It has been said that English is one of the hardest languages to learn: therefore it must be different from other languages. This paper explores the similarities and differences between English and other well-known languages.
Philology is the study of languages and language families. While no one knows the exact number of languages in the world, philologists estimate there are between 6,000 and 7,000 living languages in the world today. Out of this number of languages, there are about 100families that exist (Shoebottom). A language family is a group of languages that are closely related to each other (A P Definitions). For example, English belongs to the Germanic language family, which explains why a German student would have an easier time learning English than a Swedish student would (Shoebottom).
According to the information above, it is easier to learn a second language that is a part of the same language family as your native one. “English has many phonemes that do not exist in other languages”, making this another reason why English is hard to learn.
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The author, Bill Bryson, briefly introduces and describes the history of English. In this book, The Mother Tongue, Bryson uses an interesting way and scholarly manner to guide readers through the various linguistic and social movements in the English language, the center of the world language as well as the export of manufactured goods. He gives different kinds of instances by comparing with various languages to present how the language merged together of interacting.
be hard depend how you learn or what stage of your life your are in . “Even Spanish failed us
Learning a new language is most difficult things an individual can do but, if someone wants to a new language the best time to do so is at a young age. I was born in the United States but when I turned five years old I moved to Mexico. The only language I knew was Spanish. Spanish is one of the easiest
Every person on earth knows a language, rather it be spoken or signed. According to the Linguistic Society of America’s website, ("Linguistic Society of America," 2012) linguistics is the systematic study of language. The study of linguistics includes the study of the sub-fields of language. These subfields include; phonetics, phonology, morphology, and syntax. The English language is a Germanic language, which is branch of the Indo-European language family. Other languages on the Germanic language branch include; German, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian.
All languages change over time, and there can be many different reasons for this. The English language is no different – but why has it changed over the decades? In this informative essay I will be explaining some of the reasons why I think the English language has changed over the years. I will give some examples of things I believe have changed the language for the better.
To learn basic English took around 6 years attending ESL classes. More than 20 years have passed and I am still learning English. I have an strong accent, my grammar is not a good as I would like, and I am not confident speaking English as I am in Spanish. Although English and Spanish have the same alphabet, it’s have been very difficult for me to learn English.
When we begin to dive into the study of humans, also known as Anthropology, there are so many subdivisions we can learn about. One very interesting clump within the study of Anthropology can be classified as Linguistic Anthropology. In this instance, anthropologists study language and how the development and its use can be studied to understand culture. According to the department of Anthropology at California State University Long beach, Anthropologists are interested in learning “how many languages there are, how those languages are distributed across the world, and their contemporary and historical relationships. We are also interested in language variation, why variations exist, how the variations are used and what they mean when they are used in various context” (Linguistic Anthropology). This being said, there are multiple fields that the concept of linguistics can furthermore be broken into. With the study of different areas of language, scientists try to find a deeper meaning of our past and our present.
People who oppose my opinion would say learning a foreign language is not that hard. The truth is that anyone can learn another language. It just takes dedication and hard work or maybe it’s that you had a bad instructor and you feel like you don’t have an aptitude for learning another language. And, maybe that one language may be hard but another may be easy. Maybe, that’s why it’s not required for you to learn a specific foreign language. You can choose which one you are interested in learning which makes learning easier.
Sharma, B., 2008. “World Englishes, English as a Lingua Franca, and English Pedagogy”, Journal of NELTA 13 (2), pp. 121-130. Available from
According to one article, over the past two decades, countries in the world have become more and more interdependent, and new technologies have erased many existing borders. As boundaries between countries are dissolved, foreign language instruction has become more necessary than ever for linking with the rest of the world and for producing an enlightened citizenship able to function in today’s ever-shrinking world. (Morris, http://www.learnnc.org/lp/pages/759) For the people who are learning any other languages, before start to study, it is obviously important that knowing differences between two languages, their own language and others. The purpose of this article is to explore differences between Korean and English. And then, it will be
New languages are always overwhelming.English is difficult language to learn, especially if it isn’t practiced often. The english language includes rules that can be frustrating to get a grip of. Many International students face the fear of not being understood or not pronouncing something correct...
Speaking a language other than your mother tongue opens a door onto the world. Becoming proficient in a foreign tongue equates to a wider range of options in love, career, and friendships.
People live in the world of communication. According to the Oxford Dictionary of Current English (Moore, 1997), communication is defined as, “The activity or process of expressing ideas and feelings or of giving people information”. The significance of communication can be found within the context of a human existing as a social being. As a human being manages his or her life in the course of the interaction between other members of the entire society, communication is inevitable. Communication occurs through the medium of a language and it is presented in two different forms which are written and spoken (Brown & Yule, 1983: 1-10). The importance of spoken performance of a language is becoming more prominent over the written performance capability. It is because the ability to speak a language reflects a person’s personality, self image, knowledge of the world, ability to reason, skill to express thoughts in real-time (Luoma, 2004: ix). These days, due to the global trend of internationalisation, the ability to communicate in English is needed as an essential skill. Whenever the international exchange happens, the use of spoken English entails. However, it is not always an easy task for people who use English as a second language to be able to speak to the level of a native speaker. They have to perfectly understand the sound system of English, have almost instant access to proper vocabulary and be able to place words together intelligibly without hesitation. Moreover, they also have to perceive what is being said to them and need to be able to respond appropriately to acquire amiable relations or to accomplish their communicative goals (Luoma, 2004: ix). Therefore, non-native English speakers encounter these barriers and they are subject to make mistakes often. In relation to this matter, this essay argues that there are socio-cultural factors as well as linguistic factors that affect non-native speakers’ communication in English. It provides analysis of several different situations when the use of spoken English has generated miscommunication problems in regards to author’s personal experience.
This is because it has different verbs, prepositions, conjunctions, tenses and nouns that make it easy to learn compared to other languages like Chinese and Spanish whose system is hard to grasp. In most cases, many non-English and Chinese speakers will understand the English alphabet faster than the Chinese and Spanish alphabet.
It can be seen that English has become a global language, which is determined by lots of factors like history, culture and daily usefulness. Because of these factors, the number of people who speak English is still increasing now. English, as a significant part of social life gradually exerted profound impacts on education, job hunting and international communication. Also, it provides the whole world with a chance to share ideas and communicate freely. We are quite curious to see the further development of English as a lingua franca in the