For Spanish speakers, the easiest languages you can learn are ones with similar vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation to Spanish. Some languages are so close to Spanish that speakers of each one may be able to understand each other—and some languages that sound very different from Spanish are surprisingly similar, too!
Learn all about the easiest language to learn for Spanish speakers, and why they may be good options for your next language journey. And if you’re an English speaker who enjoyed learning Spanish, you may find a potential third language waiting for you!
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Romance languages are the easiest for Spanish speakers
For a language that’s an easy jump from Spanish, the first place you should look is in Spanish’s own language family: the Romance languages. Romance languages get their name because they’re descended from Latin, the principal language of the Roman Empire.
Since they all share a common ancestor for the majority of their vocabulary, a Spanish speaker studying a Romance language will find a lot of cognates—words with a similar appearance and meaning across languages. Romance languages also share grammar rules and, in many cases, pronunciation patterns that make it easy for Spanish speakers to quickly translate between languages.
Spanish is the most widely-spoken Romance language (with nearly 560 million Spanish speakers around the world). However, other Romance languages are widespread enough to find high-quality learning resources for Spanish speakers to begin their language journey.
1. Portuguese
Thanks to its shared vocabulary and grammar with Spanish, Portuguese is one of the easiest languages for Spanish speakers to learn. Over 228 million people speak Portuguese around the world, primarily in Portugal and Brazil, both of which are surrounded by Spanish-speaking countries. In fact, many citizens of Uruguay speak Portuñol, a local blended language of Spanish and Portuguese that incorporates vocabulary and grammar from both tongues.
It’s easy to see the similarities between conversational Portuguese and Spanish. Both languages use similar conjugation rules for regular verbs, and they share a common alphabet (although some letters are special to each language, such as the Spanish ñ and the Portuguese ç).
Many Portuguese words are the same in Spanish, with a few spelling differences:
| Spanish | Portuguese | Translation |
| hola | olá | hello |
| casa | casa | house |
| ser | ser | to be |
| nombre | nome | name |
| amigo/a | amigo/a | friend |
2. Italian
One of the most common benefits of learning a second language is that the world of travel opens up to you. For those planning a trip to or throughout Europe, learning Italian may be high on their priority list.
If you know Spanish, the pronunciation of Italian will probably come easily to you. Letters in both languages have only one sound and grammar rules are as consistent in Italian as they are in Spanish. Additionally, Spanish and Italian share many words and a common conjugation structure.
While there are some sound and spelling differences between Spanish and Italian (such as the Spanish cua- sound and the Italian qua- sound), Spanish speakers can be reasonably confident that they’ll understand the majority of beginning Italian conversations. They may need to include specific Italian vocabulary to advance to an intermediate fluency level.
Similar words in Spanish and Italian include:
| Spanish | Italian | Translation |
| fiesta | festa | party |
| música | musica | music |
| café | caffè | coffee |
| siempre | sempre | always |
| vivir | vivere | to live |
3. French
Spanish and French are often described as cousins—languages with similar ancestry and attributes, but not similar enough to be mistaken for each other. Their shared vocabulary and backgrounds in Latin make Spanish and French compatible languages for speakers of either one to learn.
Although Spanish and French don’t sound very similar when spoken, they’re similar in other ways. Their grammatical structures include noun gender and subject-verb word order, and they share many cognates. However, Spanish pronunciation is very phonetic, while French’s silent letters and sounds make learning its rules slightly harder.
You can see the similarities in the languages here:
| Spanish | French | Translation |
| escuela | école | school |
| restaurante | restaurant | restaurant |
| familia | famille | family |
| amor | amour | love |
| dormir | dormir | to sleep |
4. Romanian
Romanian may not spring to mind when it comes to the easiest language to learn for Spanish speakers. Even though it’s a Romance language like Spanish with shared vocabulary words and similar grammar systems, Romanian’s Slavic influences and complicated verb conjugation system make it more challenging to learn for English speakers, let alone Spanish speakers.
However, once you understand the Romanian alphabet and pronunciation rules, the language is only slightly more challenging to learn than the other Romance languages. It’s certainly easier for Spanish speakers to learn than Russian or Polish, two Slavic languages spoken in the area that use different alphabets and grammar rules.
| Spanish | Romanian | Translation |
| noche | noapte | night |
| agua | apă | water |
| inteligente | inteligent | intelligent |
| carne | carne | meat |
| comprar | cumpăra | to buy |
5. Iberian languages
Other Romance languages that are close to Spanish include the regional languages of the Iberian Peninsula, which covers Spain, Portugal, and southern France. These languages, such as Catalan and Galician, may not be as widespread as French or Portuguese, but some still have millions of speakers.
If you want to travel or relocate to a specific part of the Iberian Peninsula, knowing one of these regional languages can help you bond with the locals. In particular, Galician, a language spoken in the region of Galicia in northwest Spain, is also easy to pick up if you understand Spanish. For example:
| Spanish | Galician | Translation |
| libro | libro | book |
| guitarra | guitarra | guitar |
| beber | beber | to drink |
| coche | coche | car |
| viajar | viaxar | to travel |
In eastern Spanish, the Catalan language is the official language of Andorra. It’s highly influenced by Spanish in the surrounding areas, and shares many similarities as well:
| Spanish | Catalan | Translation |
| libro | llibre | book |
| guitarra | guitarra | guitar |
| beber | beure | to drink |
| coche | cotxe | car |
| viajar | viatjar | to travel |
Is English easy for Spanish speakers to learn?
Even though it’s a Germanic language, not a Romance language, English is another one of the easier languages to learn for Spanish speakers. Its Latin roots and shared vocabulary with French result in a fair number of cognates with Spanish.
In addition, because the United States and Latin America have influenced one another’s cultures and languages, English has a number of Spanish loanwords, or words adopted from a foreign language. A Spanish speaker can use words like fiesta and dinero and most English speakers will know what they mean. Likewise, Spanish uses many words taken from English, and many Spanish speakers speak Spanglish—a mix of both languages.
On top of that, because English is spoken by more people than any other language in the world, there is an abundance of resources for Spanish speakers to learn it. A good resource can make all the difference when learning a new language.
What are the hardest languages for Spanish speakers to learn?
The hardest languages for Spanish speakers to learn are those that use completely different writing systems and alphabets. While Romance and Germanic languages both use the Latin alphabet, languages like Mandarin and Japanese use logographic writing systems, which are made up of characters that symbolize entire words or phrases.
Korean, an agglutinative language, creates meaning by adding suffixes to shorter words instead of the word-order system that Spanish uses. Additionally, Russian is another difficult language for Spanish speakers to learn, as it uses the Cyrillic alphabet and a distinctly different pronunciation style.
Is Arabic hard for Spanish speakers to learn?
One may expect Arabic to appear on the list of harder languages for Spanish speakers, but that’s not always the case. Thanks to the historical Muslim influence over the Hispanic peninsula between the 8th and 15th centuries, many Arabic words have made their way into Spanish, including common words like guitarra (guitar, from the Arabic gitara) and arroz (rice, from the Arabic ar-ruzz).
Key takeaways for Spanish speakers
If you speak Spanish and are looking for a new language to learn, keep these key takeaways in mind when choosing your new tongue:
- Portuguese and Italian are the easiest languages to learn for Spanish speakers, thanks to shared vocabulary and grammar rules.
- English is also one of the easier languages for Spanish speakers to learn, as the proximity of the United States to Latin America has resulted in many loanwords in both languages.
- Languages that use different alphabets and writing systems, such as Mandarin Chinese, Russian, and Japanese, are among the hardest languages for Spanish speakers to learn as second languages.
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