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

[sageoftruth]

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

Then there's the issue with plurals. "Octopuses? Don't you mean octopi?" "Deers? I believe you meant to say 'deer'." There's just so many rules with exceptions in english, and almost no explanation as to why they exist.

 

[child of lileth]

I've never in my life heard of anyone saying English was hard to learn, let alone the hardest. It's always been stuff like Chinese, or languages that have old and modern versions like that.

 

[Phoenixlight]

No idea where you got that idea from, i've never heard that it's a difficult language to learn. The fact that most people speak it as their second language indicates that it's not that difficult.

 

[Muramasa89]

sentences like.

I want to desert my desert in the desert.

if you didnt understand english that would make no since.

it doesnt make much since when i type it either.

What third 'desert' is that? Do you mean 'dessert' (the often sweet meal after the main course; pudding to the British)?

 

[megamanenm]

No idea where you got that idea from, i've never heard that it's a difficult language to learn. The fact that most people speak it as their second language indicated that it's not that difficult.

Actually the only thing that indicates is that English is a widely spoken language, many struggle with English.

 

[RJ Dalton]

English is fairly difficult to learn as a second language because it has very unique and complicated grammar rules due to its linguistic origin.
But it's not the most difficult. Russian and Norwegian (or it might have been Swedish) are much harder for most people.
Of course, difficulty varies depending on the individual and the first language. For example, if you speak German as your first language, English is a little easier to learn because they have the same base.

 

[Sigmund Av Volsung]

In my country we read words like they are written; eg; how-hou.
English is hard cos' of words like onomatopoiea and pneumonia(also antidisestablishmentarianism)

 

[Nuke_em_05]

This question is actually difficult to answer. It depends on your native language. If you grew up native English-speaking, it will seem easier to learn than other languages. If you grew up speaking a different language, you might compare it to other languages you learned. To get a real feel for it; maybe you'd need to do a twin study placed in "identical" homes in places of two different languages, and then have them learn the other's language and see how well each do. Or have someone who speaks English learn another language and then erase their brain, have them start out learning the other language and then have them learn English.

How long does it take to become fluent in a different language? Most people can study the basics of a language, spend two or three years in a country of that language, and speak it almost as indistinguishable from a native speaker. Except English, even if someone has lived in an English-speaking country their entire adult life, you can still identify that they speak English as a second language. Add to this that most native English speakers still barely have a a grasp on it.

English is the most "common" language in the world not because it is "easy", but because only a few hundred years ago there was this empire of English speakers from a little island in Europe who took over half the damn planet and made everyone they subjugated learn it. Much in the same way most European languages are based in Latin, they are called Romantic languages, not because they are sexy (well... yeah, they're also sexy), but because of the Roman empire. English has a lot of Latin in it, as well as pieces of almost every other European and Middle-Eastern language that was around at the time it started coming together.

As for the language itself; here are some thoughts:

Most of the problem comes in vowels. what does "a" sound like? way, car, bat. Doesn't "ie" sound like that sometimes? How about "ie" for that matter?

I before E, except after C, and when sounding like A as in neighbor and weigh, and weird, and their (still an A sound, but a different A sound).

How about weigh? way?

Plurals:

Ox - Oxen
Box - Boxes

Goose - Geese
Moose - Moose

They're their there

To too two

Rhymes:

Tomb Bomb Comb

Naked Baked

Ph, f, th, gh,

Bow: to lower the top half of your person, the front of a ship, an early weapon, or ribbon in a knot?

To the later examples, bough.

Bough/bought/bot/ought

Knot/not

Through thorough rough

Synonyms, just synonyms.

Every language has exceptions. English seems to be built on them.

 

[kurupt87]

and "it's bag" - implying the possesion "it" has of the bag.

No, you fool, that would simply mean "It is bag". "Its bag" would imply possession, you dolt.

Read my edited correction. Also, you are right but only because "its" is an exception to the possesion rule.
Foolish dolt eh? Yeah I made a mistake, cheeky fucker.

 

[FinalHeart95]

A lot of things with how we speak are backwards and make less sense than the Romance languages. For example, we know something is red before we even know what it is. While (in italian at least) this is the case for some adjectives, the majority of them come after the noun. That way we know what the fuck we're talking about before we know it's huge. Doesn't really make the language harder, just makes more sense.

Also, sounds aren't consistent. Going to italian again (it's the only Romance language I kind of know) the letters "ci" together ALWAYS makes a "chi" sound. In English, letter combinations can make a lot of different sounds, and it gets confusing even for native speakers at times.

Still, probably not the HARDEST language. That would go to Icelandic.

 

[lokun489]

because thins that should make sense don't one word two meanings. same sound different meanings. i don't think there's anothing language like it.

 

[megamanenm]

In my country we read words like they are written; eg; how-hou.
English is hard cos' of words like onomatopoiea and pneumonia(also antidisestablishmentarianism)

Well that's just cherry picking, you can't call a language hard because of a few long words.

 

[MrSnugglesworth]

I think its an incredibly fun language.


Deer is plural for Deer.


What will we think up next?

 

[Wicky_42]

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

Then there's the issue with plurals. "Octopuses? Don't you mean octopi?" "Deers? I believe you meant to say 'deer'." There's just so many rules with exceptions in english, and almost no explanation as to why they exist.

Well, Octopi is because it's a Greek or Latin word, and so borrows from their grammatical rules. But at least there's only one gender of the word, so that's only one exception to pick up and not a whole table of them

But yeah, there's a hell of a lot of exceptions in English that largely seem to be because 'it sounds a bit silly if you say it like that'. Of course, if you read some of the older classical literature, their grammar rules seem quite different in places, as do their spellings. One could assume that part of the source of all the exceptions might well be the dramatic changes that have happened to the language over the centuries, combined with the high assimilation of words from other languages.

 

[Odbarc]

I think it might be the hardest to learn ALL of those little obnoxious rules. In general, it's probably really easy.

 

[Sigmund Av Volsung]

In my country we read words like they are written; eg; how-hou.
English is hard cos' of words like onomatopoiea and pneumonia(also antidisestablishmentarianism)

Well that's just cherry picking, you can't call a language hard because of a few long words.

If I took my time, i'd find at least a 1000 difficult english words, so it's most pest control than cherry picking(lol)

 

[kurupt87]

sentences like.

I want to desert my desert in the desert.

if you didnt understand english that would make no since.

it doesnt make much since when i type it either.

What third 'desert' is that? Do you mean 'dessert' (the often sweet meal after the main course; pudding to the British)?

You're right of course. The thing I find even funnier though is the fact that:
desert (verb) and desert (noun) are pronounced differently while desert(v) and dessert are pronounced the same even though they're spelt differently. Madness.

 

[megamanenm]

because thins that should make sense don't one word two meanings. same sound different meanings. i don't think there's anothing language like it.

... English is the only language with homonyms? You do know that's extremely common in languages right?

 

[sabbat]

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.

Thank you! that was driving me insane, but I didn't know if he would object to me editing his post.

 

[mattaui]

Might I suggest The Adventure of English, for those of you wondering about its origins and how it grew from other languages.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventure_of_English