Discussion is English hard

No it's not. As already mentioned, it is only easy for those coming from other latin languages. For those not coming from latin languages, it is extremely hard.

 

i think its more of a they dont start learning it in college problem, here in sweden we start with english in grade 1 so 99.99% of adults know english. also i read about 90% of the english teachers there cant even hold a conversation in english they only learn the grammar which seems really silly to me, people will understand you even if your grammar is off but they wont if you dont know any words.

 

Writing an English might be easier than speaking it, but translating a novel with profound English is something else, nuff said.

 

There actually were attempts around the time of the founding of the United States to simplify and standardize English spelling and pronunciation, but it never got very far. That's the reason why some words are spelled differently in American and British English (color/colour, gray/grey, etc.). On one hand, it made some words easier to pronounce by sounding it out, but, on the other, it also divorced some words from their historical roots. The American word 'defense,' for example, has lost its attachment to 'fence' and fencing, which the British 'defence' has retained.

All in all, there are actually more similarities to character-based languages when reading English than you might initially expect. Since sounding words out letter by letter so often doesn't actually work, English-speakers learn to associate pronunciations with words themselves instead of letters, essentially treating them like a Chinese character that's constructed of letters instead of strokes. I've certainly had times in my life where I've read a word plenty of times, know what it means, and didn't recognize it the first time I heard it—or vice versa. I'm certain that's often the case with Chinese, as well.

 

When I was in France, a lot of French were bad at English, and all the movies and games were translated into French. Are they communist too? Of course things get localized, that's just common sense. Foreign films get translated to English too when they are shown in the U.S.

I've lived in China for over half my life. The Chinese suck at English because even though it's taught at school, the quality of the courses suck (and Chinese and English are so different that a lot more resources are needed for the Chinese to learn it). China has a population of over 1 billion and 40 years ago, it was closed off to the world. When it did open up, there was a rush to learn English, but you don't suddenly find resources to teach 1 billion + people English out of nowhere, so the courses are more in lines with rote-learning and not the more 'natural' method of picking up a language by actually being immersed in an environment where you use it.

And before you try to imply that the courses are bad because the communist government doesn't actually want the Chinese to learn English, math courses in the U.S. have a reputation of being bad too. It's not some grand conspiracy, education is just complicated. As I said, even the Japanese are pretty bad at English (refer to www.engrish.com ), and they don't have any censorship whatsoever.

The Chinese themselves don't have any reluctance to learn the language. They consider it to be a tool to get better job opportunities, not a matter of having or losing national pride. Extra english-learning courses of all sorts are one of the biggest educational fads in China. You see ads for those everywhere. The censorship is targeting specific content and not the English language itself.

Yes, that's certainly the case with Chinese as well. Basically, a thing that's true for Most languages is that they are not the pretty logical constructs we'd like to think they are, but a bunch of habits we form from repeated usage. I've downloaded an app recently and am learning Dutch, and it's funny for me to notice the slight differences in grammar (frankly, you can't exactly argue that the grammar is more logical in Dutch or English, it's just different). In terms of logic for spelling, Korean is perhaps the most logical system I've come across. It still has its quirks but I'd give it 8/10 in terms of logic compared to say 4/10 for English (it's a phonetic spelling system and can't even have a consistent pronunciation-to-written scheme).

Honestly, as someone who prefers things to be more on the logical side (I studied maths in University), I find the state of most languages to be a mess. I'm not too happy about it either, because one ends up spending years just to familiarize oneself with linguistic quirks with no extra functionality, instead of being able to pick up a language easily to do something productive with it. It's like having to write 'one hundred and sixty five plus one equals one hundred and sixty six' or 'CLXV + I = CLXVI' instead of 165 + 1 = 166.

 

It’s actually neither. Just depends on your native language
https://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2013/08/learning-english

 

english is annoying language~ yup annoying~

 

about an environment where you use English. Even on my country. lot of new collage graduate already start to forgetting it. why? because English always on first 5 semester. after that it not used anymore, except looking for new job. and after that, well you know...

And my english, i'll grade it 3/10 or even less. as long as i can enjoy my Manga (the very reason why i learn english) and novel its enough (i'am tired of my country literature)

 

Yup, heard something like that too tho I don’t know the exact reason as to why. Oh well glad I don’t live in China.

 

I gotta disagree with you there. English is my second language and even after all these years I still struggling with grammar, pronounation, and a bunch of other complicated stuff. Moreover, I seen adults struggling to learn basic English and failed. Simply because they don’t understand past, present and future tense.

English is not an easy language to learn at all! Period!

 

Ya all just noobs, english is so easy I would say only japanese is easier except for the writting. Welp languages are all easy, I have perfect pronunciation for any, don't get you plebs who speak broken foreign languages.

 

English is English. The reason it gets complicated and hard is because humans have a tendency of comparing it to one's native language. In fact, more often than not, learners keep studying English or any other language for that matter by translating to and fro his native language. This is a big no-no. Did you ever remember how you studied your native language? Yeah, you studied, used, lived, thought, and breathed it in your native language. That's the attitude you should take in English. English only. Otherwise it will be hard. Unfortunately not all have the opportunity or time to adopt an immersive environment so I can sympathize with that.

Besides each language has their learning barriers:
Mandarin and Japanese has Kanji/Hanzi
Mandarin has tone.
Japanese has grammar and their crazy levels of speech.
English has crazy irregularities (much like other languages).
Slavic languages have too many conjugations. etc. etc.

 

Yet it's necessary for a lot of things nowadays in the world. Though I do agree and I'm a native speaker. Given how there can be silent letters in some words that could mess with non-native speakers. Doesn't help that there can be plenty of people who jab at you for bad pronunciation at times. For example, I can't pronounce t's and h's and I just don't care anymore. But yeah, it can be very annoying.

 

English is harder to learn than other languages, say Spanish for example, because it isn't phonetic and has lots of strange grammar and spelling rules that don't make intuitive sense.

 

The coolest thing about English, that you don't get in most languages, is the ability to create new words with ease. It's the reason why, imho, it will continue to be a strong trading and technical language.

 

On my standards, oh yeah english is hard. (Probably my most hated class lol )

If you mean learning English as a non-native, I think I'd be rather difficult if you can't practice it. But since there's youtube and social media, I don't think it's hard to surround yourself with it and learn that way too hmm..

 

It's easier for me to learn english and german than for me to learn mandarin or japanese.

And I'm an enthic chinese,mandarin is hard for me because my intonation is weird,I always miss it,making 1 word sound like another.

For japanese,it's because of the writing system,mandarin too actually

 

Don't expect English from CN novel, since most author isn't proficient in English since English has less worth in their educational system

 

Just like american genetics, it's just a continuous cross breed of every other nationality!

hence I laugh when someone claims to be a "pureblood" american
(is a Caucasian american)



About the language, it varies on the similarities and dissimilarities of what you are comparing the "English" language to.