Hacker News Reader

Comment by nunez | Hacker News Reader

English is a hard language to learn, especially as an adult. So many weird rules that everyone takes for granted.

No basic English is one of the simplest languages to learn as an adult. Perhaps it’s difficult to master.

English has simple conjugations. That makes it much easier to learn to speak intelligibly even for adults. Old English dropped many of the complicated word endings because it was used by Anglo-Saxons with Vikings and Normans.

grammar and rules of language has almost nothing to do with the difficulty of writing good text (ala, written prose fit for purpose).

Understanding of grammar and rules of a language is like having good bricks, but building a stylish house is more than just using good bricks. It's a higher level cognitive exercise. Schools attempt to teach this, but i think they fail quite miserably (look at how essays had to be written by students, and how poorly most are written).

Every language has it's specific difficulties as foreign, the French pronunciation, the Spanish speed, the Chinese ... well leave it. The English has the "easiest difficulty" among all: phrasal verbs, which are of moderate importance and can mostly be avoided.

The hardest part of learning English is the random way words are pronounced without almost any regard for their spelling.

This property is not so hard to learn and has some advantages, especially in oral form. For example for the words though, tough, through, throw it's easier to learn their pronunciation than their meaning, as well as the multiple meanings of set down, throw off, pull up, bring around, get on, go over. English is a foreign language for me though.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com