What is the most similar language to English?

[Bokyy]

I am in a process of English language learning. My current level is C1, and I am advancing to desirable C2 level. However, when I completely finish this journey with English, I am planning to learn one more foreign language. And I think it would be best that I choose a language, which is similar to English, because it would be the easiest way to learn the next one. So, I want to ask English native speakers, what is the most similar language to your native one? Do you have some idea about it?

[Ernesto]

There may probably be some Celtic dialect similar to the English language but learning that wouldn't be of much use would it. The popular opinion is that German is similar to English, but I've had the experience with learning German and English really was of almost no use in the process. 

 

English, basic structure aside, has a lot of Latin vocabulary, so in my opinion you should have a shot at learning a Latin-based language because you wouldn't waste much time memorizing vocabulary that you already know in its English form. I find French to be pretty similar to English, vocabulary-wise.

[rz3300]

1 hour ago, Ernesto said:

English, basic structure aside, has a lot of Latin vocabulary, so in my opinion you should have a shot at learning a Latin-based language because you wouldn't waste much time memorizing vocabulary that you already know in its English form. I find French to be pretty similar to English, vocabulary-wise.

I remember taking a Latin class in school and it actually was very helpful.  All of the romance languages I am pretty sure are based on it, and so a lot of the cores of the words and things like that are similar, and once you get a hold of things it is pretty easy to see how it all related.  That said, though, it was an incredibly hard class and I know it turned a lot of students off to it, so I am not sure how viable it is.  Interesting to think about though, and thanks for sharing.

[lushlala]

I like Enersto have always heard that English is closely linked to German, but because I'm not very familiar with the latter, I couldn't really say how accurate that is. On the face of it, I wouldn't have thought so, but it would definitely be interesting to hear from German speakers who speak English fluently. There's also the school of thought that English is related to French, and that I can believe because the English language has over the years borrowed from French. It has so many words that are French in origin.

[lingvo]

Both English and Deutshe have a germanic origin; wherefore they share similarities. Technically speaking, English is similar to any latin origin language, in regards of some vocabulary and sentence's structure. But I have zero experience with other germanic languages to tell more similarities. Maybe someone that knows dutch or danish could elaborate more. 

[Julian]

The closest (useful) language to English would be Dutch. However, it is way easier for a Dutch speaker to learn English than it is for an English speaker to learn Dutch.
I would recommend you go for French instead. Not only does 45% of English vocabulary have French origin, French is also much easier to learn, and is obviously more important. It is more widely spoken, and will help you learn other romance languages such as Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, etc.

[Lingua Franca]

There isn't just one language because English is a mix of both Latin and Germanic languages. The two bigger languages that are closest to English is French and Dutch. There are other smaller Germanic languages that are considered closer but they would be hard to learn since there isn't a lot of learning material for them.

[K-Barry]

The closest languages to English in my opinion are Scots, Afrikaans and Frisian.

English speakers can understand most of Scots, some of Afrikaans and a bit of Frisian without having previously studied them

[Sailor Cat]

A statement to the question if German and English is similar: Yeah, I noticed that there are many words that are written very similar, but it's pronounced very different.

But I have heard German is much more harder to learn - of course I don't know, because I'm a native speaker.

[宇崎ちゃん]

Frisian is the closest you can get to English, since English and Frisian share a common root called "Anglo-Frisian".
However, it's not the most useful language to learn, since it's exclusively spoken in the northern-most part of the Netherlands, south-western Denmark and somewhere near Hamburg in Germany.
And in each 3 regions, the national language is preferred any way.

[KimmyMarkks]

On 8/27/2016 at 0:27 PM, Julian said:

The closest (useful) language to English would be Dutch. However, it is way easier for a Dutch speaker to learn English than it is for an English speaker to learn Dutch.
I would recommend you go for French instead. Not only does 45% of English vocabulary have French origin, French is also much easier to learn, and is obviously more important. It is more widely spoken, and will help you learn other romance languages such as Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, etc.

Thanks this is good to know.  I don't know many people who speak Dutch.  I always though French was one of the more difficult languages to learn.  I know that if you know Spanish, Portuguese or Italian the other ones are easier to learn.