According to the U.S. Foreign Services Institute (FSI), the easiest languages to learn for English speakers are Danish, Dutch, French, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish and Swedish.
However, other less-common languages such as Frisian, Afrikaans and Scots are also noted for their high levels of similarity with English.
English has been shown to have a high level of lexical similarity with German and French (60% and 27% respectively, using a regionally standardized wordlist).
Between 30% to 40% of English words have a related word in the Spanish language, and around 90% of English-Spanish cognates have the same meaning in both languages.
The United States has 76 million bilinguals while the UK has 15 million (between 22% – 23% of each population).
Two-thirds of bilingual Americans speak both English and Spanish, which is more than in all of Latin America combined.
2 in 5 Americans say they have no interest in learning a second language.
26% of adults in the UK say they regret not fluently learning a second language.
Interestingly, around 1 in 4 UK adults believe learning an additional language to English is more important than ever.
25% of UK respondents say their preferred choice of language to learn would be Spanish, followed by French (21%), Italian (14%), German (13%) and Japanese (10%).
Accordingly, Spanish is the most popular language A-level in England and has even been predicted to overtake French as the most popular GCSE by 2026.
Second-languages to English ordered by difficulty
The Foreign Service Institute (FSI) categorizes languages by the average amount of time needed for an English speaker to reach “professional working proficiency”. This roughly corresponds with a B2/C1 level given in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR).
Easy
9 languages are listed in Category 1 by the Foreign Service Institute.
These languages are most closely related to English when compared to other languages.
Students are expected to undertake around 24 – 30 weeks of learning to reach professional working proficiency in Category 1 languages through the FSI.
Category
Language
Class hours
1
Danish
675
1
Dutch
675
1
French
675
1
Italian
675
1
Norwegian
675
1
Portuguese
675
1
Romanian
675
1
Spanish
675
1
Swedish
675
Moderate
5 languages are listed in Category 2 by the Foreign Service Institute.
These languages are slightly more related to the English language than many other languages.
Students are expected to undertake around 36 weeks of learning to reach professional working proficiency in Category 2 languages through the FSI.
Category 2 languages take around 33.33% longer to learn than Category 1 languages.
Category
Language
Class hours
2
German
900
2
Haitian Creole
900
2
Indonesian
900
2
Malay
900
2
Swahili
900
Hard
47 languages are listed in Category 3 by the Foreign Service Institute.
These languages have notable linguistic and/or cultural differences that separate them from English.
Students are expected to undertake around 44 weeks of learning to reach professional working proficiency in Category 3 languages through the FSI.
Category 3 languages take around 22.22% longer to learn than Category 2 languages.
Category
Language
Class hours
3
Albanian
1,100
3
Amharic
1,100
3
Armenian
1,100
3
Azerbaijani
1,100
3
Bengali
1,100
3
Bulgarian
1,100
3
Burmese
1,100
3
Czech
1,100
3
Dari
1,100
3
Estonian
1,100
3
Farsi
1,100
3
Finnish
1,100
3
Georgian
1,100
3
Greek
1,100
3
Hebrew
1,100
3
Hindi
1,100
3
Hungarian
1,100
3
Icelandic
1,100
3
Kazakh
1,100
3
Khmer
1,100
3
Kurdish
1,100
3
Kyrgyz
1,100
3
Lao
1,100
3
Latvian
1,100
3
Lithuanian
1,100
3
Macedonian
1,100
3
Mongolian
1,100
3
Nepali
1,100
3
Polish
1,100
3
Russian
1,100
3
Serbo-Croatian
1,100
3
Sinhala
1,100
3
Slovak
1,100
3
Slovenian
1,100
3
Somali
1,100
3
Tagalog
1,100
3
Tajiki
1,100
3
Tamil
1,100
3
Telugu
1,100
3
Thai
1,100
3
TIbetan
1,100
3
Turkish
1,100
3
Turkmen
1,100
3
Ukrainian
1,100
3
Urdu
1,100
3
Uzbek
1,100
3
Vietnamese
1,100
Very hard
5 languages are listed in Category 4 by the Foreign Service Institute.
These languages have significant linguistic and/or cultural differences that separate them from English.
Students are expected to undertake around 88 weeks of learning to reach professional working proficiency in Category 4 languages through the FSI.
Category 4 languages take around twice as long to learn when compared with Category 3 languages.
Category
Language
Class hours
4
Arabic
2,200
4
Chinese – Cantonese
2,200
4
Chinese – Mandarin
2,200
4
Japanese
2,200
4
Korean
2,200
A graph is given below to compare the average class hours needed for professional working fluency by language category:
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What makes a language easy to learn?
Origin: Languages that share a common history or derive from each other are likely to be more similar in nature, making them easier to learn.
Writing system: Languages that share a similar alphabet or symbols will make it easier for new learners to understand.
Vocabulary: Vocabulary derived from shared origins which look and sound similar can often have similar or equal meanings. It should be easier to learn a second-language if it shares cognates with your native language.
Grammar: If the manner in which sentences and phrases are worded are similar in a new language to your native language, it will make language acquisition easier. This means the learner can spend less time on structure and more time on other areas of learning.
Resources: Certain languages are more popular with language learners than others. These languages often have a greater number of learning resources available, giving learners more opportunities to develop their skills.
Exposure: The more a language learner can be exposed to a new language, the more indirect and direct opportunities they will have to learn its vocabulary and rules.
