Ever have people tell you English is the hardest language to learn? I have, but all of the people who told me that are English speakers who haven’t learned another language. Every time I have asked a foreigner about their experience learning English, they said English is easy. What is even more interesting is they say something like “English is easy, but my native language? That is hard af to learn.” Many people have this belief that our own native language is very hard to learn compared to others. All in all, the only significant factor in the difficulty of acquiring a language is how different it is from the languages you already know.
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When someone says “best”, “worst”, “most X”, etc like “This is the worst food I’ve ever eaten,” or “This is the most difficult job in the world,” 99% of the time they don’t actually mean it literally. It’s just hyperbole.
It is the easiest to learn if you come from a Germanic or Latin language.
It does have a lot of non-logical exceptions though. So that part is harder to learn.
Besides my native language i speak 2 languages including english.English IS easier because of the exposure from the media especially from games and movies
English is my third language and believe you me English is tough to grasp. It’s all the contradictory grammar laws that do not make sense.
I can personally say French is harder to learn than English
English is not hard to learn as a 2nd language. But it’s apparently it’s very difficult when it’s your first language has a kid.
People actually think english is hard? they must be crazy.
For me English is really easy, since my native language is German and I’ve been learning English since I’m 8 years old.
I believe German is hard to learn, but not the hardest.
Our grammar is difficult and sometimes the writing of words makes no sense.
The English language has some nuances that can definitely trip up non native speakers. There are definitely harder languages to learn though. Try mandarin! Now that’s a difficult language
I would have to agree. I learned from watching shows with subtitles. The fact almost anything in English is phonetically pleasing makes it easier to learn
No one ever said that. English is very easy
As an ESL speaker, English is one of the easiest languages to learn. There’s no declension or conjugation!
The reason for that is grammar being relatively easy for the most part. There are a few weird exceptions but in general it’s far easier than most languages.
English is easier than french and germany, i mean for God’s sake germany has genderized nouns, for instance, ball is male, couch is female and some other things are neutral. I also know a little bit Arabic and beleive me, arabic slips from mind like a wet soap in your hand.
Thank god english doesn’t have this bull crap rules.
I think the most challenging thing about English is spelling
true. its an easy language, and what makes it even more easy, its the big influence of usa media, movies, tv shows and ect, since they were more advanced than other countries in productions, they were the first to make color animation photographed with color and with sound, and movies in color, so obviously other countries were willing to consume american media, in fact in many countries more than the majority was american media being shown. plus, english being the international language, and countries having to learn to some level english, you cant escape not being exposed to english. even if you come from a country that on average isnt doing very well in english, they still have been exposed to it to some level and know of it existence.
With how many native English speakers suck at English… There’s some merit to it being difficult as a first language lmao.
I agree. English is super easy because you have bunch of free online classes, apps, movies and tv shows with subtitles, it’s everywhere! You can talk to bunch of people online, when you’re traveling too. And British English is such a beautifull and ellegant language. I find French to be way more difficult.
Oh, I would dare them to try learning Polish 😁.
Umm no. Because of English’s weird and very unique rules, it’s hard to master. How many English as a second language speakers do you know who learned it as adults and speak it perfectly? I’m willing to bet, not many. It’s not their fault. English has a ton of rules that exist “just because”. Like why are “dough” and “enough” not pronounced duh-oh and en-oh or duh-ufh and en-ufh? Well “just because”. Whereas a language like italian, if you see a word “desiderare”, it’s pronounced exactly like it looks. This isn’t just talking out of our own experiences, it has been studied and it takes longer to grasp English than it does other languages.
The reason why English has become easier to learn is because we have so much media in English that it’s easy to practice.
I have never heard anyone say that. Learning pronunciation of a lot of words needs time but that’s a out it. There are tons of words that just don’t make sense how we pronounce them, but the grammar is fairly simple
Well sure. But there are levels to mastery of a language that arent always linear. English is by default easier to learn because its so accessible. It is the most spoken 2nd language of the world. Almost everyone has some exposure to it since most popular media are in English as well.
On the other hand, while English is easy to learn, it isnt easy to master. For non-native speakers, the grammar and spelling for many english words are very confusing – not to mention the silent letters. In my opinion, English would in fact be much harder if it was not the international language of business or entertainment.
Also, English is not my native language.
>All in all, the only significant factor in the difficulty of acquiring a language is how different it is from the languages you already know
You also have practical limitations, such as resources, time and how accommodating the environment is to new learners. A lot of adults in Europe who move to another European country never acquire the same level of the local language as in English. Whether it’s because they lack the motivation or locals prefer using English with foreigners who are not fluent yet, or because of the English media, because they are older, it’s how it goes. In contrast, you can go to a remote Chinese or Russian village where no one will switch to English and the immersion will make you learn it faster than Norwegian.
people really be out here saying english is the hardest language when tonal languages like Cantonese exist.. you wanted fried rice? sorry you said the wrong tone so you actually ordered horse dick rice 😂😂
English is VERY easy.
Try to learn Chinese or Russian.
I mean it’s not the hardest though it has a weird problem of having grammar rules that just don’t always apply and often just come at random. So it can throw some people off. The pronunciations are also just wild a lot of the time but it’s a problem many languages have and one that’s a bit too common in English.
I’ve been speaking English for over 10 years and am still struggling with pronunciation and the use of “a” and “the”.
english and turkish are probably the easiest languages i’ve learned, but the other contenders are german and russian so maybe i’m biased
Yeah, grammatically English is actually quite easy. Try learning a Slavic language, Korean, Mandarin, ect., you’ll quickly realize how simple English is in comparison. On top of that, English is everywhere, social media, TV, movies, games… exposure alone makes it much easier to learn. People underestimate how much that matters.
Tbh what is and isn’t the hardest depends on what language you are use to, like if japanese is your mother language then english will be hard (I would expect), as that is completely different in so many ways, just like if it was reversed.
Ofc that isn’t to say they are equally hard, ofc japanese is harder in general in this case, as it’s more complex, but the point is what is hard depends on the person.
But yes english for most people aren’t the hardest to learn, not even close.
Given that your phrase is in English, I agree that most people that say it are monolingual native English speakers.
English grammar is objectively very easy to learn for most people on this planet, the basis is easy it only gets “hard” when it comes to vocabulary and pronunciation and irregular spelling but this is something that you naturally pick up on by practicing.
The first time I heard that, I legit thought the person saying it was joking!
I’ve been told (by a native English-speaker) Finnish (my native) is impossible to learn, but methinks that is another lack-of-perspective thing.
I mean, if I had to guess, I’d say one of the ones with a different alphabet would be more difficult.
For me, English was one of the most difficult languages to learn and took ages to be mildly confident with it (main used language now and I still have struggle moments).
How about the non-native speakers around you who speak it as a second, third, or even fourth language? What for them is the hardest language to learn?
Obviously, learning any foreign language can be difficult, but there absolutely are ones that are on another level when it comes to difficulty. Learning a Slavic language when you already don’t speak another? Learning English is a walk in the park compared to that. Languages that use t-v distinction (which can sometimes pose a problem even for native speakers), are gender specific (good luck learning from a speaker who’s not the same gender) and use a lot of suffixes in a gendered way (gender for inanimate objects varying in different languages is pain even when you’re used to it) or requires learning a different alphabet will always be more difficult to learn.
I can guarantee my native language is more difficult to learn for a foreigner than English is. And not just because every other English-speaking expat constantly whines how difficult they find it.
I’ve never heard anyone say that. Neither native speakers nor people learning it as second, third or whatever language.
imo it’s harder to learn a language when they use different scripts (if that’s the right word?) E.g. if you wanted to learn mandarin you’d also have to learn the chinese characters on top of the other parts of learning a language
Never heard anyone say English is even remotely the hardest language to learn but I guess we run in different circles.
imo English is THE easiest language to learn just because of the sheer amount of resources that is available for it. You will find a English language school in just about every city town village in the world. Books, youtube videos and millions of hours of movies and TV with subtitles to help with listening.
English is super easy to learn.
I speak and write Spanish, German, Swiss German, Italian, English, some Portuguese and french and English is has definitely the easiest grammar rules to learn. It’s like made for kids, in comparison to the other languages I know.
The only difficulty can be the discrepancy between the written and spoken word, that’s the only real hurdle, but once people stop staring at you when you say you like beaches, you know you’re good to go.
English is possibly the easiest languange to learn. Why? ‘Cause your nouns don’t freaking have cases!
Every language comes with its challenges, and English is no exception. My first language is a Slavic one (Polish), so yes, I’d say that English is pretty difficult from my perspective – just because it’s very different from Polish (grammar, pronunciation). Of course the constant presence of English online makes a huge difference. I’ve definitely become fluent in writing through years of prolonged exposure. But I wouldn’t say the process was a smooth ride, or that I can speak English well irl (almost no opportunities to use it face-to-face + tricky to pronounce).
And it’s true that people tend to think of their own language as being the hardest to learn. Poles literally think that Polish is the most difficult one (out of all the world’s 7000 languages, ranked objectively ofc). It’s one of those persistent, annoying myths.
To learn? There are many, many resources to learn from.
To become fluent? Now, that’s a whole ‘nother story. You could be living in the states for half a century and barely be able to hold a conversation in English.
English is pretty easy compared to other languages. The grammer is fairly straightforward. The best of all is words do not change form delending on context, thank god.
Other languages have stuff like “I walk there” vs “You walken there” vs “They walketh there” vs “She walkenerth there”. Like the verb changes based on who’s doing it and it’s difficult to learn. English does not have that and it makes it much easier.
The hardest thing about English is the vocabulary. You guys have so many words to describe similar things.
And will write “could of” in place of could have, “there” instead of they’re and their, misspell “a lot”, “rogue”, in fact, fuck it, I could be here all day.
Tried/started to learn in total 4 languages beside my native one. Out of these 4 english was by far the easiest to learn.
I have yet to hear anyone say that english is “one of the hardest ones to learn”.
I wouldn’t say this opinion is wrong but it just doesn’t really capture the complexities of learning a new language.
I spent half of my life in Thailand and grew up bilingual. Most of the people I knew never learned english past a 6th grade level despite taking english classes all the way through college.
English is a pretty hard language to learn. A lot of it stems from the random and often seemingly arbitrary exceptions to rules and the randomness of how letters or words are pronounced since a lot of english is a mix and mash of words from other languages.
Here are just some of the weird things about english.
I before E except after C has many exceptions.
Letters dont have the same pronunciation depending on the word.
Why are read, read and red the same but different?
Why does ph make an f sound?
These are just some of the many things that would throw a non-english speaker for a loop.
Written sentence structure can be very different from conversational structure. If you’re in a different country learning english in a formal setting (school), you’re more than likely learning proper written grammar but that doesnt always translate to how the language is actually spoken.
As a native speaker, you don’t think about how weird the english language is because you don’t have to. You’ve been exposed to them your whole life and you just “know” them.
Tldr: english is a weird language.
This sub should be renamed to popular banality.
I learned English, Latin and Spanish in school. English is the only one I still understand and unlike Latin and Spanish I never had to study at home for better grades.
> Every time I have asked a foreigner about their experience learning English, they said English is easy. What is even more interesting is they say something like “English is easy, but my native language? That is hard af to learn.”
This has been my experience. I went on an exchange student program, and all of the Mexican students said that English is easier than Spanish. In my research group, the Turkish and Egyptian students said that English was an easy language to speak.
I think its easier because of how common it is to see/hear English.
Laughs in Polish
I always thought ‘English is difficult’ was more of a joke/meme/tongue in cheek statement making fun of the idiosyncrasies of our language.
Limited conjugation, limited gendered terms, only one definite article. What’s not to love?
Hard to some, easy for others. Crazy.
A combination of a relatively simple grammar (lack of gender, lack of cases, reduced verb conjugations (compare I eat, you eat, she eats, we eat and so on with eu mănânc, tu mănânci, ea mănâncă, noi mâncăm… or je mange, tu manges, il mange, nous mangeons…), along with – very large resource and exposure of media//resources in English makes it relatively easy to learn.
Almost anywhere you can find someone to practice with, while Ive been learning Romanian for the past 9 months and have still not spoken with a native speaker in that language yet.
The real hang up with English is the spelling and pronunciation, but that doesn’t necessarily impact one’s ability to be conversational, and isn’t as big of a deal as many make it out to be.
No, some languages are quantifiably more difficult then others 100%. Simply the use of synonyms, the amount of grammatical rules, the average amount of syllables, the amount of different formal forms and the amount of unique exceptions in language can DRASTICALLY in crease difficulty ON TOP OFF of course, how similar the language is to your own.
Everyone I’ve heard say this aren’t native English speakers.
Watch them try to learn cantonese lol
That’s just the typical American’s cope. Since they are too dumb to learn a second language. lol
The truth is, it depends on what your native language is.
That being said, the military classifies languages into categories based on how long it takes to acquire fluency, and English isn’t even close to the top of difficult languages list.
English (outside the pronunciation) has three levels of mastery of very different difficulty:
Ability to pass across basic everyday information and sustain a basic everyday conversation: the language is very, exceptionally easy for that. Way more so than the majority of other languages.
Ability to communicate sophisticated ideas accurately, ability to freely use idioms: the language is about as difficult at this point as any other Indo-European language (German or Romanic origin).
Nuanced, artful use of the language for literary writing: On par or even more complicated at times than other languages.
As follows, the OP just didn’t finish the phrase the native speakers actually use: “English is one of the hardest languages to learn to write a literary prose.”
Language shouldn’t be hard. It should be useful.
Why would anyone be proud their ancestors developed a difficult way to communicate?
I’m from America and took Spanish at school. Those goddamn verb tenses kicked my ass.
English is easy to learn but hard to master. (Not a native. I know several languages.)
Well yea it’s no surprise that native english speakers think it’s hard. Most of them always think they are so special.
Well Finnish is my native language and pretty much everyone will agree that it’s way harder than english. It’s literally ranked as one of the hardest languages to learn
English is probably hard to learn for native English speakers, who rarely speaks any other languages than their mother’s tongue.
For the rest of us, it’s easy. Partly due to the sheer cultural influence – English is everywhere – and partly because it’s a pidgin language derived from Norse, Frisian and Norman/French with very little complex grammar and predictable sentence structures.
from what i know from friends, its easy to learn , but hard to master, the reason being its a mixture of languages that is how we got words that sound like German, and words that sound like French and ones that do not sound like either, so in the end we don’t have structural rules.
We also have many words with multiple meanings, yet exact same spelling that are pronounced different just based on context :
I “live” here vs they are “live” right now
and its the same word.
The pronunciation and spelling is terrible. Most languages, there’s only one fixed way to pronounce each alphabet. In English? Every C in Pacific Ocean is pronounced differently. I before E except after C? There are like at least 60 exceptions to this rule.
But the silver lining is that you can totally ignore grammar and still get your point across with keywords. Why waste time say lot words when few words do trick?
I’ve heard plenty of non native English speakers say that as well. One of the reasons is English is like 3 languages in a coat pretending to be another language and we borrow from English German and French so there isn’t a consistent set of Grammer rules that work across the board.
Vowel sounds is one area that is absolutely lawless in English. In Spanish you have a, e ,i, o, u pronounced “ahh, eh, eee, oh, oooh” fucking always no long vowel sound short vowel sound shit no sometimes y shit. No “I comes before e except after c bullshit” when there’s dozens of commonly used words that don’t even follow the rule to begin with. That makes spelling a lot easier because everything is phonetically spelled.
Serbian, while easier to speak and write due to the whole “Speak as you write and write as you speak”, is personally infinitely harder when it comes to grammar.
Doesn’t matter what your first language is, English is easy and American English might be the easiest ever.
Imo the part that makes English one of the easiest languages to learn is the fact that you don’t have to care about genders 99% of the time which takes a huge amount of time when learning new vocabulary