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What makes English difficult? | ||
Tags: Difficulty | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5768 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes  Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 33 of 45 21 December 2012 at 10:40am | IP Logged | ||||||||
That is certainly true, but do such details make English as difficult as any other language, or even less difficult, or only not as easy as one would have thought first? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6911 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 34 of 45 21 December 2012 at 12:02pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Hmm, I wonder if there's any research whether speakers of other Germanic languages find the English phrasal verbs difficult (we have a lot of them), or if it's just "the rest of the world" who thinks so. I just found a glossary of 3251 verbs in English, and I've seen a list of 5030 (!) Swedish "particle verbs" (as we call them). 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| math82 Newbie United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5429 days ago 17 posts - 30 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Russian | Message 35 of 45 21 December 2012 at 1:19pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
There is a linguistic model called a "schema" which helps to explain these contradictory uses of phrasel verbs in English ( and maybe in other Germanic languages? ). "the sun is out" = there is light "the lamp is out" = there is no light "to fill OUT a form" and "to fill IN a form" both meaning the same thing. It's basically to do with the mental picture that these phrases make, and it resolves some of these apparent opposite meanings of the same word. John Quijada explains it better in this lecture: www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_zWGeBsLCE 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5768 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 36 of 45 21 December 2012 at 4:42pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Apparently there is.
What makes it difficult is that many of those verbs do follow a compound logic, and you have to learn every single exception by itself. Unless you don't know the root words of such a compound word or phrase, that includes having to inhibit their meaning as a standalone. And that often is more difficult than having to learn a completely unknown word. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Camundonguinho Triglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 4751 days ago 273 posts - 500 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English, Spanish Studies: Swedish | Message 37 of 45 21 December 2012 at 6:57pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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L2 speakers of English DO tend to avoid phrasal verbs.
For example, SURRENDER is more used than GIVE IN. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6911 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 38 of 45 21 December 2012 at 7:32pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Thanks for the link, Beano. I'll have a look at it.
Camundonguinho - I'm sure it depends on the native language. For instance, the verb "give up" (which was mentioned earlier) matches both "ge upp" (Swedish) and "aufgeben" (German) perfectly, so you can't really say that L2 speakers in general avoid phrasal verbs. Why should we? 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5768 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 39 of 45 21 December 2012 at 8:19pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
To me, surrender sounds like raising the white flag and admitting defeat to somebody with superior power. Give up sounds like resignation, you feel that any further attempt is useless and so stop trying. ('Giving up' a habit is a euphemism to me.) Give in sounds like somebody persuaded you and even though you're reluctant, you find yourself agreeing with their proposition. I'm pretty sure 'give up' was the first one I learnt. I guess it's the one I use most as well, because it seems to nail down the idea I have in mind more often than the other two. Edited by Bao on 21 December 2012 at 8:21pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5432 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 40 of 45 21 December 2012 at 8:35pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I think some distinction should be made between the intrinsic difficulties of learning English according to one's language of origin and the ease or difficulty of learning English through contact with English media and culture.
I think English is the probably the easiest language to learn in the world because of so much contact with it. It has its complexities but they are probably not greater if not lesser than any other language. No grammatical gender, simple verb conjugation and relatively simple morpho-syntax. Compared with French, English seems quite easy. I always laugh when my Chinese friends say to me that French is much harder to learn than Chinese because French is so complicated when compared to Chinese. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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