard, Iraqi, Egyptian, Sudanese, or Levantine), Mandarin Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Pashto

The question is, what makes one language ‘easier’ than another?

Alphabets, Sounds, and Scripts

The primary difference between the first and the fourth category is quite visible, i.e., the alphabet. It takes extra time, effort, and dedication to learn other alphabets. While learning a new language, deciphering letters and words will slow down the reading process, and it requires our complete attention to understand the detailing of every language.

Portuguese, French, German, Spanish, and Indonesian – all belonging to the first two categories of languages use the Latin alphabet also used in the English language. There are differences in the additional accent marks and the letters, which might not be pronounced the same way as in online english tutors or Latin, but the base is the same. In other languages, alphabets are combined with the Latin alphabet, such as Serbian and Uzbek.

On the other hand, languages in the third and fourth categories of languages use another alphabet(non-Latin). Cyrillic is used in Croatian and Russian. In contrast, other languages such as Hebrew, Hindi, Urdu, and Farsi use their unique scripts. Pashto and Arabic, both belonging to the fourth category of languages, also have their alphabets. Letters are written differently based irrespective of the fact they are in the beginning, middle, or end of a said word.

The most challenging foreign languages to learn are those with no alphabet; instead, they use characters or syllabaries to convey meaning. Mandarin Chinese is a classic example as it uses characters uniquely assigned for each word. Korean has phonetic alphabets, and Japanese has three different writing systems.

Pronunciation and Accents

The next step to learning a new language is pronunciation.

For example, many sounds in Arabic can be difficult for English speakers to pronounce. It is often known to be a bit ‘throaty’ as described by non-native speakers.

The most important thing to understand is that every language is unique in its accent and pronunciation features. Even the writing style is distinctive. The more different these things are from English or Latin, the more difficult it will be for English speakers to learn.

Verbs and Nouns

Each word in English will not have a distinct, singular translation in all foreign languages, which is misunderstood. For example, the house in English is la Maison when translated in French, la casa in Spanish, and a casa in Portuguese. But in German, it can either be das Haus, des Hauses, or dem Haus. German has a case system just like Latin and Russian. It complicates learning a new language. English speakers have to learn and memorise new vocabulary words when they learn languages with case systems, including the different forms. It is why case languages take more time to learn than non-case languages.

The level of difficulty for English speakers depends on multiple factors, which we have tried to summarise. It is not just one single thing but multiple aspects that define the difficulty of learning a new language and also your English language tutor plays a major role. Irrespective of that, learning any new language requires time, dedication, and skill.