Is it because of the many varieties in pronunciation, meanings, & spellings?
2007-08-31 18:01:47 · 15 answers · asked by Anonymous in Society & Culture ➔ Languages
So far, the only people who I have heard saying that were English native speakers who had never tried to learn any other language....
2007-09-01 06:23:13 · answer #1 · answered by sannaparis 2 · 3⤊ 0⤋
The current thinking by linguistics experts is that basic English is relatively easy to learn, but that learning English very well is relatively hard. English is a messy language, with borrowings from many other languages, and very irregular spelling as a result. But the hardest part is that it has very difficult sentence structure once you get into subtle and complex writing, because many things that make small differences don't seem to follow understandable rules.
Still, compared to some other world languages, English is a breeze. Tonal languages like Chinese are very difficult to learn other than in childhood. Navajo is so complicated that it was used as an unbreakable code by Navajo "code talkers" in the U.S. Army. Some African languages are so grammatically complex (some turn every sentence into a single complex word) that it takes forever for non-native-speakers just to figure them out, much less learn them.
Within the language family that English belongs to (Indo-European), it is one of the harder languages to learn very well. The more regular languages with a more prescriptive grammar are easier. But if you consider all the languages in the world, English is far less hard than many.
2007-08-31 20:02:35 · answer #2 · answered by Lisa B 7 · 3⤊ 0⤋
Anyone who thinks English is hard should try something like Chinese. It is probably one of the easier languages to use if one ignores the niceties of grammar and spelling (common on this site) and just wants to convey meaning. To speak and write English as an educated native speaker is rather hard, though; but this must be so in any language.
2007-08-31 20:06:57 · answer #3 · answered by galyamike 5 · 1⤊ 0⤋
It might be hard for someone whos language isnt closely related to English. And plus any language is easy if you were born speaking it. English is hard in a way because we have a lot of words that sound the same and mean different things or are spelled the same yet dont mean the same thing in different situations.
2007-08-31 18:15:44 · answer #4 · answered by Rapture say wahhh?? 6 · 3⤊ 1⤋
i am a moment language speaker of english and that i believe english isn't that handy however now not that tough both. possibly it is on the grounds that i began studying it seeing that i used to be slightly child. the brick partitions in english possibly are = a million. you do not pronounce a phrase similar to the letter sounds within the english alphabet. good, believe approximately spanish.. two. a few grammar three. extensive variety of vocabs each and every language has its possess problems.
2016-09-05 19:50:54 · answer #5 · answered by dysart 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The problem is that the English language does not have hard and fast rules over the grammar in the language. For example, "they're, their, there" as 3 words are all pronounced the same, but have complete different meanings. "they're" means "they are" "Their" means ownership in something like their eye color was blue. And "there" means There it is! As one points to a thing in the distance. No other language has this kind of similar sounding words with dissimilar, unrelated meanings. Every language has a form of slang, but only English has huge numbers of words which have multiple spellings and meanings.
2007-08-31 18:39:35 · answer #6 · answered by rowlfe 7 · 2⤊ 2⤋
My mother was German and she felt that English was "a stupid language." I can understand her point of view. German spelling is pretty well phonetic and its grammar is pretty consistent. On the other hand, you have remember the gender of each noun. I think that the big problem with English is that it has incorporated so many other languages over its evolution. English has its roots in old German and French, plus a bunch of other stuff.
Myself, I would find a language like Chinese or Arabic to be totally confusing.
2007-08-31 18:14:09 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 3⤊ 1⤋
I don't think it's the hardest language to learn.
Compared to French, English is a breeze. French has so many silent sounds, English has few. The nouns in French have gender (it has two definite articles, "le" and "la"... l'homme, la femme) while the nouns in English are all neuter (thus, it has only one definite article "the"... the man, the woman)
I think the only hard part of English is the conjugation of the verb "be." But then again, its conjugation does not have to agree in gender.
I can go on and on. English isn't the hardest language to learn.
2007-08-31 18:12:17 · answer #8 · answered by 123mantobeat456 6 · 4⤊ 1⤋
All of those. I learned Turkish, which is also a difficult one (but for different reasons). The cool thing about their language, however, is that every letter always sounds the same. Telephone is telefon.
Our c's sound like k's or s's. Gh together is 'f'. And you have letters in words that aren't pronounces at all, like the gh in night.
2007-08-31 18:09:52 · answer #9 · answered by worldsojourner 2 · 2⤊ 0⤋
It IS one of the hardest languages to learn. Look at the words: cough, dough, thorough; "ough" is pronounced differently in each word. Look at other words in our language like BOW - I have a bow in my hair and "bow to the queen when you meet her." Same spelling - two different words
I am getting myself confused now !!!! Good thing I already know English. LOL
2007-08-31 18:41:53 · answer #10 · answered by Patti C 7 · 4⤊ 1⤋