People who say English is the hardest language to learn.

gurl88 · 29-11-2013 12:39PM

English is not my mother tongue and I'm sure my writing and speech will never be absolutely perfect, but to me it's definitely not the hardest language to learn. My own language, which is Dutch, has far more exceptions on grammar rules for example. I was taught three foreign languages in school and English always came naturaly to me eventhough I'm not much of a 'language person'.

biko · 29-11-2013 12:41PM

seamus wrote: »

As a simple example, in english we say "beautiful woman", in french we say "belle femme" (woman beautiful).

Those are both "beautiful woman" but I get your point.
For instance German has the verb at the end of the sentence - "Er ist ein Mann, der oft Berlin besucht." (He is a man who often Berlin visits).

Dravokivich · 29-11-2013 12:43PM

biko wrote: »

It's impossible to say a certain lingo is harder to learn than another.
English is one of the most recognised lingos and therefore should be easier to learn. Also it doesn't have any particularly difficult pronunciations if you compare to Dutch, Chinese or Xhosa.

I have no idea how to pronounce Xhosa!

IvyTheTerrible · 29-11-2013 12:44PM

I know a good few foreigners living in Ireland who say English is not that hard to learn. The people who have said to me that English is hard to learn, are generally people who've never stayed a significant length of time in an Anglophone country.

Shenshen · 29-11-2013 12:46PM

I'm actually a little bemused at this thread... I always assumed English was one of the easiest languages to learn?

That's what I've been told all my life anyway, and that's why I never assumed being fluent in English as a second language was much of an achievement?

danniemcq · 29-11-2013 12:47PM

gurl88 wrote: »

English is not my mother tongue and I'm sure my writing and speech will never be absolutely perfect, but to me it's definitely not the hardest language to learn. My own language, which is Dutch, has far more exceptions on grammar rules for example. I was taught three foreign languages in school and English always came naturaly to me eventhough I'm not much of a 'language person'.

Dutch, is that just english with an extra "sh" at the end of everything. Sorry couldn't resist!

I love the dutch language, well the sound of it at least I cannot learn new languages, even Irish despite going out with a native speaker is beyond me bar knowing how to ask can i go to the loo

Dravokivich wrote: »

I have no idea how to pronounce Xhosa!

The "Xh" is pronounced K, the "s" is silent and the "a" is the sound of a shoe dropping on a concrete floor

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNoS2BU6bbQ

Atletico56 · 29-11-2013 12:48PM

danniemcq wrote: »

We must polish the Polish furniture.
He could lead if he would get the lead out.
The farm was used to produce produce.
The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
The soldier decided to desert in the desert.
This was a good time to present the present.
A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
I did not object to the object.
The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
The bandage was wound around the wound.
There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
They were too close to the door to close it.
The buck does funny things when the does are present.
They sent a sewer down to stitch the tear in the sewer line.
To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
After a number of injections my jaw got number.
Upon seeing the tear in my clothes I shed a tear.
I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?
I read it once and will read it agen
I learned much from this learned treatise.
I was content to note the content of the message.
The Blessed Virgin blessed her. Blessed her richly.
It's a bit wicked to over-trim a short wicked candle.
If he will absent himself we mark him absent.
I incline toward bypassing the incline.

There are loads more of examples here

In German there are similar confusing sentences and probably in a lot of other languages.

Shenshen · 29-11-2013 12:49PM

biko wrote: »

Those are both "beautiful woman" but I get your point.
For instance German has the verb at the end of the sentence - "Er ist ein Mann, der oft Berlin besucht." (He is a man who often Berlin visits).

German tends to be more flexible in grammar, though.
You can easily swap that round to "Er ist ein Mann, der besucht of Berlin" and it would be perfectly ok. English is far more rigid in tis structures - Noun, verb, object. With the exception of questions, it can barely ever be altered.

danniemcq · 29-11-2013 12:51PM

Atletico56 wrote: »

In German there are similar confusing sentences and probably in a lot of other languages.

True plus the Germans have words for things we don't, I was just using that one as an example, if you follow the link there are loads more although some have been mentioned on the thread already

Shenshen · 29-11-2013 12:53PM

Atletico56 wrote: »

In German there are similar confusing sentences and probably in a lot of other languages.

Heh, no, actually. German has very few homophones, I always assumed that was why puns aren't a very highly regarded form of humour in German speaking countries. They tend to play with grammar a lot more, and are fond of absurd exaggerations.

danniemcq · 29-11-2013 12:54PM

Shenshen wrote: »

Heh, no, actually. German has very few homophones, I always assumed that was why puns aren't a very highly regarded form of humour in German speaking countries. They tend to play with grammar a lot more, and are fond of absurd exaggerations.

yeah it actually took them 28 months to take Paris

Shenshen · 29-11-2013 12:56PM

danniemcq wrote: »

yeah it actually took them 28 months to take Paris

Understandably - Parisian is German for condom, after all.

Davidius · 29-11-2013 12:57PM

seamus wrote: »

As a simple example, in english we say "beautiful woman", in french we say "belle femme" (woman beautiful). This kind of word reversal exists all over the place. So while you can remember the words, you also have to remember how to string them together to make any sense.
English, afaik, is actually more flexible in this regard, so if (to quote the Simpsons), "I am a new tie wearing", the meaning is fairly clear to most english speakers. I don't know if, it's quite as easy for a French speaker to decipher a french sentence similarly jumbled. Maybe it is.

Many languages could differentiate that using a declension/case system, to the point that word order might not matter at all. I suspect a lot of languages are a lot more flexible than English in that regard, which probably makes it difficult for English speakers to learn them. I wouldn't know about French in particular though.

biko · 29-11-2013 12:58PM

Polyglots are amazing

Here is Shakira speaking a few different languages, incl English. Mind, the others are Latin-based so quite similar but still.

Atletico56 · 29-11-2013 01:01PM

Shenshen wrote: »

Heh, no, actually. German has very few homophones, I always assumed that was why puns aren't a very highly regarded form of humour in German speaking countries. They tend to play with grammar a lot more, and are fond of absurd exaggerations.

Maybe not specifically homophones, but there are aspescts much more difficult than english.

Rubeter · 29-11-2013 01:02PM

Dravokivich wrote: »

I have no idea how to pronounce Xhosa!

The X is a click.

Listen to this fella.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31zzMb3U0iY

HansHolzel · 29-11-2013 01:03PM

Going by the (doorstep-size) language books foreign nationals have typically shown me, it seems publishers think they are required to be expert in BBC-speak from around 1940. Time and time again, I've had to stress to them the difference between real-world English (and how it varies from country to country) and the tortuous crap in those books.

e.g. I tell them to ignore 'shall'. If they can't grasp its merely rhetorical usage, in Ireland, I tell them the Americans don't use it, which is usually enough to convince.

Otherwise I agree with OnTheCouch.

An Coilean · 29-11-2013 01:03PM

Atletico56 wrote: »

What are they basing this on?

The people who I've heard say this can only speak English, how would they know?

English is a horrible mess of a language by comparrision to many others. How words are pronounced by comparrision to spelling is all over the place. Its grammer is fairy messy too, for one of the rules of spelling that was taught in schools, they found out that there were actually more exceptions to it than examples of it. Massive amounts of irrigularity in verbs and the SVO structure of sentences is also quite unusual.

One of the big problems is that there is no proper standard English. The closest thing to an authority on the language is the Oxford dictionary, but even then you have several other versions of the language that don't always go along with that.

Atletico56 · 29-11-2013 01:05PM

An Coilean wrote: »

English is a horrible mess of a language by comparrision to many others. How words are pronounced by comparrision to spelling is all over the place. Its grammer is fairy messy too, for one of the rules of spelling that was taught in schools, they found out that there were actually more exceptions to it than examples of it. Massive amounts of irrigularity in verbs and the SVO structure of sentences is also quite unusual.

One of the big problems is that there is no proper standard English. The closest thing to an authority on the language is the Oxford dictionary, but even then you have several other versions of the language that don't always go along with that.

Yes but is it more if a "horrible mess" than French or Finnish?

29-11-2013 01:06PM

I don't think it's that difficult
I hear non native speakers having the same issues with phrasal verbs and prepositions that I know I have with german. auflesen has nothing to do with reading! ich freue mich auf/an/ueber! ich rede um den heissen brei herum :pac:
As for borrowed pronunciations, I haven't a notion if an english word in german is pronounced english or not. Half the time it's one way and half the time it's another. We get a great giggle out of it in class :pac:

Nah I'd say it's grand especially for the basics, then you need to get into the higher subtleties. I did hear a french guy tell me once that english was useless and it hardly had any synonyms or useful adjectives, though. Maybe you don't know them, pal... :pac:
French was okay as well but I only took it to honours LC, that was certainly straightforward enough

I'm sure trying to learn something like japanese or russian as an english speaking native is hard, though I don't know much about them - maybe they're ok once you get past the whole alphabet thing...

CatLou · 29-11-2013 01:08PM

gurl88 wrote: »

English is not my mother tongue and I'm sure my writing and speech will never be absolutely perfect, but to me it's definitely not the hardest language to learn. My own language, which is Dutch, has far more exceptions on grammar rules for example. I was taught three foreign languages in school and English always came naturaly to me eventhough I'm not much of a 'language person'.

This. I may not speak the most perfectly flawless english but it's not half as hard as some other languages. Try learning russian like I did, for instance. And I'm sure some other languages are probably harder, like japanese or mandarin.

An Coilean · 29-11-2013 01:12PM

Atletico56 wrote: »

Yes but is it more if a "horrible mess" than French or Finnish?

Well more of a horrible mess than French, I know nothing about Finnish so I cant say about that.

humbert · 29-11-2013 01:15PM

Shenshen wrote: »

I'm actually a little bemused at this thread... I always assumed English was one of the easiest languages to learn?

That's what I've been told all my life anyway, and that's why I never assumed being fluent in English as a second language was much of an achievement?

I'd say German is the easiest background from which to approach English. If you were Asian you could quite rightfully consider fluency in English a considerable achievement.

gurl88 · 29-11-2013 01:19PM

danniemcq wrote: »

Dutch, is that just english with an extra "sh" at the end of everything. Sorry couldn't resist!

Dutch doesn't use the 'sh' combination of letters nor sound. If so it's probably a word that derives from an English one. The typical Dutch sound is the 'sch' or hard 'g', what to me sounds a bit like sounds from the Irish language. "sch" would never be written at the end of a word though, I'm afraid you are mistaking Dutch for Russian, Polish or another more eastern european language.

OnTheCouch · 29-11-2013 01:25PM

In my experience, although as I say, most foreigners do not reach this level, it tends to be the Danish (and the Germans to a lesser degree) who get the closest to speaking like natives after spending a while in Anglophone countries.

Why this is so, I'm sure is fairly obvious after a bit of research, but I find that other countries who have a good reputation when it comes to speaking English, e.g. the Dutch and other Scandinavian countries, never seem to be able to shake off their native accent completely.

Interestingly enough, I often found many educated Portuguese speakers (mostly from Portugal but some from Brazil also) able to get to a very proficient level, even though there would not be many similarities between Portuguese and English in my opinion.

danniemcq · 29-11-2013 01:28PM

gurl88 wrote: »

Dutch doesn't use the 'sh' combination of letters nor sound. If so it's probably a word that derives from an English one. The typical Dutch sound is the 'sch' or hard 'g', what to me sounds a bit like sounds from the Irish language. "sch" would never be written at the end of a word though, I'm afraid you are mistaking Dutch for Russian, Polish or another more eastern european language.

Nah i know in a giddy mood and was going off things like top gear and austin powers, eg yesh

Shenshen · 29-11-2013 01:33PM

humbert wrote: »

I'd say German is the easiest background from which to approach English. If you were Asian you could quite rightfully consider fluency in English a considerable achievement.

Really? I always found the grammar to be very different between the two languages.

Are we talking about mastering the language, now, or the accent?

Atletico56 · 29-11-2013 01:42PM

Shenshen wrote: »

Really? I always found the grammar to be very different between the two languages.

Are we talking about mastering the language, now, or the accent?

As a native English speaker attempting to learn German I find the grammar to be very different.

biko · 29-11-2013 01:46PM

This is the guy to ask about learning languages

The Pheasant2 · 29-11-2013 01:46PM

I can't see it being that difficult to learn - I mean consider the level of English people in other countries are exposed to with movies, music, advertising etc. In comparison to our exposure to foreign languages.

Also I can imagine students of English having a significantly higher drive to learn it as it's such a useful language. When I was in school and we were learning French or Spanish or whatever there was certainly a degree of "Why do we need to learn this? We already speak English after all."

People who say English is the hardest language to learn.

Comments