nav[aria-label="Primary Navigation"] { padding: 0; & ul { list-style: none; width: 100%; display: flex; flex-direction: row; justify-content: start; align-items: start; gap: 30px; padding: 0; & li { margin: 0; } & ul li { list-style: none; } } }

Child Item

To the foreigners!

[Deleted User]

Question: how difficult is English to learn? I know it has its quirks and inconsistencies, but I've learned French, German and Spanish... giving me the impression that English seems like it would be a breeze in comparison to them. But of course I'm gonna think that when English is my first language. However, we've no masculine/feminine/neutral to think about, don't need to think about the seven million cases like in German, context doesn't change words (like the way there are two "to be's" in Spanish).

I dunno... maybe English is hard in ways I take for granted?

Should add: I mean in comparison to languages with the same alphabet.

Find more posts tagged with

Quick Links

Comments

Allinall

I'd imagine all the English, Americans, Australians and many more don't have any problems learning English.

Pherekydes

English spelling and pronunciation are inconsistent, unlike most other languages. This makes it very difficult to learn.

SupplyandDemandZone

The vast vast majority of our own people can't speak our own language so we really aren't ones to be talking.

Kat1170

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118023021#Comment_118023021

Eh, I'd imagine you're wrong on that one 😂

[Deleted User]

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118023037#Comment_118023037

To be talking about what?

seamus

I'm not a foreigner, but I have seen it said that English is the hardest language to learn out of all the ones that use the latin alphabet.

The main issue with English is that there are patterns, but also a fuckload of exceptions to those patterns, and no real way to know what those are except to just pick it up over time.

For example, we say "i before e except after c", but weirdly even a simple rule like that is not true.

Plurals are a mess. Sometimes you add an s. Cars. Sometimes you change the word completely. Mice. Sometimes the singular and the plural are the same word. Fish. How can you tell? You can't! You just have to learn it!

Pronunciation is a mess. Not only are there silent letters everywhere (island), but the same letter sequence doesn't always make the same sounds. Sometimes two letter sequences make the exact same sound. As treat, on the street, with a book and a boom, I like to beat my great meat. How can you tell? You can't! Just learn it!

Of course, pronunciations also vary regionally. Sometimes book rhymes with took. Unless you're in Dublin where book and cook rhyme with puke, but not always with took.

The saving grace here is that out of all languages, English speakers are probably the most forgiving of mistakes. And this is probably because there are so many exceptions, that it's more important to the listener that they understand what you're trying to say rather than that you get it right. Because we get it wrong all the time too.

So when a foreigner says, "Mouses" or "fishes", there's no question about what they're trying to say.

The best quote I've read about English is that it's 3 languages wearing a trenchcoat, pretending to be one.

[Deleted User]

It's very easy to make yourself understood I think, and since the basic grammar is quite simple you can converse quickly and it grows from there.

I'd imagine it's a hard one to be perfect at, but since the vast majority of native speakers aren't either, no one will notice or care

AckwelFoley

English must be hard.

Ask any American. Theyre 250 years trying to learn it and still can't speak it

jim o doom

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118023027#Comment_118023027

There's lots of local and regional dialects of languages in loads of countries. In Paris they have that weird backwards street speak, there's tons of regional dialects in China, I've read of city folk in Japan struggling to understand rural folk -> different accents and pronunciations are universal.

Mr. CooL ICE

Probably because the language is a bastardisation of several older languages. People from German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch and Arabic speaking countries will probably recognise a fair amount of individual words and phrases, but the grammar will be all over the shop to them.

Esperanto. Now that's a language you can set your watch to. Especially if you're European.

GreeBo

Though, tough, toe, thou, beer, bear, bare, ear, deer, dear I could go on all day!

Lester_Burnham

Bow to the chough on the bough wearing a bow.

osarusan

English language teacher and language learning and language teaching researcher here:

It all depends on who is doing the learning. Soembody who already uses the same alphabet has a headstart over somebody who doesn't. Somebody who knows a language with a lot of cognates (words similar to those in their languages) will find it easier than those with none. The same goes for languages with similar SVO structures (Subject-verb-object), similar use of prepositions, articles, similar tenses and so on. People coming from the Indo-European family of languages, from which most European languages have evolved, are well ahead in these areas, and better again if it's from a Germanic language, which is an even more recent shared ancestor.

If somebody has already learned another language before English (even better if it's a language similar to Engish in the ways listed above, but any is better than none purely in terms of cognitive processing and meta-cognitive understanding), that helps a lot too.

There's also the issue of opportunity for exposure to (less of an issue now with internet) and meaningful engagement with/use of/interaction in the target language. Somebody living in Ireland has a huge advantage over somebody in their home country, obviously.

Purely in terms of the language itself, I'd put down the perfect tenses and the horrific nightmare that is phrasal verbs as two things that consistently cause problems for learners.

Irish would be considered difficult in terms of the wide variety of ways the past tense is expressed, in comparison to the English 'ed' for example, and also the many ways to say me/I.

Basque is typically considered one of the most difficult languages to learn, as it (along with a few other languages) is a language isolate, meaning that there are are none of the cognates mentioned above.

Squeeonline

https://www.learnenglish.de/pronunciation/pronunciationpoem.html

Dearest creation in creation....

My partner is german speaking, but thinks that english was really easy to learn. There's no shortage of "good content" movies/TV etc for immersion.

The fine grammatical details are hard, but getting to the point where you can effectively get your message across is easier than other languages apparently.

Annascaul

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058213247/to-the-foreigners

The thing is, French and Spanish are related. The grammar is very very similar, and most French people would understand and be able to read Spanish to a high degree, but would probably struggle with the pronunciation.

Spaniards would probably have a tougher time to learn French, but it's more down to the pronunciation as well.

In Romania they have it easy. Romanians should understand Italian with ease and learn French or Spanish with minimal effort.

It's more down to how languages are related and also down to the personal aptitude of each learner.

whisky_galore

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118023068#Comment_118023068

To be talking about the way we're not talking it. In English.

magicbastarder

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118023099#Comment_118023099

The main issue with English is that there are patterns, but also a fuckload of exceptions to those patterns, and no real way to know what those are except to just pick it up over time.

blame the flemish printers (this is a good listen on this topic)

https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/corpse-corps-horse-and-worse/

Igotadose

having been a student in an advanced Spanish class which served as an ESL class for native Spanish speakers, it was FAR easier to learn Spanish for me, than English for them. TBF, Spanish is known to be the easiest of the romance languages.

Allinall

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118023115#Comment_118023115

A language can’t be hard, or soft for that matter.

Americans might find it difficult; same as yourself.

Pussyhands

This is what I usually ask foreigners if I know them long enough and nearly all of them say it's the easiest language to learn.

[Deleted User]

Rules like I before E are not very scientific... And the pronunciations are very difficult to get a handle on as well... Especially the vowels - there's no rhyme nor reason to how they're pronounced eg do (pronounced doo) and go (pronounced goh).. That's two different sounds for the letter 'O' . A lot of it makes no sense... At least we use proper letters unlike in Russian, Chinese, Hebrew etc... so, there's that 😊

murpho999

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118023038#Comment_118023038

I think your wrong in you're post their. They're lots' of people in Ireland that you'll find cannot speak there own language good and struggle with they're English grammar particularly plural's, possession case's and inflections and contraction's.

[Deleted User]

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118023330#Comment_118023330

This makes sense to me.

bigar

I learned it as child mainly by watching the BBC which could easily be received in Belgium. It is a very easy language to learn mainly because you can form sentences with the words all out of place and it will still be understood. In my mother tongue, Dutch (and other languages), moving words in a sentence make it sound like gibberish.

Pronunciation is a breeze one you know how how every letter sounds. There are of course some words you need to know as they sound different from their spelling, "Leicester" comes to mind. English has quite a limited amount of sounds for pronunciation which makes it very easy to remember and learn.

Also English has the neat trait that all words are written separately. For instance Waterzuiveringsinstallatie in Dutch consists of the words Water, zuivering (and) installatie. In English that would be Water Treatment Plant.

AckwelFoley

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118023324#Comment_118023324

Nice try. But soft and hard can be used for the description of the non tangible

quokula

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118023218#Comment_118023218

Yeah there's more to learning a language than just the technical side of it. When I try speaking French in France the locals just speak English back to me because they can tell I'm not a native speaker. French people don't have that issue when speaking English over here. No matter what country you are in on this side of the world, English is ubiquitous, mainly from US cultural domination when it comes to movies, the internet etc. I've plenty of friends who might be e.g. Finnish and Portuguese, and they will speak English to each other because it's the language they have in common.

Even if you go somewhere like Japan, far fewer people will have any English, but in tourist spots English will be the only latin alphabet language. You're not going to see German or Spanish anywhere, so if you are German or Spanish and you don't speak Japanese you're going to end up relying on your English knowledge.

[Deleted User]

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118023345#Comment_118023345

Yeah the pronunciation and spelling thing is all over the shop... but I'm talking more about grammar. With exceptions, surely English grammar is relatively easy?

mrcheez

I learned to pronounce it "shedule" in "shool"

Sunny_Arms

its hard. also, it depends on the school. in my home country, if you're in a public school, it'll depend on what province or city you're in. it might be or might be hard learning.

i attended in private schools all my life, and i actually had a time where, while learning English, we're also learning Old English which some of it are still applied today. (i forgot what those are sorry:/ )

it helps when you're surrounded by english materials like tv and music and novels. also, early exposure to english, like maybe at 3 years old, will help in speaking, reading, and writing english.

Wibbs

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118023099#Comment_118023099

Sometimes the singular and the plural are the same word. Fish

Or fishes. It used to be fishes was the plural, but became fish. It can still be fishes in some contexts. EG if you're talking about different kinds of fish. So a bunch of trout in a river are fish, a bunch of trout and salmon and minnow in a river are fishes. If you were writing a book about the different species of fish in Ireland it would be correct to entitle it "The fishes of Ireland". So the plural of fish in general is fish, the plural of different kinds of fish is fishes. The phrase "there's more fish in the sea" is kinda wrong, it should be fishes. Or not. Talk about confusing. 😁