Is English A Difficult Language?

Just get this one from an email by a freind. He calls it 21 Reasons Why The English Is So Hard To Learn and feel sharing it with you here.

1. The bandage was wound around the wound.
2. The farm was used to produce produce.
3. The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
4. We must polish the Polish furniture.
5. He could lead if he would get the lead out.
6. The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
7. Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.
8. A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
9. When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
10. I did not object to the object.
11. The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
12. There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
13. They were too close to the door to close it.
14. The buck does funny things when the does are present.
15. A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
16. To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
17. The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
18. After a number of injections my jaw got number.
19. Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.
20. I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
21. How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend

Of course it is one of the most difficult, language and is very difficult and despite the fact that I write lot in this I find it really a hard one. Even now I lack confidence in this.

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Originally Posted by muhsin

Just get this one from an email by a freind. He calls it 21 Reasons Why The English Is So Hard To Learn and feel sharing it with you here.

1. The bandage was wound around the wound.
2. The farm was used to produce produce.
3. The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
4. We must polish the Polish furniture.
5. He could lead if he would get the lead out.
6. The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
7. Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.
8. A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
9. When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
10. I did not object to the object.
11. The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
12. There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
13. They were too close to the door to close it.
14. The buck does funny things when the does are present.
15. A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
16. To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
17. The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
18. After a number of injections my jaw got number.
19. Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.
20. I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
21. How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend

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Many of the words in these sentences are confusing and superfluous. In most cases you can replace a word with a different, less confusing word (ie. The bandage was wrapped around the wound). But I see your point.

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Originally Posted by blazeofglory

Of course it is one of the most difficult, language and is very difficult and despite the fact that I write lot in this I find it really a hard one. Even now I lack confidence in this.

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Actually, English is far from being "one of the most difficult language".

Yes English can be a very difficult language for those who havent learned it as a first language.

I think it's a hard language. It was my first language and speaking it for sixteen years I have realized no one can speak it completely properly because no one knows all the rules. I'm learning Spanish and everything seems to make so much more sense. Not as many double meaning words and the like. Other languages (except Japanese and Chinese) seem likewise easier then English. I mean in what other country do you have to learn your native language from preschool all the way to collage, where if you choose you can learn about all the things you thought you knew about but really didn't?

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Originally Posted by AdoreroDio

I think it's a hard language. It was my first language and speaking it for sixteen years I have realized no one can speak it completely properly because no one knows all the rules. I'm learning Spanish and everything seems to make so much more sense. Not as many double meaning words and the like. Other languages (except Japanese and Chinese) seem likewise easier then English. I mean in what other country do you have to learn your native language from preschool all the way to collage, where if you choose you can learn about all the things you thought you knew about but really didn't?

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Concerning your second statement, teenagers don't know the rules because they are, in many cases, so accustomed to speaking incorrectly that it is hard for them to learn how to speak properly. Do u c wut Im sayin?

The many influences, I think, are what made the English language so confusing. If you ever get a chance, look in your dictionary to see how many words originate from Old English. You won't find many, I can tell you that without even looking.


My opinion of the English language: it ay be difficult to learn, but it is by no means the hardest language to learn, for such a statement can never be proved. What is hard for some may be easy for others and vice-versa.

I have never thought English was a difficult language. I have always taken great pleasure in learning it, I am in love with this language and I go on learning more everyday when I see where I make mistakes.
I think the English language is a lot easier to learn than the French one. Even though French is my native language, I certainly make more spelling mistakes in French than in English. I have always thought that for some reason, it is easier to learn a foreign language than my native one, because I don't learn it the same way. And now that I've done English phonetics, I have learnt rules which explain why this or that word is pronounced this or that way, it's interesting.
But anyway, I think that about the verbal forms for instance, English is very simple, a lot more simple than French.

Indeed languages like french (gender), german (declensions), hebrew, arabic (gender, and these last two, when you read there's no vowels in the words, you read only with the consonants, as for arabic, it's almost two different language, the everyday arabic and the literary arabic, also for hebrew there's two different writings), or let's say chinese (this is only heard-of however) are much harder than english. People probably say english is very hard to learn but only because it's the only other language they know other than their native tongue. Well let it be known, your native tongue is probably an harder language than english.

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Originally Posted by Etienne

Indeed languages like french (gender), german (declensions), hebrew, arabic (gender, and these last two, when you read there's no vowels in the words, you read only with the consonants, as for arabic, it's almost two different language, the everyday arabic and the literary arabic, also for hebrew there's two different writings), or let's say chinese (this is only heard-of however) are much harder than english. People probably say english is very hard to learn but only because it's the only other language they know other than their native tongue. Well let it be known, your native tongue is probably an harder language than english.

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Yes I think the verbal forms in French must be quite complicated for a foreign person!
I only speak a few words of Yiddish and Hebrew, so I cannot say anything about these languages.

Personally i think Irish is a very hard language to learn. Although it is my native language, its not my primary language, which is english. Like English i've studied it since preschool, but my fluency of the language is very poor.

I can speak greek, german, french and english. Many of you were perhaps exposed to ancient greek so you may understand why I consider my mother tonque more difficult than the rest of the languages i can speak (greek has many irregularities in everyhting, you have to conjugate everything -nouns, verbs, adjectives-...). German are pretty hard too (grammar, syntax and very rich vocabulary with endless compound words;) ). French is relatively easier (i learned french after having learned english, and the fact that they share so many words - which were originally french of course and were borrowed by english-made french easier for me. English is the easiest of the four (which doesn't mean that it is easy ;) )

Does modern greek share many similarities with ancient greek? When I was in Greece I studied a bit of vocabulary to know how to say the basic things, and it seemed very different from ancient greek. So is it mostly the vocabulary that is different?

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Originally Posted by Etienne

Does modern greek share many similarities with ancient greek? When I was in Greece I studied a bit of vocabulary to know how to say the basic things, and it seemed very different from ancient greek. So is it mostly the vocabulary that is different?

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Well yes, modern greek is the logical outcome of over than 3 millenia of processing of the greek language. You have to view it as a whole ;)
The vocabulary is the same (of course in sοme cases the endings have changed - the changes are kinda obvious for a greek person like me but perhaps not for a foreigner)..let's see..example:

carbon = "άνθραξ" in ancient greek, "άνθρακας" in modern greek
(notice that the root of the word is the same ;) ).
climax (a greek word)= "κλίμαξ" in ancient (note that the english language has taken the original form of the word) , "κλίμακα" in modern etc.

It is the grammar that has changed considerably (from ridiculously difficult now it is just very difficult :lol: ).

Ok, I don't very little ancient greek, but it seemed like there was a lot of different vocabulary, I remember the small book I had gave the example of "white wine" where both white and wine were different words.