English as the lingua franca.

Right. As often as we rightfully talk about English being difficult, in many areas it is actually much easier than other languages as well.

On conjugation? Yep. On gendered forms? Yep.

Our spelling is notoriously difficult, but luckily Americans suck at that too.

It has a ton of loanwords. It isn't much help if you are coming from say Cantonese, but from French or German or Dutch it is a big help.

Lingua Francas are a bit of a natural monopoly, but English has a lot of flexibility to it too.