Anonymous wrote:

Hmmm. If you think that english is difficult - YOU ARE WRONG!!! It is the easiest language! I'm Pole, have you ever tried to say the simplest word in Polish e.g łazienka (bathroom) I'm sure that 90% of English wouldn't be able to  pronounce it correctly!!! Or meaby something from German: einhundertfunfundzwazig (125) - this is correct spelling, there shouldn't be any spaces!!! It is normall that you are not as fluent as natives - it is impossible, there are always differences in pronunciation or in degree of complexity of vocabulary. Only thing which can cause real problems are pronunciation such vowels as 'th' (thing, those). These "dentals" don't occur in other european languages at all. The other things are tenses - twelve of them - most languages have only 3 (past, present and future)... But all of it is not important!!! We learn foreign languages to comunicate, we are able to communicate in English if we know  1000 words. IT IS THE EASIEST LANGUAGE!... The language of the future. take care Adam

I agree. Many natively english-speaking people think/assume that english is one of the most difficult languages to learn, but its not.

english is not the only language that contains this.

Hello, another English teacher here. I have been teaching English in China for about 2 and a half years now and also speak fluent French, decent Spanish and am learning Chinese (not as hard as you may think once you get the hang of those tones, easy grammar). Now I'll start off by saying that English seems to be an incredibly easy language to communicate with (and by this I mean to give the general idea of what you're trying to say). However, if you want to learn English like a native speaker then it's a completely different story. The pronunciation CAN be difficult to learn depending on your native language and also the age you attempt to learn it at. Training your tongue and mouth to move the same way a native speaker does can be difficult to do, especially if you're like many of my students who got their start at an older age or didn't have good teachers. I've also noticed that my younger students are able to mimic my speech much easier than the older ones speaking, both of whom are studying at the same level. I started learning French when I was 4 years old (Quebec French, I'm Canadian) and because of the quality of my teachers and my young age I was able to become quite good with my pronunciation. With my Chinese because I'm learning from scratch from native speakers my pronunciation is also decent (notice I said decent, not great, although when speaking Chinese I'm always understood). Native language has a lot to do with it too as the sounds you use in one language may be very different for another. I've taught in both the north and south of China and find that the people all have the same problems. Chinese people have problems with s (they often pronounce it as a sh sound) and with closing their mouth for the letter m ("sometimes" is a nightmare for them and they often say it like "suntine"). L and R can also be troublesome. One can't forget sentence stress as well as well as linking words together to make it go smoothly.

The vocabulary can also be a pain. Someone here mentioned 150,000 words in the English language but the number is actually much higher. The Oxford English Dictionary (2nd edition) contains over 600,000 definitions. Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged contains 475,000 main headwords and it is believed the language grows by 25,000 words a year. Don't believe me, check Wikipedia. There's also the difference in spelling and vocabulary between the different forms of English. British English and American English use different words and the words that are the same can be spelled differently. American English and Canadian English essentially share the same vocabulary to a large degree but the spelling of Canadian English in many ways is closer to British English. British English is pretty much the English form most Asian and European countries will learn but American pop culture will also have an influence, not to mention the American economy and it's impact. This can all be very confusing. To the person saying they are tired of using "well" as in "well, then..." there are many substitutes you could use.

The grammar is also a nuisance. It's not the hardest of things but certainly isn't the easiest. Sure French has a gender attached to all of it's nouns (which I hated when learning it), but English still has more exceptions to it's rules that need to me memorized. So many even native speakers have trouble with it. A language like Chinese that may seem hard to speak actually has very simple grammar. For example if you wanted to ask someone where they are you would say "ni zai na li" or simply "ni zai nar" (you where?). To ask a question in Chinese you merely ad "ma" to the end of a statement. "Ta hui shuo zhongwen" is "he/she speaks Chinese whereas "ta hui shuo zhongwen ma" is "does he/she speak Chinese?". Also in Chinese as there are no forms of he or she.

It's impossible to say which language is easy and which is hard when compared to each other because there are so many things that need to be taken into consideration. Let's just say that English has it's easy parts and it's ridiculously difficult parts as well. Speaking at a native speaker level can be done and I know people who have done this, but it takes a lot of hard work, good instruction, and a good learning atmosphere. I hope all that made sense, I stumbled onto this site a 2 in the morning and am quite tired.

As a native English speaker (well perhaps not entirely native, I was born in Russia and immigrated to the U.S. at the tender age of 7) I would have to say that apart from the obviously difficult aspects of the English language such as tenses, an unorthodox phonetic system employed in the language and infuriating exceptions for just about every single rule, the two most puzzling features are the Verb+Participle+Preposition combinations and the sheer vastness of the vocabulary. Observe the former...

come+up+with

come+down+with

come+foward+with

come+out+for

come+down+to

Five different constructions which would be clear as day to any native speaker, are nevertheless mind-boggling to someone who is learning the language. Notice how they all start with "come", and then imagine that sort of illogical word-scrambling applied to every verb. Daunting, isn't it? Don't know how to break it to you folks, but I haven't even scratched the surface. 

Now as to the latter, I am more than happy to have dictionary.com present proof of this phenomenon in my stead. Let's take a look at the word "jump". I mean, how many possible synonyms could there be for this word? Well, one simple search can help us find out. Here's the link:

 http://thesaurus.reference.com/browse/jump 

 40 entries for the first definition alone. FORTY. Forty different ways to say jump. But when you break it down, do all 40 words have the same meaning? Of course not! Nosedive means to jump into something headfirst, as in a pool of water or (if you're very unfortunate) onto a hardwood floor. To spring is to jump up energetically, with an almost almighty "lurch" (another word for jump right there :P) whereas to "bob" means to make jumping motions without every actually taking your feet off the ground. The list goes on and on. No other language I'm familiar with has such variety when it comes to synonyms, be it for seemingly uncomplicated actions or deep philosophical concepts. 

Although English is my native language, I am also a nearly native speaker of Russian (I give credit to my parents for preserving the language of the "motherland" and passing it on to me) and fluent in German. I find Russian to be an incredibly expressive language with just as many (if not more) nuances as English, and its ability to convey feelings of dislike, anger or downright hateful fervor (i.e. swearing) is, in my experience, unmatched. German is an incredibly logical language, and once grammar constructs are mastered, relatively straightforward in its application. Mastering German grammar is a challenge however, and word order is an utter nuisance in some situations.

Just my two cents.

I'm a native English (American) speaker, and I have heard that English is easy to learn at a basic level. However, becoming fluent or speaking like a native speaker is difficult because, frankly, the language makes little sense even to those of us for whom it's a first language. Luckily for anyone out there who thinks their English is not good, your meaning is usually understood even if your grammar is imperfect, and no one really cares. In fact, although I have do know proper grammar, in most informal situations I intentionally use a more relaxed, even sometimes incorrect, dialect because it sounds far too formal to speak so perfectly to one's friends.

I'm really impress of how you write very well in English, of course, you are a teacher.
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From Brazil

Regards,

Leandro Takeda

        Just to let you know buddy, every language has to have some future tense. It would be rediculous if you weren't able to express what you will, or are going to do because your language has no existing way of expressing the future. I would love to know how easily you read english with all of the non-consistant spelling and pronunciation rules. For example: stare and stair/ meet and meat/ mall and maul/ no and know/ two,to,and too/ rite,write,and right/ witch and which. Each pair of words sounds exactly the same when you read them in english yet their spelling is quite different. I bet you also didn't know that english has the largest vocabulary of all languages. My German cousin is well educated/intellegent and he's been learning english for about 8 years now. He has a very hard time with the english verb tenses, and german is in the same general language family. Estonian isn't, which would probably make it even more difficult for a person speaking a slavic language (estonian). I have doubts that you fully understand the language if you think it to be very easy.

Hi, I'm a portuguese and the english for me is very easy, first time I think that is one of the hardest language to know, but now this is so easy, unlike the french that I have to train more, but now the english is the language of the moment, the persons who don't know that language are gonna have some trouble to find a job, because now is the english language that runs almost everthing,jobs, internet, games, movies, music, reality shows, etc. I think that everyone should have to know at least two languages and I'm gratefull that I choose english to learn but portuguese is not so bad, but the verb tenses of portuguese are the most difficult to learn neither I know everyone of them,