Quot linguas calles, tot homines vales. And how much do you worth?
Just because the English language is the worldwide known and, if speaking it, you could communicate wherever you go on Earth, it doesn’t mean that it is the only language in the world that you need to know. Germanic languages are also high in demand and maybe it is about time that you spread your views and improve your language skills. If you think that Germanic languages would be too hard to learn, I guarantee that there are 7 easiest Germanic languages to learn for English speakers by every criterion.
Germanic languages are worldwide spread. There are languages spoken in Europe, as well as America, Oceania, and Southern Africa. All of the languages that belong to this group can be separated into three different groups: North, West, and East Germanic. Unfortunately, all of the languages that belonged to the East Germanic branch has extinct due to the lack of speakers and those were Vandalic, Gothic, and Burgundian.
On the other hand, North Germanic branch includes Danish, Faroese, Swedish, Norwegian, and Icelandic, that all exist even today and count around 20 million speakers.
The third and the most widely known branch is the West Germanic one that counts down around half a billion speakers worldwide. This group includes German (obviously) with around 100 million native speakers, 23 million Dutch native speakers, 7.1 million Afrikaans, even the Yiddish that before the World War II was spoken by more than 13 million people belong to this group, and the highest number is for English speakers, between 360 and 400 million speakers. I bet you didn’t see this coming!
So, as you can see, if you speak English, you have already learned one Germanic language. But what about the others? According to this list, one of the easiest Germanic languages to learn is German itself. Since I have learned it since I was 10, I have to admit that people are right. It actually is one of the easiest languages in the world to learn. The only thing that can keep you a bit offshore is the fact that there are many different dialects and German people are used to talking very quickly, so they might be difficult to be understood at the beginning. The other thing that you should know is vocabulary. In my experience, the easiest part of learning German is the writing and reading. Seriously. Unlike English, where you have to guess or consult other people or the Internet how to write down some word or how to pronounce it, the German language has less than 20 rules that are easy to memorize and, based on them, you will be ready for every dictation or reading test that you can think of. Grammar is a piece of cake as well, so, if you choose it, you won’t be wrong at all.
But, if you are not that big of a fan of German language, there are 6 more on the list that you might want to take a look at. So without any further ado, I present to you 7 easiest Germanic languages to learn for English speakers.
