SWEDISH
Swedish speakers around the world: 10 million native speakers
shared Germanic roots with English make them fairly easy for English speakers to learn. Swedish
has loads of cognates with English (words that share the same origin). It also has similar
grammar and word order, making it one of the best languages for English speakers to learn.
Swedish is considered one of the easiest languages for a native English speaker
to understand. The grammar and sentence structure are very similar to English,
but with fewer irregularities. The language is pronounced very differently from
English – and includes some sounds that English doesn’t have – but mastering
new sounds becomes easier with practice.
Because both languages have Germanic roots, they also share thousands of
cognates – words that sound the same and have the same meanings. Consider
these sentences in Swedish – made up almost entirely of Swedish-English
cognates:
The popular, minimalistic Lack tables are named after the Swedish word
for “varnish.
SPANISH
According to recent statistics, Spanish is the second most-spoken language in
the world, with over 450 million native speakers.
ROMANIAN
5.32 million native speakers
Romanian is an extremely easy language to learn. Mostly because it is a Latin or “Romance”
language - this means at its base it is very closely related to English (roots), French, Spanish, and
Italian. Romanian is the only surviving language today that is about 80% Latin. So if you are
familiar with Latin, Latin roots, or a Latin based language such as Italian or French, then learning
Romanian will be even easier for you.
In some ways Romanian was even easier to learn than English because Romanian is a mostly
phonetic language which means everything is pronounced as it is spelled which is not the case in
English. Also Romanian follows an easier and more logical sentence structure compared to
English.
Few know that Romanian is a Romance language, similar to French, Spanish, Italian
and Portuguese; however, due to the country’s geographical position in Eastern Europe,
surrounded by Slavic-speaking countries, people think that Romanian is part of the
Slavic family. The language does have Slavic roots, but they represent only 10% of the
vocabulary. With words originating from ancient Slavic and other words coming from
Bulgarian, German and Turkish, Romanian is a unique Romance language.
PORTUGESE
It’s the official language of nine countries
It is a common misconception that Portuguese is only spoken in Portugal and Brazil. In fact, it is
the official language in nine different countries: Portugal, Brazil, Mozambique, Angola, Guinea-
Bissau, Timor-Leste, Equatorial Guinea, Cape Verde, and São Tomé and Principe.
Furthermore, Portuguese is the official language of the Chinese autonomous territory of Macau.
Due to the huge numbers of Portuguese speakers around the world (it is the sixth most spoken
language on the planet) and its distribution across South America, Europe, Africa and Asia,
Portuguese is growing fast and has the potential to be an “international communication
language,” according to UNESCO.
AFRIKAANS
The name Afrikaans means ‘African’ in Dutch. It was originally used by the Dutch settlers and
indentured workers brought to the Cape area in southwestern South Africa by the Dutch East
India Company between 1652 and 1705. Most of the settlers were from the Netherlands, but
there were also settlers from Germany, France, Scotland, and other countries
