WHAT ARE THE CHALLENGES FACED WHEN LEARNING ENGLISH?
You might be thinking about picking up the English language for leisure or for other, more personal reasons. Whatever the case, you may have wondered at some point if English is a difficult language to learn. In actuality, your original language determines how challenging learning is. Languages are more or less connected, which explains why.The English language could appear simple and understandable to many native English speakers. For non-native speakers, it’s not always a bed of roses.
English is a versatile and evolving language. This indicates that it evolves over time and incorporates new vocabulary from numerous sources. There are several rules and exceptions in it as well. For individuals wishing to learn the language, this could be challenging. Here may be some reasons why learning the English language might be difficult.
- Rules and Exceptions
Like any other language, English is filled with rules. Whether they utilize it to help with spelling or grammaticality. They come in large numbers and there are numerous methods for them to be challenged, debunked, or shown to be incorrect.
For instance, English learners were taught to pronounce “I” before “E,” but not after “C.”
This principle is applicable to the majority of English words, including “friend” and “believe.” However, there are some exclusions, such “science” and “weirdness.”
There are a ton of irregular verbs used here as well, including “fought,” which is the past tense of “fight,” and “lighted,” which is the past tense of “light.” Therefore, learning English requires more than just memorizing the rules. It also requires understanding the numerous exceptions to those rules. It is more challenging to apply prior information and use the same idea with a new word due to the numerous exceptions, which makes it more challenging to advance quickly.
- The wording in the sentence
If you speak English well, you can tell the word order right away. Making the distinction between correct and inappropriate ordering is another challenge for students. Why the words are arranged such that they sound right is unclear. A small fascinating cup would be more appropriate than “an interesting cup,” though.
Even if it is grammatically valid, the way it sounds indicates how it can come across. For instance, native speakers have an instinctive understanding of the complexity of the language.
Two or more adjectives may be used to characterize a noun while creating sentences. This causes a problem because these adjectives need to come after in order to be appropriate. Saying “a black huge shoe,” for instance, should be acceptable. But it’s simply not a recognized English phrase. The appropriate response is “a large black shoe.”
- Emphasis
The way you emphasize specific words in a statement might subtly affect their meaning, further complicating issues. For instance, examine the several methods to emphasize the following sentence:
– I sent him a letter – a plain statement.
– I sent him a letter – used to imply that you sent him the letter – someone else didn’t send it (or “you didn’t send it, I did”).
– I sent him a letter – this could imply “I sent him a letter, but I’m not sure he received it”.
– I sent him a letter – used to imply that you sent him the letter – you didn’t send it to someone else (perhaps even “you weren’t meant to read it”).
– I sent him a letter – you sent him a letter, not anything else.
These may all sound the same to you if you are not accustomed to speaking English. You can only begin to pick up on these distinctions if you are exposed to English frequently.
- Not all synonyms are equivalent.
A thesaurus is filled with innumerable sets of words with the same meaning. You’d assume that this meant they could be used interchangeably, but you’d be mistaken. Because English words can have more than one meaning, even terms with definitions that seem to be in the same general area can change somewhat — or relate to something entirely different. It’s not always possible to switch terms with the same meaning, which makes it simple to use a word incorrectly. As a result, people may end up misusing a word. You would “watch television” or “see a movie,” but never “see a television.” Another illustration is that you don’t state, “I welcomed a gift,” but rather, “I received a gift.” Even if the two terms are similar, the context may be completely different depending on the context.
- Change in Part of Speech Function
Depending on how it is used, a noun in English may function as an adjective in a phrase. For instance, “Whose father is at the door?” At the front door is Billy’s father. Billy is a noun because it is a person’s name. However, because it is used in the example provided, it is used as an adjective for the noun “father”.
Furthermore, adding “er” makes it simple to convert a verb into a noun. Dance to “dancer,” for instance, or teach to “teacher,” etc. For “pray or cook,” though, it doesn’t operate the same way.
Therefore, as we have seen, English is quite difficult. But, it’s not the only one competing for the title of most challenging language in the world. In the end, whether or not a language is challenging to learn depends on the person. Some people are naturally good at learning languages and do so rapidly. Naturally, children learn languages considerably more quickly than adults do. The degree to which a language is similar to your own determines how difficult it is to learn. Given that Italian and French share a lot of the same linguistic roots and alphabet, learning French will probably come more naturally to Italian speakers. You can find it difficult to study eastern languages like Japanese if you’re used to the Roman script. Since so much depends on your native tongue and how closely it resembles your target language, learning a new language is challenging in any event. But, remember that just because it’s difficult doesn’t mean it can’t be done.
References
Doctors, T. L. (2021, March 30). Why Is English Hard To Learn? 11 Reasons. The Language Doctors. Retrieved September 19, 2022, from https://thelanguagedoctors.org/is-english-hard-to-learn/
Editorial Staff. (2022, September 8). How Hard Is English To Learn: 14 Reasons Why English Is Difficult. LMS Hero. Retrieved September 19, 2022, from https://lmshero.com/is-english-hard-to-learn/
Oxford Royale. (2022, April 12). Why Is English So Hard to Learn? Oxford Royale Academy. Retrieved September 19, 2022, from https://www.oxford-royale.com/articles/learning-english-hard/