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What makes English difficult? | ||
Tags: Difficulty | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Siberiano Tetraglot Senior Member Russian Federation one-giant-leap.Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6495 days ago 465 posts - 696 votes  Speaks: Russian*, English, ItalianC1, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Serbian | Message 25 of 45 17 December 2012 at 8:04pm | IP Logged | ||
More of this, please!!! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5058 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 26 of 45 18 December 2012 at 9:22am | IP Logged | ||
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The difficulty of English is often due to the fact that it is the first foreign language.
A lot of things which are even simpler than in our mothertongues are perceived "hard" because they are different. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Majka Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic kofoholici.wordpress Joined 4659 days ago 307 posts - 755 votes Speaks: Czech*, German, English Studies: French Studies: Russian | Message 27 of 45 18 December 2012 at 10:13am | IP Logged | ||
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Coming from Slavic language (Czech), English was the most difficult language for me to learn at advanced level. I don't really think that phrasal verbs or idioms are hard. For me, it is simply an exercise in memorizing, even subconsciously, through meeting them in speech and writing. But the fundamental differences in the "logic" of the language, how the same thing is told through other means, are difficult for me.
It took me years to really learn the usage of different verb tenses. I knew how to form them, learned the definition when to use them but didn't really understand it. I think I learned few points only after understanding similar problems in French and German. This was my biggest problem and I almost lost all hope to ever really learn English correctly. The perfect way to learn the different verb tenses for me is in Michel Thomas French course - he takes a sentence and uses all of them. If you can than understand the difference in the meaning, you have "got it". English is "easy" at beginner level. You can get functional pretty fast and using very basic grammar. You can ignore the difficulties. My father is a perfect example of this - he was never better than perhaps A2 level with added vocabulary for his job but he was able to make business deals and use English for any communicating he needed. He needed to ask for clarification, had to simplify, but he got by. Nowadays, his situation would be more problematic because the expectations are higher. But 40 years ago? Or even 10 years ago? 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5058 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 28 of 45 18 December 2012 at 11:18am | IP Logged | ||
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At the beginning English is quite difficult. It was hard to remember words for me. And
articles were completely ununderstandable. We are used to the fact that a lot of words are pronounced in a different way than they are spelt. But in English there is no sense in the phrase "To read something as it is spelt". 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| sans-serif Tetraglot Senior Member Finland Joined 4561 days ago 298 posts - 470 votes Speaks: Finnish*, English, German, Swedish Studies: Danish | Message 29 of 45 18 December 2012 at 12:06pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think the fact that I was able to start reading fantasy novels in English after a year and a half of formal instruction--along with some years of exposure through games and TV--suggests that there is something "easy" about English. We hadn't even learned things like past tense yet! Admittedly, I was driven by an 11-year-old's impatience with how long it was taking for my favorite books to be translated, and I probably missed more than I realized, but I was still able to enjoy the story and I've been doing my pleasure reading predominantly in English ever since.
Thinking back, (and my memories from those days are regrettably hazy) I don't recall having much trouble with grammar--I just tried to reconcile what I saw with where I thought the story was going and was usually able to guess my way through. Spelling wasn't a problem either as I was seeing a lot of the words for the first time anyway. I did learn to pronounce a lot of words incorrectly, but those sorted themselves out over time. Vocabulary posed a lot of problems at first, but it helped a lot that I had read the previous five parts in the series, so I had a lot of context to work with. I should mention that I never looked up a single word; not because I'm against using one, but because I couldn't be bothered to. The quirks and difficulties listed out by beano don't strike me as particularly hard to overcome. Overall, I'd say English is very approachable from the standpoint of an input learner, as the main challenge one faces is the complex vocabulary of the language. Edited by sans-serif on 18 December 2012 at 3:07pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4624 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 30 of 45 18 December 2012 at 1:37pm | IP Logged | ||
Agreed. The "difficulties" I highlighted aren't insurmountable in the slightest, provided the learner has the correct amount of motivation and dedication. But I sometimes get the feeling that people label English as "easy" just because they learned it successfully. Clearly, it isn't plain sailing for a beginner. You said you jumped in and started reading English at the age of 11, BUT crucially you already had a few years exposure and a desire to increase your knowledge. People tend to say that languages like Finnish are "difficult" because of things like word agglutination. But if I had some childhood exposure to the language via the media and a concrete reason for wanting to develop my skills, I don't think it would be that hard....I would find a logical path through the quirky sections. Edited by beano on 18 December 2012 at 1:46pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4670 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 31 of 45 18 December 2012 at 3:05pm | IP Logged | ||
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Small details make English difficult,
for example, quite easy ---> quite a bit easier ---> quite the easiest (non-natives would say: quite easier, and this does not exist) I recommend that he try the cake. (non- natives would say: I recommend him to try the cake, which means something completely different). Pronunciation... non-natives pronounce many words in a non-native way, for example they pronounce progress as ['prɔgrɛs]. It should be either [ˈprɑ:grəs] (in US English) or [ ˈprəʊˌgrɛs] (in RP UK English). non-natives pronounce OF with an [f] sound instead with a [v] sound: ''think off you'' instead of 'think of you' Many of them devoice final voiced consonants, so they pronounce ROBE as ROPE, LOSE as LOOSE. Non-natives rhyme FINGER with RINGER... There has got to be a book about the most common mistakes, like these. These mistakes can be found even in advanced speakers who claim they speak ''excellent English''. Edited by Medulin on 18 December 2012 at 3:14pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| georgiqg Triglot Newbie Spain Joined 4906 days ago 36 posts - 50 votes Speaks: Bulgarian*, Spanish, English Studies: German, Russian | Message 32 of 45 21 December 2012 at 9:40am | IP Logged | ||
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Phrasal verbs, definiyely. Or at least for me. If the opposite of
"up" is "down", then why do "to give up" and "to back down" mean the same thing? :) 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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