大家常说英语是最难学的一门语言之一。
Its often said that English is one of the hardest languages to learn.
Given the fact that many of the words we use in English stem from Latin and Ancient Greek words in common with many other European languages what is it about English that has attracted this reputation for being so fearsomely difficult? And is it really even that difficult, when so many other countries adopt it as their second language and speak it a lot more fluently than we Brits speak other languages? Well leave you to make your own mind up
It just makes no sense!
One of the reasons why English is known for being difficult is because its full of contradictions. There are innumerable examples of conundrums1 such as:
There is no ham in hamburger.
Neither is there any apple nor pine in pineapple.
If teachers taught, why didnt preachers praught?
If a vegetarian2 eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian3 eat?
Overlook and oversee have opposite meanings, while look and see mean the same thing.
As native speakers, we rarely sTOP to think how illogical many of the things we say really are were just used to them. Unless youve been brought up speaking English, how can you possibly begin to learn all these oddities? Its little wonder that people trying to learn English end up feeling confused. But it gets worse.
Exceptions to rules
One of the hardest things about English is that although there are rules, there are lots of exceptions to those rules so just when you think youve got to grips with a rule, something comes along to shatter what you thought you knew by contradicting it. A good example is the rule for remembering whether a word is spelt ie or ei: I before E except after C. Thus believe and receipt. But this is English its not as simple as that. What about science? Or weird? Or seize? There are loads of irregular verbs, too, such as fought, which is the past tense of fight, while the past tense of light is lit. So learning English isnt just a question of learning the rules its about learning the many exceptions to the rules. The numerous exceptions make it difficult to apply existing knowledge and use the same principle with a new word, so its harder to make quick progress.
The order of the words
Native English-speakers intuitively know what order to put words in, but this is hard to teach to those learning the language. The difference between the right and wrong order is so subtle that its hard to explain beyond simply saying that it just sounds right. For example, we often use more than one adjective to describe a noun, but which order should they go in? We would say an interesting little book not a little interesting book. Both are technically4 grammatically correct, but the first just sounds right. Its a bit of a nightmare for those who are trying to learn, and it may prove one nuance5 too much.
Pronunciation
As if the spelling wasnt hard enough, English pronunciation is the cause of much confusion among those trying to learn English. Some words are very low on vowels6, such as the word strengths, which is hard to say when youre not accustomed to English pronunciation. Whats more, words that end in the same combination of letters arent necessarily pronounced in the same way. Why is trough pronounced troff, rough pronounced ruff, bough pronounced bow and through pronounced throo? There are silent letters at the start of words, too. Why are there so many words that begin with a silent K, such as knife? Or even a silent G, such as gnome? If its not pronounced, whats the point of including that letter in the first place, if it only adds to the confusion of both native speakers and learners? And dont get us started on the number of hapless tourists who dont know where to begin with pronouncing a town name such as Worcester. Sadly, many English learners have to learn the hard way when it comes to our confusing pronunciation; if you pronounce something incorrectly, most Brits will demonstrate the correct way to you but not without a little chuckle7 at your expense.
Emphasis
To make matters even more complex, the way in which you emphasise8 certain words in a sentence can subtly change its meaning. For example, consider the different ways of emphasising the sentence below:
I sent him a letter a plain statement.
I sent him a letter used to imply that you sent him the letter someone else didnt send it .
I sent him a letter this could imply I sent him a letter, but Im not sure he received it.
I sent him a letter used to imply that you sent him the letter you didnt send it to someone else .
I sent him a letter you sent him a letter, not anything else.
When youre not used to speaking English, these may all sound the same to you. Its only by constantly being exposed to English that you start to pick up on these subtleties9.
Homophones
Confused yet? If not, you will be after this next point. English is absolutely full of homophones words that sound the same but have different meanings or spellings.
A bandage is wound around a wound .
The door was too close to the table to close .
I decided10 to desert my dessert in the desert .
Homophones exist in the English language that has no fewer than seven different meanings namely words that sound like course and raise. Most have only two or three meanings such as there, their and theyre but thats still enough to add an extra level or two of complexity12 for those trying to master the English language.
Synonyms13 arent necessarily interchangeable Flick14 through a thesaurus and youll see countless15 groups of words that supposedly mean the same thing. Youd think that this would mean that they were interchangeable but youd be wrong. Even words whose definitions are seemingly in the same ballpark differ subtly or apply to something completely different, because English words can have multiple meanings. You cant always swap16 words with the same meaning, and this means that its easy to end up using a word in completely the wrong way. For example, you watch television, and you can either watch a film or see a film but you dont see television. But youre not a watcher when youre doing this youre a viewer, even though you dont view television or view a movie. To take another example, I could talk about a swans elegant neck, but I couldnt swap the word elegant for the word classic or chic because these are words that apply to fashion, not birds! If you were learning English, though, you wouldnt necessarily know that.
Idioms
English is a very old language, and over the course of many centuries, interesting sayings have been incorporated into everyday language that make little sense if you havent grown up with them. Barking up the wrong tree, the straw that broke the camels back and raining cats and dogs are all examples of idioms that add colour to the English language. If you find yourself starting to use idioms when you speak English, well done: youve mastered it!
Traces of archaic17 English
Though English does move with the times, there are still plenty of archaic words floating around that you may well encounter . Alas is one of the more common ones, but language of the sort traditionally used in the Bible is also still commonly understood, such as Thou shalt not kill in the Ten Commandments. This means You will not kill in modern lingo18, but the Ten Commandments usually retain this old language. Old-fashioned words such as apothecary and shilling will crop up in historical dramas that you watch on television. Youll also see old literary and poetic19 references cropping up in popular culture, such as Shakespeares To be or not to be or Burns My love is like a red, red rose.
Regional dialects
Wed imagine that all languages have regional dialects, but when you add the bizarre pronunciations and unique additional vocabularies of the UKs many regional dialects, they dont exactly help the poor folk trying to learn English. Its bad enough for us southerners to understand people from Glasgow, or even for people from Edinburgh to understand people from Glasgow. Theres a broad north/south pide in the pronunciation of certain words, a good example being bath, which is pronounced with a short A by those up north and a long A by those down south. Of course, every English-speaking country also has its own way of speaking the language; the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa all have their own distinctive20 way of pronouncing words. Which you end up using when your native language isnt English probably depends on whereabouts your English teacher is from, or whereabouts in the country youre learning.
Is it really the hardest language?
As weve seen, then, English is pretty challenging. But its not the only contender for the Worlds Most Difficult Language. Other notoriously tricky21 languages include Finnish, Russian, Japanese and Mandarin22. Mandarins tone system, for instance, is famously tricky . Finnish is held to be difficult because of its numerous cases; Arabic because, among other things, its script has four different variations for each letter depending on where in the word it sits. Written Japanese differs from spoken Japanese, and there are three different writing systems including 2,000 to 3,000 kanji characters that must be learned by heart. It makes English sound easy in comparison!
Ultimately, though, its down to the inpidual whether or not a particular language is difficult to learn. Some people have a natural aptitude23 for languages and pick them up quickly; children, of course, absorb new languages much more easily than adults. The difficulty of a language also depends on its similarity to your own language. Youll probably find it easier to pick up French if youre Italian, because these languages use many of the same roots, and the same alphabet. If youre used to the Roman alphabet then you may struggle to learn oriental languages that rely on symbols, such as Japanese. English isnt so bad once you get used to it, and its probably only commonly talked about as being hard because so many people are trying to learn it.
