The most familiar language to English is arguably Scots, as it's a close relative often considered a dialect, with high mutual intelligibility, but if looking for a major language, Dutch and German are very similar due to shared West Germanic roots, while Frisian is phonetically and grammatically closest but less known. French also has a huge influence on English vocabulary, but from a different language family (Romance).
The closest language to English is Frisian. This Germanic language is spoken by about 400,000 people in an area historically known as Frisia—now within the modern regions of Netherlands and Germany.
The Closest Major Language To English: Dutch
Like Frisian and English, Dutch is another West Germanic language that developed from Proto-Germanic. Because of this, Dutch possesses many words and phrases similar to English and has a similar grammatical structure.
Old English is one of the West Germanic languages, with its closest relatives being Old Frisian and Old Saxon. Like other old Germanic languages, it is very different from Modern English and Modern Scots, and largely incomprehensible for Modern English or Modern Scots speakers without study.
There's no single "hardest" language, but Mandarin Chinese is consistently ranked #1 for English speakers due to its tonal nature (four tones change word meanings) and complex logographic writing system requiring thousands of characters. Other top contenders often cited include Arabic (right-to-left script, complex sounds, grammar) and Japanese (multiple writing systems like Kanji, Hiragana, Katakana, plus honorifics). The difficulty depends heavily on your native language, with languages like Tibetan, Estonian, and Polish also challenging learners with unique grammar or cases.
Chinese is considered one of the hardest languages in the world to learn. We've ranked Chinese as the second-hardest language to learn for English speakers, only behind Arabic. Within Chinese, Cantonese is generally harder to learn than Mandarin because of the extra tones.
There's no single "number one" easiest language, as it depends on your native tongue, but for English speakers, Norwegian, Dutch, Afrikaans, Spanish, and Italian are consistently ranked as very easy due to similar Germanic roots (Norwegian, Dutch, Afrikaans) or shared Latin vocabulary (Spanish, Italian) with English, plus simple grammar and pronunciation. The truly easiest language is the one you're most motivated to learn and find engaging content in, as personal interest drives acquisition.
Scots, a "sister language" so similar to English some consider it a dialect. Frisian, a close "cousin" to the English language that's still spoken today. Dutch, the closest major language to English. German, a related language that's distant enough to present language learning challenges.
English vocabulary comprises 29% French, 29% Latin, 26% Germanic, and 6% Greek.
The word thou (/ðaʊ/) is a second-person singular pronoun in English. It is now largely archaic, having been replaced in most contexts by the word you, although it remains in use in parts of Northern England and in Scots (/ðu:/).
Here are some pretty similar pairs:
1. Frisian – most similar language to English phonetically. Frisian (the Netherlands' 2nd official language) is phonetically the closest language to Modern English and is mutually intelligible with Olde English. This isn't surprising since the Anglo-Saxons and the Frisians had recent common ancestors.
The English language has never stood still. Every generation leaves its mark, from Shakespeare's coinages to social media slang. Language is ever-changing, and nowhere is that clearer than in the evolution of the English language.
Although English is classed as a Germanic language, it has been strongly influenced by Latin—primarily in its lexicon. Though the grammar and core vocabulary of English are inherited from Proto-Germanic, a great deal of English vocabulary comes from Romance and Latinate sources.
Frisian is a language spoken by approximately 500,000 people living in Friesland province of the Netherlands and parts of Germany. It is widely considered the closest living language to English in both pronunciation and grammar.
English is a Germanic language, whereas Italian is a Romance language. Yet, they share a substantial amount of vocabulary. The main reason is due to the Norman Conquest of England in the eleventh century. As a result, the English language borrowed a lot of French words.
English is the number one international language (lingua franca), boasting around 1.5 billion total speakers, making it dominant in global business, technology, and tourism, even though Mandarin Chinese has more native speakers. While Mandarin is the largest by native speakers, English's vast number of second-language users cements its role as the primary global communication tool, followed by Mandarin Chinese, Hindi, and Spanish in overall speaker numbers.
The grammatical structure of modern English is closer to Romance languages than Germanic languages. You can convert many English sentences into a sensible (if not idiomatic) Spanish sentence by translating one word at a time.
Esperanto (/ˌɛs.pə.ˈrɑːn.toʊ, -.ˈræn.toʊ/) is the world's most widely spoken constructed auxiliary language. Created by L. L. Zamenhof in 1887 as "the International Language" (la Lingvo Internacia), it is intended to be a universal second language for international communication.
Top 10 Easiest Languages for English Speakers to Learn
Generally speaking, Japanese is more difficult than Chinese when it comes to grammar. Mandarin Chinese is an analytical language, like English, and each word has only one form, no matter how it's being used in a sentence. It's also a subject-verb-object language, like English.
Learn one of these 5 languages to stand out
Toki Pona is an isolating language with only 14 phonemes and an underlying feature of minimalism.