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| JNathanG | Monday 07th of November 2005 12:41:24 AM |
| English = difficult? - To anyone who is learning or has ever learned English as a second language: Is it a difficult language(more difficult than average, I mean)? If so, why or in what ways? I'm studying German right now, and in so many ways, English seems easier and less complex. I know I'm not a good judge of it's difficulty, though, as I have grown up speaking it. So is English really a difficult language(or is that just a myth, perpetuated by English speakers)? If so, is it really more difficult than other languages? Thanks for you opinions! | |
| Mathieu | Monday 07th of November 2005 01:01:14 AM |
| - I think English is easy for 2 reasons. 1: It's pretty simple to native Indo-European language speakers. That is, no rich inflection on verbs (only 2 forms for present tense for example, with and without the -s), not alot of cases (nominative, genitive, accusative, dative but that one doesn't even show), very rigid word order (it's subject-verb-object almost everywhere), that sort of thing. Maybe it's because modern English is a product of lots of language contact, which might have caused it to lose any really difficult to learn features. But one needs reason #2 as well to really be able to get an idea of how to speak/write English in a natural sounding way. 2: English dominates the media all around - music, movies, games.. this is the most important reason I think. Still it's hard for me to tell though, I can't compare it to any other second language I've been trying to learn, because like most people that have it as a second language I sort of partly grew up with it (for reason #2). But I suspect it'd be as hard as Spanish is to a speaker of an Indo-European language, which is also said to be pretty straightforward. | |
| sissi90 | Monday 07th of November 2005 02:32:20 AM |
| hm..spelling, anyone? - There are two things about English I think are difficult to people learning it(or the people who are learning it, maybe? Help, I'll say). Well, the first one is spelling and pronouncing, in some cases they don't seem to have any connections at all. Though when you've learned it, it's piece of cake and there are some. The other one is all the Latin descended words you have to learn if you are going to learn advanced English. That won't be that hard to people with Spanish, Portugues, Italian or French as their mother tongue as these languages are Latin descendants. A last difficulty: the ing-form is a bit tricky. It's a neat way of expression yourself, though. And, as Teup mentioned, the verb conjugation are simple and the nouns haven't got gender. Fortunately. (even if I like gendered languages) | |
| Mathieu | Monday 07th of November 2005 03:14:12 AM |
| - Hmm, I haven't thought of the things sissi90 said yet, but it is very true I think - spelling is very strange (Dutch is alot more straightforward with at least thát), and since English has, as mentioned, so many words from Latin, the morphemes, the smallest units carrying meaning, are rather big - 'resist' is 1 word, and also 1 morpheme. Now in this case English still has the "native" version of "withstand", which consists of 2 comprehendable parts. But many words haven't and you're sort of forced to learn latin verbs and prepositions, or you have to remember every single word as a whole. Words like "opportunity" aren't native, there's no native word for it, and it can't be divided in seperate memorable bits - it's just one chunck of language you have to learn by heart, and especially when spelling is concerned that can be pretty tough still. But still the language as a whole is pretty easy I'd say, just that bloody spelling.. :p | |
| joziboy | Monday 07th of November 2005 03:37:10 AM |
| - [quote][i]Originally posted by Teup[/i] Words like "opportunity" [b]aren't native[/b], there's no native word for it, and it can't be divided in seperate memorable bits - it's just one chunck of language you have to learn by heart[/quote] English doesn't have native words does it? It's one big prostitute of a language, borrowing stuff from every other language :) Which, as you say, is probably why it's lost the difficult aspects that 'purer' languages contain | |
| Psyche | Monday 07th of November 2005 03:49:28 AM |
| - I doubt that Latin is a 100 % pure language. Everyone borrows from everybody (except the government on Iceland..damn language racists ;) *). Okay, maybe English is a `lil bit slutty, but prostitutes have a personality as well. Of course English have words they have invented themselves. * I think Iceland kicks ass. As long as they don`t isolate themeselves from the rest of the world, I think it is great how they treat their langage with respect. | |
| Mathieu | Monday 07th of November 2005 03:56:04 AM |
| - Yeah you're right, and yeah English is a tad extreme, which may be cause to either like it or dislike it, that's up to your own point of view :p But it surely does make the spelling harder, and the logic behind things sort of fades away.. there are just these big chunks that aren't analyzable any further and have a spelling that is just completely random determined by what it was borrowed from and when.. | |
| joziboy | Monday 07th of November 2005 04:04:53 AM |
| - Yup, that's definitely true. I remember getting really angry when I was little about how bizarre the spelling of some words is, because I could never remember it - especially words that were once French. We seem to adopt all the weirdness of their spelling too! (which is probably easier if you grow up in the uk where everyone's actually taught French, but us poor Saffas are left in the dark :) ) | |
| Ciraric | Monday 07th of November 2005 04:09:18 AM |
| - [quote][i]Originally posted by joziboy[/i] especially words that were once French.[/quote] Damn those French! | |
| Psyche | Monday 07th of November 2005 04:09:18 AM |
| - Who cares about analyzing anyway ;) English is easier when comparing them to other, much more complex languages. I, personally, used YEARS on learning some of the most elementary verbs. I went like..."I have"..."you has"....uh... Norwegian doesn`t inflect the verbs, that made it hard for me. Now I don`t have a problem with it, really. It depends on your native tongue. If you are used to inflict verbs and used to many cases, well, then English shoulden`t be a problem. | |
| Ciraric | Monday 07th of November 2005 04:11:28 AM |
| - What does it mean to inflict a verb? | |
| Mathieu | Monday 07th of November 2005 04:15:06 AM |
| - She meant 'inflect' - add affixes for tense and agreement. [quote][i]Originally posted by Psyche[/i] I, personally, used YEARS on learning some of the most elementary verbs. I went like..."I have"..."you has"....uh...[/quote] And now you are in this trouble all over again with Dutch hmm? :D Dutch isn't that much harder, but also not as easy as English, which hardly has any verb forms at all.. | |
| Psyche | Monday 07th of November 2005 04:16:03 AM |
| - That the stem of the verb changes after person and sometimes number of persons. I -> AM You -> ARE HE -> IS You see the verb changing? :) Edit: Damn Tøp..not only did you correct me in public, you also posted before me! :p I don`t think it is so hard in Dutch actually. I don`t know, I and Dutch like each other :p | |
| jvz8a | Monday 07th of November 2005 04:18:16 AM |
| - lol Nat, the verb is not inflict, it's inflect. It means "to conjugate". inflict means "to give by stricking" :D | |
| Psyche | Monday 07th of November 2005 04:20:27 AM |
| - Does EVERYONE have the need to correct me in public?!!! *ARGH* :p :p :p | |
| Ciraric | Monday 07th of November 2005 04:20:38 AM |
| - I thought the word meant to conjugate. Now everybody, CONJUGATE, CONJUGATE!! (always wanted to say that). | |
| Mathieu | Monday 07th of November 2005 04:27:41 AM |
| - ...that'll be number 3... any other people that would like to correct Nat in public? :p Yeah I guess it's conjugating. I'm not that much in all this traditionaly terminology, especially not in English but I guess that's it :) | |
| Psyche | Monday 07th of November 2005 04:28:00 AM |
| - *feels ordered* Ik ben Jij bent U bent Hij/zij/het is Wij zijn Jullie zijn U bent Edit: GOD TØPIN`! Stop posting before me!! And you are SO into those words...admit it :p You are studying it god damn :p | |
| jvz8a | Monday 07th of November 2005 04:34:26 AM |
| - [quote][i]Originally posted by Teup[/i] ...that'll be number 3... any other people that would like to correct Nat in public? [/quote]Just a wild idea... we can start a thread for that :p | |
| Psyche | Monday 07th of November 2005 04:50:10 AM |
| - I know I have a lot of mistakes...but that doesn`t keeep me from going [b]ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH[/b] [i]I hope Brett didn`t see this :p | |
| Goran | Monday 07th of November 2005 04:54:50 AM |
| - I think, in Europe, the Spanish, Italians and French have the most difficulties with the english language. The problem lies within the school system of these countries. The students know the grammar rules, but they can hardly speak the language. The best english speakers for me are the ones from Sweden, Norway, Danmark, Netherland and Germany. I work in a hotel and when I have some clients from Italy or France they are mostly monolingual, and they don't speak any other language. On the other hand if they are from the countries I've mentioned above all of them speak english. :) What do you think about it? | |
| Psyche | Monday 07th of November 2005 05:30:40 AM |
| - Goran wrote: "I think, in Europe, the Spanish, Italians and French have the most difficulties with the english language. The problem lies within the school system of these countries. The students know the grammar rules, but they can hardly speak the language. The best english speakers for me are the ones from, Sweden, Norway, Danmark, Netherland and Germany. I work in a hotel and when I have some clients from Italy or France they are mostly monolingual, and they don't speak any other language. On the other hand if they are from the countries I've mentioned above all of them speak english. What do you think about it?" I agree! When I was on my language travel, we got divided into levels. I got on the highest level with Swedes, Finns (they were not that good actually), Austrians....and a few from Italy and Spain. The Italian one was a master of grammar, but her spoken wasn`t good. The Spaniards...well, they were pretty alright (they were 13...lol). Theyhad been changing from level to level, they didn`t know what suited them the best. One Italian in my group went to a lower level, because he didn`t speak English well. Edit: Sorry Goran, I couldn`t read your reply unless I pushed the reply button. Obviously I can now! :p | |
| pableras28 | Monday 07th of November 2005 05:38:46 AM |
| - I'm Spanish, and it's true they don't teach English quite well, they don't teach us to speak, just to write and we repeat lots of things year after year. I've learnt more in a year of faculty than all my life! For me, English is not that difficult, if it is well taught (you know what I mean...lol). But now that I'm studying German, I think it is not so logical as German, but at least much more logical than Spanish language! It is a fact that people from Northern Europe countries speak FANTASTIC English! There are some Erasmus students from German and Switzerland in my class and their pronunciation is wonderful...What a pity I was not born there! :( | |
| Goran | Monday 07th of November 2005 05:40:38 AM |
| - [quote][i]Originally posted by Psyche[/i] I agree! When I was on my language travel, we got divided into levels. I got on the highest level with Swedes, Finns (they were not that good actually), Austrians....and a few from Italy and Spain. The Italian one was a master of grammar, but her spoken wasn`t good. The Spaniards...well, they were pretty alright (they were 13...lol). Theyhad been changing from level to level, they didn`t know what suited them the best. One Italian in my group went to a lower level, because he didn`t speak English well.[/quote] I think one of the reasons could also be the fact that in France, Italy, Spain and some other countries all the films on TV and cinemas are dubbed into those languages. That does not happen in other countries. A person can learn a lot watching TV in English. When I was living in former Yugoslavia I could speak better English than now because of watching TV in original version with subtitles. I don't like dubbed films at all. :( | |
| jiangshi | Monday 07th of November 2005 08:21:57 AM |
| - English is very irregular because some words are of Germanic and others of Romantic(? lol) origin. brother --> fraternal water --> aquatic house --> domestic German is thought to be a very "regular" and precise language (at least that's what I've read). Words are usually put together pretty logically, and the meanings are easy to infer. | |
| Jakee | Monday 07th of November 2005 10:32:15 PM |
| - For me English has never really been a hard language to learn. I guess there are several reasons for that. 1. The teaching here in Finland is quite good, at least I'm satisfied :) We're both taught to speak and to write properly. 2. There are tons of TV programmes spoken in English. And I'm very glad they aren't dubbed! Instead they have Finnish subtitles here. That's why it's very easy to learn English without even studying. :P I hate the dubbed programmes if I travel to Spain of France or to other countries where programmes and films are dubbed. Dubbing is almost like raping programmes :( English as a language is quite simple. Nouns have only 2 cases, nominative and genitive whereas Finnish has 14! The only hard thing in English might be the vocabulary. Almost every word is loaned from an other language. But if you can speak french too, it can help, because a lot of words are loaned from French, right? | |
| sissi90 | Monday 07th of November 2005 10:38:23 PM |
| - [quote][i]Originally posted by joziboy[/i] English doesn't have native words does it? It's one big prostitute of a language, borrowing stuff from every other language :) Which, as you say, is probably why it's lost the difficult aspects that 'purer' languages contain[/quote] That's one advantage. Since English has a lot of German and Latin words, German and Latin language speakers will have their own part of English that they already know. [quote][i]Originally posted by Jakee[/i] 2. There are tons of TV programmes spoken in English. And I'm very glad they aren't dubbed! Instead they have Finnish subtitles here. That's why it's very easy to learn English without even studying. :P I hate the dubbed programmes if I travel to Spain of France or to other countries where programmes and films are dubbed. Dubbing is almost like raping programmes :( English as a language is quite simple. Nouns have only 2 cases, nominative and genitive whereas Finnish has 14![/quote] Agree, agree.. I just wish there were as many programmes in German as in English. English has actually three cases, accusative too, but will not cases make the sentences consist of fewer words? Like, if you say an apple on the table, the case will turn it to an appleon tablethe? | |
| cesar | Monday 07th of November 2005 10:50:06 PM |
| - Hummmm... In my humble opinion I believe that English is easy and difficult. Its grammar is easy. The structures are simple and -- for instance -- verb inflection is not as complex as in Spanish, French, Italian, or other languages. Pronunciation, on the other hand, is a whole mess. You have words that can be pronounced in two different ways just because of their meaning: - wind /wind/, the noun. - wind /waind/, the verb. You do not have a set of rules that tell you how pronunciation works, like in Spanish, or Italian, or Latin, or German. Compare "woman" and its plural "women", see how the "u" sound in woman changes to and "i" sound (sorry, I'll use phonetic symbols when I have time). Why is that?? I guess nobody knows. :p Also take "photograph" and "photography"... The T pronunciation changes from the first to the second word, doesn't it (at least in American English). In English you basically have to learn the pronunciation of words by heart, otherwise you could be misunderstood. How about the following setence? - I need to condone the decisions made. If a latin speaker with a, say, not very strong latin accent stresses the first syllable of "condone" instead of the second (as it should be), the sentence might sound like "I need a condom, the decision's made." to a native English speaker! There are many variables involved in English pronunciation and accent, and they are very important in order to be properly understood. I hope my opinion helps a bit. César | |
| kea | Monday 07th of November 2005 11:26:22 PM |
| - I studied English starting from the first grade until the end of high school. The first seven years it really was a hard work. But when I think back to it now it was hard because we had an extremely demanding teacher ;) and because of the spelling. My native language is as fonetical as it can get (we don't even have a word for spelling) so English spelling was hard to get. But grammar part I don't remember being so hard. And the reasons why I think English all together is not that difficult is because Russian I learned the same amount of years and when in English I feel quite comfortable in expressing myself then with Russian I still feel very very clumsy - it's grammar and vocabulary just seem endless :p And even television I could see both in English and Russian, but still my English advanced much faster and easier :) And also compared with other languages that I have studied English is hardest only of the spelling part, in grammar it is the easiest of them. | |
| cesar | Monday 07th of November 2005 11:44:37 PM |
| - Kea, when you talk about spelling do you mean pronunciation? Cause they're not the same thing. Greetings | |
| Ciraric | Tuesday 08th of November 2005 12:03:29 AM |
| - Did you know?- Finnish is the second hardest language to learn. | |
| joziboy | Tuesday 08th of November 2005 12:51:50 AM |
| - [quote][i]Originally posted by cesar[/i] Compare "woman" and its plural "women", see how the "u" sound in woman changes to and "i" sound (sorry, I'll use phonetic symbols when I have time). Why is that?? I guess nobody knows. :p [/quote] Hey, if it helps the word 'women' is only pronounced as if it has an 'i' in it in America. More confusingly, in South Africa and the UK (don't really know about the other dialects) woman and women are pronounced exactly the same as each other! :) Could someone give examples of those three cases? I don't really know what that means! | |
| karenlee | Tuesday 08th of November 2005 01:01:17 AM |
| - Woman and women!!! in school i was taught that women should be procounced something like "i" in the end.the lecturer said it's bcoz of plural. i thought it's really ridiculous. when times i talk to some native speakers from UK, they don't know what the hell womi is all about! | |
| cesar | Tuesday 08th of November 2005 01:28:07 AM |
| - Karenlee, I was talking about the vowel sound in the first syllable (from left to right, of course) of "woman" and "women". I guess you got a bit confused. ;) Greetings! | |
| Mathieu | Tuesday 08th of November 2005 03:48:37 AM |
| - I once asked a native (Canadian) English speaker what the difference in pronunciation was between "man" and "men", and he couldn't tell, just that it's different.. then I asked if it's perhaps that the /æ/ in "men" is shorter than in "man", and then he replied that he couldn't tell, and that it was just, well, different :p Another oddity besides from all this what-borrowed-from-what-and-when matter (because that's only the tip of the iceberg ('berg', good example :D)), there are these rather silly cases like "beat" versus "bead" which only differ in vowel length - "bead" is supposed to be longer. Now I would do that correctly without notice, but if you learn English in, say, your 20ies or later, I can imagine these things to be pretty nasty. Another thing that is generally difficult for Dutch speakers and probably of other Indo-European languages (or, difficult, just that it isn't heard/produced well) are the aspirated stops. In, say, "park" there is (I [b]think[/b] so :p) an "h" after the "p". In other cases, however, it's not there. I'm not sure how much of this I'm getting right myself but I do know many Dutch people don't do them at all, at least I do to some extend :D | |
| cesar | Tuesday 08th of November 2005 05:15:02 AM |
| - Man is pronounced /mæn/ and men is pronounced /men/. The æ sound is different from the e sound; it's like a spanish "a" sound trying to sound like "e", but it's got its trick (I personally believe that this might be the most difficult vowel sound for English learners). A native English speaker is not gonna tell you about this because, just like us, they learned their native tongue by means of repetition during the early years of childhood. ;) Most people cannot explain why their native language doesn't sound natural when a learner does not speak it perfectly. Maybe that's why linguists exist? Hehe :D Regards! | |
| Nightwraith | Tuesday 08th of November 2005 05:19:37 AM |
| - hey maybe i can help you... man is pronounced as " mæn ".. this word is pronounciated like "fat" ... and "men" is pronounciated as "e" in "when"...maybe this helps you ;) | |
| Nightwraith | Tuesday 08th of November 2005 05:20:19 AM |
| - hey maybe i can help you... man is pronounced as " mæn ".. this word is pronounciated like "fat" ... and "men" is pronounciated as "e" in "wet"...maybe this helps you ;) | |
| Mathieu | Tuesday 08th of November 2005 05:23:52 AM |
| - Ah yes when I try them out now I notice that it's indeed sort of a different vowel.. I didn't notice I did that before, because my native too doesn't have that distinction, so I expected 'when' and 'man' to have the same vowel but when I pronounce them I do notice it now :) | |
| joziboy | Tuesday 08th of November 2005 06:59:59 AM |
| - Yup, men and man aren't pronounced the same, but the problem with 'women' and 'woman' is that the emphasis is on the first syllable so the second syllable just sounds like a flat 'uh' sound (there's a special name for the vowel sound... apparently it's the most common in English, but I have no idea what it's called. It's sort of nondescript. Any linguists know the one I mean?) which means that [b]women[/b] and [b]woman[/b] are pronounced exactly the same. If you annunciated the 'a' sound of woman the stress would be in the wrong place and it would sound really odd. Not to be pedantic or anything... :) | |
| Osman | Tuesday 08th of November 2005 06:46:08 PM |
| - [quote][i]Originally posted by Teup[/i] Ah yes when I try them out now I notice that it's indeed sort of a different vowel.. I didn't notice I did that before, because my native too doesn't have that distinction, so I expected 'when' and 'man' to have the same vowel but when I pronounce them I do notice it now :)[/quote] :) i agree with you. i noticed that last year while lecturer was teaching (trying to teaching;)) us English phonetic. when you learn the english phonetic,it is being easier to pronounce the words but it is not easy to learn english phonetic as it has different kinds of sounds like diphtongs and triphtongs :) but never give up. it is funny and makes you laugh while you are repating the word to decide whether it is a diphtong or triphtong :) cesar says : ""Most people cannot explain why their native language doesn't sound natural when a learner does not speak it perfectly. Maybe that's why linguists exist?"" i definitely agree :) it is not fault of native-speakers if they can not explain when they are asked. have fun with languages! | |
| cesar | Tuesday 08th of November 2005 08:56:54 PM |
| - joziboy, The vowel sound to refer to is called schwa (English linguists pronounce it /shwa/ or /shua/ with stress in the "a", but it should be /shva/). This vowel sound comes from the semitic languages of old. I do not think that Ugaritic has it but I do know that Aramaic and Hebrew have it. The sound comes from those languages. And yes, it is the most common vowel sound in English; and I think that is because when we speak in English those vowels that are not stressed tend to be shortened or "diminished." It's really funny, because when an English learner starts using this sound he/she starts to sound a bit more natural instead of forced. Cheers! | |
| joziboy | Tuesday 08th of November 2005 11:27:52 PM |
| - Thanks cesar :) Yup, that's the one I meant. You're right about it sounding natural - people speaking English when it's not their home language often pronounce all the vowels 'correctly' and it just ends up sounding strange! :) | |
| JNathanG | Friday 11th of November 2005 11:20:58 PM |
| - Where I live (Texas, USA), we pronounce woman/women like so: Woman - First vowel like 'oo' in 'wood'. Second vowel like that Schwa mentioned earlier. Women - First vowel like 'i' in 'wind'. Second vowel, again, like a Schwa. | |
| cesar | Saturday 12th of November 2005 12:35:37 AM |
| - Exactly, JNathanG. That's the standard American English pronunciation (when I say standard, I'm talking about the accent that tends to be "neutral" or understood by most americans). I honestly don't know why other readers got confused about this; we were talking about the sound change in the "o" vowel, not the last one. :D | |
| ladysmyrna | Wednesday 16th of November 2005 06:42:05 PM |
| - Greetings to all of you ... I have never thought that English is a difficult language to learn probably because I started studying English when I was really young (wow it sounded like I'm really old now:) ) But the English that they teach us at school is really not enough. The fact that I went to an English course helped me excel in English faster. Maybe I could have never done it if I had been satisfied with what I got from school. That's why most of my friends are still struggling with it even at university :p Now I'm studying Hebrew English seems even easier! May God help me now :D | |
| Jakee | Thursday 17th of November 2005 10:26:55 PM |
| - [quote]Agree, agree.. I just wish there were as many programmes in German as in English. English has actually three cases, accusative too, but will not cases make the sentences consist of fewer words? Like, if you say an apple on the table, the case will turn it to an appleon tablethe?[/quote] Because English has few cases prepositions are used and there are more words than there would be with cases. So "an apple on the table" might be something like: "an apple the tableon" :D The preposition as a word dissapeares and a suffix is added to table. Confusing, huh? :D That's why I'm very glad English has only a few cases, otherwise it might be a very complicated language. :) | |
| Jakee | Thursday 17th of November 2005 10:58:05 PM |
| - [quote]Agree, agree.. I just wish there were as many programmes in German as in English. English has actually three cases, accusative too, but will not cases make the sentences consist of fewer words? Like, if you say an apple on the table, the case will turn it to an appleon tablethe?[/quote] Because English has few cases prepositions are used and there are more words than there would be with cases. So "an apple on the table" might be something like: "an apple the tableon" :D The preposition as a word dissapeares and a suffix is added to table. Confusing, huh? :D That's why I'm very glad English has only a few cases, otherwise it might be a very complicated language. :) | |
