What are the easiest languages to learn for native English speakers?

What are the easiest languages to learn for native English speakers? 

If English is your first language and you have the desire to learn another, then this is a question worth answering.

What should you know about languages? According to the Linguistics Society of America, there are are more than 7,000 languages spoken worldwide! This figure might sound a bit surprising and overwhelming. However, when considering all of these languages, where should you start?

In my opinion, I would say that any language that is Latin-based or Germanic influenced are easiest languages to learn for native English speakers. Why do I say this? For a few reasons.

The English language in itself has borrowed many vocabulary words from these languages. Although you may not recognize it, many of the expressions and vocabulary that are used to communicate stem from Germanic or Latin-based languages. And if you are wondering what do I mean by Latin-based languages these refer to ones like Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, French, Romanian, etc. Words like good morning, welcome, light, warm, blond, fish are German based. Expressions like rendez-vous, R.S.V.P, beaucoup, petite, grand, are French based. There are so many other words used in the English language that stem from other languages.

Why are Latin-based the easiest languages to learn for native English speakers?

Being that you speak the English language fluently, once you learn a Latin-based language, then it will be much easier to pickup the others. These languages are co-related and many of the vocabulary words are spelled slightly different. As an English native speaker, there are tons of words that you could learn in Spanish in a days time that you probably wouldn't imagine. For example, any word in English ending in "tion" is the same in Spanish if you change it to "cion". This new ending sounds like "c-on". See a few below.

Examples of English vs Spanish 
education => educacion
construction => construccion
dedication => dedicacion
instruction => instruccion
contribuction => contribucion

These are just a few examples, however you probably could think of many others that tail like these. If you learn Spanish fluently, then you will be able to quickly understand and/or at least read French, Italian, Portuguese,etc because the spellings and pronunciations of these differ only slightly. The key to this is developing a language learning system that caters to you.

Closing remarks:

Although I feel that Latin-based languages are the easiest languages to learn for native English speakers, learning a second language will present some challenges and hiccups. However, if you are serious about learning and willing to put in the work, time and energy, you will no doubt overcome these over time. There are lots of very effective language learning tools online & services that help native English speakers to sharpen their skills with their targeted language.

If you are interested in learning Spanish or French, Omowali Isidore, offers Spanish & French tutoring services for both students and adults. If you are interested in sharpening your language learning skills, feel free to contact him here.