Top 8 most common misspoilings in the English language

[Troll_Whisperer]

thetonestarr said:

Troll_Whisperer said:

thetonestarr said:

RolStoppable said:

mchaza said:
i go against your statement that the English language is the easiest to learn because i say the English language is the Hardest to learn with even native English speakers have troubles with it and the Whole range of screwed up things like silent letters to words with multiple meanings and to top it off the Americans fought it would be awesome to screw up everything and make their own version of English with different spelling.

But thats what you get when you mix German, french, old celtic,latin and many many more, and add a Arabic letter system.

Japanese is much easier, tho i had to give it up and stick to learning my own language before moving onto others.

I've read posts of yours, so I believe you that English is hard to learn for you. You don't even get the use of "a" and "an" right, so yeah...

But really, English is easy to learn. Verbs barely change (if at all) when using different pronouns and tenses. Plural is similarly easy and there's only "the, a, an" to put in front of nouns, because nouns have no gender in English. Sure, there are some screwed up words and the same vowels or vowel combinations can be pronounced differently, but getting a basic grasp of the language in both writing and reading is simple.

Have you ever even studied foreign languages, outside of simple Spanish, German, or French? Most languages from outsde the European circle of languages English developed from are so drastically different, it's unreal.

Statistically, English is absolutely the hardest language to learn, because (1) we have so many nonstandard spellings, (2) we claim to go by phonics but an incredibly vast amount of the language goes against phonetic rules, (3) how the heck does "was", "were", and "am" develop from "is"?, (4) we're a hodgepodge of quite literally a dozen different languages (though most of our vocabulary originates in five languages, but that's still ridiculous!), (5) we have an incredible number of colloquial wordings, phrases, and sayings, and (6) sentence order is so relaxed. You'd think that would make it easier, but most of the world's languages have strict rules for how they work, so to switch to something that isn't as strict really confuses non-native speakers.

 

Source: I'm a professional linguist.

When it comes to learning languages, most peope agree English is one of the simplest. The grammar is really easy compared to any other European language. You may be a linguist, but you will find but most people learning languages would agree on this, and that's what counts.

So, you're telling me that the dozens of Koreans I've directly spoken to as well as the plethora of Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Hebrew, Pashtu, Kurdish, Dari, and Farsi instructors that I have professional contact with are all lying?

I'll say it again. Statistically, the only people who have an easy time learning English are people whose native language has a connection with English (like native Spanish, German, French, Italian, Tagalog, etc speakers), or else English is heavily used in their nation already (like native Hindi-speakers). Generally speaking, there's a massive and unbelievable difference in the general usage and way of thought behind European languages and the rest of the world. Adjusting is NOT easy to do, and it's foolish to make that assumption, especially if you have no professional experience in the matter.

But I do have professional experience. I am a Spanish teacher and have taught Japanese people. They agree English is easier, besides pronunciation.

According to the British foreign office, the hardest languages to learn (including English!) for an average person all around the world are:

1. Basque
2. Hungarian
3. Chinese
4. Polish
5. Japanese

And BTW, Basque is one of my native languages and I can tell you it's way, way, way, way WAY more difficult than English. People study it for 10 years and still have trouble with grammar. Even people who have it as a mother language have problems passing the official language exams. Also, I'm studying Japanese and the writing system alone ensures it's more difficult to learn than English for the average world citizen.