Why English is so Hard to Learn and 5 Reasons that English is Challenging

It might be the case that even if you are learning English as your second language, you’ll find it challenging to master! Want to know why English is so hard to learn? It might be due to some confusing sentence that you need to encounter like the following;

How to Intimate this to an Intimate Friend?

I shed a tear after seeing the tear in her eyes.

We are close to 5 o‘clock, and it’s time to close our work!

How interesting it is to Desert the Dessert in between the Desert.

Even Polish Furniture needs Polish!

Try to wound a Bandage around the wound properly.

The students need to first subject on the most challenging subject for exams.

Do you know there are about 6k spoken languages all over the globe! Overall, languages are somehow closely related to each other. English vocabulary includes 30% of Latin, 30% French, and 26% that of Germanic English in origin. So, your native or primary language also plays a significant role in how fast you will pick another language, say English!

Your mother tongue might have many terms that sound the same as Native English grammatical patterns and vocabulary. For example, a German can find it easy to master English than a Chinese Guy! Hence, in this case, English is more comfortable to learn for a German than the Chinese one.

5 Reasons that could make English Challenging to Learn

Here are some facts that can make a learner confused or a bit annoying while English learning;

Fact-1:

There are many unusual sentence-level and grammatical patterns in English. For instance, “Peter gave Lisa the Chocolates”. In this sentence, a beginner needs to know the grammatical construction.

It is to identify ‘who is giving’, ‘who is receiving’, and ‘what has been given’. Similarly, the non-native learners might be confused in “who is the recipient” to get the right meaning of “I will send you a Tutor”.

Fact-2:

Another reason would be its Baffling spelling system. So it is a common issue for the learners to confuse between the words that are having similar spellings but pronounced differently. For example, how you say, ‘bough’, and ‘dough’?

Fact-3:

It is also difficult for foreigners to get themselves familiar with the English Idioms; those are more unpredictable. After all, Idioms of English vary a lot and have a big range.

An idiom is the group of words whose meaning is difficult to be predicted by combining the meanings of each element themselves. For example, “The indicator will blink”, means “There is an Emergency!”

Fact-4:

One more reason is that fact that English is peculiar, the tendency of phrasal verbs. It means the meaning of a verb will be changed after adding a small word to it. For instance, they are adding ‘over’ or ‘in’ after “keep.” This part is generally missing in French and Spanish languages, so obviously, they need to work a bit harder to learn English properly.

Fact-5:

Many phrasal verbs are consisting of words that seem illogical when taken out of a sentence.

Let’s try to find out the meaning of this sentence from a Newbie’s point of view. He set off his car!

Simple logic to understand “Set off” is to break it, get the meaning of its elements and combine further.

So, using the same principle, it output of ‘Set’ + ‘Off’ when combined with the sentence would be “ He turned Off his car (by setting the engine in the off state)”!

However, the right meaning of the sentence is “He moved his car.” Tricky, isn’t it? But that’s a kind of fun while learning English!

Final Thoughts

English seems hard to learn due to many reasons like above and more. Words can have subtle differences but having the same definitions. For a highlight, “You can receive a Mail,” and “You can welcome a Guest,” but never “You can Welcome a Mail.”

Also, there are many rules in English related to spelling and Grammar, but. Many times they can be proven incorrect, contradicted, or seems broken. For example, how to differentiate the pronunciation of ‘believe’ from ‘receive’. There is a change of ‘ie’ and ‘ei’, but it sounds the same! Confused…?

A similar scenario can happen when it is about the ordering of words. Native speakers can order certain words right since they sound right to them. For instance, “A lovely little Cat” would work well compared to “A little lovely Cat.” By the way, both seems to have proper grammar logically.

That’s why English is known as Funny Language! You should be ready for surprises once you dig into mastering English. Do you want to make English easy to learn?

If yes, you do not need to stick with the same knowledge to be applied as a principle to every new word you are encountering. Once you spend time in the ocean of its exceptions to rules and getting yourself familiar with such small nuances will make you closer to be a Native.