English is Easy

[Susanne]

English is a very easy language. It is for a reason that it is currently the world's top language. Nowadays, everyone knows how to speak it fairly well or at least how to do so to a rather good extent. However, what is it that makes the language so easy to pick despite its enormous vocabulary?

Exposure to it is one of the main reasons for this cause. Almost all popular movies, songs, books, scientific journals, etc. that we see being published these days is in English or was originally. This implicitly forces us to live in an environment of unconscious immersion, which in turn helps us develop the skills necessary to learn the language easily.

English is a language of idiomatic expressions. "What the hell," "what up," "for show," etc. are just some of the most commonly used phrases which by themselves stand for literally nothing but have become so popular that it wouldn't be impressing to see them being included in respected dictionaries. It is due to this vivid imagery that these expressions are easily remembered and thus used.

English grammar is not as difficult as that of most, if not all, other languages. English verbs have at most three conjugations (e.g. run, ran, running) which are also very easy to figure out once learned the rules. Additionally, adjectives and adverbs can't get any easier given they almost never change from their dictionary forms.

English is the third most spoken language in the world in terms of population size with Spanish and Chinese immediately above it. This is a big accomplishment given English is only spoken in the U.S., UK and Australia whereas Spanish is spoken all throughout the Americas and Europe and the Chinese have a gigantic population.

Overall, with today's competitive economy and academic environments, not knowing English proves to be more of a handicap than anything else. So consider yourself an over-achiever for having been able to read this!

[tipsygypsy]

No way! English is never easy to me. I always feel like beating up the first guy who attempted to build the tower of babel, whenever I speak/read/write/listen to this language.

[PockyMePink]

Originally Posted by Susanne

"for show,"

I believe you mean "for sure" and "fo sho".

[Susanne]

Originally Posted by PockyMePink

I believe you mean "for sure" and "fo sho".

dats rite homie

[PoissonApple]

Susanne? Have you written this thread? And if ya, where did you took these informations? Sounds a little bit old to me!

Ya definitely English is the easiest language on earth, because it is a west Germanic language and many languages nowadays are based on this old language!
Thats why it is easy for Dutch, Scandinavian, Canadian, German, Swedish people and so on to talk it. For some other Countries it is hard. Never the less it is the easiest language.
It should be, because everybody on this earth have to learn it at school. What if these people in the past have diced German would be the world language?.. Then everybody would have to learn German, and hell German is hard, even many German people can't talk the German language right.
And ya your right, the most spoken language is Chinese! But I guess just because of business matter and Spanish.. well, I don't know. Maybe also because of business matter and maybe also because Spanish and Italian people are really lazy in learning other languages! So people form other countries have to learn their languages. (Never the less, Spanish and Italian sounds good and is easy as well). OK, maybe there are some people who just like to learn other languages, no matter for what reason!

You know? English just got more voice then German... That was a close thing

[Nyororin]

From the view of a linguist...

As far as languages go, English is actually one of the harder to master. There is a mix of rules from other languages that have been absorbed, making any "rule" far from definite.

When it comes to the "easiest" language out there - supposedly there is an African language that takes that title. It has no tenses or particles, and the order of words in a sentence is free. The number of words in a sentence is limited to 4 or 5.

Ex. I kick ball before / Before ball I kick / Ball kick I before / Kick ball I before / etc etc for expressing "I kicked the ball". "I *will* kick the ball" is the same, but with "before" replaced by "after".

For the life of me, I can`t remember the name of the language. *sigh* The "ease" of mastery for communication lowers the artistic expressive capabilities, so there is little or no literature or poetry... When written, it is used almost entirely as a record taking tool.

But, to recover from that tangent...

I think that the author is confusing a language being "easy" with a language having high levels of penetration. The high levels of penetration don`t mean the language is easy, nor that it is easier to learn. It just means that there are higher levels of exposure... which translates into less energy expended by the learner to encounter the language. It says nothing about the language itself.

[Susanne]

Nyororin,

Amazing post. It was so informative; I didn't know many of those things you mentioned, and I totally agree with them!

I apologize if my original statement came out quite a bit too general, but with "easiest to learn" I meant to express something more in the sense of being able to communicate with it in a relatively short amount of time after having studied it. I have few friends in Spain who got to the level where they can defend themselves in English rather quickly, thus the fact became one of the motivations for my writing of this thread.

I had no idea there existed such a language! Not to sound rude, but I would surely die if I had to communicate in such a way! "I school go." Haha, no way! It's almost like watching Tarzan.

Thank you for your response.

@ PoissonApple, yes I wrote this. I didn't intend to make it sound old.

[Nyororin]

Originally Posted by Susanne

I apologize if my original statement came out quite a bit too general, but with "easiest to learn" I meant to express something more in the sense of being able to communicate with it in a relatively short amount of time after having studied it. I have few friends in Spain who got to the level where they can defend themselves in English rather quickly, thus the fact became one of the motivations for my writing of this thread.

The thing is though, even without exposure in daily life, English shares roots and has borrowed an incredible amount from other European languages. There are deep similarities that make it much easier to go from one to the other than, say, from a non-related language like Japanese. Japanese isn`t a particularly "difficult" language, but it`s lack of similarity tends to make it very hard for a native speaker of a European language to master.
It all comes down to background.

I had no idea there existed such a language! Not to sound rude, but I would surely die if I had to communicate in such a way! "I school go." Haha, no way! It's almost like watching Tarzan.

But you already have an established native language, and a set of "rules" in your head about how language should be spoken. Those are shaped by culture and, of course, your own language. To a native speaker of that language (I will have to dig out old textbooks to find it`s name - it was always brought up as a counter to the common definition of "language" as requiring grammar rules), it would seem perfectly normal and efficient. The "unnecessary" complications of other languages likely wouldn`t make sense. The *meaning* of "I school go" in that language would be exactly the same as you saying "I go to school" in English.

[protheus]

Originally Posted by Nyororin

When it comes to the "easiest" language out there - supposedly there is an African language that takes that title.

And for the hardest (sounds wise), the title goes to Africa also. The use of clicks, guttural sounds, besides the normal sounds which the majority around the world are accustomed to (the ones named as abc...z), make it the most complex to master. I'm just sorry I forgot its name...

[songolekor]

i think english is not easy, not also difficult.. Why easy? Because english is only using text (abc blabla).. Why difficult? Because i have study english for a longtime, but my english is still bad