1. English (1,452 million speakers) According to Ethnologue, English is the most-spoken language in the world including native and non-
Currently, these are the 10 most spoken languages in the world in 2023, sorted by number of mother language speakers: Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, English, Hindi, Portuguese, Bengali, Russian, Japanese, Yue chinese, Vietnamese.
Officially recognized languages are often mistaken for official languages. According to the online reference Wikipedia, half the countries of the world have official languages. Some have only one official language, such as Albania, France, Germany and Lithuania.
2. Mandarin (1,118 million speakers) Looking at total speakers, Mandarin is the second most widely spoken language in the world.
Across multiple sources, Mandarin Chinese is the number one language listed as the most challenging to learn. The Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center puts Mandarin in Category IV, which is the list of the most difficult languages to learn for English speakers.
The clear winner from the 7 easiest languages to learn is Spanish. Everything from writing, grammar, and speaking will come more naturally to the English speaker. Similar rules, structure, and Latin roots. If you are interested in learning Spanish or any other of these easy languages, we can help you at Jumpspeak.
7000 Languages is a non-profit that helps Indigenous communities around the world teach, learn and sustain their languages through technology. We create free online language-learning courses in partnership with Indigenous, minority, and refugee communities so they can keep their languages alive.
Sumerian can be considered the first language in the world, according to Mondly. The oldest proof of written Sumerian was found on the Kish tablet in today's Iraq, dating back to approximately 3500 BC.
Which are the most widely spoken languages in the world? Some, such as English and Spanish seem obvious, but others may surprise you. Around 7,139 languages are spoken in the world, 90% of which are used in communities of less than 100,000 people, such as tribes or dialects within certain populations.
Aramaic is best known as the language Jesus spoke. It is a Semitic language originating in the middle Euphrates. In 800-600 BC it spread from there to Syria and Mesopotamia. The oldest preserved inscriptions are from this period and written in Old Aramaic.
Of these, Spanish and Italian are the easiest for native English speakers to learn, followed by Portuguese and finally French.
The closest language to English is one called Frisian, which is a Germanic language spoken by a small population of about 480,000 people. There are three separate dialects of the language, and it's only spoken at the southern fringes of the North Sea in the Netherlands and Germany.
The English language is widely regarded as one of the most difficult to master. Because of its unpredictable spelling and challenging to learn grammar, it is challenging for both learners and native speakers.
Russian is widely believed to be one of the most difficult languages to learn. This is mostly true, if you have no knowledge of other Slavic languages (e.g. Bulgarian or Czech). The grammar rules in Russian are very complex and have numerous exceptions.
The Chinese language has a unique structure and pronunciation system that is vastly different from English. Chinese is made up of tens of thousands of characters, each with its own meaning, and often multiple pronunciations. This makes the language extremely difficult to learn, especially for non-native speakers.
Most English language learners will find it challenging to learn English verb tenses, phrasal verbs, articles, spelling, pronunciation, and idioms. This is because these are features of English that are very different from most other languages in the world, or which simply require a lot of memorization.