# Is English difficult to learn? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 24, 2003, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-english-difficult-to-learn/184009 "2003-06-24T13:04:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Dunderman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecb155/32.png) [@Dunderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunderman)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2003, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-english-difficult-to-learn/184009/21 "2003-06-24T17:00:33Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by amanset \* > **I don’t consider Swedish to be that difficult. It is a very well ordered language, there are very strict and definite rules, much more so than the likes of English.** So, have you got “en” and “ett” straight yet? > [@](#): > > \*\*There also appear (and according to what I have read) to be far fewer irregularities. OK, so there are seven or so different forms of the plural, but things like the rigid word order and much smaller number of words more than make up for this. \*\* Actually, the word order is quite _un_rigid in Swedish, but you won’t notice it much except in song lyrics and poetry. “Jag simmade in till stranden” and “In till stranden simmade jag” are both correct, valid sentences with the exact same meaning. The latter sounds a bit archaic/poetic, but it’s perfectly correct. If you’re in a song lyric/poetry situation “In till stranden jag simmade” becomes acceptable as well, although you wouldn’t talk like that in conversation. > [@](#): > > \*\*Swedish also doesn’t appear to take any meaning from the (hmm, terminology of language failing me here) stress on words. Take a simple example: > > You can drive me? > You can drive me. > > In Swedish this becomes: > > Kan du köra mig? > Du kan köra mig. > > With English you cannot derive meaning always by just hearing the words and the order, you also have to hear the stress on the sentence to work out whether it is a question or not. Things liek this don’t, at least in my experience, happen in Swedish.\*\* Not quite true. For starters, “Can you drive me?” is a question in English as well, and can never be a statement, precisely because of the word order. Also, while I don’t know if Swedish teachers frown on it, “Du kan köra mig?” is becoming more and more common. No-one ever said learning new languages was easy. ---
**Author:** ![cowgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8c91f0/32.png) [@cowgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cowgirl)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2003, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-english-difficult-to-learn/184009/22 "2003-06-24T17:19:11Z")
When I taught English most of my students were hugely frustrated by prepositions and phrasal verbs. Compared to many other languages, English has many prepositions. Up, down, with, about, around, in, out, to, about, and so on. Each has slightly different meanings and each can change the meaning of another verb: Put up (“If you come to town I can put you up for the night”) Put down (“She’s always insulting me and putting me down”) Put out (“Got a hot date tonight, maybe she’ll put out”) Put in (“Just put that pencil in the box”) All of these things have different meanings, none of which uses the same meaning for either “put” or for the preposition. There are dozens of examples like this which escape me for the moment but start paying attention and you will notice them everywhere. Also there are no consistent rules for negating them or putting pronouns in. Each phrasal verb must be memorized on its own. Very confusing. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Controvert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dec6dc/32.png) [@The\_Controvert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Controvert)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2003, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-english-difficult-to-learn/184009/23 "2003-06-24T18:41:40Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Sinungaling \* > **You have all those already existing texts in old-style English which you’d need to convert to the new-type. That would be a massive undertaking in itself.** Well, I don’t think it is impossible to design a New English that is backward compatible to the old. If you see “she teached for twelve years”, are you confused? One of those five words isn’t English. I’d start by relaxing some of the stranger rules. The morphing would be slow and steady. Don’t underestimate context, which will aid the transition tremendously. If everyone spelled “favorite” and “favourite” the same, would there really be such a terrible confusion? ---
**Author:** ![dougie\_monty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2003, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-english-difficult-to-learn/184009/24 "2003-06-24T20:45:04Z")
Compare the conjugations of “to go” in some languages: Spanish To go=_ir_ I go=_voy_ I went=_fui_ I used to go=_(yo) iba_ I shall go=_ire_ (accented “e”) Esperanto: to go= _iri_ I/you/he/she/we/you/they go/goes=_mi/vi/li/shi/ghi/ni/vi/ili iras_ I went=_mi iris_ I would go=_mi irus_ I shall go=_mi iros_ (Don’t get me started on the conditional in Spanish, French, or Italian; or the verb “to go” in _any_ tense in Russian!) ---
**Author:** ![amanset](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@amanset](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amanset)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2003, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-english-difficult-to-learn/184009/25 "2003-06-24T20:45:52Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Priceguy \* > \*\*So, have you got “en” and “ett” straight yet? > \*\* Not entirely. This is the one area I have found with Swedish that lacks rules, but I still maintain that as a whole Swedish is much more structured than English. > [@](#): > > \*\* > Actually, the word order is quite _un_rigid in Swedish, but you won’t notice it much except in song lyrics and poetry. “Jag simmade in till stranden” and “In till stranden simmade jag” are both correct, valid sentences with the exact same meaning. The latter sounds a bit archaic/poetic, but it’s perfectly correct. If you’re in a song lyric/poetry situation “In till stranden jag simmade” becomes acceptable as well, although you wouldn’t talk like that in conversation. > \*\* Actually that is taught in SFI and Medborgarskolan (the two seperate courses I have taken). From my notes: Klara dricker mjölk i köket på kvällen På kvällen dricker klara mjölk i köket I köket dricker klara mjölk på kvällen Mjölk dricker klara i köket på kvällen This can be generalised as: Subject: Klara Verb: dricker Object: Mjölk Place: på köket Time: på kvällen Then, to form a statement there are four distinct ways of ordering these five “parts”: S V O P T T V S O P P V S O T O V S P T Note the placement of the verb in all of these cases. In English it is not a matter of simply moving the components around. In one case extra words have to be brough in to make the statement. Also, the verb placement is no longer uniform. Klara drinks milk in the kitchen in the evening. In the kitchen Klara drinks milk in the evening In the evening Klara drinks milk in the kitchen Milk is drunk by Klara in the kitchen in the evening. Of course this is just a basic sentence. When you get into compound sentences the rigidity of Swedish really shows. Bisats/Huvudsats see the words being very strictly ordered but frankly if I go on any more here I am going to start boring people. > [@](#): > > \*\* > Not quite true. For starters, “Can you drive me?” is a question in English as well, and can never be a statement, precisely because of the word order. Also, while I don’t know if Swedish teachers frown on it, “Du kan köra mig?” is becoming more and more common. > \*\* Well, in the lessons I have gone to (and I have been to many) they definitely do frown upon it. Anyway, you opened up another point: Can you drive me? You can drive me? Same words, two subtely different questions. One is asking of someone can drive you, the other asks for confirmation that someone can drive you. Same words but moving the verb from position one to position two brings about a different question. Add to that the fact that the word order of the second question is also that of a statement then you, in my opinion, have a level of unrigidness (is that a word?) that I have yet to come across in Swedish, although I am open to the possibility that I am wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Melanie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/35a633/32.png) [@Melanie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melanie)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2003, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-english-difficult-to-learn/184009/26 "2003-06-24T22:49:14Z")
Check this out - too funny English is tough stuff [http://www.unique.cc/ron/estuff.htm](http://www.unique.cc/ron/estuff.htm) ---
**Author:** ![Nichol\_storm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Nichol\_storm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nichol_storm)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2003, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-english-difficult-to-learn/184009/27 "2003-06-25T00:47:05Z")
There is no such thing as an “easy” or “hard” language. Babies learn languages at the same rate, whether it’s English, Chinese, or Spanish they’re learning. English is not more inherently difficult or easier than any other language. The only way English can be called hard is if it is not related to your native language. Languages are grouped into families, and if a language is in the same family as your native language, it is generally easier to learn. Languages from totally unrelated families are harder. If you are a native Japanese speaker, for instance, learning English will be a challenge because it has a completely different system of writing, pronunciation, sentence structure, etc. A German speaker learning English won’t have as many problems, since the two languages are closely related. This works the same way with any other language. If my native tongue is English, then I’m going to find Chinese a nightmare – tones, logograms, etc. are all totally unfamiliar. It’s not that Chinese is somehow more complicated, only that it is not what I am accoustomed to. Language ranking systems rank languages according to your native language. So if your native tongue is Spanish, for example, the ranking system would go something like: 1: Italian, French, the other Romance languages. 2: Maybe Germanic languages like English and German. 3: Maybe Slavic languages like Russian. 4: Non-Indo-European languages like Japanese, Korean, etc. Whereas a system that assumes your native language is English would go something like: 1: German, Frisian, other Germanic languages. 2: Romance languages like French which share a lot of the same vocabulary. 3: Slavic languages like Russian. 4: Non-Indo-European languages like Chinese, Turkish, etc. As for English spelling, Mark Rosenfelder has an [interesting article](http://www.zompist.com/spell.html) on the real rules of spelling English. They’re not quite as bizarre as you might think. .:Nichol:. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2003, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-english-difficult-to-learn/184009/28 "2003-06-25T01:13:28Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Sinungaling \* > By the way, **Priceguy** , I’m not a native speaker of language either, and I’ve also noticed that my English is better than lots of people who have English as a mother tongue. A Polish friend of mine in high school also noted the difference in standards between him and our classmates. I don’t find this surprising at all. One of the finest english speakers I have ever heard was an Arab diplomat (at least for his form if not the substance of what he was saying). Unfortunately I do not recall who he was or know if he is even still around but I was floored at the impeccable english he displayed. Grammar, inflection, vocabulary, lack of accent and so on were outstanding. Better than almost any other english speaker I can think of. Of course it was partly his job to know and speak english but his abilities far exceeded what was strictly necessary to accomplish his job. What I don’t know is if this is a uniquely American phenomenon or if any country tends to be casual with its native tongue. Different but along the same vein I tend to find foreigners better educated in US history and US politics than US citizens generally are. I grant that is a broad generalization but in my travels in Europe I found I had to reach to keep-up and I consider myself more politically and historically aware than the majority of my peers (which says more about their lack of knowledge than any great store of information I possess). However, these aren’t uneducated people…far from it. As a result I wonder if Americans tend to be blasé with their history and language more than other countries tend to be or if I could find the same attitude in any country? ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2003, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-english-difficult-to-learn/184009/29 "2003-06-25T03:03:24Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Priceguy \* > \*\* > > By the by, if Spanish doesn’t have more tenses than English, I’ll… can’t eat my hat, haven’t got one… I’ll do something damn memorable, that’s what. > \*\* Careful there… some linguistic prof may come around and tell us that all languages of a particular family have, like, X different possible tense/mood combinations and some just have combined a bunch of them, functionally, but they’re still there. Or some such academic stuff. Plus there is the small detail of whether what DO we call our tenses maps out between languages (or within: in Spanish, do you use Nebrija’s tense names, or Bello’s?). And then we’d ALL have to do something memorable. More verb-tense _forms_ before you have to bring in the auxiliary phrases, OTOH… Factoring in tense, AND 1st/2nd/3rd person, and singular-plural, I count potentially over 60 forms, that use a change of the single-word root verb to convey action, number, time and mood in one word. In any case ya gotta love throwing around concepts like Future Perfect Subjunctive – without which our Lawyers would starve – and the redundant-sounding “Past Anterior” , either of which hardly any native speaker can actually _explain_. ---
**Author:** ![Bad\_News\_Baboon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/5fc32e/32.png) [@Bad\_News\_Baboon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bad_News_Baboon)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2003, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-english-difficult-to-learn/184009/30 "2003-06-25T05:39:08Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by jovan \* > **In Spanish, ll (doble ele) is indeed a letter in its own right and has its own section in the dictionary.** Sorry for the hijack, but is this a regional thing? I have always understood that ll is called elle (pronounced eh-yeh). I have never heard of it as doble ele. ---
**Author:** ![thatDDperson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9de0a6/32.png) [@thatDDperson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thatDDperson)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2003, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-english-difficult-to-learn/184009/31 "2003-06-25T06:37:03Z")
Can you really pronounce “goat” as “fish”? No, unless you spell it GHOTI GH as in tough o as in women TI as in conjunction I am a compendium of useless information. Anybody here ever hear of Interlingua? It’s supposed to be the new and improved, we’re better version of Esperanto, with fewer confusing issues. ---
**Author:** ![Melanie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/35a633/32.png) [@Melanie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melanie)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2003, 7:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-english-difficult-to-learn/184009/32 "2003-06-25T07:21:55Z")
I wish everyone would learn their own native language and esperanto as a second language. ---
**Author:** ![Dunderman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecb155/32.png) [@Dunderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunderman)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2003, 8:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-english-difficult-to-learn/184009/33 "2003-06-25T08:26:01Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by amanset \* > **IfI go on any more here I am going to start boring people.** You may be boring other people, but you’re fascinating me. It’s very interesting to see how your native language is approached from the other side. May I ask what your own native language is? > [@](#): > > _Originally posted by Nichol\_storm_ > **There is no such thing as an “easy” or “hard” language. Babies learn languages at the same rate, whether it’s English, Chinese, or Spanish they’re learning. English is not more inherently difficult or easier than any other language.** Maybe not to a baby, but to an adult it can be. For example, let’s say I invent a language whose verbs have a hundred different forms dependent on gender, number, tense and any combination thereof, whose nouns have twenty different plural forms dependent on five different factors, and so on. Surely you agree that this language will be much more difficult to master than one in which all verbs are regular and all plural forms are the same? In the same way, I cannot see how English couldn’t be easier than, for example, German. English has none of the hellish grammar that every German student is painfully familiar with. Sure, English has idiosyncrasies like any other language, but once you learn the plural form, you’ve got it down. Verbs have very few different forms. And so on. ---
**Author:** ![amanset](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@amanset](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amanset)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2003, 9:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-english-difficult-to-learn/184009/34 "2003-06-25T09:33:16Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Priceguy \* > \*\*You may be boring other people, but you’re fascinating me. It’s very interesting to see how your native language is approached from the other side. May I ask what your own native language is? > \*\* English. I am British and have lived in Sweden for around 3.5 years now. ---
**Author:** ![easy\_e](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/eb8c5e/32.png) [@easy\_e](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/easy_e)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2003, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-english-difficult-to-learn/184009/35 "2003-06-25T16:15:31Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by thatDDperson \* > \*\*Can you really pronounce “goat” as “fish”? > > No, unless you spell it GHOTI > > GH as in tough > o as in women > TI as in conjunction > > I am a compendium of useless information.\*\* I was taught to look at the “tion” combination as a unique syllable. That is, when I was learning how to read, someone told me that “tion” sounds like “shun.” It wasn’t “ti” sounds like “sh” and “o” sounds like “uh”. But maybe that’s just me. ---
**Author:** ![Sinungaling](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/838e76/32.png) [@Sinungaling](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sinungaling)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2003, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-english-difficult-to-learn/184009/36 "2003-06-25T16:33:06Z")
> [@](#): > > In the same way, I cannot see how English couldn’t be easier than, for example, German. English has none of the hellish grammar that every German student is painfully familiar with. Sure, English has idiosyncrasies like any other language, but once you learn the plural form, you’ve got it down. Verbs have very few different forms. And so on. I remember once reading about a Navajo speaker who got a degree in physics, but in German, not English. He found German easier to learn, and in fact never got the hang of English. I can’t remember any of the specifics, does anyone out there have them? ---
**Author:** ![Nichol\_storm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Nichol\_storm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nichol_storm)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2003, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-english-difficult-to-learn/184009/37 "2003-06-25T20:37:15Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Priceguy \* > **Maybe not to a baby, but to an adult it can be. For example, let’s say I invent a language whose verbs have a hundred different forms dependent on gender, number, tense and any combination thereof, whose nouns have twenty different plural forms dependent on five different factors, and so on. Surely you agree that this language will be much more difficult to master than one in which all verbs are regular and all plural forms are the same?** Once again, for an adult it all hinges on **what their native language is** , along with a couple of other factors like amount of time they invest in studying and quality of teachers. If you are a native Dutch speaker, odds are that you will have a much easier time learning English than a native Arabic speaker will. This is due to the fact Dutch and English are closely related, while Arabic is not related to either. So if your native language is structured around hundreds of verb forms, then yes, you’ll find a similar language easy to learn. You’ll just be applying old equipment to new uses. The litmus test of language difficulty comes down to the people who have no native language – babies. Babies worldwide learn language at the same rate, no matter if the language is Chinese, Spanish, Mongolian, or Klingon. A Japanese baby doesn’t take longer to speak Japanese than a Navajo baby takes to speak Navajo. Hence, Japanese is not inherently more complex or difficult than Navajo, though an adult Japanese person may find Navajo a challenge to learn because it is not related in any way, shape or form to his or her native language. .:Nichol:. ---
**Author:** ![vivian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/3e96dc/32.png) [@vivian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vivian)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2003, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-english-difficult-to-learn/184009/38 "2003-06-25T20:40:25Z")
All I know is that if I learned english the way I learned french…I’d be done for ---
**Author:** ![Sinungaling](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/838e76/32.png) [@Sinungaling](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sinungaling)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2003, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-english-difficult-to-learn/184009/39 "2003-06-25T22:17:05Z")
I found it, go here: [Navajo Man a Natural for Physics](http://www.turtletrack.org/Issues00/Co02262000/CO_02262000_Physics.htm) > [@](#): > > At 68, Begay is still lacking a high-school diploma and he is still more comfortable speaking Navajo than English. Despite all that, he is the only Navajo known to hold a doctorate in nuclear physics . . . > > _English classes were troublesome for Begay, but he easily learned German, which is similar in structure to Navajo, and he quickly picked up science and math concepts._ At the urging of professors, Begay changed his major to physics and graduated in 1961, still lacking a high-school diploma. There, you see? The Navajo speaker found German easier to learn than English _because of its similarity to his native language_. The inherent simplicity of English is apparently nonexistent for Navajo speakers. That, or there is no such thing. ---
**Author:** ![Dreaming\_of\_Maria\_Callas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f14d63/32.png) [@Dreaming\_of\_Maria\_Callas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dreaming_of_Maria_Callas)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2003, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-english-difficult-to-learn/184009/40 "2003-06-26T00:11:25Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Hello Again \* > **Actually Russian is considered by the Defense Department to be the second-hardest (commonly-spoken) language for English speakers to learn. I think it is tied with Japanese, and I think the hardest might be Chinese, with the tonal thing going on.** Umm, no. I’ve been to Defense Language Institute (the DoD’s language school). Russian is a category three language. There are five categories of difficulty. Japanese, Arabic, Chinese and English itself are all considered above Russian difficulty-wise. This was discussed in the GQ thread “Universal language” (now locked). Check it out. UnuMondo [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-english-difficult-to-learn/184009.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-english-difficult-to-learn/184009.md?page=3)