If you find that English is hard to learn, you are not alone. It certainly is one of the more difficult languages in the world, but despite this, it is the most widely spoken.
Here we are going to look at some reasons why the English language is so hard to learn, and also why English will be easier for certain people to learn than for others.
Finally, if you do find English quite tricky, we have some tips to make it a little easier to learn the language.
What makes English so difficult to learn?
There are several factors that mean English is a hard language to learn, especially if your native language has few similarities in terms of alphabet, grammar, or pronunciation.
We can group most languages into a ‘family’ – a collection of languages that share certain characteristics. English is classed as a West Germanic language, along with German and Dutch. This group is part of the broader Indo-European language family that also includes French, Spanish, and German.
Languages in these groups are more similar to English than, say, Arabic, Chinese, or Russian. Therefore, it should be slightly less difficult to learn English if you already speak a language from the same language group.
No matter what your native language is, English is known to be full of quirks that make it difficult to learn. At the same time, it’s also important to learn English if you want to do business internationally or travel a lot.
So, let’s get into some of the specific things that make the English language hard to learn, and see how you can overcome them.
1. English grammar rules – and their exceptions – can be tricky
Even native English speakers make grammar mistakes from time to time!
Some of the most commonly confused words are:
This aside, there are 12 major tenses to learn (and some linguists would argue that there are as many as 26). If you’re learning English and your native language only has 3 tenses, try wrapping your head around what the future perfect continuous tense is for, let alone how to form it!
Fortunately, there are many great resources for learning English grammar, many of them free.
2. There are irregular verbs and plurals to contend with
Once you have learned all the English grammar rules, you then need to learn the exceptions to the rules. Irregular verbs and plurals can make English especially frustrating.
Let’s consider these verbs and their simple past tense forms:
- Send > sent
- Bend > bent
- Lend > lent
So the past tense of ‘mend’ should be ‘ment’, right? Wrong, it’s actually ‘mended’. But the past tense of ‘mean’ is ‘meant’, which rhymes with ‘sent’.
And then we have one goose and two geese, one mouse and two mice, but one sheep and two sheep.
Why, English? Why?!
It’s clear that all these inconsistencies in English are another reason the language is difficult and time-consuming to learn.
3. Inconsistent pronunciation and spelling make English hard to learn
“English can be weird. It can be understood through tough thorough thought, though.”
-Anonymous
Is English a hard language to learn? Looking at the quote above, it seems so. The last five words in the sentence beautifully demonstrate how the letters ‘ough’ can be pronounced in five different ways (and that’s before you think about cough, plough, hiccough, or lough).
Conversely, the following groups of words are all pronounced the same:
- By, buy, bye
- Cents, cense, scents, sense
- Or, ore, oar
- Pair, pare, pear
- Peak, peek, pique
- Right, rite, wright, write
- Way, weigh, whey
And these are just a few of many homophones (words that are spelled differently but sound the same).
Here are some more examples of confusing English spelling:
Why does ‘heard’ rhyme with ‘bird’, but not ‘beard’?
Why does ‘pour’ rhyme with ‘pore’ and ‘paw’, but not ‘sour’ or ‘flour’, which instead rhyme with ‘flower’?
You get the idea: learning English is definitely not straightforward.
4. English accents and dialects differ wildly
If your only exposure to English has been Hollywood movies and American sitcoms, you may have a bit of a shock if you speak to someone with a strong Australian English accent.
Similarly, if you think British English means speaking like the King and Queen, you might have trouble understanding someone from Scotland or Ireland. The short video below demonstrates just how different English sounds depending on where in the UK you travel:
English language statistics suggest that there are over 160 different ‘English’ accents around the world.
The many English accents and dialects are just another thing that means English is one of the most difficult languages to learn. English learners can overcome this obstacle by exposing themselves to a broad range of accents as they become more fluent in English.
5. There are over 700,000 words in the English language
It’s very hard to calculate the number of words in English because languages are constantly evolving and new words are added all the time. However, we can count the number of words in a dictionary, and this puts the count at over 700,000 English words in certain dictionaries.
There are only five languages with more than this: Korean, Tamil, Portuguese, Finnish and Kurdish.
Now, you certainly don’t need to learn all of these words to become fluent; many of them are obscure, technical, or scientific terms that the majority of native English speakers will never use in their lifetimes.
In fact, it’s estimated that you only need to know 800-1,000 of the most important root words in order to understand 75% of the language in everyday usage. If you want to speak English fluently, this number increases to 8,000-9,000. When we talk about root words, we would be counting ‘speak’ to include ‘spoke’, ‘speaking’, ‘spoken’, etc.
Even native speakers only know around 40,000 words on average, and use half of them regularly.
The key to making English vocabulary easier to learn, then, is knowing which words to focus on, i.e. those that are most used in everyday life. This is also important if you want to learn English quickly and not waste time on obscure words.
6. English uses lots of idioms that don’t make sense
Even if you do master several thousand English words, you then have to contend with idioms. What is an idiom? Simply put, it’s a figurative expression that doesn’t make much sense if you take it literally.
Have you ever heard these strange phrases?
- It’s raining cats and dogs. (It’s raining very hard.)
- I’m feeling under the weather. (I’m feeling unwell.)
- It’s a piece of cake! (It’s very easy.)
- I have bigger fish to fry. (I have more important things to do.)
- We get on like a house on fire. (We get along very well.)
- I’m all ears. (I’m listening carefully.)
- This cost me an arm and a leg. (This cost me a lot of money.)
These are all examples of idioms commonly used in English – and we have plenty more where they came from.
Idioms are so commonplace in everyday English that most native speakers don’t realize they are using them. So, if you want to learn English fluently, you’d better start familiarizing yourself with these expressions.
7. Phrasal verbs aren’t much easier than idioms
This is another feature of English that native speakers probably don’t consider, but that can be difficult for non-native speakers.
Phrasal verbs are formed with a verb plus a preposition, and the preposition completely changes the meaning of the verb. For example, all of these phrasal verbs use the verb ‘look’:
- Look after (take care of, care for)
- Look down on (consider inferior)
- Look forward to (anticipate with excitement)
- Look in on (check on, by visiting)
- Look into (investigate)
- Look on (watch as a spectator)
- Look out (take notice, be careful)
- Look [something] over (examine, check)
- Look up to (have great respect for)
In short, even native speakers can agree that English is confusing!
Now we understand why English is so hard to learn, let’s dig into why some people might find it more difficult than others.
Is English the hardest language to learn?
Whether or not English is the hardest language to learn probably depends on your native language.
We mentioned the concept of language groups earlier, noting that it’s generally easier to learn a language from the same group as your native tongue. This means that you are not having to contend with learning a different alphabet or a completely different way of pronouncing sounds; most aspects of English should be quite familiar to you.
It can also be harder to learn English if your native language has a much smaller range of vocabulary. One word in your language may have several possible equivalents in English – synonyms that more or less mean the same thing – and you will need to learn the nuance of each one in order to understand how to use them correctly.
Countable and uncountable nouns can also cause confusion, because even if you have this concept in your native language, the nouns themselves probably follow different rules.
How hard is it to learn English compared to other languages?
Believe it or not, there are several things that make English easy to learn compared to some other languages.
1. There are no gendered nouns
Languages like Spanish, Russian, and French have gendered nouns. This means that as well as learning the word for ‘table’, you must learn whether it is male or female (or even neuter). Fortunately, this is not something you have to worry about when trying to learn English.
2. There are 26 letters in the alphabet, with no symbols or accents
The language with the largest alphabet in the world is Khmer (spoken in Cambodia), with a whopping 74 letters. In comparison, English has just 26 letters to learn. And, unlike many other languages, there are no accents or other symbols added to letters to alter their pronunciation.
3. English is not a tonal language
Although English pronunciation is by no means easy to master, at least it doesn’t have the added complication of tones. In languages like Thai and Vietnamese, the way you raise or lower your voice can alter the meaning of a word completely.
That said, people whose native language is tonal can find English difficult because it does not use tones in this way!
However, we can change the meaning of a sentence based on the words we stress, so English isn’t completely off the hook in this regard.
4. Lots of people speak English as a second language
Let’s not forget that English is the most widely spoken language in the world, so although you may find it difficult to master, you shouldn’t give up. Take comfort in the fact that you are certainly not alone!
Wherever you are in the world, you can probably find a few fellow English language learners who are willing to practice English with you. This might not be the case if you were learning a much more obscure new language.
The fact that English is spoken and taught so widely also means you can easily access free online resources for learning English.
Tips to learn English more easily
Having looked at so many reasons why English is hard to learn, let’s finish on a positive note with some tips for making it easier to learn English.
- Listen to podcasts (whether about studying English or another topic) to help you learn new words and improve your comprehension.
- Check out our list of the best websites to learn English – most of them are completely free.
- Leave notes for yourself around your home or office desk to remind you of new words or sentences you want to practice and perfect.
- Inspire yourself with some English learning quotes from other great people who recognized the importance of speaking different languages.
- Meet with other English speakers to learn about making small talk and holding conversations – it’s much easier when you have the support of a community.
- Use a proofreading tool like Grammarly to help you spot your mistakes and learn from them.
- Follow some English learning pages on social media so you discover new ideas and materials as you scroll.
For more detailed recommendations, we have 11 tips to make learning English easier.
Why is English hard to learn? Final thoughts…
There is no doubt that learning English can be hard. The combination of complex grammar, inconsistent pronunciation rules, and widespread use of idiomatic expressions can even challenge the English skills of native speakers sometimes.
Fortunately, English also benefits from being the most widely used language in the world. This means that you can easily access apps, online English courses, and communities to make learning the English language more straightforward and convenient.
