# Why do so many native English speakers believe that English is the hardest language in the world? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 28, 2009, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-native-english-speakers-believe-that-english-is-the-hardest-language-in-the-world/508006 "2009-08-28T06:42:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![schnuckiputzi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecb155/32.png) [@schnuckiputzi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/schnuckiputzi)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2009, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-native-english-speakers-believe-that-english-is-the-hardest-language-in-the-world/508006/61 "2009-08-31T19:04:49Z")
As a high school teacher, I have had foreign exchange students in my classroom who could converse to some extent with their fellow students, but grammar class was a nightmare to them. “Why is this word spelled this way?” “It just is.” Especially the ones who come from a Cyrillic alphabet background! Now, teaching German as a second language, I find kids can pick up lots of words very quickly, because they’re so similar to English, and the grammar rules are actually obeyed most of the time. ---
**Author:** ![Svejk\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea666f/32.png) [@Svejk\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Svejk_1)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2009, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-native-english-speakers-believe-that-english-is-the-hardest-language-in-the-world/508006/62 "2009-08-31T21:53:37Z")
> [@schnuckiputzi](#): > > As a high school teacher, I have had foreign exchange students in my classroom who could converse to some extent with their fellow students, but grammar class was a nightmare to them. “Why is this word spelled this way?” “It just is.” Especially the ones who come from a Cyrillic alphabet background! Actually, when it comes to spelling English, coming from a Cyrillic background does not make a difference. That is, I don’t think it should be more confounding for people speaking, say, Russian, than for people speaking other slavic languages that are not in Cyrillic. Russian, the main language that uses the Cyrillic alphabet, can be notoriously difficult to spell and primary school pupils have a lot of difficulty finding out when to uses o’s and when a’s, when e’s and when i’s and so on. Czech, on the other hand, is almost completely phonetic. I should imagine that for them it’s a lot harder to get spelling right. There is the alphabet difference but that is really something that is dealt with quickly (I studied Russian and was done with learning the alphabet after the first week and never had any trouble reading it since - and pretty much all Russians are very familiar with our alphabet from a very young age; it’s all around them in signs and commercials and, of course, the internet ---
**Author:** ![Rumor\_Watkins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d9b06d/32.png) [@Rumor\_Watkins](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rumor_Watkins)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2009, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-native-english-speakers-believe-that-english-is-the-hardest-language-in-the-world/508006/63 "2009-08-31T22:04:24Z")
I think there’s two distinct questions here: how easy is it to acquire a language? how easy is it to master a language? English is probably the easiest language to acquire. Virtually all pop culture is in english, the economic center of the world right now is in english, and we are now in a point in human civilization where interconnectedness mandates second language acquisition - educators are realizing this and, surprise, when they choose to teach a second language, it’s usually english. So by merely being well-connected to the world, you’re going to receive alot of english, and exposure and familiarity to the language would occur by osmosis. If I turned on a radio station and heard nothing but the latest hits from French Britney Spears, I’d probably feel alot more confident as I began acquiring the language formally. however (and I have no other perspective or data to support this) mastery of English is probably very difficult. There is no Academy for the language and so the pastiche nature of the language means it is probably relatively more irregular and “exception driven” than many other languages. hell, most native speakers probably don’t speak with proper grammar. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2009, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-native-english-speakers-believe-that-english-is-the-hardest-language-in-the-world/508006/64 "2009-09-01T02:08:44Z")
> [@CrazyChop](#): > > The thing with English is that there are so many forms and tenses when compared to Chinese. Chinese does not have any tenses; there are three for English. English has two tenses: past and non-past. What other languages use for future tense, English uses auxiliary verbs. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2009, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-native-english-speakers-believe-that-english-is-the-hardest-language-in-the-world/508006/65 "2009-09-01T02:11:45Z")
Rumor\_Watkins writes: \> . . . most native speakers probably don’t speak with proper grammar. Neither do most native speakers of any language that is large enough to have something like a standard written language. Perhaps an Australian aboriginal language spoken by about a hundred people is homogenous enough that one can’t reasonably talk about dialects, but any language with as many speakers as English will have a vast number of dialects (if one distinguishes things well enough). Some of those dialects (usually those spoken by people who are poorer, less powerful, and less educated) will be characterized as being “not proper.” ---
**Author:** ![Rumor\_Watkins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d9b06d/32.png) [@Rumor\_Watkins](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rumor_Watkins)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2009, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-native-english-speakers-believe-that-english-is-the-hardest-language-in-the-world/508006/66 "2009-09-01T03:42:44Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > Rumor\_Watkins writes: > > \> . . . most native speakers probably don’t speak with proper grammar. > > Neither do most native speakers of any language that is large enough to have something like a standard written language. Perhaps an Australian aboriginal language spoken by about a hundred people is homogenous enough that one can’t reasonably talk about dialects, but any language with as many speakers as English will have a vast number of dialects (if one distinguishes things well enough). Some of those dialects (usually those spoken by people who are poorer, less powerful, and less educated) will be characterized as being “not proper.” No, i’m saying that to the extent there is a “proper” agreed upon grammar for english (even if it is only expressed in writing), a good chunk of people won’t use it propperly. i’m not talking about “needs washed” here, i’m talking about “i gone to the store” ---
**Author:** ![Hypnagogic\_Jerk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hypnagogic_jerk/32/4252_2.png) [@Hypnagogic\_Jerk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypnagogic_Jerk)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2009, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-native-english-speakers-believe-that-english-is-the-hardest-language-in-the-world/508006/67 "2009-09-01T03:48:55Z")
I think **Wendell Wagner** ’s point still stands. What you’re describing is just a usage that’s not considered proper in standard English. ---
**Author:** ![Rumor\_Watkins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d9b06d/32.png) [@Rumor\_Watkins](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rumor_Watkins)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2009, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-native-english-speakers-believe-that-english-is-the-hardest-language-in-the-world/508006/68 "2009-09-01T03:53:31Z")
> [@Hypnagogic\_Jerk](#): > > I think **Wendell Wagner** ’s point still stands. What you’re describing is just a usage that’s not considered proper in standard English. is it even gramatical? i mean, i’m no linguist. but if writing that out or speaking it (I gone to the store) counts as having “learnt” English, then i should just belt out the lyrics to frair-uh Jack-ees and call myself fluent in French. ---
**Author:** ![Hypnagogic\_Jerk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hypnagogic_jerk/32/4252_2.png) [@Hypnagogic\_Jerk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypnagogic_Jerk)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2009, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-native-english-speakers-believe-that-english-is-the-hardest-language-in-the-world/508006/69 "2009-09-01T04:12:27Z")
> [@Rumor\_Watkins](#): > > is it even gramatical? I don’t know if there’s a dialect in which “gone” is used as the past tense of “go”. > [@](#): > > i mean, i’m no linguist. but if writing that out or speaking it (I gone to the store) counts as having “learnt” English, then i should just belt out the lyrics to frair-uh Jack-ees and call myself fluent in French. Well, as said, it’s not considered proper usage in standard English. From the way you’re describing it, I assume that if you tried to sing _Frère Jacques_ people wouldn’t have a clue what you’re doing. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2010, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-native-english-speakers-believe-that-english-is-the-hardest-language-in-the-world/508006/70 "2010-01-25T05:06:31Z")
The December 19, 2009 issue of _The Economist_ published an article called [Tongue twisters: In search of the world’s hardest language](http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15108609). It looks at a number of ways other languags differ from English. Since it was a light feature article, it even settles on a “hardest language” for an English speaker. Tuyuca. > [@](#): > > With all that in mind, which is the hardest language? On balance _The Economist_ would go for Tuyuca, of the eastern Amazon. It has a sound system with simple consonants and a few nasal vowels, so is not as hard to speak as Ubykh or !Xóõ. Like Turkish, it is heavily agglutinating, so that one word, hóabãsiriga means “I do not know how to write.” Like Kwaio, it has two words for “we”, inclusive and exclusive. The noun classes (genders) in Tuyuca’s language family (including close relatives) have been estimated at between 50 and 140. Some are rare, such as “bark that does not cling closely to a tree”, which can be extended to things such as baggy trousers, or wet plywood that has begun to peel apart. > > Most fascinating is a feature that would make any journalist tremble. Tuyuca requires verb-endings on statements to show how the speaker knows something. Diga ape-wi means that “the boy played soccer (I know because I saw him)”, while diga ape-hiyi means “the boy played soccer (I assume)”. English can provide such information, but for Tuyuca that is an obligatory ending on the verb. Evidential languages force speakers to think hard about how they learned what they say they know. Tuyuca may be the hardest to learn, but !Xóõ is the hardest to speak. > [@](#): > > For sound complexity, one language stands out. !Xóõ, spoken by just a few thousand, mostly in Botswana, has a blistering array of unusual sounds. Its vowels include plain, pharyngealised, strident and breathy, and they carry four tones. It has five basic clicks and 17 accompanying ones. The leading expert on the !Xóõ, Tony Traill, developed a lump on his larynx from learning to make their sounds. Further research showed that adult !Xóõ-speakers had the same lump (children had not developed it yet). A lump on the larynx! ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2010, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-native-english-speakers-believe-that-english-is-the-hardest-language-in-the-world/508006/71 "2010-01-25T16:05:43Z")
> [@Giles](#): > > A native speaker of English shouldn’t have much of a problem pronouncing Japanese comprehensibly. The biggest problem is probably distinguishing n as a separate syllable (ん in hiragana, or ン in katakana) from n as the start of a syllable, even both sounds are present in English, because that’s a distinction that English doesn’t make. The Japanese r is different from English r or l, but Japanese doesn’t distinguish those three sounds, so you could use any of those to pronounce r, and a Japanese speaker would understand fine. This is aprtly correct. English speakers tend to slightly mispronounce the ending “n” sound, but not much and the japanese sound varies enough that it’s not a big deal. it’s not like it’s fundamentally that hard to distinguish syllable-openers from closers, either. The biggest problem with Japanese is the writing system, and even the Japanese find that hard, because they spend so much time at school learning all the kanji (traditional Chinese characters), and because most kanji can be pronounced in two or more different ways. [/QUOTE] This. It’s not much that the language itself is hard (it’s honestly fairly easy to learn), but the stress of learning the kanji is a titanic pain. Ultimately, you’re literally learning an entirely different language that bears little relationship to Japanese and offers few advantages. ---
**Author:** ![Roadfood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9fc348/32.png) [@Roadfood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roadfood)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2010, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-native-english-speakers-believe-that-english-is-the-hardest-language-in-the-world/508006/72 "2010-01-26T01:36:45Z")
I once knew a woman who learned English as a second language (her native language was Brazilian Portugese). She always said that the hardest thing about learning English was the baffling set of idiomatic verb phrases. Would you rather be knocked up, knocked down, knocked off, knocked over, or knocked out? Some friends and I were just knocking around when we decided to knock back and listen to some tunes, until my dad told us to knock it off. “My hair was sticking up” has no relation to “The robber said, ‘this is a stick up’”, and neither has any relation to “If you insult my friend, I’ll stick up for him”, although the latter is very similar to “I’ll stick by my friend”. And then there’s my other friend, who’s really stuck up . . . Sure, these fall into the realm of language fluency, rather than language basics, but do other languages have such constructs in such numbers as English? ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2010, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-native-english-speakers-believe-that-english-is-the-hardest-language-in-the-world/508006/73 "2010-01-26T02:04:15Z")
> [@mattomic](#): > > it has its own lengthy Wikipedia entry: [Ough (orthography) - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ough_(combination)) C-c-c-c-coughmbo breaker! ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2010, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-native-english-speakers-believe-that-english-is-the-hardest-language-in-the-world/508006/74 "2010-01-26T02:07:11Z")
Because they’ve never tried to learn Gaeilge. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2010, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-native-english-speakers-believe-that-english-is-the-hardest-language-in-the-world/508006/75 "2010-01-26T02:18:23Z")
It’s not my experience that native English speakers believe that English is an especially difficult language to learn. I used to be a teacher of English as a foreign language (in Japan), and I’ve often had to explain to other native English speakers that no, learning English ISN’T really all that easy. And many of my fellow Americans certainly seem to believe that immigrants should be able to master English quickly and easily, even getting angry about the fact that there are people living and working in the US who haven’t done this already. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2010, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-native-english-speakers-believe-that-english-is-the-hardest-language-in-the-world/508006/76 "2010-01-26T03:33:20Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#): > > The most difficult to learn and speak _fluently_, perhaps. Basic English, as spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world as a second language, is a doddle. > [snip] English is my native language, but what’s a “doddle?” ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2010, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-native-english-speakers-believe-that-english-is-the-hardest-language-in-the-world/508006/77 "2010-01-26T03:53:04Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > English is my native language, but what’s a “doddle?” Apparently American is your native language. [http://www.thefreedictionary.com/doddle](http://www.thefreedictionary.com/doddle) > [@](#): > > doddle > noun (Brit. informal) piece of cake, picnic (informal), child’s play (informal), pushover (slang) (informal), no sweat (slang), cinch (slang), cakewalk (informal), money for old rope, bludge (Austral. & N.Z. informal) Running the association should be a doddle. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2010, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-native-english-speakers-believe-that-english-is-the-hardest-language-in-the-world/508006/78 "2010-01-26T04:16:55Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Apparently American is your native language. Two nations separated by a common language. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![ruadh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d2c977/32.png) [@ruadh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ruadh)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2010, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-native-english-speakers-believe-that-english-is-the-hardest-language-in-the-world/508006/79 "2010-01-26T06:41:31Z")
> [@Roadfood](#): > > I once knew a woman who learned English as a second language (her native language was Brazilian Portugese). She always said that the hardest thing about learning English was the baffling set of idiomatic verb phrases. Would you rather be knocked up, knocked down, knocked off, knocked over, or knocked out? . . . > > Sure, these fall into the realm of language fluency, rather than language basics, but do other languages have such constructs in such numbers as English? One thing I’ve found amusing about learning Irish is the number of such phrases that are literally word-for-word translations of the English. For example, on the buses there are signs telling people to “tabhair suas” their seats for elderly and disabled people. “Tabhair” means give and “suas” means up. There’s no logical reason for the combination of those two words to translate to “surrender” in even one language, let alone two. It’s probably something that the Irish took from English, but even so I find it funny. But Irish has a huge number of idioms in its own right - and they’re actually the core of the language. You don’t say you _have_ something, you say it is “at you” or “on you”. It’s one of the things that makes it such a difficult second language. ---
**Author:** ![coffeecat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/coffeecat/32/3405_2.png) [@coffeecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coffeecat)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2010, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-native-english-speakers-believe-that-english-is-the-hardest-language-in-the-world/508006/80 "2010-01-27T21:31:04Z")
> [@](#): > > Most fascinating is a feature that would make any journalist tremble. Tuyuca requires verb-endings on statements to show how the speaker knows something. Diga ape-wi means that “the boy played soccer (I know because I saw him)”, while diga ape-hiyi means “the boy played soccer (I assume)”. English can provide such information, but for Tuyuca that is an obligatory ending on the verb. Evidential languages force speakers to think hard about how they learned what they say they know. We all need to learn to post in Tuyuca and invite the native speakers to become Dopers. “Cite?” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-native-english-speakers-believe-that-english-is-the-hardest-language-in-the-world/508006.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-native-english-speakers-believe-that-english-is-the-hardest-language-in-the-world/508006.md?page=5)