Why do people think English is the hardest language to learn?

[Billion Backs]

English is the easiest language to speak badly but the hardest to speak well

"well" is a bit undefined here, no?

If everyone speaks it "badly", it's the norm. And if you follow that norm, you already speak "well" because it represents the actual language in it's current form and not some kind of archaic version most people might not even be aware of.

Since language's primary importance is in letting people communicate, obviously enough the version that's spoken by, say, 95% of population is "better" then the version spoken only by the remaining 5%, at least in it's main goal of making clear communication possible. The rest is just elitism.

 

[Downfall89]

complexity of vocabulary and tenses, phonetics

That's exactly why it's hard..

you could get away mispronouncing a lot of words, depending on the place, most people would understand anyway. Say Chinese, mispronouncing a word could mean something totally different.

Ah yes, I did Chinese for quite a while, and if you pronounce a word even SLIGHTLY, it becomes a completely different word. Also, in my opinion, Chinese is the hardest language to learn in the world. After that comes English.

 

[LogicNProportion]

Because other nations look on our internets to see how English is supposed to be spoken...

And looks on and sees that we have enough trouble ourselves...

I fucking hate chat-speak...

 

[Thunderhorse31]

English is among the easier languages to learn. Seriously. Even French and Spanish are harder.

lol

This was my reaction as well. I had a Greek teacher who liked to make fun of English for its difficulty, and he made us figure out the phrase: "That that that that that modifies is that."

 

[Anah'ya]

.. wut?

It's not. It's pretty much the easiest out there.

Incorrect.

What's your native language?

English by any chance? English has no grammatical difficulty, has no special pronouncing of things, has an easy and straight forward vocabulary and.. well.. its just easy. 'course if you're not apt at learning foreign languages then it will seem difficult.

Plus it shares a-lot with other languages, making it even easier to get a hang of.

I am not native English, I learned it the good old hard way along with French and currently Swedish. And afterwards its on to the 'really' difficult stuff. Russian, probably. Or Finnish. I don't quite know yet.


Seriously. /reads through more posts
I don't get it. English is piss easy for a German speaker... our language is 'tuffer to learn in comparison, especially if you're English. Alot 'tuffer. And "easy" compared to Chinese? Now if you're only taking speaking in account, then yes. The lack of tenses/genders, etc maybe. But reading/writing can't really be missed out there.

Oh well. Personal taste I suppose. In particular if folks come from different countries.

 

[Ch@Z]

I go to a Japanese high school so I can tell you why.
It's not because English is hard,it's just the way they teach English in Japan and Korea.
They really don't teach how to speak in English at all. All they do is reading and writing. How can you learn to read and write a language you can't even speak in?
The reason they do this is because of the tests and all tests are on paper. In Japan the test is EVERYTHING!

 

[Jewrean]

.. wut?

It's not. It's pretty much the easiest out there.

No.

The English syntax (sentence structure) is reversed in comparison to other languages. From a non-English speaking perspective, English is the hardest language to learn. From an English speaking perspective, all languages have similar levels of difficulty in this regard.

 

[Spinozaad]

As a Dutchman, I found German and French to be harder than English. So, that has been expertly proven.

 

[Anah'ya]

.. wut?

It's not. It's pretty much the easiest out there.

No.

The English syntax (sentence structure) is reversed in comparison to other languages. From a non-English speaking perspective, English is the hardest language to learn. From an English speaking perspective, all languages have similar levels of difficulty in this regard.

I am not a native English speaker. So what does that make me, a language wizzard? Cool! Yes, the double z's are on purpose.

 

[Randomologist]

There's a couple who have mentioned Welsh. It's not so bad if you speak another Gaelic language, but learning it afresh is very confusing. Firstly,the alphabet is modified Latin, with the removal of letters like X and J, and the insertion of double-character letters like Rh, Ll, etc.
There's also Nasal mutation, a spoken way of softening the sounds.
Rhydw i'n byw yn Caerdydd- I live in Cardiff- becomes Rhydw i'n byw yng Nghaerdydd.

There are some endearing factors, so for instance it's a very phonetic language; Once you know all the sounds, it's spoken exactly how it sounds. It's learning the sounds in the first place that's difficult.

In contrast, English seems to be reasonably easy, the sounds aren't always phonetic but once you learn the exceptions it's usually OK.

 

[Korolev]

Most people on this thread are native English speakers. And so am I. But my mother is not. She did learn English when she was very young, but she was taught pidgin English by a terrible school that had stupid teachers. For the past few years she has been trying to improve her English skills, and I have also tried to teach her.

And let me tell you, English is one weird language. As a native speaker, you've got used to its strange and unusual grammar structure. Because you grew up with it, you don't even consciously think about how to piece together grammatically correct sentences - it's automatic for you.

But I can tell you, having worked with many people who have learned English has a second language, and even lived with people who learned English has a second language, and having studied a bit of linguistics, I can tell you that English might be one the most difficult languages to learn - in terms of grammar. In terms of pronouncing words, I'd say Cantonese is EXTREMELY difficult, because it has 7 tones, and if you aren't a native speaker, distinguishing those tones is nigh impossible. I certainly couldn't get a grip on Cantonese. Mandarin was hard enough, and that only has 4 tones.

The language I have had most difficulty with, personally, has been German. Some German words are just too long. Don't get me wrong, the German Language is a great language, it's just very intimidating.

 

[Korolev]

And to back up Milky Fresh - Learning Malay was a breeze for me. The words are pronounced as they are written in the latin alphabet, the structure of the sentences is easy to learn, the words are of a nice length and it's got no tricky tones or short stops or guttural sounds. It's a nice language, and one you should try to learn. I don't know much, but I had to learn a bit because I lived in Malaysia for a while, although most people in Malaysia speak pretty good English.

 

[Kurokami]

.. wut?

It's not. It's pretty much the easiest out there.

Incorrect.

What's your native language?

English by any chance? English has no grammatical difficulty, has no special pronouncing of things, has an easy and straight forward vocabulary and.. well.. its just easy. 'course if you're not apt at learning foreign languages then it will seem difficult.

Plus it shares a-lot with other languages, making it even easier to get a hang of.

I am not native English, I learned it the good old hard way along with French and currently Swedish. And afterwards its on to the 'really' difficult stuff. Russian, probably. Or Finnish. I don't quite know yet.


Seriously. /reads through more posts
I don't get it. English is piss easy for a German speaker... our language is 'tuffer to learn in comparison, especially if you're English. Alot 'tuffer. And "easy" compared to Chinese? Now if you're only taking speaking in account, then yes. The lack of tenses/genders, etc maybe. But reading/writing can't really be missed out there.

Oh well. Personal taste I suppose. In particular if folks come from different countries.

Grats, your language is basically English (or rather the other way around). I remember we had a German exchange student, all we had to do to explain something was say it with a German accent. For me it was my second language, which I was lucky to learn when I was young, learning it when you're older would be pretty difficult pronunciation wise.

 

[Johanthemonster666]

I'm sorry, but based on my travels the Mandarin and Cantonese dialects of Chinese are the most difficult (infact every Chinese language dialect is difficult). Arabic comes after those(one of hardest semetic languages to learn, even Hebrew and Farsi are a little easier to learn than Arabic) and supposedly Korean, Japanese, Russian, Hungarian, Finnish and Hindi-Urdu are terribly difficult for English speakers to learn due to complex, and overlaping grammar rules and conventions(n the case of Korean, Hindi-Urdu, and Russian, a ***** to pronounce properly)

 

[Grand_Arcana]

English is my native language, but it I were to guess it's because our grammar and sentence structure is unlike that of other European languages (Most don't seem to have " 's " as a way to show possession. Instead of "Grand Arcana's car" in Spanish you'd say something like "The car of Grand Arcana). Also, because English has several root languages (Greek, Latin, French) some words aren't spelt the way that they would be pronounced. Spanish and Japanese words seem to always be spelt the way they sound.

 

[Anah'ya]

Grats, your language is basically English (or rather the other way around). I remember we had a German exchange student, all we had to do to explain something was say it with a German accent. For me it was my second language, which I was lucky to learn when I was young, learning it when you're older would be pretty difficult pronunciation wise.

Uh. Right. I'm outta here. When folks start saying English is like German then there is nothing left to be said. That's like saying driving a car is like flying a plane.

 

[The Hairminator]

Grats, your language is basically English (or rather the other way around). I remember we had a German exchange student, all we had to do to explain something was say it with a German accent. For me it was my second language, which I was lucky to learn when I was young, learning it when you're older would be pretty difficult pronunciation wise.

Uh. Right. I'm outta here. When folks start saying English is like German then there is nothing left to be said. That's like saying driving a car is like flying a plane.

"Canybody read us? We are sinking, I repeat; we are sinking!"
-"Hallo, this is German coast gard. Wat ar jo sinkign about?"

Yeah, I have no idea why I said that.

Knowing both English and Swedish and a lot of german words thanks to tourists, movies etc., I can understand spoken German to a degree

 

[Anah'ya]

"Canybody read us? We are sinking, I repeat; we are sinking!"
-"Hallo, this is German coast gard. Wat ar jo sinkign about?"

Yeah, I have no idea why I said that.

Knowing both English and Swedish and a lot of german words thanks to tourists, movies etc., I can understand spoken German to a degree

Hurr

Well. You Swedes. Your language is such a lovely mix. I <3 it. Kinda. KINDA.

Uh. Didn't I say I was leaving. Yes I said I was leaving.