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

[Kragg]

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 !

 

[Anah'ya]

.. wut?

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

 

[Julianking93]

Never heard that before.

I've only ever heard that Japanese is the hardest language to learn.

 

[Downfall89]

complexity of vocabulary and tenses, phonetics

That's exactly why it's hard..

 

[Cynical skeptic]

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

 

[SomeLameStuff]

I suppose its because it changes quite rapidly?

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

 

[oliveira8]

complexity of vocabulary and tenses, phonetics

That's exactly why it's hard..

Compared to Latin based languages(Portuguese, French, Spanish, Italian) English is really simple. I studied Portuguese(as main language), French and English in school and English was the easiest class of the three.

 

[Wardnath]

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.

 

[snowman6251]

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.

 

[Kragg]

Never heard that before.

I've only ever heard that Japanese is the hardest language to learn.

i did a search for it here (to check duplicate topic) and found 3 people saying it on the escapist on the first page alone, some kind of weird thing people assume and the ball gets rolling or something?

thought you had seen it by all the time you spend on here

 

[Downfall89]

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.

This.

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.

Also that. For all native English speakers, you probably think English is easy because it is your native language. Nuff said.

 

[Simalacrum]

What? English is an easy language! Believe me, Japanese is waaaay harder...

 

[kurupt87]

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.

Edit:
From a follow-up post I made:

Whoops. In my quest to show a rule that is confusing I used an example that is an exception to the possesion rule. Appropriate time and place to make a mistake it may be, it's still annoying though damnit.

A better example for those interested would be:
kurupt87's fucked up. -> kurupt87 has fucked up.
kurupt87's fuck up. -> The fuck up belongs to kurupt87.

Edit Two:
Gah! Stop quoting my mistake! It's annoying! "Its" is an exception to the otherwise universal(ish) possesion rule. The example in quotes above is absolutely correct. Read this [http://www.eng-lang.co.uk/apostrophe_rules.htm] and bug off!

 

[kaveradeo]

Too many random exceptions to rules and such.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Where did this come from? help !

Because English is an insane language.

There are two genders instead of three, words are altered depending on the subject, context and authority of who is saying them, and there are almost no rules that stand fast for all words.

Like receive, colour, metre and many others.

To emphasize the problem, Bernard Shaw once proposed the spelling ghoti for "fish", with the [gh] from "laugh", the [o] from "women" and the [ti] from "nation".

The other well known sentence being "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo", which actually is grammatically correct. (It means THE buffalo FROM Buffalo WHO ARE buffaloed BY buffalo FROM Buffalo, buffalo buffalo FROM Buffalo.)

English is a true bastard of a language. In the literal sense.

 

[DarkLordofDevon]

This is because English has so many root languages. Latin, Nordic etc. Rules which apply to 1 root language don't apply to all.

Americanism make it easier by pronauncing words as they're spelt (e.g. Lieutenant is said as spelt, not as 'leftenant' in the original English).

But I would agree, UK English is one of the hardest languages.

Japanese is actually really easy. All the 'letters' only have a single sound. E.g. Ka is always pronaunced 'kah'. However a in English can be 'ah' as in cat, 'ay' as in cake etc.

 

[TheComedown]

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

 

[The Righteous One]

Well may native language is Dutch and I can ensure that Dutch is much harder then English. The Dutch language has tons of special exceptions.

Also I think that English is easier the German, because the of those damn grammatical cases.

"Wo ist meine Fahrrad?"

 

[Jadak]

English, due to many of the reasons already stated is extremely hard to master, but simply getting a basic understanding in order to get your needs across? Not so much.

 

[JourneyThroughHell]

Where did this come from? help !

Because English is an insane language.

There are two genders instead of three, words are altered depending on the subject, context and authority of who is saying them, and there are almost no rules that stand fast for all words.

Like receive, colour, metre and many others.

To emphasize the problem, Bernard Shaw once proposed the spelling ghoti for "fish", with the [gh] from "laugh", the [o] from "women" and the [ti] from "nation".

The other well known sentence being "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo", which actually is grammatically correct. (It means THE buffalo FROM Buffalo WHO ARE buffaloed BY buffalo FROM Buffalo, buffalo buffalo FROM Buffalo.)

English is a true bastard of a language. In the literal sense.

You make it sound worse than it really is.
In Russia, we have rules that make no sense, pointless exceptions, really weird emphasising and I don't know the English word for that one thing we have, but it's a real *****.
Maybe it's just me, but compared to Russian, English is a tad easy.