When asked what is the hardest language to learn, the majority say that English is hard?
Do you agree?
2006-08-19 21:13:39 · 27 answers · asked by itsme 3 in Society & Culture ➔ Languages
I do not agree that English is 'so hard' to learn. It's all relative. Try your hand at Persian, Russian, Japanese, Georgean... and come back to English. You find it absolutely simple. Sure, English has one of the most irregular grammars of all languages, but for the very reason, English is very forgiving. You will not communicate a wrong meaning by mispronouncing a word as in Chinese or French.
2006-08-19 22:18:34 · answer #1 · answered by Chandu 1 · 2⤊ 1⤋
i do beleive that english is a hard language, but im not saying that its the hardest. some people find english hard to learn because english has alot of rules you have to follow. also english has alot of words that dont sound like its spelled, english also has alot of words that are spelled the same but have a different meanings. soo yea i do think that english could be a hard language to learn.
2014-01-25 12:57:25 · answer #2 · answered by Nicole 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
YES!
Though I am a native speaker, in my pursuit of other languages I have often traded practice with people from many other backgrounds. They all say that English is harder than any other (spoken) language they have learned.
It is too irregular; full of exceptions. Some of this stems from the integration of words from so many other languages without some form of regularization. Take a new visitor to Worcester, Massachusetts and ask them where they are. Nobody gets it right...meaning that we natives probably have it wrong!
Another difficulty is some of the sounds used don't correlate with sounds in the native languages. The soft "i" is one that often takes a lot of work not to mention "l" combinations.
Having the add "the", "a", "an" is another aspect that most non-native speakers don't internalize quickly. Even when they do, knowing which one to use is a further skill.
I'm *glad* I don't have to learn English as a second language!
2006-08-20 04:25:16 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 7⤊ 1⤋
English is not the hardest language to learn. It is no harder or easier than any other language, it depends on what other languages you already know. Dutch people don't seem to have very many problems with it because English and Dutch are closely related. You want a hard language to learn? Try Archi, it has 1.5 MILLION different forms for each and every verb in the language. Try !Xóõ, it has 126 different consonants, over half of which are click sounds. Try Pawnee, which has one-syllable verbs that you put so many prefixes on that they can be 25-30 syllables long. Or try Jarawa, which has 200 speakers, none of whom know any other language, and who won't allow outsiders on their island, so NO ONE can learn Jarawa.
2006-08-20 10:32:18 · answer #4 · answered by Taivo 7 · 1⤊ 2⤋
I don't think English is hard in terms of grammar compared to other languages. I speak Russian, and English is my 2nd language. My opinion is that Russian grammar is way more difficult to grasp. But in terms of correlation between spelling and pronunciation English would more complicated. It also depends on linguistic background of a person who learns English. For example, a French speaker would experience less difficulties learning English than Russian, while for a Chinese speaker it would make a whole lot difference.
So, there is no distinct answer weather English is hard or not. It all depends on particular aspects of a language, your background and circumstances under which you learn.
2006-08-20 04:30:18 · answer #5 · answered by Dr. Adriano Nostromo 2 · 8⤊ 1⤋
The English language has evolved from many other languages and so differing words that appear alike are dealt with under differing rules because of the origin of the word....
for instance
the plural of octopus is octopi
the plural of platypus is platypus
one is latin in origin and the other greek in origin...
also when you have words like:
tough
trough
bough
cough
that all look alike but sound differently
combined with many words that sound alike but are spelled differently such as:
by, buy
bawl, ball
bough, bow
to, too, two
road, rode
roe, row
pie, pi
pier, peer
they're, there, their
dye, die
flea, flee
see, sea
bier, buyer
aren't, aunt
then toss in the variant differences from one english speaking country to another......
and you have a pretty darn compliated langauge where the rule seems to be the rules should all be broken sometimes
2006-08-20 04:30:12 · answer #6 · answered by wollemi_pine_writer 6 · 7⤊ 1⤋
My guess is that it is because English has been so influenced by other languages: Low German and French among them. The person may know a language they think is similar to English only to find out that similarities do not always hold true in every instance.
2006-08-20 04:19:24 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 2⤋
I think Vietnamese is really hard, with all its inflections. English is really odd with word that are spelled the same but completely different meanings. Notice when you look up a good dictionary, the word will have meaning 1, 2, 3... We have to work it out by its context. don't you think that would make it hard to learn.
2006-08-20 04:24:30 · answer #8 · answered by fathermartin121 6 · 6⤊ 1⤋
Well it depends on what your native language is. English is a Germanic language, so is my native language Dutch. So, for me English is not as much of a challenge as it would have been, if I would have born in China.
2006-08-20 06:06:44 · answer #9 · answered by alternative_be 3 · 4⤊ 1⤋
It's hard but it's not the hardest, the reason it's most commonly mentioned is because it's the one most commonly learned by non-english speakers.
2006-08-20 04:21:57 · answer #10 · answered by vampire_kitti 6 · 2⤊ 1⤋