There are more than 7000 languages currently spoken in the world, ranging from tiny ones spoken by just a handful of people to others spoken by billions. Plus, we have artificial languages like Esperanto and fictional languages like Dothraki or Elven. Out of these all, English is considered one of the easiest to learn. Actually, in turn, English is a language that’s hard to master for reasons we’ll talk about a bit more below.

Why is English an easy language to learn?

English is considered an easy language to learn by foreign language speakers for a variety of reasons. Among them, its wide use – after all, it’s sort of a business lingua franca today. It has a consistent sentence structure and simple grammar compared to some other languages, it has no gendered forms of the words, and it has countless words coming from other European languages ranging from Latin to French and Greek, making it easily recognizable by non-native speakers.

All this, along with the wide availability of learning resources like English with Lucy, makes English one of the languages that are the easiest to learn today.

But…

Why is English hard to master?

While it is certainly among the easiest languages to learn, English does have its intricacies and peculiarities that make it one of the hardest languages to truly master for a non-native speaker.

Variants

One of the reasons why English is so hard to master is that it has so many variants that use different words for the same things. “Robot”, for example, means an automaton in most countries, but traffic lights in South Africa. Americans call the underground a “subway” – not to be mistaken for the sandwiches of the same name – while in England, the same train is commonly referred to as a “tube” because it does travel in a tube, after all.

And things get wild when we go Down Under. When an Aussie “throws a piece of roo on the barbie”, they are not abusing Mattel’s world-famous doll but grilling a piece of kangaroo meat. Aussies love these contractions, apparently, calling alcoholics an “alco”, a chicken parmigiana a “parmy”, a petrol station a “servo”, and a gambling machine a “pokie”.

Actually, “pokies” is one of the most common Aussie terms you’ll encounter online because Australians love to play them. You can find out more about pokies if you visit https://www.australiaonlinecasinosites.com/pokies/.

Spelling and pronunciation

Someone once said that “English is not a language but three languages in a trenchcoat, pretending to be one”. The reason for this is England’s history – the island was conquered by the Romans (Latin), the Saxons (German), and the Normans (French), and all these left their own mark on the modern English language. This is why the spelling and pronunciation of English words can be quite inconsistent.

There is a meme going around online about how frustrating it is that lead doesn’t rhyme with lead and read doesn’t rhyme with read, although they are spelled the same. “But the thought of a heavy cough going through your mind” will show you that the same spelling can have multiple pronunciations, sometimes in the same sentence. To make things even more complicated, English has words that are pronounced completely differently from their spelling: think colonel (pronounced like “kernel”) or Wednesday (pronounced “wenz-dei”).

Multiple meanings

One other thing that makes English one of the hardest languages to master is the fact that it has words with multiple meanings that are the complete opposite of each other.

• To sanction, for example, means to approve something, but at the same time, it also means to restrict or penalize something.
• To overlook can mean to keep an eye on something but at the same time, it can also mean to fail to notice something.
• To dust can mean to sprinkle dust on something but at the same time, it can also mean to wipe the dust off something

And the list could go on and on.

Idioms

Idioms are groups of words that have meanings different from the literal meaning of the words they contain. These are common in pretty much every language – and without understanding these, non-native speakers may have a hard time mastering English.

A non-native speaker may be shocked by an English native wishing a peer to “break a leg” – this idiom means “good luck”, in fact, but it certainly doesn’t sound that way. Some idioms have their own logic – like “breaking the ice” used to describe someone starting a conversation or “when pigs fly” when used to describe something that’s unlikely to happen. But many of them have meanings that are far less obvious, like “letting the cat out of the bag” (revealing something secret), “beating around the bush” (avoiding speaking about something), or being “under the weather” (feeling unwell).

English is easy to learn and hard to master

While English may be a widely spoken language and a lingua franca of the world, it is also one of the hardest languages to master. The many inconsistencies in pronunciation and spelling, along with the complexity of grammar and a vast number of irregular verbs and idioms, make it a challenging language for non-native speakers to learn. Nevertheless, mastering English can be a valuable asset for both personal and professional growth, and with dedication, practice, and a willingness to embrace the challenges, it can be done.

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