Is English A Difficult Language?

[Eman Resu]

Of course, we would not dream of that and we envisage a language class as an ideal English class: dynamic, fun and interesting on a non-linguistic level, but obviously that's not how they see it, I guess.

You've had the distinct advantage of beginning Life with a language little changed from its initial shift from ProtoGerman to Low Franconian (even if you grew up in Belgium, and your Dutch was dialectical, like Brabants and Flemish). In America, modern educational practise is to ignore then structure of the English language almost entirely, and to pretend that the Latin and Greek etymological antecedents - together with formation and relation prefixially and suffixially - are valueless, and instead to teach each (English) word as a separate fragment of vocabulary, rather than examining the root, extrapolating from it, and learning the language innately.

In Dutch or German, modern language is derived primarily "from itself," which is to say from ProtoGermanic platforms (again, save for the southern dialects which borrow so heavily from Middle French); in English, nearly three-quarters of the roots are derived from Latin etymological antecedents, and yet no Latin (not even a rote examination of the most common verb and noun forms) is taught when teaching English. Words like "accept," "inception," "exception," "capable," "perceive," "capacity," "receipt," "perceptive," "capture," "occupy," "conceit," "intercept," "receptacle," "recipient," and cetera are learned individually, rather than learning a single word in Latin - capere - and building the vocabulary of all of the above words from it.

Part of the problem is people have become quite anti-intellectual,,,,

I wish this remark wasn't absolutely true. Despite the fact that he was discussing "new ideas" as they related to visualising architecture, Alberti's famous remark, "commune hoc ignorantiæ vitium est: quæ nescias, nequicquam esse profiteri," can be applied to the (perception of) learning of almost anything, and nowhere is this more glaringly apparent in the modern world than with language and the communications Arts.

[mande2013]

I reject the idea that English is easier than French. Rather, I would suggest English is easy to learn but difficult to master while French is difficult to learn but easy to master, since the latter is a more "self-contained" language than the former. What makes English "easier" is that you can speak it poorly and still be understood. That's not the case with French. However, English pronunciation is more difficult I think. While neither language can be classified as phonetic like Spanish, French is still more phonetic than English, since there are very few phonemes one needs to internalize whereas English has a vast array of them. Also, English has more vocabulary.

[PaulStephen]

I don't think that English is difficult language. By daily speaking practice we can improve that very much.And continuous update of vocabulary knowledge led us to a good English writer.

[ennison]

In what way would knowing what capere meant to Julius Kaiser enable you to learn "innately"?

[New Secret]

I am very well learned and well versed in the English language. Being that I am part English makes it all that much easier. Much like if an Italian-American who only knows English went to Italy to learn the Italian language she would learn it quicker and easier than the non-Italian that does the same thing. Language is deeper than symbols on a page, it is rooted in our brains. In France and Germany they control the language tyrannically, dictating what new words are acceptable and changing the meaning of old words. The English language in contrast is like an open-source culture wherein anyone can create new words, shape the way the language is used and so on and so forth. It's all about what catches on with what people say and what drops out of usage. That's why English is such a widely used language.

Also, English is very confusing for foreigners and is filled with riddling contrasts where words that sound the same mean entirely unrelated things, one word can mean several unrelated things and the spelling of some words can get confusing. For those of us who naturally speak English it can get irritating to deal with foreigners who criticize us for what seems contradicting to them while they learn it. We say they know "broken-English", not a true language, but they try and "fix" the language anyways and they tumble down a hole of impossibilities while trying to rule the open-source.

English has changed a lot in it's history, having originated in Denmark and brought to Great Britain before the middle ages. At the turn of the 20th century the male-female slant in English went slowly out of usage and now you see in America a recent surge in dumbing the language down. In the United Kingdom though people continue to speak intelligently with words greater than five letters long.

[Dreamwoven]

Your English is remarkably good! Spelling trip us all up sometimes. Nice. I like the phrase "tumble down a hole of impossibilities".

[justinvirk]

no English is not a difficult who say that...but when you live in different environment then you mostly used your mother tongue....when you regularly use English it is depend on your environment where you live currently

[Paulclem]

English isn't difficult. I picked it up from being a toddler......sorry....

[justinvirk]

ya sir Mr.Paulclem you pickup english like a Toddler..I am already talk about english....if it your Mother tongue and you regularly used it in your daily life then you easily pickup this language

[Paulclem]

My bad Justin. I was just joking. Unfortunately I am virtually monolingual - I did French badly at school.

[justinvirk]

its not your bad Mr....You are monolingual hope so your mono language is also English...Don't worry about your French...English is universal language

[natasha990]

Hey guys speaking english is really easy thing,many people face problems in this some wants to learn fluently for campus selections etc....
The best thing is daily talk with your self try to speak with the people who speaks well try to gather the words from google which you want to know . Google also helps you so that you can learn fastly.

[justinvirk]

exactly natasha990..if we are daily practise at home...and communicate in english with others... obviously we improve the english..and speak well..Thanks for post

[noface0711]

I'm a native English speaker, and thus it is my mother tongue, but I was also brought up speaking French as a second language. One thing I have learned about both tongues is that there are millions of exceptions to the grammatical rules of both languages! And, the exceptions have exceptions!

[ennison]

Ok Steve. Don't worry. I learned this tongue as a second language. There are no difficult languages only dim people.