If you ever wanted to start learning another language, you must have wondered which are the easiest second languages to learn for English speakers. Well, we decided to found out!
When you start learning a new language, you face many difficulties. There are four well-known aspects in the process of language learning and those are listening, speaking, writing and reading. Depending on what type of person you are, some of those things will go smoothly, while with others you will have to struggle a bit more. Moreover, there is never an answer to the question ‘How much time do I need to learn a new language?’, as it varies from one person to another and also from which speaking area somebody comes. For some, it is easier to work in a group, and those people go to language schools, whereas there are also individual types, who like more ‘one on one’ lessons. All in all, every aspect of learning a new language is a story for itself.
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When it comes to choosing a professor, is it always a good idea to have a native speaker? According to some schools, as British Council, many people think that native English speakers are better at teaching. Even though it makes sense, it doesn’t have to be the case every time. Nowadays, there are lots of online language courses, and most of the teachers there don’t teach their mother tongue. To take English, as the most commonly learned and spoken language, for some students, let’s say Japanese, it is maybe easier if the teacher is not native. Why? A person who has experienced the process of studying one language knows the difficulties and barriers of that language, and they can explain it in a more comprehensible way than a native.
Most spoken languages worldwide are English with 1500 million people, Chinese with 1100 and Hindi with 650 million. Right after are Spanish and French. To find out easiest languages to learn, especially for English speakers we consulted About World Languages, the site which has gathered the information about the world’s most populous and important languages. They have classified languages according to difficulty in learning based on the length of time it usually takes to achieve Speaking Level 3 – General Professional Proficiency in Speaking and General Professional Proficiency in Reading for English native speakers. Moreover, in order to create our list we used just languages from the first category, which means it takes approximately 23-24 weeks and in hours 575-600. Additionally, through our research, we saw that many sources such as for example Fluentu, share the same or similar suggestions. Those are Western European languages that are most similar to English and that is why they are considered the easiest to learn for English native speakers. For the additional information about languages, we used as the main source The Ethnologue. If you are interested in comparing the similar research take a look at our previous article of 5 Easiest Second Languages to Learn For English Speakers. Let’s find out the results:
