To the foreigners!

English spelling and pronunciation are inconsistent, unlike most other languages. This makes it very difficult to learn.

Eh, I'd imagine you're wrong on that one 😂

I'm not a foreigner, but I have seen it said that English is the hardest language to learn out of all the ones that use the latin alphabet.

The main issue with English is that there are patterns, but also a fuckload of exceptions to those patterns, and no real way to know what those are except to just pick it up over time.

For example, we say "i before e except after c", but weirdly even a simple rule like that is not true.

Plurals are a mess. Sometimes you add an s. Cars. Sometimes you change the word completely. Mice. Sometimes the singular and the plural are the same word. Fish. How can you tell? You can't! You just have to learn it!

Pronunciation is a mess. Not only are there silent letters everywhere (island), but the same letter sequence doesn't always make the same sounds. Sometimes two letter sequences make the exact same sound. As treat, on the street, with a book and a boom, I like to beat my great meat. How can you tell? You can't! Just learn it!

Of course, pronunciations also vary regionally. Sometimes book rhymes with took. Unless you're in Dublin where book and cook rhyme with puke, but not always with took.

The saving grace here is that out of all languages, English speakers are probably the most forgiving of mistakes. And this is probably because there are so many exceptions, that it's more important to the listener that they understand what you're trying to say rather than that you get it right. Because we get it wrong all the time too.

So when a foreigner says, "Mouses" or "fishes", there's no question about what they're trying to say.

The best quote I've read about English is that it's 3 languages wearing a trenchcoat, pretending to be one.

English must be hard.

Ask any American. Theyre 250 years trying to learn it and still can't speak it

Probably because the language is a bastardisation of several older languages. People from German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch and Arabic speaking countries will probably recognise a fair amount of individual words and phrases, but the grammar will be all over the shop to them.

Esperanto. Now that's a language you can set your watch to. Especially if you're European.

Dearest creation in creation....

My partner is german speaking, but thinks that english was really easy to learn. There's no shortage of "good content" movies/TV etc for immersion.

The fine grammatical details are hard, but getting to the point where you can effectively get your message across is easier than other languages apparently.

To be talking about the way we're not talking it. In English.

having been a student in an advanced Spanish class which served as an ESL class for native Spanish speakers, it was FAR easier to learn Spanish for me, than English for them. TBF, Spanish is known to be the easiest of the romance languages.

I think your wrong in you're post their. They're lots' of people in Ireland that you'll find cannot speak there own language good and struggle with they're English grammar particularly plural's, possession case's and inflections and contraction's.

Yeah there's more to learning a language than just the technical side of it. When I try speaking French in France the locals just speak English back to me because they can tell I'm not a native speaker. French people don't have that issue when speaking English over here. No matter what country you are in on this side of the world, English is ubiquitous, mainly from US cultural domination when it comes to movies, the internet etc. I've plenty of friends who might be e.g. Finnish and Portuguese, and they will speak English to each other because it's the language they have in common.

Even if you go somewhere like Japan, far fewer people will have any English, but in tourist spots English will be the only latin alphabet language. You're not going to see German or Spanish anywhere, so if you are German or Spanish and you don't speak Japanese you're going to end up relying on your English knowledge.

I learned to pronounce it "shedule" in "shool"

Or marine biologists:

"When referring to more than one species of fish, especially in a scientific context, you can use fishes as the plural."

Edit: You covered that already Wibbs. I'll go back to sleep (just not with the fishes).

Spelling doesn't matter much.

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

I got a B in honours English in the leaving cert and yet people laugh at me when I say "Wasp" because I pronounce it the correct way like grasp, gasp, clasp. Whereas they say "wosp" like big upturned-nose snobs that they are.

Apparently a lot of non-native english speakers struggle with the pronunciation of "bear" which they often pronounce beer. Japanese can't initially make an "R" sound as this phonetically doesn't exist in japanese.

In a complete u-turn to this post with a link to a video that's as off-topic as it is interesting and catchy - Adriano Celentano, an Italian entertainer created a music video in what sounds like English but in reality (as we are fully aware) is complete nonsense in an effort to prove a point that non-english speaking italians will like anything that sounds American.

I knew an Italian girl who had the nicest way of describing things in English . . she would say stuff like "I am a fridge" meaning she was feeling the cold or "my mama is a library" (she reads a lot).

Watch programs with subtitles on or YouTube videos with subtitles the average person has only a fee 1000 word vocabulary you don't have to speak like a college professor there's probably apps and podcasts how to learn English I heard people watch the office friends, eg a comedy you enjoy to learn English

Of course Americans use words the Irish don't use like sidewalk , gas for petrol

You can download podcasts from bbc 4 Co UK

Or bbc 4 extra radio from any country

BBC 4 radio programs.are unusual the presenters, are well educated and usually speak clearly with little use of slang unless its a comedy

Google learn English podcast

If you like a program watch every episode with subtitles on

Characters in comedys speak in a fairly simple fashion

To be verbal with English is not so hard and still be understood even if the order of the words is wrong - many Brazilians in Ireland pick up the language pretty easy for conversation even though they only had basic teaching in school but find it hard to write it down

On the other hand if you had to sit a written exam it would be pretty hard for a non native speaker to get a pass, a lot of nuances that don't exist in other languages

Even as a English first language speaker I cannot remember all the rules - whereas Germanic languages are much more simpler in their rules. One thing I hated about learning French was everything was either male or female

Damn I find Kerry accents hard to understand even though they're kinda speaking the same language (I think)

Having taught English in the Czech Republic, Brazil and Spain and learned Spanish as a teen and Portuguese as an adult (also went to all-Irish primary and secondary), I speak from experience as a teacher and a learner.

FWIW, I don't remember studying English grammar. Was this an all-Irish thing or a general Irish education system thing?

First and foremost, I think people from English-speaking countries may think English's global prominence is because of its perceived easiness, which is not the case.

People from English-speaking countires tend to be less interested in learning other languages (Why bother? they already speak the most important one) and therefore don't put as much emphasis on or effort into learning languages or they more often do it for pleasure as opposed to necessity. Wheras in Spain, students now need a certified level of a foreign language to graduate from college. People from places like Finland or the Czech Republic will need a decent level of English (or any other language) if they want to have a life outside their own country. Immediately, this adds a lot more importance to the need for learning a language (which is more often than not English).

English is not particularly hard but its not easy. Its vocabulary is a mix of Germannic and Romance so there's something for speakers from lots of languages to cling on to. It also has, at times, a simpler grammar. However, the inconsistency of pronunciation and plurals, as well as phrasal verbs and modal verbs, can be extemely frustrating.

What is true is that there are far more opportunities to learn English and practice it than any other language and as a learner you are also equally likely to meet other non-native speakers, as opposed to learning a language like Czech where you will practically always be speaking with native speakers. Non-native speakers know what it's like to learn a language and will also not be perfect so they are more patient and easier to communicate with. Native speakers (in any language) tend to struggle adjusting their level.

I found Spanish easy enough to learn. There are concepts that are tricky (subjunctice verbs) but on a whole its more consistent and intuitive. It's also quite flexible. Portuguese is trickier in some ways but not overwhelmingly so. I also studied German and Czech. I just couldn't wrap my head around German vocabulary while Czech is so far removed from Germannic and Latin languages that it was a constant struggle with vocabulary and cases.

English is everywhere so there's plenty of opportunity to learn it and it is practically essential for anyone wanting to move about. As it's our native language, we don't appreciate how hard it is to learn it and how lucky we are that our passport is essentially a certificate that saves us years of study and a lot of money that others have to spend to have the same opportunities.

Frankly, asking native English speakers if its an easy language to learn is nonsense. Ask someone who learnt it and one or more other languages and see what they say.