Why do people think English is the hardest language to learn?
- Thread starter Kragg
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Compared to most other languages, it is the hardest language out there.
Just take a look at tenses for example. English has 12 base tenses plus 3 for a total of 15. Some people say English actually has upwards of 22 tenses, look it up. Where as Thai has one tense and one tense only. Sure you can add the word 'will' to make it future, or the Thai equivalent of 'ing' to make it progressive, but for the most part Thai only has one tense.
Also, English has plural nouns which some languages don't have. Again, Thai doesn't have plurals either.
English has articles, a, an and the which isn't used in many languages either.
Most languages have their own idioms and expressions, but English idioms are some of the most difficult to grasp. If you looked up each individual word in a dictionary you would get nothing but a direct translation.
I teach English here in Thailand and trust me, for students not growing up with English in their household it can be a most difficult language to learn. I have some students who study Japanese, Chinese and Korean as well and they still think English is the hardest.
EDIT: I agree with a previous poster, English is not difficult to learn, but it is quite difficult to master.
Just take a look at tenses for example. English has 12 base tenses plus 3 for a total of 15. Some people say English actually has upwards of 22 tenses, look it up. Where as Thai has one tense and one tense only. Sure you can add the word 'will' to make it future, or the Thai equivalent of 'ing' to make it progressive, but for the most part Thai only has one tense.
Also, English has plural nouns which some languages don't have. Again, Thai doesn't have plurals either.
English has articles, a, an and the which isn't used in many languages either.
Most languages have their own idioms and expressions, but English idioms are some of the most difficult to grasp. If you looked up each individual word in a dictionary you would get nothing but a direct translation.
I teach English here in Thailand and trust me, for students not growing up with English in their household it can be a most difficult language to learn. I have some students who study Japanese, Chinese and Korean as well and they still think English is the hardest.
EDIT: I agree with a previous poster, English is not difficult to learn, but it is quite difficult to master.
I just thought while reading through a few other threads about how a simple misspelling of a word is capable of changing the meaning of a sentence by changing just one key word. The new word may be spelled properly (since and sense, a lot of people screw this one up and in some cases when swapped can make a sentence that means something, just completely different things.)
It's like the idea of pronouncing "fish" as ghoti; it's a nonsensical argument, using strict grammatical sense.Gildan Bladeborn said:
"I take it you already know of tough and bough and cough and dough? Others may stumble, but not you, on hiccough, thorough, laugh and through. Well done! And now you wish, perhaps, to learn of less familiar traps? Beware of heard, a dreadful word, that looks like beard and sounds like bird. And dead -- it's said like bed not bead -- and for goodness' sake don't call it deed! Watch out for meat and great and threat (They rhyme with suite and straight and debt) A moth is not the moth in mother, nor both in bother, broth in brother. And here is not a match for there, nor dear and fear for bear and pear. And then there's dose and rose and lose -- just look them up -- and goose and choose, and cork and work and card and ward, and font and front and word and sword, and do and go and thwart and cart -- come, come I've hardly made a start. A dreadful language? Man alive. I'd mastered it when I was five. (author?) "
It's actually should be octopodes - it is a Greek noun and would decline in that way if people weren't so lazy when learning English (hence octopuses being the accepted form). The problem with English plurals is that the words being pluralized come from so many different languages that people give up on learning the original way and come up with their own methods.Wicky_42 said: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 themsageoftruth said:
Let's just take an arbitrary example of language: possessive adjectives. (Actually, it's not arbitrary: it's the only area of French I know with great confidence that also proves my point.)
In French, the singular possessive adjectives are mon, ma, mes (first person), ton, ta, tes (second person), son, sa, and ses (third person). The words ending with "-on" are masculine, "-a" is feminine (which draws a parallel with the feminine adjective equivalent to English "the"), and "-es" is plural (also drawing a parallel to the plural adjective equivalent to the English "the"). We can assume that the words beginning with "M" are first-person, because "moi" is the objective first-person pronoun, same with the second-person adjectives beginning with the same letters as both the second-person objective and subjective pronouns. The third-person possessive adjective begins with the same letter as the third-person reflective.
Now, let's switch to English. The first-person possessive, "my" is very similar to the first person objective pronoun, "me." The second-person "your" and "you" are very similar as well. However, "our" and "us" are very loosely connected. Also "my" is nowhere near connected "your" or "our." "Your" and "our" are connected spelling-wise, but considering them in any way similar phonetically would be ludicrous.
So, yeah. It can get pretty complicated, but learning a second language is in general hard. I just picked the right thing to analyze, and did it in an overly-analytical way so that hopefully your eyes would glaze over and you would think it more complicated than it actually is. So I guess I'm being dishonest. Sorry!
In French, the singular possessive adjectives are mon, ma, mes (first person), ton, ta, tes (second person), son, sa, and ses (third person). The words ending with "-on" are masculine, "-a" is feminine (which draws a parallel with the feminine adjective equivalent to English "the"), and "-es" is plural (also drawing a parallel to the plural adjective equivalent to the English "the"). We can assume that the words beginning with "M" are first-person, because "moi" is the objective first-person pronoun, same with the second-person adjectives beginning with the same letters as both the second-person objective and subjective pronouns. The third-person possessive adjective begins with the same letter as the third-person reflective.
Now, let's switch to English. The first-person possessive, "my" is very similar to the first person objective pronoun, "me." The second-person "your" and "you" are very similar as well. However, "our" and "us" are very loosely connected. Also "my" is nowhere near connected "your" or "our." "Your" and "our" are connected spelling-wise, but considering them in any way similar phonetically would be ludicrous.
So, yeah. It can get pretty complicated, but learning a second language is in general hard. I just picked the right thing to analyze, and did it in an overly-analytical way so that hopefully your eyes would glaze over and you would think it more complicated than it actually is. So I guess I'm being dishonest. Sorry!
Ah...Well then...DarkLordofDevon said:
You sir, have made me look like a fool and are to be commended for that.
I wasn't aware that that only really applied to Kanji so thanks for the info.
As someone who did Old Saxon at university, nothing in English is frightening to me anymore. And for those who complain that it isn't phonetically spelt, and languages like french are - ever been to somewhere in France that isn't Paris and asked for bread? In the Pyrenees, it isn't pronounced pan, it's pronounced peng. On a good day. Phonetics is all very well for Received Pronunciation speakers, but it leaves the Glaswegians and Americans hanging. No-one ought to claim that the way we write a language has anything to do with how it is said. Ask the chinese.
Yeah Irish is a ***** that way, but even hiberno english (the dialect of english spoken in ireland) can be hard for others to understand, one of my friends is an american exchange student who often hasn't a clue what I'm talking about. Part of the problem could be that the standardised english tought in schools around the worls is quite regulated and easy to learn but then when you go out and talk to people the language can often be completely different. I found that when trying to learn Mandarin at least...Outright Villainy said: