Is English the easiest or hardest language to learn?

Answer 1

It is the hardest language to learn simply because in english the spelling might sometimes trick you. For example phone is spelled with a "ph" and not an "f". Most other languages if they have a word that makes the f sound, they use that same letter sound for all words. If you take latin you might understand more clearly.

Answer 2

English is neither the easiest or hardest language to learn.

If it's the first language (i.e. from a babies perspective), every language is of similar difficulty. A child will learn chinese as easily as Swahili as easily as English.

If English is being learned as a second language by an adult, then difficulty depends on many factors, but most importantly, the if the structure of English is similar to the structure of the the learner's native language.

Do they have the same/similar sounds?
Do they mark tense in a similar way?
Do they have the same word order?
Do they read left to right or right to left?
Do they share a common ancestor language so some words may be similar (i.e. English & German, Spanish & French)

All these things make a difference. Hope this helps.

Answer 3

English is generally difficult. While there are rules (and plenty of them), most have a metric ton of exceptions. Plurals, for example, the s - could be pronounced as /s/ or /z/. Or it may be an irregular plural, such as teeth. When you say that it matters 'how we say things', i assume you're talking about pitch. It DOES matter how we say things in english. For example, English is massively dependent on word order. Mandarin is not (I think all that matters is that you put the verb at the end). This applies to many other languages, ie Russain. I can say the following sentances and they make perfect sence and mean the exact same thing (these are direct translations. Russain has no articles for they are omitted) Ivan gave Boris book Ivan Boris book gave Boris book gave Ivan My mom also LOVES to complain that English has tons of homophones, and often has issues distinguising between words. These things are based on perspective, really. I'm sure mandarin speakers would find english hard. As a non-native speaker, I personally found it easy, however when I learned it I was 7 years old, and immersed in it. I've found that the older you get the harder it is to learn it.

Answer 4

English is one of the hardest language to learn.

Answer 5

There is no such thing as an easy language. Some have feminine and masculine words. English does not have that but because there are so many places where the rule is broken I would say it is one of the hardest. Here is an example: The verb "to go" can be said as I go, I went, they are gone. The general rule is to just add "ed" as in I walked, he walked, they walked. There is no rule that keeps everything in order.

Answer 6

It all depends on your definition of easy, and the native language of the learnee.

While English is hard when you take into account the messed up grammar and such, it's fairly easy to learn with a background in German or any other Anglo languages.

Also, English is one of these most widely spoken languages, and is crucial in business and science. However, depending on the environment, it could be practically useless.

Answer 7

I think it is one of the easiest. Because in other countries like Japan or China people from North America don't learn there language as fast as Japanese and Chinese people learn English.

Answer 8

Every language is difficult to learn at first but it could possibly be the easiest because it has roots from all possible origins

Answer 9

english is by far the hardest language to learn.

Answer 10

The hardest. What other language has words that are spelled the same but pronounced differently?

Ex....I've read that book.....or....You need to read that book.