# 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:** 5
**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:** [January 28, 2020, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-english-so-simple-comparatively/846985/81 "2020-01-28T14:36:02Z")
Isamu, the fact that English has two million words is irrelevant to how difficult it is to learn. Nearly all those words are ones which most people will never use in there entire life. The average English speaker only uses 20,000 words. Even a highly educated person only uses 40,000 words. ---
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2020, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-english-so-simple-comparatively/846985/82 "2020-01-28T14:42:06Z")
> [@Isamu](#): > > How many words does a typical university graduate know in Korean? I thought it was something like 12,000 in English. I had seen something on this, number of commonly used words, but struck out trying to find it just now. I’m left only for now with wiki page on number of words in a big dictionary being over twice as high in Korean as English and highest among languages listed. However firstly it’s just comparing particular dictionaries they cite which I realize makes it a lot less than airtight, and second it isn’t backing up what I actually said about commonly used words. At the moment I have only my impression as native English speaker and fairly serious student of Korean that it’s also true of fairly commonly used words, more in Korean than English. > **[List of dictionaries by number of words](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dictionaries_by_number_of_words)** > > This is a list of dictionaries considered authoritative or complete by approximate number of total words, or headwords, included. Figures do not take account of entries with senses for different word classes (such as noun and adjective) and homographs. Although it is possible to count the number of entries in a dictionary, it is not possible to count the number of words in a language. In compiling a dictionary, a lexicographer decides whether the evidence of use is sufficient to justify an Th... ---
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2020, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-english-so-simple-comparatively/846985/83 "2020-01-28T15:54:55Z")
> [@Horatio\_Hellpop](#): > > I’m an ESL teacher in Korea. Kids’ biggest complaints are (1) English spelling isn’t phonetic, like Hangul (written Korean), and (2) there is no comprehensible rule for ie and ei. My responses are as follows: > > 1. English steals its words from other languages. We even steal a few from Korean, mostly food-related. > > 2. The two languages we steal from the most are French and German. Yes non-phonetic spelling is a challenge if your language has (almost) entirely phonetic spelling. On borrowed words, as you must know this is at least as true of Korean as English. 2/3’s+ of the words in a big Korean dictionary are officially ‘Sino-Korean’ ie have a Chinese character equivalent. Their actual etymology is highly varied, some are words just taken from Chinese, others words coined in Korean using Chinese characters, many are words coined in Japanese using Chinese characters, etc. But, that’s somewhat true of Latinate English words also (some are from Norman French, some came from use of Latin itself as the ‘international language’ of learned writing for many centuries, etc). What’s relevant to learning the language I think is that there are so many Sino-Korean and indigenous words which mean the same thing, one contributor to just more words commonly used in Korean (again I believe this is true). For example you can emphasize use of indigenous or Sino-Korean words to create a ‘mood’ in your writing. The (Catholic at least) Korean translation of the Bible for example is very heavy on indigenous words even in cases where a Sino-Korean word is more common in modern speech, often unfamiliar indigenous words maybe even to a native speaker, definitely to a student. It creates a certain ‘ancient’ mood. OTOH in very ‘learned’ writing, though it’s now quite uncommon to use ‘hanja honyong’ for the whole text (where you write all the Sino-Korean words in Chinese characters and only the indigenous words and grammatical particles in the hangul alphabet) an author will still sometimes write the chapter or section headings in Chinese characters, deliberately choosing only Sino-Korean words for those passages. Even if she writes strictly in hangul, the ‘learned’ author might steer toward Sino-Korean on purpose. Anyway I guess 95% of why it’s hard for your students to learn English, and for me to learn Korean, is if our brains have coalesced already around one or the other language, and we don’t have a special talent that makes it easy, which some people do. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2020, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-english-so-simple-comparatively/846985/84 "2020-01-28T16:11:39Z")
> [@GreenWyvern](#): > > French - il pleut > [@Terminus\_Est](#): > > Where is the word “it” in your examples? I don’t know about the others, but in French “il” (or “ce”) is used as the subject of impersonal expressions, and they are the equivalent of “it” in such constructions in English. (Spanish, for example, doesn’t use this construction.) ---
**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 28, 2020, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-english-so-simple-comparatively/846985/85 "2020-01-28T18:05:42Z")
English has overwhelmed the world, particularly in certain fields like computing. Is this partly why foreigners find it easy to learn English? AFAIK English has borrowed only 1 (or 2) words from Thai (‘bong’ and perhaps ‘ganja’!) but Thai has borrowed a very large number of words from English. On some occasions when attempting to communicate with Thais I found that the word I didn’t understand was a borrowed English word! For example, ‘error’ comes up often in the context of computing but the Thai pronunciation of this word is very close to ‘allure.’ Understandably Thais get annoyed when I’ve trouble understanding this English word! ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2020, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-english-so-simple-comparatively/846985/86 "2020-01-28T18:51:02Z")
> [@GreenWyvern](#): > > It’s not a particularly English quirk to say “it is raining”. A number of languages do the same. > > French - il pleut > Dutch - het regent > Afrikaans - dit reën > German - es regnet > Swedish - det regnar > Latin - pluit (3rd person singular) > [@Terminus\_Est](#): > > Where is the word “it” in your examples? Latin doesn’t use nominative pronouns except for emphasis, so that one literally translates to just “rains”. Nominative pronouns in Latin are implied by the inflection of the verb. In French, German, and I expect the rest, they translate to “\ rains”. What those sentences don’t have is the equivalent to _is_ and _-ing_. The languages don’t have a present progressive tense and just use the simple present. But an idiomatic translation for all of them would be “it is raining”. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2020, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-english-so-simple-comparatively/846985/87 "2020-01-28T19:30:41Z")
English is not widespread because it is particularly simple; it is because one needs to use it in business, academia, and so on. Once upon a time you would have needed to express yourself in Greek, Latin, Chinese, Akkadian, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Brayne\_Ded](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Brayne\_Ded](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brayne_Ded)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2020, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-english-so-simple-comparatively/846985/88 "2020-01-28T22:06:00Z")
> [@Banksiaman](#): > > I know six year olds, with apologies to their parents, who are not the sharpest pencils in the packet, who are adequately fluent in Russian (considered with Hungarian to be one of the toughest European languages) and others in Chinese. So there!. Kids can learn any language. What makes Chinese tough is the tones and the pictograms. I’m told the grammar is not all that difficult. Hungarian, Finnish, and Basque are regarded as the hardest European languages, since they are unrelated to the three main families (Latin, German, Slavonic). I know one of each. Regarding Russian being one of the hardest, I would soy no, even though it is a tough one and no mistake, from what I have heard of Finnish and Hungarian. And I can say from my current experiences in learning Polish that it is harder than Russian, despite having a Latin script. English simple? Yes and no. {Dons hat as EFL teacher. Benn there, done that. Not much fun, even less money.} It is easy to learn a little English and to communicate at a basic level. The verbs have their problems, as in every language, and the most common ones tend to be the most irregular. Things get less user-friendly when you start to write, as English orthography is, well, a mess. ---
**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 29, 2020, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-english-so-simple-comparatively/846985/89 "2020-01-29T00:52:00Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > “It is raining” is indeed something of an English quirk, but not in the way you say. You seem to suggest that it is quirky of English to include the verb “is” in that sentence. > > The actual quirk is including the meaningless pronoun “It” in the sentence. That happens because English sentences simply MUST have a subject, so “It” is thrown in to give it one. Bertrand Russell told of an early Christian bishop who scolded a grammarian for “teaching paganism.” Turns out that a question arose in Latin class of who or what exactly is the subject in “it’s raining,” it’s snowing," etc. The classical Latin answer is that Jupiter is the implied subject of the weather verbs. This got the grammarian in hot water with the bishop. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Fair\_Rarity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fair_rarity/32/153_2.png) [@Fair\_Rarity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fair_Rarity)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2020, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-english-so-simple-comparatively/846985/90 "2020-01-29T01:21:27Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > The classical Latin answer is that \*\*Jupiter \*\*is the implied subject of the weather verbs. This got the grammarian in hot water with the bishop. I too love The History of English podcast and what hooked me was one of the earlier episodes where he deconstructed “Jupiter.” It comes from Zeus Pater. I literally just had to sit and stare at my phone for a while. English: a minute to learn, a lifetime to master. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2020, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-english-so-simple-comparatively/846985/91 "2020-01-29T02:16:04Z")
> [@Hermitian](#): > > Have you ever taught a child to read? Then any ideas about English making sense and being simple will vaporize quickly. My youngest daughter is five and she’s doing a great job learning to read but she’s going through words that are simple and consistent. She’s very curious and tries to sound out every word she sees. Nine times out of ten I have to tell her to not worry about that particular word yet. I studied Japanese and for the most part it wasn’t that hard to pick up. The exceptions are all the Kanji (Chinese characters) which I have only a tiny grasp of, and the counting system because they don’t have one counting system like English (and I assume most languages). They have many. You use a different number system if you are counting people, or long, thin objects, or flat, thin objects, or machines, or small animals… It’s maddening. ---
**Author:** ![MarvinKitFox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ba0ec/32.png) [@MarvinKitFox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MarvinKitFox)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2020, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-english-so-simple-comparatively/846985/92 "2020-01-29T04:31:49Z")
> [@Jim\_B](#): > > Why is English so simple? Because, and ONLY BECAUSE, you are delusional. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2020, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-english-so-simple-comparatively/846985/93 "2020-01-29T04:47:57Z")
> [@MarvinKitFox](#): > > Because, and ONLY BECAUSE, you are delusional. **Moderator Warning** **MarvinKitFox** , this is an official warning for insults. I see you have several previous warnings for similar offenses. I strongly recommend you pay attention to these warnings if you don’t want to see your posting privileges under review. Colibri General Questions Moderator ---
**Author:** ![MarvinKitFox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ba0ec/32.png) [@MarvinKitFox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MarvinKitFox)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2020, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-english-so-simple-comparatively/846985/94 "2020-01-29T04:58:16Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > **Moderator Warning** > > **MarvinKitFox** , this is an official warning for insults. I see you have several previous warnings for similar offenses. I strongly recommend you pay attention to these warnings if you don’t want to see your posting privileges under review. > > Colibri > General Questions Moderator The OP is posting UTTER NONSENSE, and stating it as fact. I’m not quite sure how noting this is considered insulting, but fine,. I apologize. I guess the multitudes of people who rank English as being a very hard language to learn (including people who have already mastered multiple other languages) are the ones that are delusional? People like this: [Why Is English So Hard to Learn? - Oxford Royale](https://www.oxford-royale.com/articles/learning-english-hard.html) The phrase “what is it about English that has attracted this reputation for being so fearsomely difficult?” ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2020, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-english-so-simple-comparatively/846985/95 "2020-01-29T05:02:48Z")
> [@Atamasama](#): > > My youngest daughter is five and she’s doing a great job learning to read but she’s going through words that are simple and consistent. She’s very curious and tries to sound out every word she sees. Nine times out of ten I have to tell her to not worry about that particular word yet. > > I studied Japanese and for the most part it wasn’t that hard to pick up. The exceptions are all the Kanji (Chinese characters) which I have only a tiny grasp of, and the counting system because they don’t have one counting system like English (and I assume most languages). They have many. You use a different number system if you are counting people, or long, thin objects, or flat, thin objects, or machines, or small animals… It’s maddening. English actually does have collective nouns vaguely analogous to those classifiers in terms of having to memorize them: a swarm of bees, troop of apes, wing of aircraft… As for Chinese characters used in Japanese, a rough analogy might be having to memorize all those non-phonetic English spellings. You have to learn to read and write the characters at the same time as learning the word (unless you learned the spoken language as a kid); not much choice unless one is fine with being illiterate. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2020, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-english-so-simple-comparatively/846985/96 "2020-01-29T05:05:27Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > What those sentences don’t have is the equivalent to _is_ and _-ing_. The languages don’t have a present progressive tense and just use the simple present. But an idiomatic translation for all of them would be “it is raining”. We are going round in circles here. If you take the trouble to read the earlier discussion, I was replying to this post: > [@Senegoid](#): > > The actual quirk is including the meaningless pronoun “It” in the sentence. That happens because English sentences simply MUST have a subject, so “It” is thrown in to give it one. I was making the point that an impersonal subject is not an English quirk. ---
**Author:** ![MarvinKitFox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ba0ec/32.png) [@MarvinKitFox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MarvinKitFox)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2020, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-english-so-simple-comparatively/846985/97 "2020-01-29T05:07:02Z")
And any language that tolerates a sentence such as “Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo” cannot possibly be construed as “simple” Yes, that is a silly contrived example. But it shows one of the very UN-SIMPLE aspects of English. Two words can have the exact same spelling, the exact same pronunciation, yet have utterly different meanings. This… is not “simple” ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2020, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-english-so-simple-comparatively/846985/98 "2020-01-29T05:08:52Z")
> [@MarvinKitFox](#): > > The OP is posting UTTER NONSENSE, and stating it as fact. > I’m not quite sure how noting this is considered insulting, but fine,. > I apologize. **Moderator Note** Posting “I apologize” after making further insulting remarks isn’t very effective. If you don’t understand how your remark was insulting, I would highly recommend that you stay out of GQ. Colibri General Quest ---
**Author:** ![MarvinKitFox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ba0ec/32.png) [@MarvinKitFox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MarvinKitFox)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2020, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-english-so-simple-comparatively/846985/99 "2020-01-29T05:15:11Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > **Moderator Note** > > Posting “I apologize” after making further insulting remarks isn’t very effective. If you don’t understand how your remark was insulting, I would highly recommend that you stay out of GQ. > > Colibri > General Quest Very well. As requested by Administration, I hereby fully endorse the OP’s statement that English is a simple language to learn. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2020, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-english-so-simple-comparatively/846985/100 "2020-01-29T05:21:24Z")
> [@MarvinKitFox](#): > > Very well. > As requested by Administration, > I hereby fully endorse the OP’s statement that English is a simple language to learn. **Moderator Instructions** Coming back with a snarky response to a moderator note is not a wise move. I’m instructing you to stop posting in this thread. Disregarding these instructions will subject you to another warning. Colibri General Questions Moderator [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-english-so-simple-comparatively/846985.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-english-so-simple-comparatively/846985.md?page=6)