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

Question

There are hardly and verb conjugations, no hard sounds, no gender, no agreement with adjective and the subject, no cases. SO why do people say it's one of the hardest?

Answer 1

because of the spelling... its just weird, and a lot of people are used to these things, and are confused cauz we dont have them.

Answer 2

English spelling is complicated (different rules apply to different subsets of words) and there are lots of idioms. English also has a large vocabulary--there are a lot of words that mean similar things, but have very specific definitions or complex shades of meaning. On the other hand, there are also a few words that mean lots of different things, like "that." There's also a number of compound verbs that can be confusing to non-native speakers, like take in, take out, take off, take on. There are lots of quirks, like what preposition (if any) goes with a verb, and how we speak and write can vary lot depending on the style. I sometimes tutor international students at my university in writing, and we spend almost always spend most of our time going over their vocabulary choices.

English does have hard sounds--for many people, the "th" sound in words like "thin" and "that" is very difficult to pronounce! So are some of the vowel sounds. Also, depending on what a person's first language is, they may have trouble with things like articles (a, an, the), word order, or pronoun agreement, just to name a few.

I don't think you can say "X is the hardest language anyone can ever learn," though; it depends on the person, and what their first language is. I think English is somewhat easier to learn if you're a native speaker of French, Spanish or German than if your first langauge is, say, Russian, Japanese, or Hindi.

Answer 3

I'm afraid a large part of it is arrogance ... but it's not only English speakers who have this attitude, most languages have many native speakers who believe that THEIR language is the hardest language in the world to learn!! All for the same reason, in my opinion..!

This arrogance is mainly caused by their own personal attitude to foreigners trying to speak the language. In the case of English, foreigners come along, trying desperately to learn - to understand and to be understood - but Mr & Mrs English-speaker can't figure out what the heck Mr & Mrs Foreigner are trying to say! Even once a foreigner has mastered the language, they STILL have an accent - and this also irritates Mr & Mrs English-speaker! After all, they reason, if Mr Foreigner can't pronounce 'ask' (axe), and Mrs Foreigner can't pronounce 'allegedly' (arrejedory) then English MUST be too difficult for foreigners!!

The real fun starts when Mr & Mrs English-speaker try to learn a new language ... usually they soon change their minds and decided that their chosen second language is THE most difficult language to learn..! Sometimes though, they feel that they're doing SO well that they have quickly become fluent! This is despite the fact that the native speakers can't understand Mr & Mrs English-speaker's accent..! The danger of this situation is that their arrogance leads them to believe that their second language is TOO easy to learn, and therefore all the native speakers must be stupid..!!

Apart from the arrogance inspired by hearing foreigners 'mangling' the English language, another reason for people believing that English is the hardest language to learn is because it makes them feel CLEVER! After all, THEY managed to learn it when they were little kids! And the fact that they COULD do that just proves what geniuses they are...!!! If they accept that English is no more difficult to learn than, say, Spanish - then they are forced to accept that Spanish people are of equal intelligence!!
; D

But as I say, it's not just English speakers! There are questions on the French Yahoo! Answers site asking why French is the hardest language to learn, and on the Japanese Answers site asking why Japanese is the hardest to learn ... I'll bet you'd find similar questions on all the other sites too, about the relevant language...!!

Answer 4

The spelling system is the number one reason. Actually you are quite right in terms of word formation--English has virtually no inflection on either its verbs or its nouns. The places where English is hard is in its strict word order and in its large vocabulary. Differences which other languages make using suffixes on a word, we will often make using different words or strict word order. However, languages which have little word inflection are often actually EASIER to gain a basic level of fluency in than other languages. So while the average English word is only two or three syllables long, the average Hungarian word is much longer.

Answer 5

It always depends on point of view. From a native French speaker point of view, English has a lot of difficult aspects: Verb tenses have nothing in common with French verb tenses (Future Perfect Progressive? How complex is that???) and spelling/pronunciation is problematic as well, with so many letters producing so many different sounds, and so many sounds written in so many different ways.

For me, I didn't find English too difficult, but many people think it is, and you can't argue. Different people have different skills, and therefore find different things difficult or easy.

Answer 6

A decade ago to learn English, you had to attend costly English classes or purchase course material like tapes and books. Now you can learn English for free from the comfort of your home using the internet. The BBC and the British Council offer a number of online courses which teach written and spoken English. You can also improve your English by watching television programs and reading English newspapers. For more information, visit http://tinyurl.com/qnzpt

Answer 7

I believe a lot of it has to do with the conjugation of our verbs. For example: I go, I am going, I do go; I went, I was going, I did go; I will go, I will be going. Each tense (present, past, future) shows different concepts, which in other languages, is consilidated in one phrase. Example, in German, Ich gehe means I go, I am going, I do go.

Being that English has so many redundant conjugations of verbs, and the idea behind each one is difficult for a foreigner to learn, makes English more difficult for foreigners, comparative to other languages.

Answer 8

english is a mixture of all sorts of langauges. we have many influences that together create the english language, so there isnt all that much consistancy. our spelling can also be very hard, as it is not always spelt phonetically, similarly the way we pronounce words that look nothing like the way there are spelt. we have multiple exceptions for every single grammar rule that we have.

Answer 9

English is not a pure language. It's words are a collection of Latin, Greek, German, French, Anglo, etc... For every rule there are exceptions. Spelling is not phonetic. To use English properly requires more memorization than most languages.

Answer 10

People think that English is hard to learn because there are too many difficult words that mean something simple, too much slang, our spelling is harder, and if they already speak another language it is harder to learn how to pronounce certain words.

Answer 11

there are quite alot of words that are spelled the same but mean different things, like 'mean' for example.
also, why do we get IN a car but get ON a bus.
these are just a few examples where it may be confusing for someone trying to learn the language from nothing.