Why is English so easy?

Personally, I've never had any difficulty in learning different verb forms/conjugations in foreign languages. There's nothing to 'understand' as such. You just have to learn it, and that's it.

I see nothing 'difficult' about je vais, tu vas, il va, nous allons, vous allez, ils vont as such — I just know it because I've learnt it at some point.

>>
I see nothing 'difficult' about je vais, tu vas, il va, nous allons, vous allez, ils vont as such — I just know it because I've learnt it at some point. <<

Yeah, but most French verbs are fairly regular with only a couple of paradigms, with just a few exceptions whereas English possess lots of strong verbs like "sing/sang/sung".

I suppose you could just make all verbs regular ("I goed to the store") and you would still be understood, but you would have to eventually learn them or you would run into lots of problems with understanding English.

Nat

You wrote that you think that English is easier because "I think that it is all a matter of grammar."

You also stated that "it seems to me that Chinese must be pretty difficult."

If you go by your first statement, then Chinese should be MUCH easier than than any European language, including English. No conjugations at all. No plural markings, except for some pronouns. No case system. Learn the word order and vocabulary, and never have to worry about a word morphing into some other form.

There are obviously OTHER factors that make a language difficult. (In the case of Chinese, a totally non-European vocabulary, tones, and the writing system.)

As for English: I can see how the grammar would seem easier for speakers of most other European languages. But I can't imagine having to tackle the pronunciation, spelling, and irregularities with much ease, compared to, let's say, Spanish or Italian.

I agree with Brennus. English has the huge advantage of being available to be heard or read in almost every part of the world. I think that familiarity makes it easier for many learners.

Q : « (...) most French verbs are fairly regular with only a couple of paradigms, with just a few exceptions whereas English possess lots of strong verbs like "sing/sang/sung". »

Il faudrait faire un comparatif étayé par des chiffres.

<< English possess lots of strong verbs like "sing/sang/sung >>

The largest list of English irregular verbs I ever saw had only 432 verbs, and most of those were irregular weak verbs, rather than strong ones. Most of those verbs arfe just barely iregular, too. Some of those verbs are also obscure. (How often do you ever use the irregular verb "shrive" in your daily speech, for example?).

Doesn't Spanish have something like 700+ (or 900+) irregular verbs? Many of them are just the e->ie or o->ue types, though.

English is said to be easy AT FIRST because it has shed a lot of the grammar that other European languages retain to some degree or another i.e. gender, cases (mainly), adjective endings, irregular plurals (again mainly). It also doesn't have loads of different verbs forms. This makes it easier to get going and speak English REASONABLY well. However how hard it is to MASTER English compared to other languages is a matter of some debate. Some say it is relatively hard, others say languages are equally difficult to perfect and others say English is still comparatively easy at this level.

About English -
I know colloquial English (but I know it well :-P ) and it's relatively very easy language even for people whose native languages are outside it's language group. In English, the only hard thing is the pronunciation. Yes, the grammar is not easy, but there are no languages with easy grammar... So that's why I'm saying *relatively* easy. Grammar exceptions? Guys... all the languages have those. And this is the reason it's the most popular language. Because it's pretty easy to master. If it was a hard-to-learn language, it's popularity would have staid rather shallow.

My native language is Bulgarian. Bulgarian is definitely a hard language to learn - 1st of all - another alphabet (Cyrillic) . Second - 16 times (past, future and varieties), word conjugation... . But let's leave Bulgarian, as it's my native language and I can't tell if it is hard or not - I just know it pretty damn good :-). Basically, it's nonsense for a native speakers without strong knowledge in their own language + strong knowledge in other languages from different language groups to say anything about the difficulties of their native language. Their opinion just don't count.

I am currently in Czech Republic studying Czech and I should say - this language is very difficult! Very!!! It is in the same language group as my native language, but this doesn't help - it's like a whole new galaxy... First of all - it has words conjugation - it is because unlike English it has flexible word order. In English word order is fixed - Subject + activity + object. In Czech - it is not you can mix these almost as you wish, and the relativity between the words is expressed by conjugation. An example:

En: Eva knows Peter.
Czech. Eva zna Petra.
-or-
Czech. Petra zna Eva. - this sentence again means that Eva is the one, who knows Petr - this relativity is expressed by adding "a" to Petr - Petra.
Czech language has one sound - it is represented by the letter ř - it is pronounced as "rzh" - really hard to pronounce! This sound is documented to be used by only Czechs and one tribe of few people living in the Pacific Ocean.
And this is not all. There are a lot of Czech words that consist of only of clusters of consonants. To give an example of the kind of the beast I mean :-) :
Strc prst skrz krk. - This means "put my finger in my throat". Scary, huh?
Also - reading is not easy... lot's of vocals are being prolonged by certain sings over them... lots of sounds hard to pronounce... this language is Very Very hard... It is using the latin alphabet ... but really, this doesn't help a lot.

To finish my long post - I have read somewhere, that the hardest language in Europe is the Netherlands, and it's dialect Flamand (I am not sure about the spelling of these). If someone has any experience, may be he can say details..

>> I have read somewhere, that the hardest language in Europe is the Netherlands, and it's dialect Flamand (I am not sure about the spelling of these). If someone has any experience, may be he can say details.. <<

I think you mean the *easiest* language, because it's practically the same as English, so if you know English, it's very easy to learn.

Simeon

>>Because it's pretty easy to master<<

Once you have actually mastered English yourself, then you might be in a better position to judge. Your English is good, but it is nowhere near native standard. It's a joke when people come on here saying how easy English is, yet give themselves away as non-native speakers with almost every sentence they write.

>>Nat

Your English is understandable but there are a lot of errors in your post which demonstrate that just because English doesn't have tonnes of different verb forms, it is still hard to learn it properly.<<

I never said I was bilingual ;)
I know that I make a lot of errors so I read in English as much as I can to improve my English :)

I also never said that English (like every languages in the world) is easy to learn. You can't decide one day to speak English and did it the day after perfectly. I gave my opinion in my message: I think that English is easier to learn that some other languages because of several things but mostly grammar. When you learn a language, you know that you will have to make a lot of efforts, remembering vocabulary, verbs, etc... but it seems to me that it is easier when the conjugation is relatively simple. I can tell you that it's more difficult for me to remember the conjugation of a verb in Spanish than it is for a verb in English.

But, as I said in my first message, for each person it can be different. It also depends of the will to learn.

« And this is the reason it's the most popular language. Because it's pretty easy to master. »

No. The current popularity of the English language is largely due to the global influence of the United States, and to a lesser extent the British Empire in the 19th century where the language was spread to the (now former) colonies.

« My native language is Bulgarian. Bulgarian is definitely a hard language to learn - 1st of all - another alphabet (Cyrillic). »

And this makes English easier than Bulgarian for, say, native speakers of Chinese? English's Latin alphabet is only an advantage over Bulgarian's Cyrillic one for people whose own language uses a Latin alphabet.

« Second - 16 times (past, future and varieties), »

English has a lot of tenses as well (with simple, perfect and continuous varieties etc.). Actually, misuse of tenses is one of the biggest mistakes that non-native English speakers make.

« I am currently in Czech Republic studying Czech and I should say - this language is very difficult! Very!!! It is in the same language group as my native language, but this doesn't help - it's like a whole new galaxy... First of all - it has words conjugation - it is because unlike English it has flexible word order. In English word order is fixed - Subject + activity + object. In Czech - it is not you can mix these almost as you wish, and the relativity between the words is expressed by conjugation. »

Many people would say that this makes Czech easier and English harder. It ultimately depends on whether you're used to speaking languages with a strict word order and limited case distinction, or languages with flexible word order and clear case distinction. Neither is inherently more difficult.

« Czech language has one sound - it is represented by the letter ? - it is pronounced as "rzh" - really hard to pronounce! This sound is documented to be used by only Czechs and one tribe of few people living in the Pacific Ocean. »

I have come across a lot of non-native English speakers who have been incapable of pronouncing many English sounds.

« And this is not all. There are a lot of Czech words that consist of only of clusters of consonants. To give an example of the kind of the beast I mean :-) :
Strc prst skrz krk. - This means "put my finger in my throat". »

So?

« Also - reading is not easy... lot's of vocals are being prolonged by certain sings over them... »

At least the spelling appears to indicate clearly the pronunciation, unlike English.

« It is using the latin alphabet ... but really, this doesn't help a lot. »

I would have thought that the Latin alphabet would be a disadvantage for you, rather than an advantage.

« And this is the reason it's the most popular language. Because it's pretty easy to master. »

« No. The current popularity of the English language is largely due to the global influence of the United States, and to a lesser extent the British Empire in the 19th century where the language was spread to the (now former) colonies. »

Thanks Benjamin. I really can't understand people that try to imply that English is the current lingua franca because of its simplicity. I guess French and Latin were lingua franca's before because they were simple too. English was also around long before it became the lingua franca. It's popularity cannot be attributed merely to its assumed "ease".

It really doesn't matter to me how simple English is or not. I couldn't really say, as it is my native language, but even my husband, a native Italian speaker who has lived here for almost a decade, has not mastered it yet. He, however, has certainly come a lot closer than the people here proclaiming that English is so easy. But then he does not think it is easy...

Point: English's simplicity or difficulty has no bearing on its status as lingua franca. Its success is attributed to other factors that combine to produce its global influence, as Benjamin mentioned. It will fall one day too, just like past lingua franca's have. Another country/culture will rise and their language will become the new lingua franca. It doesn't matter if the lingua franca is easy or not, it never has. We will learn it anyway.

>>My native language is Bulgarian. Bulgarian is definitely a hard language to learn - 1st of all - another alphabet (Cyrillic) . Second - 16 times (past, future and varieties), word conjugation... . But let's leave Bulgarian, as it's my native language and I can't tell if it is hard or not - I just know it pretty damn good :-). Basically, it's nonsense for a native speakers without strong knowledge in their own language + strong knowledge in other languages from different language groups to say anything about the difficulties of their native language. Their opinion just don't count.<<

This is quite true, and that's actually why Tiffany didn't venture to say if she thought English was difficult or not. Personally, I'd say if you don't have a wide knowledge about languages origin, the main Language families, phonetics, a fair bit about languages structure... and apart from all that, I think you need to speak some languages that should be very different to each other. Then, you can actually give a fairly accurate opinion about the difficulties of a particular language. But then again it's not that easy. Since it's all relative... It largely depends on what your native language is and ,as Simeon said, how deep is your knowledge about your own language.

My mother tongue is Spanish. Nowadays, my knowledge about its grammar, origin, phonetics, evolution from Latin, and other issues is fairly wide, at least I know a bit more than the average Spanish speaking person. I speak a couple of languages in the same family: some Italian, and Portuguese. I couldn't really assure you that Chinese is the hardest language to learn, simply because I don't know anything about it. Not a single thing. But I know for sure that the alphabet would be a very tricky thing to deal with. The same for Czech, its writting looks wickedly weird, and the pronunciation, rumour has it, is damn difficult... So I don't know...

Now about English, I'm happy with my level of English... There are still a lot of things to improve though. Definitely, I can't say English is the easiest language to learn. That'd be very pretentious, in my view. It was NOT particularly difficult either. I'd tend to say it was just... like... learning a foreing language... difficult at the beggining, but easier as you went on and on... and on. And difficulties aside, I think with English... there's usually some motivation (interest is actually a MUST, when learning any language) which makes your learning process easier. I really can't be arsed... thinking how difficult it was, but it's more important to keep learning the language.
In my opinion, you never really master a language completely, even your native language. Dear God, I know of people here (in Peru, and other Spanish speaking countries as well) who can't write a short paragraph about something because their vocabulary and command of the language is so poor and... I don't know... depressing... Anyway.

>>« And this is not all. There are a lot of Czech words that consist of only of clusters of consonants. To give an example of the kind of the beast I mean :-) :
Strc prst skrz krk. - This means "put my finger in my throat". »

So? <<

So?!? SO?!?!?! SOOO?!?! SO you say? Benjamin, I don't know what you meant there... But if you intended to say that all that "Strc prst skrz krk" stuff is not difficult... then, man I don't know what is difficult for you. You must be a language guru.

I think that Simeon was wrong in saying that it was "scary". It isn't... it's not only "scary" but also TERRIFYING and APPALLING, I can't even imagine how the bloody hell you'd pronounce "Strc prst skrz krk", Honestly.

Now I'll go to bed. I think I might have a nightmare... Try to imagine, a dark background with "Strc prst skrz krk" phrases appearing from time to time and some Czech-like face pronouncing it in various inconceivable ways and asking me to repeat those phrases till I finally go crazy and suicide. That's what I'm gonna dream about...

Pete from Ica in Peru

P.S. Sorry if my post was too long.

Tifanny : « Point: English's simplicity or difficulty has no bearing on its status as lingua franca. Its success is attributed to other factors that combine to produce its global influence, as Benjamin mentioned. It will fall one day too, just like past lingua franca's have. Another country/culture will rise and their language will become the new lingua franca. It doesn't matter if the lingua franca is easy or not, it never has. We will learn it anyway. »

Les paroles de Tiffany sont à lire — et à relire : elles sont criantes de vérité.

Why do you always post in French? This forum is supposed to be English... I never post stuff in Spanish, even though many guys here can speak it or understand it.
Why don't you moderators tell Greg to quit doing that? You don't mind... You don't care... or what?

Entonces es tiempo de que yo también comience a postear mis opiniones en Español. Si Greg puede, entonces yo tengo todo el derecho.

Pedro de Perú