Root Site Subdirectory

Hello,
i’m using subdirectories as languages codes for my site.
e.g. example.com/de/ for german
how can i force to the root site to use a subdirectory too.
i want to use example.com/en/ as default page.
as a workaround i have created /en/ as subpage and i’m redirecting example.com/ to /en/ via htaccess.
is there a better way to do this, because with this way i have an unused site.