Is English A Difficult Language?

[hannah_arendt]

That is just my very subjective view. I study English literature and while at school learning English was always very easy for me I have some problems to write on a more academic level. It' s just that I read and read and read but, nonetheless, it still does not work out the way I would wish it to. And many of my fellow students have the same problem. Like EdwardJ said: advanced grammar...hm... and style. Not so easy to obtain.

I have never had any prolbems with English but at academic level I remember feeling the need of lack of vocabulary.

[JBI]

Ah an old post. Still. Indo-European languages are easy in general. I will stand by that.

[cafolini]

Excuse me, important news: a passive wifi device has been developed to see through walls. This will help police and people determine de actual positions of criminals. Still working on sensitivity issues like, for example, if the criminals don't move, they cannot be detected. But a higher sensitivity is coming soon where the device will detect breathing.

[hannah_arendt]

Ah an old post. Still. Indo-European languages are easy in general. I will stand by that.

What is the most difficult language according to you?

[lichtrausch]

I don't know if this has already been said, but the greatest determinant of the difficulty of other languages is your native language. If your native language is Cantonese, you will find Mandarin relatively easy to learn. If your native language is Kurdish, you will find Persian relatively easy to learn. And so on.

[kiki1982]

Yes, probably if you know your own language and its rules and things, and it's quite an elaborate one, then you'll probably find English a breeze. If you're English and you are taught the few rules there are (which is already not a given these days apparently), you'll probably find any other language very difficult.

That said, I think English is often only mistaken for being easy. The trap to me is in the surface. The surface is very easy, learners can express themselves adequately and rightly fairly quickly and so they think they know 'English'. Not so in French or German (that's the ones I know). Apart from the tenses and maybe when to use 'will' and 'going to' for the future, there is not much to remember. Everything comes fairly naturally. And no-one even seems to mind you are using the present perfect with 'yesterday'. Yesterday, I have gone to the shop. Do that in any other language and you'll drop down a level in the eyes of your audience...
But the deeper you go in English, the worse it gets. You've got remnants of inversion, you've got incredible amounts of phrasal verbs, you've got subjunctive, preposition at the end or not (it seems to be mainly a question of register), not to mention the vast amounts of vocab which will express exactly down to a tee what you actually want to say... And all these things they never teach, because there are no real rules for those.
And then if you know these things, for everything to sound absolutely natural, you'll just need feeling.

So you can have a situation where you can have a perfect conversation in a shop, read the newspaper, no problem and then you'll try and do something out of that level, and boom, you know nothing.

Hmm, maybe not difficult then, but treacherous. :D

[hannah_arendt]

I don't know if this has already been said, but the greatest determinant of the difficulty of other languages is your native language. If your native language is Cantonese, you will find Mandarin relatively easy to learn. If your native language is Kurdish, you will find Persian relatively easy to learn. And so on.

I agree that it is very difficult to stop thinking in your native language. We learn much easier things that are similar to ones we already know.

[hannah_arendt]

Yes, probably if you know your own language and its rules and things, and it's quite an elaborate one, then you'll probably find English a breeze. If you're English and you are taught the few rules there are (which is already not a given these days apparently), you'll probably find any other language very difficult.

That said, I think English is often only mistaken for being easy. The trap to me is in the surface. The surface is very easy, learners can express themselves adequately and rightly fairly quickly and so they think they know 'English'. Not so in French or German (that's the ones I know). Apart from the tenses and maybe when to use 'will' and 'going to' for the future, there is not much to remember. Everything comes fairly naturally. And no-one even seems to mind you are using the present perfect with 'yesterday'. Yesterday, I have gone to the shop. Do that in any other language and you'll drop down a level in the eyes of your audience...
But the deeper you go in English, the worse it gets. You've got remnants of inversion, you've got incredible amounts of phrasal verbs, you've got subjunctive, preposition at the end or not (it seems to be mainly a question of register), not to mention the vast amounts of vocab which will express exactly down to a tee what you actually want to say... And all these things they never teach, because there are no real rules for those.
And then if you know these things, for everything to sound absolutely natural, you'll just need feeling.

So you can have a situation where you can have a perfect conversation in a shop, read the newspaper, no problem and then you'll try and do something out of that level, and boom, you know nothing.

Hmm, maybe not difficult then, but treacherous. :D

I have already gone into subjunctive, unreal tenses and so on and I have to admit that despite the fact that such things don`t exist in Polish, it wasn`t such adifficult things I thought earlier. I am sure that I still will commit mistakes, maybe not so big ones but I`ll.

But thanks to very funny, a little bit strange differences between constructions and forms, english is very interesting language.

[Jackson Richardson]

OK, English grammer is technically easier than many as it has less alterations of word endings.

But how do you work out the subtle differences between I walk, I am walking, I do walk, all versions of the present tense, which as far as I know will only be in one form in other languages?

And how do you know when the use the Latinate form or a word (altitude) and the Germanic (height)?

And the different nuances of beautiful, pretty, handsome and good looking?

[Aylinn]

But how do you work out the subtle differences between I walk, I am walking, I do walk, all versions of the present tense, which as far as I know will only be in one form in other languages?

Such differences are always explained in English textbooks. :)

[seaofmilktea]

Background: half chinese half english, living in hk. My first languages are English and Cantonese, and I also know Mandarin. I've been learning Spanish for 6 years, French for 1.

I didn't realise till recently that people had such an issue with English pronunciation. I can't comment on learning English as I mainly picked it up from reading books, watching tv, and speaking to my parents. I was always ahead of my local chinese classmates so I didn't pay attention when my teachers taught grammar.
I must say though, that Chinese is terribly difficult.
Imagine not having an alphabet, having to memorise a few thousand complicated characters. (We learn traditional, not simplified.chinese)
There are almost no clues as to how the word is pronounced.
Worse still, there are.two kinds of Chinese, formal and informal. Spoken Cantonese is significantly.different from written Chinese.
In the chinese language public exams, we.even have to do unseen comprehension test on ancient texts which make.no sense to modern readers whatsoever. You find chaucer hard? We have to read texts from more than 2000 years ago. And that's not even the literature paper, but just the compulsory chinese language paper. But at least the grammar is simple.
However, at the end of the day, I'm really glad that I have access to a wealth of Chinese literature. :)


Btw, I've always wondered: how does English sound to foreign ears?

[hannah_arendt]

Background: half chinese half english, living in hk. My first languages are English and Cantonese, and I also know Mandarin. I've been learning Spanish for 6 years, French for 1.

I didn't realise till recently that people had such an issue with English pronunciation. I can't comment on learning English as I mainly picked it up from reading books, watching tv, and speaking to my parents. I was always ahead of my local chinese classmates so I didn't pay attention when my teachers taught grammar.
I must say though, that Chinese is terribly difficult.
Imagine not having an alphabet, having to memorise a few thousand complicated characters. (We learn traditional, not simplified.chinese)
There are almost no clues as to how the word is pronounced.
Worse still, there are.two kinds of Chinese, formal and informal. Spoken Cantonese is significantly.different from written Chinese.
In the chinese language public exams, we.even have to do unseen comprehension test on ancient texts which make.no sense to modern readers whatsoever. You find chaucer hard? We have to read texts from more than 2000 years ago. And that's not even the literature paper, but just the compulsory chinese language paper. But at least the grammar is simple.
However, at the end of the day, I'm really glad that I have access to a wealth of Chinese literature. :)


Btw, I've always wondered: how does English sound to foreign ears?

Chinese and Japanese are for me impossible to learn:) I mean, by me. One of my husband`s friends studies Chinese in China what is for me completely astonishing. First of all the alphabeth is very difficult. I heard that Chinese doesn`t distinguish nouns, verbs and so on. Is it true?

[kiki1982]

Haha, pronunciation, that's a good one :lol:.

I always say that if you want to pronounce English properly, you can't move your mouth at all. Being a Dutch speaker I do (I can imagine how difficult Germans find it). After about 13 years I have now mastered the shwa, and I feel I move my mouth differently, but still it's no good. Mind you, I can do it, if I put my mind to it, but it doesn't sound like me. I guess I'll have to read aloud a bit more, then it'll be alright (acquired a nice accent in French like that).

You can actually express many of the small nuances in English in other languages, but it's usually done with adverbs like really or something.
As to Latinate words, some are explained in text book, but only to a certain level. I mean altitude and height have a different meaning, but how can you explain to liberate and to free?

[hannah_arendt]

Haha, pronunciation, that's a good one :lol:.

I always say that if you want to pronounce English properly, you can't move your mouth at all. Being a Dutch speaker I do (I can imagine how difficult Germans find it). After about 13 years I have now mastered the shwa, and I feel I move my mouth differently, but still it's no good. Mind you, I can do it, if I put my mind to it, but it doesn't sound like me. I guess I'll have to read aloud a bit more, then it'll be alright (acquired a nice accent in French like that).

You can actually express many of the small nuances in English in other languages, but it's usually done with adverbs like really or something.
As to Latinate words, some are explained in text book, but only to a certain level. I mean altitude and height have a different meaning, but how can you explain to liberate and to free?

Sometimes it seems to me that I won`t be able to learn hearing accent. I can learn by heart the rules but it`s all:)

[papillondemai]

I am a native Spanish speaker but I prefer English. English has more, what should I call them, "tools" to work with which help give freer rein to the imagination. I don't think English is difficult to learn but I learned it young. Any language can be difficult if you try to learn it when you are older and you didn't learn a second language when you were young. I studied French in college and didn't find it difficult perhaps because its structure is so similar to Spanish and there are so many cognitives in the three languages. I found the most difficult part of learning French to be understanding the run-on sound of the spoken language. If your native language has no cognitives with English and the grammatical structure is completely different then you will find English much more difficult. I noticed this when I tried to learn Japanese.

[hannah_arendt]

I am a native Spanish speaker but I prefer English. English has more, what should I call them, "tools" to work with which help give freer rein to the imagination. I don't think English is difficult to learn but I learned it young. Any language can be difficult if you try to learn it when you are older and you didn't learn a second language when you were young. I studied French in college and didn't find it difficult perhaps because its structure is so similar to Spanish and there are so many cognitives in the three languages. I found the most difficult part of learning French to be understanding the run-on sound of the spoken language. If your native language has no cognitives with English and the grammatical structure is completely different then you will find English much more difficult. I noticed this when I tried to learn Japanese.

Despite English, I really love Spanish:) However few years ago I had a serious problem with subjuntivo. My native language is Polish and we don`t have such contruction. If yopu are interested, I can give you a link to my texts written in Spanish. I hope that I don`t make many mistakes.

[papillondemai]

Hannah:

Yes I'd like to read some of your Spanish work. I do not know anything about Polish except that it is a Slavic language. I have always thought of Slavic languages as being far removed from Spanish in regard to the elements necessary to learn it, i.e., grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation. Is there any similarity at all? How did you develop a love for Spanish? Were you a language major in college? I studied French primarily so I could read Rimbaud in French. Mistakes? I bet you write Spanish better than I do. Native Spanish speakers that grow up in the U.S. get most of the Spanish beat out of them unless they stay in a Spanish speaking community such as Miami. You can live in Miami now and never have to speak English.

[hannah_arendt]

Hannah:

Yes I'd like to read some of your Spanish work. I do not know anything about Polish except that it is a Slavic language. I have always thought of Slavic languages as being far removed from Spanish in regard to the elements necessary to learn it, i.e., grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation. Is there any similarity at all? How did you develop a love for Spanish? Were you a language major in college? I studied French primarily so I could read Rimbaud in French. Mistakes? I bet you write Spanish better than I do. Native Spanish speakers that grow up in the U.S. get most of the Spanish beat out of them unless they stay in a Spanish speaking community such as Miami. You can live in Miami now and never have to speak English.

I am sending you link in a PM:) Slavic Languages are very remote from Spanish, French or English. We don`t have such construction as subjuntivo for example. There is only 1 verb meaning "to be". Conditional Clauses aren`t so complicated. However Polish has cases which is quite difficult.

I learned French at school (well I didn`t have then English). Then, at secondary school, I had German (still without English). I graduated from Polish Philology and now I am studying english Philology.

The issue of languages in USA is very interesting. In Poland you can only use Polish but there places inhabited by Germans, Lithuanians or Ucrainians.

[seaofmilktea]

Well sometimes words are specifically nouns or verbs etc, but sometimes the same word can be used as a noun or a.verb, especially in archaic chinese. It depends on context. Modern Chinese uses a lot of word compounds, for example 'butter' would be a two character compound: 'cow oil'. So the idea of a 'word' is a little different. I'm not a linguist so I don't know what the proper terms are used to describe the language!

We don't really have an alphabet. There is a Pinyin system for foreigners to know how to pronounce words, but actual written chinese has a unique way of writing each character, so unlike european languages, it is extremely difficult to guess how a word is pronounced by looking it. Most foreigners don't bother to learn how to read and write the language, which is perfectly understandable! Your husband's friend seems to be pretty amazing - even the Chinese find Chinese difficult. If he/she can learn Chinese, maybe I should try Russian? :D

[hannah_arendt]

Well sometimes words are specifically nouns or verbs etc, but sometimes the same word can be used as a noun or a.verb, especially in archaic chinese. It depends on context. Modern Chinese uses a lot of word compounds, for example 'butter' would be a two character compound: 'cow oil'. So the idea of a 'word' is a little different. I'm not a linguist so I don't know what the proper terms are used to describe the language!

We don't really have an alphabet. There is a Pinyin system for foreigners to know how to pronounce words, but actual written chinese has a unique way of writing each character, so unlike european languages, it is extremely difficult to guess how a word is pronounced by looking it. Most foreigners don't bother to learn how to read and write the language, which is perfectly understandable! Your husband's friend seems to be pretty amazing - even the Chinese find Chinese difficult. If he/she can learn Chinese, maybe I should try Russian? :D


I have learnt Russian alphabeth:) It`s not so bad:D

I think that he can speak Chinese quite well. It is amazing the way Chinese use their language. I wouldn`t be able to learn it.

[muhsin]

Where do you put Hindu and Punjabi, the two languages I am "struggling" to learn as I live in the mid of their speakers?

[hannah_arendt]

Where do you put Hindu and Punjabi, the two languages I am "struggling" to learn as I live in the mid of their speakers?

I wouldn`t be able to learn them. I think that they represent completely different point of view at many things. What do you think are the most difficult things in Hindu or Punjabi?

[muhsin]

Okay. For both, the pronunciation and the orthography. They sound and look very weird to me; lol.

[Nacht-Jagen]

English is an incredibly difficult language to learn. Being from Germany, I speak German, French, Swedish, and I know how to carry a very basic conversation in Greek. I'm currently learning Welsh, as well. When I moved to America, English was a hassle to understand. So many rules in the writing and speaking of it are not always consistent. It was very frustrating.

[hannah_arendt]

English is an incredibly difficult language to learn. Being from Germany, I speak German, French, Swedish, and I know how to carry a very basic conversation in Greek. I'm currently learning Welsh, as well. When I moved to America, English was a hassle to understand. So many rules in the writing and speaking of it are not always consistent. It was very frustrating.

Do you think that German is easier than English? Cases were very difficult for me.And the place of the verb in the sentence. Now I coped with it but at the beginning it`s difficult. Unfortunately, Poles don`t want to learn German. Recently I have been travelled through Austria and I must admit that the ability of speaking German helped me a lot.

What do you think about Welsh?

[kiki1982]

I found German easy to learn, but my native language is Dutch, so that's cheating. No, I think, on the surface, German looks difficult with all its rules, but as soon as you know a few, it's pretty simple: they always apply. There are only a few places the conjugated verb can be in: after the subject if the tense is not compound (past participle goes a the end with everything in the middle), at the end after most conjunctions (not denn = as/becaause) or before the subject if something stands in the place of the subject. There is gramatically only one place to be filled before the conjugated verb (otherwise you're most likely asking a question) and that's mostly the subject (in English you've got two: "I usually have", "I just do"), if the place is taken by something like 'yesterday', or 'this evening', the subject takes the first evailable place which is after the verb. Mind you, this 'place' can be a whole sentence/clause if that happêns to be the object or something to do with time. 'He was coming to the party, he said' or in the past the latter bit would have been 'said he' in English. German would still use in inversion in this case.

There are a few lingguists who have argued that calling Dutch and German SVO languages (subject-verb-object languages as in main sentence structure) is misleading, as most often you are not using the simple present/past, but some compound tense and then the most important verb that is the sense of everything is at the back. So really it should be the Latin model SOV, only if there is no participle of some kind does a verb feature in the beginning of the sentence.

In proper English, you've got all kinds of mad remainders of the past. You can invert the subject and verb in English, only in very few cases can you do that, but there definitely are as I just proved; You can also not do it. It's your own choice.

Where I find that German is tricky, is the addition of that little something more. Like 'Auswertung'. It means evaluation/appraisal (in this case the latter may be best), but it gives you a direction 'out of' (aus) which you can't get across. You've got many verbs like that.
Enough about German.

So how is it with Welsh? I heard it was pretty straightforward.

[cacian]

English was hard at first for me but I picked up I say within 3 to 4 fours years of learning and immersing in the English culture.
I think any language is hard to grasp at first not just English and so it is down to the person and their instinctive to communicate regardless of what the language is.

[kasie]

Welsh straightforward? Whoever told you that? They lied.

I'm a native English speaker who has learned French, Italian and German as living languages and Latin and Old English (Anglo Saxon) as dead (ie read only) languages. I found the Latin-based languages easiest to learn, modern German marginally more difficult and OE/AS quite difficult.

But Welsh? I struggled. I learned it because I lived in a Welsh-speaking part of Wales for many years and thought it would be courteous to learn the language my new friends used. I was warned it was not easy but I persevered and gradually, very gradually, acquired enough of the language to be able to hold a very simple conversation, watch a little tv and read a simple passage. I was learning part-time and possibly with intensive study would have made faster progress.

Why did I find it so difficult? Possibly because it bore no relation to any language I had previously learned, no useful clues from word formation but mostly because the grammatical rules were unlike anything I had come across before. It was the use of mutation that confused me greatly at first - certain letters change in certain circumstances: I found it hard to take in all the situations where mutation is used. It's not a question of learning a few at a time, you need to know them all from almost the word go and though the same letters are mutated, they change in different ways according to the usage required.

Nacht Jagen did not say why he/she is learning Welsh - if it is for reading Old Welsh literature then I can understand the reason but NJ should be aware that Classical Welsh is unlike the vernacular Welsh in use today, much as Old and Middle English are at a remove from present day usage, also the Welsh spoken in North Wales is different from that spoken in South Wales, so much so that at first, they seem like different languages. My (Welsh born but not Welsh speaking) parents used to say that only the Welsh spoke Welsh and if I were going to make the effort to learn another language, at least I should learn one that would be useful to me. Hence, I left learning Welsh until such time as I heard it spoken by friends and neighbours.

I suspect the reason Welsh is said to be easy is that on the whole it is pronounced as it is written: however, not all letters remain the same (the 's' in siarad - speak - is not the same as the 's' in Dydd Sadwrn - Saturday) and as well as having letters peculiar to itself (ll, ff, dd, all regarded as letters despite having two symbols) most of the vowels are pronounced differently to the English vowels and 'w' and 'y' are treated as vowels.

Good Luck to anyone who tries to learn it but don't expect it to be easy!

[hannah_arendt]

Welsh straightforward? Whoever told you that? They lied.

I'm a native English speaker who has learned French, Italian and German as living languages and Latin and Old English (Anglo Saxon) as dead (ie read only) languages. I found the Latin-based languages easiest to learn, modern German marginally more difficult and OE/AS quite difficult.

But Welsh? I struggled. I learned it because I lived in a Welsh-speaking part of Wales for many years and thought it would be courteous to learn the language my new friends used. I was warned it was not easy but I persevered and gradually, very gradually, acquired enough of the language to be able to hold a very simple conversation, watch a little tv and read a simple passage. I was learning part-time and possibly with intensive study would have made faster progress.

Why did I find it so difficult? Possibly because it bore no relation to any language I had previously learned, no useful clues from word formation but mostly because the grammatical rules were unlike anything I had come across before. It was the use of mutation that confused me greatly at first - certain letters change in certain circumstances: I found it hard to take in all the situations where mutation is used. It's not a question of learning a few at a time, you need to know them all from almost the word go and though the same letters are mutated, they change in different ways according to the usage required.

Nacht Jagen did not say why he/she is learning Welsh - if it is for reading Old Welsh literature then I can understand the reason but NJ should be aware that Classical Welsh is unlike the vernacular Welsh in use today, much as Old and Middle English are at a remove from present day usage, also the Welsh spoken in North Wales is different from that spoken in South Wales, so much so that at first, they seem like different languages. My (Welsh born but not Welsh speaking) parents used to say that only the Welsh spoke Welsh and if I were going to make the effort to learn another language, at least I should learn one that would be useful to me. Hence, I left learning Welsh until such time as I heard it spoken by friends and neighbours.

I suspect the reason Welsh is said to be easy is that on the whole it is pronounced as it is written: however, not all letters remain the same (the 's' in siarad - speak - is not the same as the 's' in Dydd Sadwrn - Saturday) and as well as having letters peculiar to itself (ll, ff, dd, all regarded as letters despite having two symbols) most of the vowels are pronounced differently to the English vowels and 'w' and 'y' are treated as vowels.

Good Luck to anyone who tries to learn it but don't expect it to be easy!

I have always wanted to learn Welsh and I hope that maybe one day it will possible:) I know that it will be difficult because this language is completely different from every language I have ever been learning. Maybe it`s the reason why it seems to be interesting. Probably Polish won`t be neither easy for you.

[mande2013]

French is hard to learn, easy to master while English is easy to learn, hard to master.

[JBI]

French is hard to learn, easy to master while English is easy to learn, hard to master.

French writing is incredibly difficult, not easy to master at all. As for hard to learn - well, I couldn't learn French, but I guess I may have made process if I put the same effort as I put trying to learn Chinese.

Back on topic though, this is such a subjective question. Is one, for instance learning Chinese, being a native speaker? The grammar is virtually the same, so I can switch between languages midsentence without any real difficulty. It's not exactly learning a new language, in the sense that it is reapplying the same rules already internalized with new vocabulary. There are a few particularities, but not as many as in other pairings of languages.

Now, Japanese as a counter example is far, far harder to make sense of as an English speaker. I cannot seem to get my mind around the grammar, as this actually is a code switch - I am not used to the ordering of words, and it gives me a headache to think like this. The characters don't pose much of a problem as I am proficient in Chinese and Classical Chinese, so I can pretty much memorize them on first glance - but my god, the grammar is murder.

Now, if I were a native speaker of English without Chinese knowledge, it would be impossible to pick up the language in the way I am (characters right from the beginning, instead of the Western approach of starting with fewer characters and "learning" to write Chinese characters). This is what I call really learning a new language - everything is foreign.

So, is English hard? Probably much harder for a certain group, and not so difficult for certain people.

As for the personal element, this is much more difficult. Certain mouths like the sounds of certain languages, and certain people enjoy certain cultures. I don't see the success of much of the "forced" education we have, except in Europe where they somehow converted much of the population to learn English without protest in a way the English speakers of the world will never learn any other language.

[Eiseabhal]

English spelling is weird.

[cacian]

English spelling is weird.

is it? how do you mean?

[hannah_arendt]

English is an incredibly difficult language to learn. Being from Germany, I speak German, French, Swedish, and I know how to carry a very basic conversation in Greek. I'm currently learning Welsh, as well. When I moved to America, English was a hassle to understand. So many rules in the writing and speaking of it are not always consistent. It was very frustrating.

How do you find Welsh? I have been fascinated by the sound if this language but for now I don`t have time for it:(

[hannah_arendt]

French writing is incredibly difficult, not easy to master at all. As for hard to learn - well, I couldn't learn French, but I guess I may have made process if I put the same effort as I put trying to learn Chinese.

Back on topic though, this is such a subjective question. Is one, for instance learning Chinese, being a native speaker? The grammar is virtually the same, so I can switch between languages midsentence without any real difficulty. It's not exactly learning a new language, in the sense that it is reapplying the same rules already internalized with new vocabulary. There are a few particularities, but not as many as in other pairings of languages.

Now, Japanese as a counter example is far, far harder to make sense of as an English speaker. I cannot seem to get my mind around the grammar, as this actually is a code switch - I am not used to the ordering of words, and it gives me a headache to think like this. The characters don't pose much of a problem as I am proficient in Chinese and Classical Chinese, so I can pretty much memorize them on first glance - but my god, the grammar is murder.

Now, if I were a native speaker of English without Chinese knowledge, it would be impossible to pick up the language in the way I am (characters right from the beginning, instead of the Western approach of starting with fewer characters and "learning" to write Chinese characters). This is what I call really learning a new language - everything is foreign.

So, is English hard? Probably much harder for a certain group, and not so difficult for certain people.

As for the personal element, this is much more difficult. Certain mouths like the sounds of certain languages, and certain people enjoy certain cultures. I don't see the success of much of the "forced" education we have, except in Europe where they somehow converted much of the population to learn English without protest in a way the English speakers of the world will never learn any other language.

If it comes to French, I agree with you. At the very beginning, I found this language very difficult but later it was much easier.

[Eiseabhal]

"i"riomhe "e" ach e deidh "c" ach seall air a facal "weird". I am pulling your legs pal.

[Eiseabhal]

I was brought up speaking a language with VERY regular spelling.

[hannah_arendt]

If it come to phonetics, polish is very difficult for almost every foreigner. Most of consonant clusters are real nightmare for learners. So, I think that English isn`t so bad:)

[Vota]

I tried to learn Japanese, and I have to concur, the syntax was murder on my brain.

[Mohammad Ahmad]

Hi,
Why do we say that English is a difficult language?

Although I am Arabic and was born in Arabic land and the origin of my parents is indeed Arabic, and no one of my grandfathers had married with a foreign woman, but I find the English language is easier hundred times than Arabic language due to the Arabic grammar is very difficult and often I would like to answer with English not to answer by Arabic..
Arabic language contains words if you slightly changed the position of the diacritical mark the meaning will be upset up to down, the object may be changed to subject or vise versa, thus you need to be very careful against of that you will commit an awful mistake…
I myself the talker till now although I have learned many years in school and after school yet I fear from the Arabic language lest not to fall in committing mistakes and the matter lastly will be frustrated and perplexing to me….

[mal4mac]

The great problem I’m being facing is that of writing good, plain…

Why not hire someone to correct your English? Or find someone interested in perfecting your first language, and correct each other for free. Just make sure to find a native speaker of the language. There are many Indian people I know who have been in England for decades but still speak English "in an Indian way". Your use of *being* in "The great problem I’m being facing is ..." is typical of the "faulty" English I hear used by Indian people. If you re-read your posts carefully then you may spot elements like this that are obviously redundant to a native speaker. I mean, doesn't "The great problem I'm facing is..." sound correct to you? Another way to proceed is simply to read lots of English novels and listen to broadcasts on the BBC World Service.

[mal4mac]

Hi,
Why do we say that English is a difficult language?


As a native speaker I'm always spotting small errors in the way that foreign people speak English, even if they have much acquaintance with the language. Your English is very good but there are subtle errors, which I hope you will excuse me pointing out, given the nature of this thread.



Although I am Arabic and was born in Arabic land...


That's a subtle "error", an English native would say, "I was born in an Arabic land," or more likely specify the country, "I was born in Egypt."



but I find the English language is easier hundred times than Arabic language due to the Arabic grammar


Although an English person would understand this perfectly, and would normally be too polite to correct your English, this is an incorrect way of speaking. A native speaker would say, "is a hundred times easier". My knowledge of grammar is pitiful, so I would hesitate to say that your grammar is wrong here, English (in theory!) allows great flexibility in grammar. I think this reveals the main problem that good non-native speakers of English have. It's little "turns of phrase" that give them away.



no one of my grandfathers had married with a foreign woman

The "with" is redundant, a native speaker would say, "had married a foreign woman". I can see why you added the "with". English is not always logical!



Arabic language contains words if you slightly changed the position of the diacritical mark the meaning will be upset up to down, the object may be changed to subject or vise versa, thus you need to be very careful against of that you will commit an awful mistake…


Interesting. English has the opposite problem. If you put words in the wrong place the meaning will still, usually, be easy to ascertain, which makes it difficult for learners to learn the right word order, especially if they learn from teachers who "don't care". Many English people who go into "teaching English as a foreign language" know that their pupils will be understood if they don't quite get things quite right, so, for an easy life, don't bother make sure that their pupils get everything absolutely correct.

[Mohammad Ahmad]

Ok! Dear Sir I find some interests in what you said for example you said English speaker would say :
A hundred times is better….. sorry for this mistake because the phrase ( hundred times) is considered as a singular .. Ok that's right, again I would say and I would recognize that my language although many teachers and many people would admire and say that your language is good, but perfectly I know that my language yet is not the same native Englishman language, however it can be understood ,and by the all means of , it is not a weak language.
Otherwise, under any consideration it is not weak …..
I know my friend , I know! Thank you for your delighting correction. But let me say I am proud enough In what I wrote!
The topic you brought or others brought is dealing with a question that the English language is difficult, for this reason I put my comments and if not I consider the English is the easy one in the entire world languages,I should not write any letter.
Still I remember the day when I am small student in the second class of the secondary school and when our teacher in English did such mistake in answering the grammar exercises , spontaneously I stood raising my hand and said to him" your are wrong my teacher!"
Can you correct it? I said yes!….. And from that time I am who answered all the exercises on the blackboard and no less than 90% I had gained in all years of my study…
However, I would like to thank you again and I would receive any correction whether from you or from any member else with great delight
2- No one or ( none) of my grandfathers had married ( with) with is awkward here, that's right, but in the manner of our quickly writing sometimes we forget the subtle principles as you said exactly….
Best regards and wishes
I would be pleasureful to hear any correction

[kiki1982]

The grammar was wrong, because the word order was faulty. Although I don't want to be pedantic ;). I think you've got a problem with articles (I don't think you have any in Arabic, do you?) and a slight problem with the tenses. It's 'When I was a boy/little', because you're not a boy anymore. Everything that's in the past (even this morning) is strictly past, so this morning you were in town too. In fact a few minutes ago you were upstairs, if you've come down the stairs in the meantime.

I agree that English is easy to start with. It's straightforward and you can express yourself in a matter of months. No-one will be pedantic (unlike the French sometimes) and start correcting you. HOWEVER, changing the word order can have slight differences of meaning (mainly emphasis). You can 'I go to town sometimes' or 'I sometimes go to town.' It depends whether 'sometimes' is important.
A lot is possible in English and sometimes what is possible isn't necessarily right.

I can say, 'Only one time did he try.' but it sounds too lyrical and so we would rather say 'He tried only one time/once.' But you can still say the first, provided you do it in the right context.
And so it goes with word choice. There is a difference between 'liberate' and 'free', but you need to know it.
And there is a difference between 'I will do it' and 'I'm going to do it.'

I think there is the great pitfall of English. It looks easy, because you can explain it in five minutes, but when you get down to the nitty gritty of it, you just need to have an awful lot of material and make sense of it in terms of how it feels.

[lichtrausch]

Hi,
Although I am Arabic and was born in Arabic land and the origin of my parents is indeed Arabic, and no one of my grandfathers had married with a foreign woman, but I find the English language is easier hundred times than Arabic language due to the Arabic grammar is very difficult and often I would like to answer with English not to answer by Arabic..

That's probably because the dialect you grew up speaking (presumably Iraqi Arabic) is far removed from the official language of the Arabic world, Modern Standard Arabic. I'll bet you are completely comfortable with your native dialect, and it is only MSA that gives you headaches.

[Eman Resu]

kiki1982 - Ihr Englisch ist viel besser als mein Deutsch - und vielleicht besser als mein Englisch!

Mohammad Ahmad - One of the easiest ways in which to learn English structure is to begin by "diagramming" sentences, since understanding subjects, predicates, modifiers and the parts of speech - and visualising their relationship(s) to one another - can be a boon to English-as-a-second-language students. Sadly, diagramming has fallen by the wayside these days, but the internet is omniscient, and a Google search for "diagramming sentences" will yield several very good sites.

[Mohammad Ahmad]

To whom mentioned my name:


Firstly I would thank the moment that I was guided voluntary to come here, since until death the man needs to learn.
It is a forum never have I seen!
I would thank all members sharing the article without excluding anyone.....
I would like to thank the administration in accepting me to be member here...

My comments to all:


Is there anyone whose name is Mohammad Ahmad other than me?
Seemingly you considered me as someone didn't know the part of the speech! It is awful if you think that....
For me I have learned the British grammar, I think it is slightly differs from the American....
Dear Sir. Give me your pardon if I turn annoyed and will not share in any word.....
The matter you mentioned the boy in the fifth primary class has learned it as he learned his name....
But not to say he wants to flee, let me in brief answer tell you what is the part of the speech:
1- The subject which started the sentence \ the clause ( the sentence can be composed of one clause, two, more)
2- The verb which it comes past the subject and it is the item which carries the meaning although there are verbless clauses especially in the non- finite clauses - the adverbial one, moreover the verb itself can be divided for five form: the basic, the S form, the past ( V-ed 1), the (ing form), and the V-ed 2 the participle\ passive
3- The complement .So the order of the English sentence basically is: S V C...
Some verbs are dynamic others are static, the static one needs not for object as I say, He is a teacher. ( teacher is subject complement Sc) it is always is considered as adjective, the dynamic verb needs object, some dynamic verbs took two objects.
e.g. He gave me the book ( two objects in the complement)...direct object\ indirect object
The pronoun ( he, she, they, we, etc..) can be either subject or object....
The modifier is the the item which precedes the subject such as ( The dirty boy...) His graceful hand, This river. Both of them..all of the rocky road.etc...
The modifier belongs to a main basic group, the group we called it generally the modification and this divided to premodification( the modifier) and post modification i.e. it comes after the head noun ...
example for the verbless clause :
While at England, he was active in drama. Seeing the large crowd, he went on his way....
There is something in grammar we called the predeterminer and the post determiner, but I haven't waste of time to discuss , I want to sleep...

MMA - Iraqi translator

[kiki1982]

kiki1982 - Ihr Englisch ist viel besser als mein Deutsch - und vielleicht besser als mein Englisch!

Und ich hoffe, meines ist auch viel besser als mein Deutsch, denn Deutsch ist nicht meine Muttersprache, sondern meine dritte. Englisch ist meine zweite und Niederländisch meine erste, aber das hättest du nicht wissen können ;).

Diagramming sentences is helpful, you are right, but I'm not sure if English students can benefit much from that. Schools teach things like 'always' goes between subject and verb, but sometimes it doesn't work that way. In German and Dutch it can help, because it's often more or less the same.

[Eman Resu]

Und ich hoffe, meines ist auch viel besser als mein Deutsch, denn Deutsch ist nicht meine Muttersprache, sondern meine dritte. Englisch ist meine zweite und Niederländisch meine erste, aber das hättest du nicht wissen können ;).

Diagramming sentences is helpful, you are right, but I'm not sure if English students can benefit much from that. Schools teach things like 'always' goes between subject and verb, but sometimes it doesn't work that way. In German and Dutch it can help, because it's often more or less the same.


Ik kan lezen Nederlands, maar wanneer ik spreek Nederlands ik klinken als Elmer Fudd.

You might be correct; I was suggesting only that diagramming might help Mohammad Ahmad to better visualise the structure of English. My first language is French, and I was taught diagramming English sentences at an early age (dinosaurs still roamed free then). I found it very helpful because the noun / verb; subject / predicate relationship between French and English is at odds in so many cases.

[Aylinn]

I don't think English is difficult, but I think that people often are unaware of how much work and time they need to learn a foreign language. The problem is the lack of perseverance more than difficulty. Most people want it to be an easy and quick task, but when they find the process of learning being slow and demanding, they give up.

I wonder how much influence on this state of affairs has our consumer society, where you can get almost everything easily and quickly or the slogans like ‘learn language in 3 months.’ I sometimes encounter people who really believe it and get disappointed when they are not fluent after this period of time. Usually they later explain that they have no talent as if talent were so necessary.

[hannah_arendt]

It`s not possible to learn any language quickly and in easy way. I don`t believe in talent for learning languages. It`s just the matter of work and time.

[kiki1982]

Hmm, I don't know. That's not to say that a talented person will be able to learn a language fluently in a few months and another will need years, but I think there is something like the ability to adopt strange structures or features more easily.
Saying that though, my husband's Polish, Czech and Slovak students are consistently better at English than the Spanish, Italians and French. Obviously because they have such elaborate structures that they easily pick up simpler ones.
The number of English natives I have heard claim that even Spanish is too difficult (:eek:) because they have no talent is quite high. I guess that has more to do with the idea or ability to think in another language than it has to do with talent. Maybe the idea that everyone has that talent in a larger or smaller amount is introduced to you when you are little.

Although, my husband must have a secret, because he can pick up basic structures in 2 weeks. Without lessons. I think that's quite amazing.

[mal4mac]

... I think there is something like the ability to adopt strange structures or features more easily.

And the willingness. I remember at age 11 finding the use of gender ridiculous (das Madchen, what's the sense in that?) Being totally entranced by the logic and rationality of science, at that age, I just gave up on languages as irrational! (I continued to use English :)

[Eman Resu]

And the willingness. I remember at age 11 finding the use of gender ridiculous (das Madchen, what's the sense in that?)

If it makes you feel any better, there's a convolution there which isn't readily seen. "Mädchen," is a diminutive - just as "kitty" is a diminutive of "cat" in English - of its ProtoGermanic root, "magaþs," which, like its Old Dutch antecedent "meid" / "meisje" (or is it "meidje? - kiki will know this one) is feminine in its [I]root form, but neutral once it gets its "chen" and becomes a diminutive.

[lichtrausch]

Saying that though, my husband's Polish, Czech and Slovak students are consistently better at English than the Spanish, Italians and French. Obviously because they have such elaborate structures that they easily pick up simpler ones.

I think it has more to do with the fact that Polish, Czech and Slovak students need English more than the speakers of major Romance languages. Spanish or French will get you pretty far in this world. Czech or Slovak? Not so much.

[Aylinn]

I think it has more to do with the fact that Polish, Czech and Slovak students need English more than the speakers of major Romance languages. Spanish or French will get you pretty far in this world. Czech or Slovak? Not so much.
Yeah, I too thought about it. From what I heard and noticed, since people from western Europe have a more comfortable situation, they appear to be often less determined and ambitious.

[kiki1982]

If it makes you feel any better, there's a convolution there which isn't readily seen. "Mädchen," is a diminutive - just as "kitty" is a diminutive of "cat" in English - of its ProtoGermanic root, "magaþs," which, like its Old Dutch antecedent "meid" / "meisje" (or is it "meidje? - kiki will know this one) is feminine in its [I]root form, but neutral once it gets its "chen" and becomes a diminutive.

It's 'meisje', but it comes from the same root, you are right. Also Fräulein (everything with -lein is old diminutive, you can see this in Goethe poems, for example). Once upon a time, English used to have genders, but maybe it's what the German author of this lousy book about English we've got at home claims: every immigrant, from the Romans, to the Saxons, Normans, Danes, Vikings and all the others just got so confused they stopped trying and made a language that had many features, but whose structures were pretty basic for everyone. I don't think it is that way, because only round about Chaucer did nearly all genders disappear. There are some left, mind you: England is a 'she', as is a ship and there are a few more that I can't remember.


I think it has more to do with the fact that Polish, Czech and Slovak students need English more than the speakers of major Romance languages. Spanish or French will get you pretty far in this world. Czech or Slovak? Not so much.

I may not have explained myself properly: these students are in the same class, same level and work at the EU, so there should be no differences, but Eastern Europeans are definitely statistically better at applying grammar than the French. Don't talk about Spanish students, they're hopeless. And I've been correcting my husband's exams for years now. Italians are 50-50. There are good ones, and there are abysmal ones. Eastern Europeans always come in the upper échelons (70-80%, there are not many who do 90%, I've only come across a handful).

[Eman Resu]

Eastern Europeans are definitely statistically better at applying grammar than the French.

We do not need ze grammar - we have l'amour!

.

[JBI]

It`s not possible to learn any language quickly and in easy way. I don`t believe in talent for learning languages. It`s just the matter of work and time.

It is possible to learn languages in faster and more efficient ways. Second language learning, from both a resource and from a pedagogy perspective is going through a bit of a slump. All these teach yourself x and learn x in 3 months are all nonsense. Basically the only effective method is to have material that is both difficult, and designed to progress at a rapid rate. I have found that all the Chinese language resources available to me, for instance, were all pretty much written from propaganda perspectives with very little to encourage somebody on how to speak, read, or write properly. My Japanese text books they make me use here are dragging my *** through a bunch of unexplained nonsense, which, rather than explain in linguistic terms basic things, sticks primarily to using repetitive patterns to try to enforce understanding.

[mande2013]

Part of the problem is people have become quite anti-intellectual and "pragmatic" about second language acquisition. That's not to say people don't seek to learn new languages, but they only seek to do it in the most practical manner possible. Reading literature in that language is deemed impractical, you know because people don't speak the way John Milton or Proust writes. It's anti-intellectual nonsense. There's this notion that the most important thing is to be able to speak the language in a "real world" setting, and they believe reading literature doesn't bring you towards that goal. I obviously disagree, since reading Proust or Milton, if in the latter case you're learning English as a second language, will expand your vocabulary and train you to think in the target language. I guess my point is, what's wrong with taking an intellectual approach to learning a language?

[hannah_arendt]

It is possible to learn languages in faster and more efficient ways. Second language learning, from both a resource and from a pedagogy perspective is going through a bit of a slump. All these teach yourself x and learn x in 3 months are all nonsense. Basically the only effective method is to have material that is both difficult, and designed to progress at a rapid rate. I have found that all the Chinese language resources available to me, for instance, were all pretty much written from propaganda perspectives with very little to encourage somebody on how to speak, read, or write properly. My Japanese text books they make me use here are dragging my *** through a bunch of unexplained nonsense, which, rather than explain in linguistic terms basic things, sticks primarily to using repetitive patterns to try to enforce understanding.

You are right that we can facilitate many things. Without any doubt nowadays, there is much easier than earliert. We have many textbooks, audio materials and videos and of course software, internet. However you still have to put your effort and time in it.

[hannah_arendt]

Part of the problem is people have become quite anti-intellectual and "pragmatic" about second language acquisition. That's not to say people don't seek to learn new languages, but they only seek to do it in the most practical manner possible. Reading literature in that language is deemed impractical, you know because people don't speak the way John Milton or Proust writes. It's anti-intellectual nonsense. There's this notion that the most important thing is to be able to speak the language in a "real world" setting, and they believe reading literature doesn't bring you towards that goal. I obviously disagree, since reading Proust or Milton, if in the latter case you're learning English as a second language, will expand your vocabulary and train you to think in the target language. I guess my point is, what's wrong with taking an intellectual approach to learning a language?


Reading literature demans quite hight knowledge. However there are editions adjusted to the levels. As far as I observe my pupils, they don`t want to read any books, even in Polish. I sometimes give them short texts connected with the british or american culture. I think that I can`t do more.

[mal4mac]

... there's a convolution there which isn't readily seen. "Mädchen," is a diminutive - just as "kitty" is a diminutive of "cat" in English - of its ProtoGermanic root, "magaþs," which, like its Old Dutch antecedent "meid" / "meisje" (or is it "meidje? - kiki will know this one) is feminine in its [I]root form, but neutral once it gets its "chen" and becomes a diminutive.

That's interesting. So is every German word ending in "chen" neutral? What about "der Wagen"? Why are cars masculine?

[kiki1982]

Yes, every word ending in -chen or -lein is neutral. So Fräulein (Miss) too. No exceptions.

Der Wagen is masculine, because it is, but der Magen (stomach) is also masculine, so probably it has to do with that word structure. There are rules to it, but they only taught them to me when I was two years in. They should have done that earlier. Generally, things ending in e are feminine (apart from weak nouns like der Kunde [customer], but they are few and far between, are mostly developed from verbs, like der Angestellte [official] from anstellen = appoint and refer to people), things in -ung are also feminine, as are words ending in -(i)tät (an ending that also occurs in French and Dutch as -(i)té and -(i)teit respectively), -heit/keit.
Nouns with plurals in -(¨)er are generally neutral. Masculine nouns usually get plurals in -(¨)e. So you've got two chances to distinguish between male and neutral, even if they look the same.
Things like Wagen do not get a plural ending or they get an ¨only, like der Ofen, die Öfen.

Then there are foreign origin nouns that are generally neutral too. Das Auto, for example. Das Handy (mobile), das Baby.

It's not so hard as it seems, because after a while you get combinations in other cases into your head that help you deduce the gender if you can't remember.

About the reading thing:

I just think there is a general contempt for anyone trying to use his/her intelligence. Reading is not only not popular in language learning, it's not popular in general (or it's on the internet, but that's short). Many learners get freaked out by words they can't understand straight away and then give up. Me too, but they weren't interesting books I had to read for French. I only discovered those great books when I was much older. The point is that perseverance is non-existent. If books about 'learn x in 3 months' sell, then you can figure out what the chance is that those same people will try and slog through a children's book in the target language.

@JBI:

Don't you think it's to do with textbook writers' perceptions about how things should be taught? I mean, my Russian for Everyone book (one of the best, my hubby used it in uni, despite it's title ;)) featured as one of the first words in a reading exercise (when we had got to the longer words) the word 'communist'. Capitalist came some 10 chapters later. For the rest it was very methodical, as the Russian language is, even if it was a little propagandist at times (the last text featured a bus with passengers that were all studying things :rolleyes:). On the other side, most of the French textbooks I was so fortunate as to learn from were boring, made you learn pedantic and useless vocab and usually featured texts about French accomplishments and companies (Club Med, for example). Sadly nothing about French chanson (apart from Jean-Jacques Goldman) or the French Revolution. Even less about the French kings. On the other side, the English textbooks were always very interesting and even if you weren't interested in what the teacher was trying to teach you, you would be interested in what the text to teach you it was about. So it was win-win.

If the Japanese think that repeating things over and over like schoolmasters used to do in England and anywhere for that matter maybe until the 50s (I think they still do this in Africa and other parts of Asia) is productive, then who can blame them for basing their textbooks for Japanese on that? 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.

[Aylinn]

@JBI: Aren't there any books for learning Japanese prepered by English people who studied Japanese and teach it on a university level? Wouldn't it be better to use them if Japanese ones are no to your liking?

As for Poland, you can find some interesting textbooks prepared by academics. I have been learning Spanish from such a textbook, now it's rather out-dated, but I don't care, as it is very bookworm friendly. There are some easy, but intriguing and funny fragments from books of notable Spanish authors like Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, etc. And it was the same when two years ago I bought a book like that for my friend who is interested in Latin. At the beginning there are some lessons with texts written for total beginners, but then they proceed by giving fragments from Cicero, Virgil, etc. That seems to me far more interesting way of learning then getting through endless boring texts prepared for language learners.

Of course, there is also a small dictionary under the text where new words are translated, so it is no problem to undestand the given fragment.

[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.

[metal134]

English isn't difficult. I picked it up from being a toddler......sorry....
It's actually WAY easier to learn language as a toddler than as an adult.

[Dreamwoven]

I learned English and Hungarian exactly like that. As an infant languages are more absorbed than learned.

There is a sequel to this that works as follows: English became my mother tongue because we lived in England when I was a small child during the Second World War. For this reason, too, I never mastered Swedish as a mother tongue, and Hungarian became less and less a mother tongue, as I moved out of the family and in to working life.

[Emil Miller]

I learned English and Hungarian exactly like that. As an infant languages are more absorbed than learned.

This is very true, the longer one leaves learning a language the more difficult it becomes.
I had a neighbour in England, a German woman, who had two little girls; they would speak together in German which the mother forbade them to do as the language was frowned upon in post-war Britain. I thought her action was silly given that she was damaging their chances of becoming bilingual.

[_August_]

Any language is difficult, either it's your mother tongue or any foreign one. Depends on what you want to do with it. Say, become a journalist/writer/tv-reporter. Even to a well-educated native speaker it sometimes proves impossible.
If you want, for instance, to read novels, watch movies, listen to the radio in English, understand and enjoy it, I fail to see any difficulties with it, just like millions of other non-native speakers who truly acquired the language.
Speaking seems to be the main concern though. You need to practice everyday, and if you do have some people, preferably adequate speakers, with whom you can talk on a regular basis, you aren't likely to encounter any problems. Apart from pronunciation. As for me, I'll never stop polishing it, seems like a life-time process...

One more thought: Actually it's difficult not to learn English. Nowadays you have everything you need for this purpose.

[Dreamwoven]

Yes, August, I have to agree with that. You hear it all around you, including popular music, which must have done wonders for youngsters learning English!

[mortalterror]

Not for the English.

[Inverted]

English is an imprecise language. That's why it's easy to learn but not easy to master.

Languages like German have far more words and far more specific words. With English, a word can carry so many meanings.

Take the word "Permissive" for example. "This was a very permissive policy". "He was a very permissive person". What the heck does that even mean? They permit things? They're easy going? They're lax on rules? They're mild-mannered? They're tolerant?

[Dreamwoven]

This is a very good point, Inverted.

[barbarasimmings]

If you like to be meaningful ,without wanting others to notice,then learn english.they will notice how cunning you are; I adored english while not a native .

[barbarasimmings]

Permissive just means permissive!

[barbarasimmings]

You have to think british, meaning being cunny,and thus polite.with the same token you can say whatever yu like,just say it with a bit of sarcastic or uncertain manner, job done .