Which Language Should You Learn? A Difficulty Guide for English Speakers

“Which language should I learn?” is the single most common question on every language learning forum, subreddit, and Discord server. It gets asked dozens of times a day, and the answers usually fall into two unhelpful camps: people who insist you should learn whatever language you are personally drawn to (true, but not actionable), and people who rank languages by difficulty without explaining what “difficulty” actually means for different learners.

This guide takes a different approach. We will cover the standard difficulty ratings, but we will also analyze something most guides ignore: reading difficulty. Because if you plan to learn a language through books — through parallel reading, graded readers, or authentic literature — the ease of reading that language matters at least as much as the ease of speaking it. Some languages that are hard to speak are surprisingly approachable on the page. Others look deceptively simple until you open a book.

How Language Difficulty Is Measured

The FSI Classification System

The most widely cited difficulty framework comes from the U.S. Foreign Service Institute (FSI), which has been training American diplomats in foreign languages since 1947. Based on decades of classroom data, FSI groups languages into four categories by the number of hours an English-speaking adult needs to reach “professional working proficiency” (ILR Level 3 — roughly B2/C1 on the European scale).

Why FSI Numbers Are Imperfect

These estimates are useful, but they come with important caveats.

They assume full-time immersive study. FSI students study 25+ hours per week in small classes with native-speaker instructors, supplemented by homework and language lab sessions. A casual learner studying an hour a day will not simply take longer proportionally — the learning curve is different.

They measure diplomatic proficiency. FSI needs people who can negotiate treaties and analyze policy documents. If your goal is reading novels, ordering food, or having basic conversations, you need far fewer hours.

They assume a monolingual English speaker. If you already speak a Romance language, learning another Romance language is dramatically easier. A Spanish speaker learning Italian might need a third of the hours an English-only speaker would.

They lump skills together. Reading, writing, speaking, and listening develop at different rates. You can reach comfortable reading ability in many languages long before you can hold a fluent conversation.

Despite these limitations, FSI categories remain the best available benchmark. They establish a rough hierarchy that matches most learners’ experience: Spanish is genuinely easier than Russian, and Russian is genuinely easier than Japanese, for an average English speaker.

The Reading Difficulty Angle

Most difficulty guides focus on speaking and listening. But for learners who use reading as their primary method — and research strongly supports reading as one of the most effective approaches to language acquisition — a different dimension matters: how hard is it to read this language?

Reading difficulty depends on three factors that are partially independent of overall language difficulty.

Orthographic Transparency

Languages exist on a spectrum from “transparent” (spelling matches pronunciation consistently) to “opaque” (spelling and pronunciation diverge).

Transparent orthographies mean that once you learn the rules, you can pronounce any word you see and spell any word you hear. Spanish, Italian, Finnish, and Turkish are excellent examples. When you encounter a new word while reading, you immediately know how it sounds. This accelerates vocabulary acquisition because your visual and auditory memories reinforce each other.

Opaque orthographies break this connection. French has extensive silent letters (“beaucoup” has eight letters but four sounds). English itself is notoriously opaque (“through,” “though,” “thought,” “thorough”). When reading in an opaque orthography, you build a visual vocabulary that may not connect to spoken forms — you recognize words on the page but might mispronounce them in conversation.

For reading specifically, opaque orthographies are less of a problem than you might think. You do not need to pronounce words correctly to understand a written text. French is full of silent letters, but an English speaker can still read French text and extract meaning from the abundant cognates.

Script Familiarity

The most immediate barrier to reading in a new language is the writing system itself.

Latin alphabet languages (Spanish, German, Turkish, Vietnamese) let English speakers start reading on day one. Even if you do not understand the words, you can at least decode them. This head start is enormous.

Modified Latin alphabets (Russian’s Cyrillic, Greek, Georgian) require learning a new set of symbols, but they map to sounds in a fairly straightforward way. Most learners can read Cyrillic or Greek letters within a few days of focused study.

Non-alphabetic systems (Chinese characters, Japanese kanji) represent a fundamentally different challenge. There is no way to “sound out” an unfamiliar character. Each one must be learned individually. Japanese learners typically need 2,000+ kanji for newspaper reading; Chinese requires 3,000+. This is a multi-year investment.

Abjads and abugidas (Arabic, Hebrew, Hindi, Thai) fall somewhere in between. Arabic and Hebrew omit most vowels in standard writing, which means readers must infer pronunciation from context. Hindi’s Devanagari script is phonetic once learned, but learning it takes several weeks.

Grammar Complexity for Comprehension

Some grammatical features that are nightmarish for speaking barely affect reading comprehension, while others make reading itself harder.

Case systems (Russian, German, Polish) are demanding for production — you need to choose the right ending. But for reading, cases actually help: they tell you who is doing what to whom, even when word order is flexible. This can make complex sentences easier to parse than in English.

Verb conjugation is similar. Conjugated verb forms encode information (person, tense, mood) that helps you understand a sentence even if you do not fully master the system yourself.

Agglutination (Turkish, Finnish, Hungarian) packs multiple grammatical meanings into long compound words. This makes individual words harder to look up in a dictionary, but the system is highly regular — once you learn the patterns, you can decompose unfamiliar words logically.

Topic-comment structure (Japanese, Korean, Chinese) differs fundamentally from English sentence organization and takes time to internalize for reading.

Language-by-Language Comparison

Romance Languages (FSI Category I: 600—750 Hours)

These are the closest major language family to English, thanks to the Norman Conquest flooding English with French vocabulary, and French itself being a descendant of Latin alongside the rest of the group. For a deeper look at how Romance and Germanic languages compare specifically for reading, see our Romance vs Germanic comparison.

Spanish

FSI estimate: 600—750 hours | Reading difficulty: LOW

Spanish has the most transparent spelling system of any major world language. Five vowel sounds, consistent consonant pronunciation, and stress rules that are predictable (and marked with accents when they break the pattern). If you can read the word, you can pronounce it. If you can hear the word, you can spell it.

For English speakers reading Spanish, the cognate density is remarkable. A sentence like “El presidente de la nacion confirmo la informacion oficial” is immediately comprehensible. Academic and formal Spanish shares enormous vocabulary with English — both drew heavily from Latin and Greek roots.

The grammar is more complex than English (gendered nouns, subjunctive mood, two “to be” verbs) but follows regular patterns. For reading, the subject-verb-object order is familiar, and verb endings help you track who is doing what.

Content library: Massive. Spanish has one of the largest literary traditions in the world, from Cervantes to Garcia Marquez to contemporary bestsellers. News sources, blogs, and online content are abundant.

The honest assessment: Spanish is the default recommendation for English speakers for good reason. It is the easiest major language to read, has the most content, and offers the clearest practical benefits (500 million speakers, dominant in the Americas). If you have no strong preference for another language, Spanish is the safest bet.

French

FSI estimate: 600—750 hours | Reading difficulty: LOW-MEDIUM

French shares even more vocabulary with English than Spanish does — an estimated 30 to 45 percent of English words have French origins. Written French is packed with recognizable cognates: “gouvernement,” “important,” “difference,” “conversation.” An English speaker can often extract the general meaning of a French newspaper article with zero French study.

The complication is pronunciation. French has extensive silent letters, nasal vowels, and liaison rules that make the spoken language sound nothing like the written form. “Ils ont” (they have) is spelled with seven letters but pronounced as two syllables. This means reading French and understanding spoken French are almost separate skills.

For reading specifically, this is actually an advantage. You can build strong reading comprehension in French relatively quickly, even if your listening comprehension lags behind. The abundant cognates and shared grammatical vocabulary give you a massive head start on the page.

Content library: One of the richest in the world. French literature spans centuries of canonical works (Hugo, Camus, Proust) plus a thriving contemporary publishing scene. France publishes more books per capita than almost any other country.

The honest assessment: French is slightly harder to read than Spanish because of spelling irregularities, but the cognate advantage partially compensates. If you care about literature, French opens one of the deepest catalogs in existence.

Italian

FSI estimate: 600—750 hours | Reading difficulty: LOW

Italian may be the most phonetically transparent of the major Romance languages. Almost every letter is pronounced, stress is fairly predictable, and the vowel system is simple. Reading Italian aloud is straightforward even for beginners.

The grammar is similar to Spanish — gendered nouns, verb conjugations, subjunctive — but Italian has some features that make reading slightly easier. Articles and adjective endings reliably signal gender and number, helping you parse sentence structure.

Italian has fewer direct cognates with English than French, but the Latin roots are still recognizable: “universita,” “impossibile,” “comunicazione.” The gap is smaller than you might expect.

Content library: Smaller than French or Spanish, but deep in quality. Italian literature includes Dante, Calvino, Eco, and Ferrante. The contemporary publishing scene is active but less translated into English, which means reading in Italian gives you access to works you cannot find elsewhere.

The honest assessment: Italian is one of the easiest languages to read from a pure phonetic standpoint. The trade-off is a smaller content ecosystem and fewer practical career applications than Spanish or French. If you love the language and the culture, these trade-offs do not matter.

Portuguese

FSI estimate: 600—750 hours | Reading difficulty: LOW-MEDIUM

Written Portuguese is very close to Spanish — the two share roughly 90 percent lexical similarity. If you can read Spanish, you can often read Portuguese with minimal additional study. The grammar is nearly identical in structure.

Where Portuguese diverges is pronunciation. Brazilian Portuguese has nasal vowels, vowel reduction, and a rhythm that differs significantly from Spanish. European Portuguese is even harder to parse auditorily — it is sometimes called “the Russian of Romance languages” for its consonant clusters and swallowed vowels.

For reading, Portuguese is firmly in the “easy” category. The spelling is mostly phonetic (more so than French, less so than Spanish), and the cognate density with English is high.

Content library: Strong and growing. Brazilian literature (Machado de Assis, Clarice Lispector, Paulo Coelho) is internationally recognized. Brazil’s population of 210 million ensures abundant modern content.

The honest assessment: If you already know Spanish, Portuguese is the obvious next step — you will read comfortably within weeks. As a first language, it is slightly harder than Spanish due to pronunciation but equally rewarding for reading.

Romanian

FSI estimate: 600—750 hours | Reading difficulty: MEDIUM

Romanian is the outlier of the Romance family. Centuries of contact with Slavic, Turkish, and Hungarian neighbors have left their mark on vocabulary and grammar. Romanian retains a case system (nominative/accusative and genitive/dative), uses articles appended to the end of nouns rather than placed before them, and has borrowed extensively from Slavic languages.

Reading Romanian, you will recognize many Latin roots (“important,” “national,” “problema”) but encounter unfamiliar words that come from Slavic or Turkish sources. The spelling is phonetic — Romanian uses the Latin alphabet with a few additional characters — but the grammar requires more effort to parse than other Romance languages.

Content library: Modest compared to French or Spanish, but Romanian literature has produced notable authors (Mircea Eliade, Emil Cioran, Herta Muller). Online content is growing as Romania’s tech sector expands.

The honest assessment: Romanian is the hardest Romance language for English speakers, but it is still easier than any Slavic language. It is a strong choice if you have a connection to Romania or Moldova, or if you want a stepping stone toward understanding Slavic grammar while staying within a more familiar vocabulary base.

Germanic Languages (FSI Category I—II: 750—900 Hours)

English is a Germanic language, which means this family is your closest linguistic relative. The core grammar, basic vocabulary, and sentence structure share deep roots.

German

FSI estimate: 900 hours (Category II) | Reading difficulty: MEDIUM

German is rated slightly harder than Romance languages, mostly because of its case system (four cases), grammatical gender (three genders), and word order rules (verb goes to the end of subordinate clauses). For speaking, these features demand precision. For reading, they are manageable — and sometimes helpful.

German compound words are famous for their length (“Rechtsschutzversicherungsgesellschaften” — legal protection insurance companies) but they are logical: each component is a recognizable word. Once you learn to decompose compounds, reading German becomes a puzzle-solving exercise rather than a memorization one.

The alphabet is Latin with a few additions (a, o, u, ss), and spelling is mostly phonetic. You can pronounce any German word you see. The vocabulary shares deep roots with English — “Haus” (house), “Wasser” (water), “Buch” (book) — though centuries of divergence mean many common words are no longer recognizable.

Content library: Enormous. German is the most widely spoken native language in Europe. Publishing output is massive, and German literature (Goethe, Kafka, Mann, Hesse) is among the world’s most celebrated.

The honest assessment: German reading is harder than Romance languages but easier than most people expect. The logical compound system, phonetic spelling, and shared Germanic vocabulary give English speakers real advantages. The case system matters less for reading comprehension than for writing or speaking.

Dutch

FSI estimate: 600—750 hours (Category I) | Reading difficulty: LOW

Dutch is the closest major language to English. The basic vocabulary overlap is striking: “water” is “water,” “boek” is “book,” “huis” is “house,” “appel” is “apple.” Sentence structure follows similar patterns, and the grammar is simpler than German — no case system, two genders instead of three.

Reading Dutch as an English speaker often feels like reading a slightly garbled version of English. Sentences like “De kat zit op de mat” (The cat sits on the mat) are immediately transparent. Academic and technical vocabulary is heavily shared.

Content library: The Netherlands has high publishing output per capita, and Dutch literature (Harry Mulisch, Cees Nooteboom) is well-regarded. However, the total volume is small compared to English, French, or German, and many Dutch authors also publish in English.

The honest assessment: Dutch is probably the single easiest language for an English speaker to read. The practical limitation is that nearly all Dutch speakers are fluent in English, which can reduce motivation. If reading ease is your primary criterion, Dutch is the answer.

Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish

FSI estimate: 600—750 hours (Category I) | Reading difficulty: LOW-MEDIUM

The Scandinavian languages share extensive vocabulary with English (many words entered English via Viking-era Old Norse). Swedish “bok” (book), “hus” (house), and “vatten” (water) are immediately recognizable. Norwegian is especially close to English in vocabulary.

Written Norwegian and Swedish are quite transparent — spelling matches pronunciation reasonably well. Danish spelling is more conservative (the written form preserves sounds that spoken Danish has lost), making it similar to French in having a gap between written and spoken language.

The grammar is simpler than German: two genders, no case system, relatively fixed word order. Verb conjugations do not change for person (all persons use the same form), which simplifies reading considerably.

Content library: Per capita, Scandinavian countries are among the most prolific publishers in the world. Nordic crime fiction (Stieg Larsson, Jo Nesbo, Henning Mankell) has achieved global popularity. Non-fiction output is strong.

The honest assessment: Scandinavian languages are underrated for English speakers. They are easy to read, have rich literary traditions, and the three languages are mutually intelligible in written form — learning one gives you reading access to all three. The practical downside is that virtually all Scandinavians speak excellent English.

Slavic Languages (FSI Category III: ~1,100 Hours)

Slavic languages represent a significant step up in difficulty for English speakers. The grammar is more complex (cases, aspect, flexible word order), vocabulary shares fewer cognates with English, and several use the Cyrillic alphabet.

Russian

FSI estimate: 1,100 hours | Reading difficulty: MEDIUM-HIGH

The first hurdle is the Cyrillic alphabet, but it is a smaller obstacle than most people imagine. Cyrillic has 33 letters, many of which resemble their Latin equivalents or Greek originals. Most learners can read Cyrillic (slowly) within a week of practice.

Once past the script, Russian spelling is reasonably phonetic. Stress placement is unpredictable and not marked in normal text (unstressed “o” sounds like “a”), but this mainly affects pronunciation, not reading comprehension.

Russian grammar is the real challenge. Six cases, three genders, two aspects for verbs (perfective and imperfective), and flexible word order that relies on case endings rather than position to convey meaning. For reading, though, this system has an upside: case endings tell you the grammatical role of each word, which helps you untangle complex sentences.

The vocabulary has fewer English cognates than Romance or Germanic languages, but international terms (“televizor,” “kompyuter,” “restoran”) and words borrowed from French (“byuro,” “shofyor”) provide some footholds.

Content library: One of the greatest in world literature. Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Bulgakov, and a vast contemporary scene. Russian is also a major language for science, mathematics, and chess literature.

The honest assessment: Russian reading is a genuine long-term investment. The Cyrillic alphabet is a speed bump, not a wall. The real investment is in grammar and vocabulary. But the payoff is access to one of the deepest and most celebrated literary traditions in human history.

Polish

FSI estimate: 1,100 hours | Reading difficulty: HIGH

Polish uses the Latin alphabet, which removes the script barrier, but adds a different challenge: consonant clusters that look impenetrable to English eyes. Words like “szczescie” (happiness) or “bezwzgledny” (ruthless) are intimidating on the page.

The grammar is arguably the most complex in the Slavic family for English speakers: seven cases, elaborate verb conjugation, grammatical gender that extends to plural forms and past-tense verbs. Reading Polish requires familiarity with extensive inflectional morphology — word endings carry critical meaning.

Despite the Latin alphabet, the spelling system is dense. Diagraphs like “sz,” “cz,” “rz,” and “dz” represent single sounds, and nasal vowels add another layer. However, the system is consistent — once learned, the rules do not have exceptions.

Content library: Significant. Polish literature includes Nobel laureates (Szymborska, Milosz, Sienkiewicz, Tokarczuk) and a vibrant contemporary scene. Poland has one of Europe’s highest reading rates.

The honest assessment: Polish is one of the hardest European languages to read for English speakers. The consonant clusters and extensive inflection create a steep initial learning curve. The reward is access to a rich literary culture and a strategic language in Central Europe.

Czech and Slovak

FSI estimate: 1,100 hours | Reading difficulty: MEDIUM-HIGH

Czech and Slovak are closely related (mutually intelligible) and share most of Polish’s grammatical complexity — seven cases, extensive conjugation, grammatical gender. The advantage over Polish is that the spelling system uses diacritical marks (hacky and carky — hooks and accents) rather than consonant clusters, making words look less intimidating: “stesti” (happiness) versus Polish “szczescie.”

The phonology is complex but regular. Czech in particular has a reputation for logical grammar — the system is complex, but it follows its own rules consistently.

Content library: Respectable. Czech literature (Kafka wrote in German, but Kundera, Capek, and Hasek wrote in Czech) is internationally known. Slovak literature is smaller but shares much with Czech due to mutual intelligibility.

The honest assessment: Czech and Slovak are slightly more approachable than Polish for reading, mainly because the spelling conventions are less visually dense. The grammatical complexity is comparable. These are strong choices if you have personal connections to Central Europe.

East Asian Languages (FSI Category IV: ~2,200 Hours)

These languages represent the greatest challenge for English speakers, primarily because the writing systems require enormous time investment and the grammar operates on fundamentally different principles.

Japanese

FSI estimate: 2,200 hours | Reading difficulty: VERY HIGH

Japanese uses three writing systems simultaneously: hiragana (46 characters, phonetic, used for grammatical elements), katakana (46 characters, phonetic, used for foreign words), and kanji (Chinese characters, of which roughly 2,136 are designated as “commonly used”). A typical sentence mixes all three.

Learning hiragana and katakana takes a few weeks. Kanji is a multi-year project. Each character can have multiple readings (on’yomi from Chinese, kun’yomi native Japanese) depending on context. The word “today” is written with two kanji: characters that mean “now” and “day,” but the pronunciation (“kyou”) cannot be predicted from the individual characters.

The grammar is actually quite regular — verbs conjugate predictably, particles mark grammatical function clearly, and there are no articles or grammatical gender. The difficulty lies in word order (subject-object-verb), honorific levels, and the sheer volume of vocabulary that uses kanji.

Content library: Japan publishes more books per year than almost any other country. Manga alone is a massive reading resource, and literary fiction (Murakami, Kawabata, Mishima) is world-renowned. The range of available reading material at every difficulty level is exceptional.

The honest assessment: Japanese is a long-term commitment for reading. The first year is largely spent building script literacy. The payoff is access to one of the world’s most prolific and diverse publishing cultures. Many learners find manga and light novels invaluable as stepping stones to literary texts.

Chinese (Mandarin)

FSI estimate: 2,200 hours | Reading difficulty: VERY HIGH (but grammar is simple)

Chinese uses characters exclusively — no alphabet, no syllabary. Literate Chinese adults know 6,000 to 8,000 characters; you need roughly 3,000 for newspaper reading. Each character represents a syllable and a meaning, and many characters contain radicals (components) that hint at meaning or pronunciation, but the system is not phonetic in any reliable way.

The surprising upside: Chinese grammar is remarkably simple for reading. No conjugation, no declension, no articles, no grammatical gender, no plural markers. Word order is relatively fixed (subject-verb-object, like English). Tense is indicated by context and a few particles, not by verb changes. This means that once you know enough characters, reading Chinese sentences is grammatically straightforward.

Tones (four in Mandarin) are critical for speaking and listening but irrelevant for reading. This makes Chinese a language where reading ability can significantly outpace speaking ability.

Content library: Enormous. Chinese literature spans millennia, and contemporary Chinese publishing is massive. Online content (news, blogs, web novels) is virtually unlimited.

The honest assessment: Chinese reading is a character-memorization marathon with a grammar sprint. The initial investment is steep — you need hundreds of characters before you can read even simple texts. But the grammar will not hold you back, and the character system, while demanding, is deeply logical once you understand how radicals and components work.

Korean

FSI estimate: 2,200 hours | Reading difficulty: HIGH

Korean’s writing system, Hangul, is often called the most logical alphabet ever designed. Created in 1443 by King Sejong, each character represents a syllable, composed of individual letter shapes that correspond to specific sounds. Most learners can read Hangul (sound out words) within a few days.

This gives Korean a massive reading advantage over Japanese and Chinese: the script barrier is minimal. The difficulty lies elsewhere. Korean grammar is complex — subject-object-verb word order, agglutinative verb forms, an elaborate system of speech levels and honorifics, and particles that mark grammatical function. Korean vocabulary has limited overlap with English, though it has borrowed extensively from Chinese (similar to how English borrowed from Latin).

Content library: Growing rapidly. Korean literature (Han Kang’s Nobel Prize, Korean wave cultural exports) is gaining international attention. Manhwa (Korean comics), web novels, and K-drama scripts provide extensive reading material.

The honest assessment: Korean is significantly easier to read than Japanese or Chinese thanks to Hangul, but the grammar is genuinely complex. If you are drawn to East Asian languages and prioritize reading accessibility, Korean offers the best script-to-difficulty ratio.

Other Notable Languages

Turkish

FSI estimate: 1,100 hours (Category III) | Reading difficulty: MEDIUM

Turkish uses the Latin alphabet with a few additional characters and is almost perfectly phonetic — every letter is pronounced, and each letter represents exactly one sound. The spelling system is a joy for readers.

The grammar is agglutinative: suffixes stack onto root words to express grammatical relationships. A single Turkish word can convey what English needs an entire phrase for. “Evlerinizden” means “from your houses” — “ev” (house) + “ler” (plural) + “iniz” (your) + “den” (from). This is challenging but extremely regular. Once you learn the suffix system, you can decompose any word.

Turkish has almost no irregular verbs, and vowel harmony (suffixes change their vowels to match the root word) makes words phonetically pleasing and predictable.

Content library: Moderate. Turkish literature has a Nobel laureate (Orhan Pamuk) and a growing contemporary scene. Turkey’s large population (85 million) ensures abundant online content.

The honest assessment: Turkish is an underrated choice for readers. The phonetic spelling system and extreme regularity of the grammar make it more predictable than many “easier” European languages. The vocabulary is unfamiliar to English speakers (Turkic roots, not Indo-European), which is the main challenge.

Arabic

FSI estimate: 2,200 hours (Category IV) | Reading difficulty: HIGH

Arabic’s script runs right to left, letters change shape depending on their position in a word (initial, medial, final, or isolated), and short vowels are typically omitted in written text. This means readers must infer vowels from context — “ktb” could be “kataba” (he wrote), “kutub” (books), or “kutiba” (it was written). This is arguably the single hardest reading challenge of any major language.

The grammar features a root-and-pattern system: most words derive from three-consonant roots. “K-T-B” relates to writing: “kitab” (book), “katib” (writer), “maktaba” (library). Once you internalize this system, it becomes a powerful tool for guessing unfamiliar words.

Diglossia adds another layer: Modern Standard Arabic (MSA, used in books and news) and spoken dialects (Egyptian, Levantine, Gulf) are substantially different. You will read MSA but hear dialects.

Content library: Classical Arabic literature is one of the world’s oldest and richest traditions. Modern Arabic publishing is significant, though somewhat fragmented across dialects and national literatures.

The honest assessment: Arabic reading requires mastering a new script, learning to read without vowels, and navigating a grammatical system unlike any European language. The root-and-pattern system is beautiful once it clicks, but the learning curve is steep. Choose Arabic if you have genuine motivation — the difficulty is real, and it will test you.

Hindi

FSI estimate: 1,100 hours (Category III) | Reading difficulty: MEDIUM

Hindi uses the Devanagari script, which looks intimidating but is actually one of the most phonetic writing systems in the world. Each symbol corresponds to a specific sound, and there are virtually no spelling irregularities. Learning Devanagari takes two to four weeks of focused practice.

Once you can read the script, Hindi spelling is transparent — what you see is what you say. The grammar features two genders, postpositions (like prepositions but after the noun), and verb conjugation. Word order is subject-object-verb.

Hindi has borrowed extensively from Sanskrit, Persian, Arabic, and English. English loanwords are common in modern Hindi, especially in technology, business, and urban speech. This gives English speakers more footholds than they might expect.

Content library: Hindi literature (Premchand, Harivansh Rai Bachchan) is substantial, and Hindi-language publishing is massive — India publishes more books in Hindi than in English. Bollywood scripts, news media, and online content provide endless reading material.

The honest assessment: Hindi reading is more approachable than its FSI category suggests. The Devanagari script is a genuine hurdle, but it is phonetic and learnable. If you invest a few weeks in the script, reading Hindi becomes a matter of vocabulary and grammar rather than decoding.

Quick Comparison Table

How to Choose: A Decision Framework

Numbers and ratings only get you so far. Here is how to actually make a decision.

1. Start with Motivation

This is the factor that matters most, and it is the one that difficulty guides usually undervalue. A learner who is genuinely passionate about Japanese culture — who reads manga, watches anime, plans trips to Tokyo — will outperform a learner who picked Spanish because it was “easy” but has no emotional connection to the language.

Research on language learning outcomes consistently shows that motivation is the strongest predictor of success. Difficulty adds time, but lack of motivation kills the effort entirely. If a language fascinates you, choose it regardless of its FSI category.

2. Consider Available Content

Languages with large, accessible content libraries are easier to practice with. Spanish, French, German, Russian, Japanese, and Chinese have massive amounts of books, news, blogs, and media. Smaller languages (Slovak, Georgian, Swahili) may have fewer resources, which can slow progress at the intermediate stage when you need large volumes of comprehensible input.

This matters especially for reading-based learning. You need books you actually want to read, at difficulty levels that match your growing ability. Knowing how many words you need for each language helps set realistic expectations.

3. Factor In Script Familiarity

If you want the fastest start, stick with Latin-alphabet languages. You will be reading real sentences on day one. If you choose a language with a new script (Russian, Arabic, Hindi, Korean, Japanese, Chinese), budget two to four weeks just for script acquisition before you can begin reading.

This is not a reason to avoid these languages — just a reality to plan for.

4. Think About Your Goals

• Career: Spanish, Chinese, Arabic, German, and French consistently rank as the most valuable languages in the global job market.
• Travel: Choose the language of the country or region you plan to visit. Practical motivation sustains study.
• Literature: French, Russian, Japanese, Spanish, and German have the deepest literary traditions for modern readers.
• Heritage: If you have family connections to a language, you already have built-in motivation and possibly some passive knowledge.

5. Consider Your Existing Languages

If English is not your only language, your calculation changes significantly. A Spanish speaker will find Portuguese and Italian trivially easy. A Russian speaker will have a head start on any Slavic language. A Hindi speaker already knows Devanagari and shares vocabulary with Urdu. Difficulty is always relative to what you already know.

The Contrarian Take: Difficulty Does Not Matter as Much as You Think

Here is the uncomfortable truth that difficulty guides rarely acknowledge: the difference between an “easy” and “hard” language is mostly a difference in time, not in achievability.

Spanish takes roughly 600 hours to professional proficiency. Japanese takes 2,200. That is a ratio of about 3.5 to 1. Significant, yes. But spread over years of daily practice, the difference is between reaching advanced reading ability in two years versus five or six. Both are achievable within a normal human lifetime.

What actually kills language learning projects is not difficulty — it is boredom, inconsistency, and choosing a language you do not care about. A motivated learner of Arabic who reads every day will reach reading fluency. A bored learner of Spanish who quits after two months will not.

The real question is not “which language is easiest?” It is “which language will I still be studying a year from now?”

How Lingo7 Fits In

Whichever language you choose, the core challenge is the same: getting enough reading practice at a level you can actually understand. This is where Lingo7 can help.

Lingo7 supports 90+ languages with parallel reading — your target language alongside a translation in your native language. You can start reading authentic books from the beginning, without waiting until your grammar knowledge catches up. Native audio narration lets you connect written words to spoken pronunciation. And spaced repetition vocabulary review ensures that words you encounter while reading move into long-term memory.

Whether you choose a Category I language like Spanish or a Category IV language like Japanese, the method is the same: read real books, understand through parallel text, and build vocabulary naturally through repeated exposure. The difficulty of the language determines how long the journey takes, not whether it is possible.

The Bottom Line

There is no single “best” language to learn. Spanish is the easiest major language for English speakers to read. Japanese and Chinese demand the most time. But the right language for you is the one that keeps you coming back to the page day after day.

Use difficulty ratings as a planning tool, not a decision-making tool. Know what you are signing up for. Budget your time accordingly. Then choose the language that makes you want to read one more page.