I had to check what Data Center Ifrit was even on, haha.

Ifrit is on a JP data center, so my guess is that most people speak Japanese. I'd recommend moving (either by transfer or new character, since you are still low-level) to either the Primal, Aether, or Chaos data centers (Primal and Aether are NA, while Chaos is EU so you will meet more people who speak French/German in addition to English).
If the problem is you live in Australia or somewhere like that, I hear Tonberry is a very popular choice for English speakers on a Japanese server.

I don't know how big the JP data center servers are, so I can't let you know if they are crowded or not. My server is quiet, but not dead. Balmung is the biggest server, because so many people flock to RP there. I believe it's the same with Gilgamesh.

If you really are having a tough time, I would really suggest changing servers