# Why Is English So Simple (Comparatively)? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 26, 2020, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-english-so-simple-comparatively/846985 "2020-01-26T06:44:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![jharvey963](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/54ee81/32.png) [@jharvey963](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jharvey963)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2020, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-english-so-simple-comparatively/846985/41 "2020-01-27T15:55:12Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > It isn’t simple, at least not overall. … > > An example of English complexity is the [phrasal verb](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrasal_verb), where a phrase combining a verb with one or two particles makes a new verb with a distinct meaning. … E.g.: put in put out put up put down I’ve experienced people trying to learn English as a second language. It certainly isn’t easy to learn. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2020, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-english-so-simple-comparatively/846985/42 "2020-01-27T16:04:58Z")
Long ago someone challenged me to answer three questions on his English-as-2nd-Language test. I think he thought the answer sheet was wrong. The questions were all easy for a native, but I couldn’t blame him for missing. Unfortunately I only remember one of the questions; it was something like: _Adam:_ “That girl is pretty!” _Bob:_ “Isn’t she!” **What does Bob’s reply mean?** ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2020, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-english-so-simple-comparatively/846985/43 "2020-01-27T16:16:25Z")
English is descended from languages that employ features not really used in modern English, but that means Modern English is evolved, not simplified. It is a natural language that has been around for centuries, and there is also always some conservation of difficulty when features drift around. If we were to start drafting a list of “features” and other metrics to measure complexity, I predict we would find that English is not even in the lower half. I wist, I wot, he wot, you wit, … ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2020, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-english-so-simple-comparatively/846985/44 "2020-01-27T16:45:05Z")
> [@jharvey963](#): > > E.g.: > put in > put out > put up > put down > > I’ve experienced people trying to learn English as a second language. It certainly isn’t easy to learn. Very difficult to put up with. ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2020, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-english-so-simple-comparatively/846985/45 "2020-01-27T17:05:46Z")
Well, you put one over on me. All languages have idioms, but English loves to use prepositions to make idiomatic compounds. I’ve heard English language learners say that using preposition correctly is the hardest part of learning English. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2020, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-english-so-simple-comparatively/846985/46 "2020-01-27T17:24:56Z")
Is it harder in English than in German? That’s just one of the “features” that ratchet up the complexity in a particular axis. Even Esperanto has some of that. ---
**Author:** ![Ashtura](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ashtura/32/2963_2.png) [@Ashtura](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ashtura)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2020, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-english-so-simple-comparatively/846985/47 "2020-01-27T17:30:14Z")
I really don’t think it is. I think it just appears that way because you’re an English speaker. I honestly think romance languages are the easiest. I took a crash course in Portuguese over a period of two months, 8 hours a day, before I moved to Brazil. People were very surprised at how proficient I was upon arrival (admittedly, taking Spanish in high school DID help). Within 2 years I was mistaken for a native on multiple occasions (no joke). That was a goal of mine, but I found it much more difficult to get rid of my American accent than than to have correct syntax. I found a São Paulo accent easiest to copy (Rio is a bitch), and had plenty of people to hang around with to master it. Total immersion. Yeah, you gotta deal with genders, but when you learn a word, the gender’s built right in, so it’s not that difficult. The only time you really need to change the gender is when the noun is referring to an actual person, and you know the gender of that person generally, so, no big deal. The number of irregular verbs and their conjugations can fit on a typed 3x5 card, which I memorized quite easily. The other nice thing about romance languages, is once you know one, it’s pretty darn easy to learn other ones. While English has Germanic roots, I don’t think knowing it is going to make learning German easier than learning, say, a romance language. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2020, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-english-so-simple-comparatively/846985/48 "2020-01-27T18:05:31Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > Very difficult to put up with. Up with which to put. :eek: Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2020, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-english-so-simple-comparatively/846985/49 "2020-01-27T18:12:29Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > Very difficult to put up with. Very difficult up with which to put! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2020, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-english-so-simple-comparatively/846985/50 "2020-01-27T18:13:32Z")
Good god, I blind-agreed with Shodan. Where’s the Purell? ---
**Author:** ![Kovitlac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/2bfe46/32.png) [@Kovitlac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kovitlac)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2020, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-english-so-simple-comparatively/846985/51 "2020-01-27T19:00:31Z")
I’m pretty sure English is rated as one of the most difficult languages for non-speakers to learn. My mom teaches ESL and is always feeling the need to apologize to her (mostly Spanish-speaking) students for English’s incredible inconsistencies. Makes it even more impressive that so many people in other countries HAVE to learn English to get certain jobs. I have a Chinese coworker who speaks incredible English and even then is always looking to improve. Where as I took 3 years of Spanish and really don’t remember much. I wish I’d practiced more over the years. …time to redownload Duolingo. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2020, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-english-so-simple-comparatively/846985/52 "2020-01-27T20:43:10Z")
Every language is the simplest–to a native speaker. Imagine, I was speaking English by age 2, without having spent any time studying it. And let’s leave the written language aside. Written English does have problems because of its spelling vagaries. Yes, English does have very little inflection (but why are three of the 4 inflectional rules are: add s). But it makes up for it, to say the least, by the complications of its auxiliary system. Learning the strong and irregular verbs is trivial by comparison. AFAIK, the verb to be is irregular in every language. But how to explain when you use the progressive (-ing) form and when the simple one. And what is the difference between “John has mown (or mowed) the lawn” and “John mowed the lawn”? And the use of the articles is somewhat mysterious. My wife is an English/French translator and notes that an instruction to a student will often begin “L’etudiant…” but it has to be translated by either “A student…” or “Students…” and it is only her native fluency in English that tells her that. Prepositions are an utter mystery in every language I know anything about. They generally have the same semantic significance as cases in highly inflected languages and it is not simpler not to have cases. The case endings are easy to learn; what case to use is not. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2020, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-english-so-simple-comparatively/846985/53 "2020-01-28T02:07:32Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > Another thing I’ve noticed is that English has surprisingly many irregular verbs, with past-tense forms not ending in -ed. > > One of the most basic verbs in any language, “to be”, is one of the most irregular of all in English. English Indicatif «To Be»: I am You are He/she is We are You are They are. Three verb forms in the English conjugation French Indicatif «Être» : Je suis Tu es Il/elle est Nous sommes Vous êtes Ils/elles sont. Six verb forms in the French conjugation. Would you say the English verb «to be» is more irregular than the French version? Is the French conjugation simpler? ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2020, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-english-so-simple-comparatively/846985/54 "2020-01-28T02:35:06Z")
The most common words tend to be the most irregular. An irregular form that isn’t used much tends to become regular, because someone who has never or rarely heard the irregular form may just use with the regular form. So words like “is”, “have”, “think”, etc. remain irregular because they are heard every day and no one is going to forget “had” and use “haved”. The past tense of “swell” used to be “swole” but over time that was replaced with the regular form. Some words have both an older irregular form and a newer regular form in use, like “dive” where the past tense can be either “dived” or “dove”. Over time “dove” could disappear like “swole” and “holp”. ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2020, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-english-so-simple-comparatively/846985/55 "2020-01-28T02:41:27Z")
> [@Die\_Capacitrix](#): > > (i before e except after c is just wierd) . I before e except after c, and except when sounded as “AY,” as in neighbor and weigh, eight, vein, or veil, and except when sounded as “EYE,” as in Einstein, Eileen, and Heidi, and except in words commonly mistaken like neither, weird, foreign, leisure, seize, forfeit, height, protein, caffeine, forfeiture, codeine, and heifer, and except for CIEN words like efficient, ancient, conscience, and sufficient. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2020, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-english-so-simple-comparatively/846985/56 "2020-01-28T03:29:13Z")
English isn’t simple at all. Other languages have prepositions, but English has more than 30. Other languages have phrasal verbs but English has hundreds - perhaps thousands. Other languages have tenses, forms, and aspects, but English is among the more complicated in this regard. I always enjoy explaining the differences between simple past, past perfect, and past perfect progressive. And then there are the many synonyms and their origins. How did “sick” and “ill” come to mean the same thing? The latter was apparently imported from those marauding Danes. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2020, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-english-so-simple-comparatively/846985/57 "2020-01-28T03:32:48Z")
> [@Kovitlac](#): > > I’m pretty sure English is rated as one of the most difficult languages for non-speakers to learn. My mom teaches ESL and is always feeling the need to apologize to her (mostly Spanish-speaking) students for English’s incredible inconsistencies. > > Makes it even more impressive that so many people in other countries HAVE to learn English to get certain jobs. I have a Chinese coworker who speaks incredible English and even then is always looking to improve. Where as I took 3 years of Spanish and really don’t remember much. I wish I’d practiced more over the years. > > …time to redownload Duolingo. The reason English seems simple is that so many speakers around the world make it seem ‘easy.’ They come from school systems where it’s required and where a certain level of proficiency is expected, which is much more than what can be said of foreign language proficiency here. But English is a difficult language to master for sure. Not impossible, and many achieve professional fluency, but with years of practice and exposure. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2020, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-english-so-simple-comparatively/846985/58 "2020-01-28T04:17:47Z")
> [@markn\_1](#): > > One of my favorite factoids that makes you go “whoa…” > > Originally the past tense of “go” was simply “goed”. “Went” was the past tense of a different verb with a similar meaning, “wend”. Bend/bent, send/sent, wend/went. It was never “goed.” Middle English [_gon_](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/gon#Middle_English): the past tense was suppletive _wende_, _yede_, or _yode_. Yede, yode? WTF? Those were from _another_ suppletive verb that died out centuries ago, but it was cognate to Latin _īre_/_eō_. Old English [_gan_](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/gan#Old_English): the past tense was _ēode_. Proto-Germanic \*[_gāną_](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/g%C4%81n%C4%85): past tense = \*_ijjǭ_, \*_ijjē_. ---
**Author:** ![Morgyn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morgyn/32/3041_2.png) [@Morgyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgyn)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2020, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-english-so-simple-comparatively/846985/59 "2020-01-28T04:20:29Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > [Book recommendation time](https://www.amazon.com/Our-Magnificent-Bastard-Tongue-History/dp/1592404944). I read that a bit ago. Fascinating book. In fact, I came into this thread to provide a quote from early in the book. > [@](#): > > Did you ever notice that when you learn a foreign language, one of the first things you have to unlearn as an English speaker is the way we use \*do \*in questions and in negative statements? Take _Did you ever notice …?_ for example. Or _I did not notice_. We’re used to this \*do \*business, of course. But it’s kind of strange if you think about it. In this usage, \*do \*has no meaning whatsoever. It’s just there, but you have to use it. One cannot, speaking English, walk around saying things like _Noticed you ever?_ or _I not notice_. English has something we will call _meaningless do_. > > Most languages, unsurprisingly, have no interest in using the word \*do \*in a meaningless way. English, says John McWhorter, shares this characteristic with Celtic languages and no others. We’re also, apparently, the only language group that uses the present participle. Another interesting books is [The Adventure of English](https://www.amazon.com/Adventure-English-Biography-Language-ebook/dp/B06XQ823N3/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?), which examines the spread of English around the world, how its various dialects developed as part of that spread, and the influence of other languages on the development of English. ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2020, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-english-so-simple-comparatively/846985/60 "2020-01-28T05:32:45Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > It was never “goed.” > > Middle English [_gon_](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/gon#Middle_English): the past tense was suppletive _wende_, _yede_, or _yode_. Yede, yode? WTF? Those were from _another_ suppletive verb that died out centuries ago, but it was cognate to Latin _īre_/_eō_. > Old English [_gan_](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/gan#Old_English): the past tense was _ēode_. > Proto-Germanic \*[_gāną_](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/g%C4%81n%C4%85): past tense = \*_ijjǭ_, \*_ijjē_. There were numerous forms of the past tense in various dialects of Old English. My OED gives forms such as yede, yode, eode, ȝeode, ȝodd, ȝod, yodd, ȝedd and others. The letters G, Y and Ȝ all represented similar sounds in Old English, and these words all resemble variants of “go” with something like the regular -ed ending. So I was simplifying a bit in saying that the form was “goed”; my point is that the past tense was originally derived from “go” while the current past tense is from a completely different word “wend”. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-english-so-simple-comparatively/846985.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-english-so-simple-comparatively/846985.md?page=4)