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

[KeyMaster45]

It's because English is taught with rules that alot of the time don't apply.
"i" before "e" except after "c", for example, is wrong about half the time.
The double use of apostrophes, that "it's hot" - meaning "it is hot" and "it's bag" - implying the possesion "it" has of the bag.

English has rules that aren't consistent, that's one reason why it's hard to learn. I'm sure there are many more.

Oh, prime example to use for this. The word "weird", do you see a 'C' in that? I sure as hell don't. As for the apostrophes I seem to remember being taught that it goes "it's hot" to denote "it is hot" and "its bag" to denote possession. All I know is there's a little diddle in my head about the 'S' sticking to the 'I' and 'T' because the 'I' and 'T' own it.

Now, I never heard that English was the hardest out of all of them, but I have heard that English is one of the hardest up there with German and something else. When it comes to being a native speaker of English I've always been taught that if you want to learn other languages to start with either French or Spanish. I knew the reason at one point but not anymore.

-EDIT-
I just remembered that I was told be a college professor earlier this summer that I do not speak English...I speak American.(now before you start screaming "stupid American, you didn't invent the language" please read as this was just something I've been told) Yeah I was kinda, "wtf?" at first but then he explained it that when it comes to forms of dialect and vernacular only those in the UK still speak proper English. Americans just kinda went bat-shit crazy with the language and have bastardized it enough to where its nearly considered a new language. So, yeah that's your "wtf?" fact for the day kiddies.

 

[Queen Michael]

Just compare it to Japanese, with its abundance of different signs, or French, with all the "le" and "la" you have to tell apart, and it won't feel as hard anymore. Tricky? I guess. Hardest in the world? Not by a long shot.

 

[Muramasa89]

It's because English is taught with rules that alot of the time don't apply.
"i" before "e" except after "c", for example, is wrong about half the time.
The double use of apostrophes, that "it's hot" - meaning "it is hot" and "it's bag" - implying the possesion "it" has of the bag.

English has rules that aren't consistent, that's one reason why it's hard to learn. I'm sure there are many more.

I do believe when it comes to possession with the word "its" the apostrophe is not needed, as the apostrophe is only used to shorten "It is"

OP:It's mostly cause it's a language with lots of rules that contradict themselves

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/apostrophe

Languages are easy if they're native, and as a child you pick them up easier than as an adult. I imagine you're saying it isn't hard because it was your first, and even then most people don't grasp a decent hold on it. Many people remain at a basic level, whereas if you was to do College and/or University English you'd realise how complicated it is (from aforementioned thing by people here).

As a plus, Spanish and French is easy enough if you know English (and vice versa). They're not all that different.

 

[HellbirdIV]

English is among the easiest languages to learn, really, it's the reason it's considered the "international" language. Maybe it's "complicated", but it sure as hell is not "hard to learn" by any stretch.

 

[snowman6251]

It's because English is taught with rules that alot of the time don't apply.
"i" before "e" except after "c", for example, is wrong about half the time.
The double use of apostrophes, that "it's hot" - meaning "it is hot" and "it's bag" - implying the possesion "it" has of the bag.

English has rules that aren't consistent, that's one reason why it's hard to learn. I'm sure there are many more.

Oh, prime example to use for this. The word "weird", do you see a 'C' in that? I sure as hell don't. As for the apostrophes I seem to remember being taught that it goes "it's hot" to denote "it is hot" and "its bag" to denote possession. All I know is there's a little diddle in my head about the 'S' sticking to the 'I' and 'T' because the 'I' and 'T' own it.

Now, I never heard that English was the hardest out of all of them, but I have heard that English is one of the hardest up there with German and something else. When it comes to being a native speaker of English I've always been taught that if you want to learn other languages to start with either French or Spanish. I knew the reason at one point but not anymore.

It's probably because English hijacked a lot of words from the Romance languages and held them hostage. The words then developed Stockholm Syndrome and stayed with English forever. Therefore we have some similar words and that makes learning vocabulary easier.

 

[Darknacht]

English is my first language and I have learned other languages, including Japanese and I would have to say that it is definitely the hardest I?ve seen. The reason that so much of English is borrowed and bastardized from other languages, especially French, that the rules of the languages quickly fall apart.

 

[Cynical skeptic]

Theres also the fact there isn't any sort of consistent logic to it. Its just a couple thousand years of slang and words from other languages cobbled together.

Fixed that for ya.

All languages have that currently, so its not really worth noting.

 

[snowman6251]

English is among the easiest languages to learn, really, it's the reason it's considered the "international" language. Maybe it's "complicated", but it sure as hell is not "hard to learn" by any stretch.

I always thought it was the international language because English speaking countries have this tendency to conquer other nations and impose their way of life...

 

[HSIAMetalKing]

Where did this come from? i saw it in the "J in Japan" topic and i have heard it here so many times, but i can't find any evidence of it at all.

I have seen diffferent trains of thought on how too look at it, complexity of vocabulary and tenses, speaking as a native, phonetics, but none of these put english as the hardest.

Where did this come from? help !

English is an easy language to acquire basic proficiency in-- the grammatical structure is simple and resembles other Germanic languages, so people in Europe find it very easy to acquire as opposed to, say, French, which has a much more difficult grammatical structure that is important for even basic French speaking.

I'm surprised some people haven't heard this because its definitely true. I'm a native English speaker and sometimes I sit down and think "Wow. This shit is stupid."

Lets take for examples the word "Ones" as in "Those ones over there".

That is the plural form of a word which is by definition singular. What the fuck English. This is the kind of shit that confuses foreigners until their brains explode. Not to mention that most languages have a few irregular verbs, usually to be and a couple other common ones, but practically every verb in English is irregular in one way or another.

We think that a lot of Asian languages are hard just because they have different alphabets and a very different grammatical structure than us but they actually have rules that they usually stick to. English does not. Our language makes no sense.

As an English major I'm offended. You claim that the language "makes no sense", but I think what you really mean is that English is among the richest and most diverse languages in the world. Our vocabulary is impossibly expansive and has evolved dynamically-- rather than claim that it "makes no sense", perhaps you should devote some time to understanding the etymological roots of some of the supposedly "irregular" words you be all hatin' on.

Obviously English has plenty of rules, so I'm not sure what you mean when you compare it to Asian languages (which, by the way, aren't all comparable just because they all use funny symbols).

 

[octafish]

I suppose its because it changes quite rapidly?

Not quite sure actually =/ I just know Chinese is annoying to learn.

See, this shits me to tears. There is no language called Chinese. I suspect you mean Mandarin.

 

[Last Valiance]

English is a hotpot of every the languages of everybody that at one point or another lived in britain: the saxons, the romans, the pagans/celts/picts (the original natives), the normans, vikings as well as many words stolen from other nearby countries (particularly france) in more recent times.

It's a hodpodge of every language, and is the point at which norse and latin languages have combined.

Since the US made it's own dialect, things have only gotten more complicated.





It is easy to learn because everybody all over the world has it shoved down their throats from the american media (not that it's a bad thing), so everybody comes into contact with it a lot.

 

[Maclennan]

In order to speak English correctly, abiding by all the rules and forming sentences correctly is incredibly hard to learn. The thing is our other disregard for much of the structure of the English language throws that out the window and makes our language very easy to pick up. Basically its easy because we on average don't do well in English class and don't care if anyone else does as long as their accent doesn't render then incomprehensible.

 

[ColorfulObscurity]

I can definitely see why English is very difficult to learn. It makes no sense most of the time.
But you know what language is ridiculously difficult or those who don't already know a Slavic language?
Polish.
17 DIFFERENT FORMS OF THE NUMBER 'TWO'.
Ó IS PRONOUNCED THE SAME AS U.
WTF POLISH.
WTF.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

You make it sound worse than it really is.

I'm not sure. My father teaches ESL/EFL, and the advantage English has over other languages is that it's heard more in non-English countries.
AFAIK, all air-traffic controllers NEED to have an understanding of English, wherever in the world they are.

Russian, from the very little I know about it though, is a very guttural language ( as in "from the gut" rather than gutter), and hearing someone whisper sweet nothings in Russian sounds like having a fight in English. (Also Gujarati/German)

 

[Rattler5150]

there are a lot of contradictions in English

COMB, TOMB and BOMB do not rhyme
BAKED and NAKED do not rhyme, im sure other can point out more

 

[Muramasa89]

English is a hotpot of every the languages of everybody that at one point or another lived in britain: the saxons, the romans, the pagans/celts/picts (the original natives), the normans, vikings as well as many words stolen from other nearby countries (particularly france) in more recent times.

The bold. Why does everyone say 'stolen'? The words aren't stolen - they're absorbed and borrowed. We didn't nit-pick through their dictionaries and decide "Ooh, we'll 'ave that."

 

[thahat]

I'm surprised some people haven't heard this because its definitely true. I'm a native English speaker and sometimes I sit down and think "Wow. This shit is stupid."

Lets take for examples the word "Ones" as in "Those ones over there".

That is the plural form of a word which is by definition singular. What the fuck English. This is the kind of shit that confuses foreigners until their brains explode. Not to mention that most languages have a few irregular verbs, usually to be and a couple other common ones, but practically every verb in English is irregular in one way or another.

We think that a lot of Asian languages are hard just because they have different alphabets and a very different grammatical structure than us but they actually have rules that they usually stick to. English does not. Our language makes no sense.

you should try dutch. its a cobble your own scentance language XD

english is easy to learn, hard to master. because there are usualy a lot of words that say the same thing. for one who likes puns on words like me, thats grand XD.

 

[HSIAMetalKing]

-EDIT-
I just remembered that I was told be a college professor earlier this summer that I do not speak English...I speak American.(now before you start screaming "stupid American, you didn't invent the language" please read as this was just something I've been told) Yeah I was kinda, "wtf?" at first but then he explained it that when it comes to forms of dialect and vernacular only those in the UK still speak proper English. Americans just kinda went bat-shit crazy with the language and have bastardized it enough to where its nearly considered a new language. So, yeah that's your "wtf?" fact for the day kiddies.

That's a pretty common idea perpetrated by elitist people who uphold some weird sort of "proper English" as the standard for the language, but they're really just clinging to an archaic and outdated concept of language-- the sort of thing that tyrants would do when trying to impose an "official" national language upon the masses.

The "American language" you refer to as bastardized is really just evolved-- it has taken a new shape because civilization has taken a new shape. For that reason I consider it a far more "proper" language than proto-English.

 

[Alex Cowan]

It all depends on who is trying to learn it - if it is a French speaking person, then the problems will be the number of irregular verbs, gender confusions, and odd quirks. This is because French is a fairly regular language, and quite easy for other people to learn (one of the reasons it's taught in schools so frequently).

However, if it is someone who is used to languages having slight oddities about them, for instance a Russian-speaking person, then it might be a bit easier.

Then, on the other end of the scale, someone coming from a character-based language like Chinese might have problems coming to terms with the concept of all words being made up of only 26 letters, rather than the system of radicals - small characters that can be built up to make more complex characters (effectively in Chinese each 'letter' means a word. Yeah...). Also compared to Chinese, English grammar is stupidly complex.

It also depends on the root of the langage - Germanic, Greek, Asian, Latin - people who come from the same "group" of languages will find it easier to learn other languages in that group (i.e. French, Spanish and Italian).

 

[KeyMaster45]

English is among the easiest languages to learn, really, it's the reason it's considered the "international" language. Maybe it's "complicated", but it sure as hell is not "hard to learn" by any stretch.

Ahh, no this is rather far from the truth. As I learned in a humanities class the language of trade follows the dominant global power at the time. Due to the fact for a few hundred years Britain was the dominant the language of trade became English, and since after Britain was unseated as a global power the US (which thanks to its British origins spoke English and became the dominant power) continued to use English and thus English has remained the standard language of trade and commerce.

If like everyone is saying China should become the dominant global power it wouldn't take very long (well on the scale of time where history is concerned) for the standard language of trade and commerce to become Chinese.

-EDIT-

That's a pretty common idea perpetrated by elitist people who uphold some weird sort of "proper English" as the standard for the language, but they're really just clinging to an archaic and outdated concept of language-- the sort of thing that tyrants would do when trying to impose an "official" national language upon the masses.

The "American language" you refer to as bastardized is really just evolved-- it has taken a new shape because civilization has taken a new shape. For that reason I consider it a far more "proper" language than proto-English.

Hey, to be honest I felt the professor was one of those, well elitest people who think they're culturally superior.(dude's like in his 50's or something and has ear-ring studs in his ears) I thought it was kinda stupid myself, so don't shoot the messenger I was just relaying what I was told.