The English language is made up of words from many other languages. Words like “restaurant” and “boulevard” come from French, for example, while Italian lends words like “pasta” and “finale.” But is there a language that shares English’s Germanic roots—and even uses a similar grammatical structure?
You may be surprised to learn that there’s not just one language that’s closest to English. There are three languages that share English’s Germanic roots—and they’re not just different dialects of English. If you have a solid understanding of English vocabulary and grammar, you may be able to pick up these closely related languages easily.
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Frisian is the closest language to English
The closest language to English is Frisian. This Germanic language is spoken by about 400,000 people in an area historically known as Frisia—now within the modern regions of Netherlands and Germany. The main dialect of Frisian is Frysk (West Frisian), one of the official languages of Friesland in the northern region of the Netherlands. Two additional dialects of Frisian, Nordfrasch (North Frisian) and Seeltersk (South Frisian), are spoken in smaller populations of Germany.
While English and Frisian may look different, their common Germanic roots tie them together. A famous Frisian rhyme that connects English with Frisian is Bûter, brea, en griene tsiis is goed Ingelsk en goed Frysk. When you try to read it in English, you’ll find it’s pronounced “Butter, bread, and green cheese is good English and good Fries,” and that’s also its English translation.
Note the similar sentence structure between English and West Frisian in other sentences:
| English | West Frisian |
| The man lives in a house. | De man wennet yn in hûs. |
| My friend works in the market. | Myn freon wurket yn ‘e merke. |
| We brought a book to school. | Wy brochten in boek nei skoalle. |
Dutch is the closest major language to English
While Frisian is the closest language to English, Dutch—the official language of the Netherlands—is also closely related to English. With 22 million native speakers and an additional six million who speak it as a second language, Dutch is the third most widely spoken Germanic language in the world (after English and German).
Many English speakers find Dutch easy to learn because of its similarity to English. For example:
| English | Dutch |
| The man lives in a house. | De man woont in een huis. |
| My friend works in the market. | Mijn vriend werkt op de markt. |
| We need a book for school. | We hebben een boek nodig voor school. |
Dutch pronunciation and vocabulary are slightly different from English and West Frisian but similar enough to make the connections between the languages easy to see. When you use Rosetta Stone’s TruAccent speech recognition engine, you’re sure to get the pronunciation right no matter what language you’re learning.
German shares roots with English
German is also close to English and another that many English speakers find easier to learn. Spoken by 134 million people around the world, German is a common language for English learners to choose as a second language.
You’ll find vocabulary and grammar similarities between German and English, though they’re slightly further apart than English and West Frisian. For example:
| English | German |
| The man lives in a house. | Der Mann lebt in einem Haus. |
| My friend works in the market. | Mein Freund arbeitet auf dem Markt. |
| We need a book for school. | Wir brauchen ein Buch für die Schule. |
While pronouncing German words and sentences doesn’t sound exactly like English, English learners can generally interpret several parts of a German phrase—even without knowing any German at all.
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How are English, Frisian, Dutch, and German related?
These four languages are connected by their Germanic roots, dating back over 1500 years. Before the Anglo-Saxon invasion in the early 5th century, most people in England spoke Celtic languages or Latin. With the Anglo-Saxons came a new language—Anglisc—which became known as Old English.
While the linguistic beginnings of Old English are largely undocumented, linguists and historians agree that Old English, Old German, Old Frisian, and Old Dutch derived from a Proto-Germanic language in that region of Europe. The vocabulary and sounds of Old English began to separate from this branch of West Germanic languages by 700 C.E.
Even with the spread and influence of Latin Christianity throughout eighth-century Europe, these languages maintained their Germanic syntax and grammar, keeping them related to this day.
How Old English became Middle English
As the English language progressed throughout history, it adopted other influences beyond the borders of England. In the 11th century, the Norman conquest of Britain brought many French words and phrases into the English language, leading Old English to become French-influenced Middle English. Middle English dropped the Germanic grammatical gender in favor of natural gender, and it added many Romantic words to its vocabulary during this period.
How Middle English became Modern English
Many scholars mark the change from Middle English to Modern English between the 15th and 17th centuries, with the invention of the printing press in 1476 C.E., the works of William Shakespeare, and the publication of the first English dictionary in 1604. Many modern changes to English include Latin and Greek-inspired words and roots, cognates from languages around the globe, and the influence of technology crafting new conversational styles. However, its Germanic syntax and grammar still keep English connected to Frisian, German, and Dutch.
Compare English to its closest languages
Now you know that English is closely related to West Frisian, Dutch, and German—but how close are all of these languages to each other? Common words appear with common spellings and pronunciations throughout these Germanic languages.
| English | West Frisian | Dutch | German |
| hello | hallo | hallo | Hallo |
| friend | freon | vriend/vriendin | Freun/Freundin |
| man | man | man | Mann |
| family | famylje | familie | Familie |
| book | boek | boek | Buch |
| night | nacht | nacht | Nacht |
| school | skoalle | school | Schule |
| eat | ite | eten | essen |
| house | hûs | huis | Haus |
| sleep | sliep | slaap | schlafen |
How many dialects of English are there today?
Today, over 1.1 billion people speak English. But as any English speaker knows, not every dialect is the same, and the differences can include more than pronunciation. Most forms of Modern English come from British English, as the British Empire spread its influence throughout the world in the 15th to 19th centuries. But in the years since, these dialects have become their own distinct versions of the English language.
The major dialects of English today are:
- North American English
- British English
- Australian and New Zealand English
- South Asian English
- African English
Within each branch of English, you’ll find many distinct dialects and accents influenced by that region’s native languages and neighboring nations. For example, North American English includes all American English dialects, such as Southern and Midwestern dialects as well as Canadian English dialects. British English incorporates dialects that include RP (Received Pronunciation) spoken in London, Scots, and Irish dialects.
What is the easiest language for English speakers to learn?
Due to the similarities, West Frisian, Dutch, and German are among the easiest languages for English speakers to learn. Translation can be simpler between these languages for beginning speakers, and the similar sentence cadence makes it straightforward to form sentences more quickly in the learning process.
Indo-European languages
English speakers may find that other languages in the Indo-European language family, such as Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish, are also easier to pick up. While vocabulary and grammar become more removed from English—and in cases like Danish, many more vowel sounds appear in the alphabet—English learners can apply their knowledge of English when learning these Germanic languages.
Romance languages
English speakers also find that romance languages aren’t too difficult to learn. While English is not a romance language, it borrows many Latin-based cognates from Spanish, French, and Italian, making vocabulary acquisition a little easier. Romance languages involve grammatical genders and varied sentence structures that differ from English, but they are similar enough to each other that once you’ve learned one, the others come quickly.
What is the most distant language from English?
Linguists consider languages that use logograms—written symbols that represent entire words instead of letters—to be the hardest languages to learn for English speakers. Languages like Mandarin Chinese and Japanese are among the most distant languages from English because their pronunciation, spelling, grammar, and vocabulary are very different from the Germanic languages.
| English | Mandarin Chinese | Japanese |
| hello | nǐ hǎo (你好) | kon’nichiwa (こんにちは) |
| friend | péngyǒu (朋友) | yūjin (友人) |
| man | nánrén (男人) | otoko (男) |
| family | jiātíng (家庭) | kazoku (家族) |
| book | shū (书) | hon (本) |
While these languages are more difficult for English speakers to learn, they’re certainly not impossible. But English speakers should focus on mastering the alphabets and writing systems of languages like Mandarin Chinese and Japanese, rather than applying their knowledge of English for basic translation and grammar acquisition.
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