Is English A Hard Language To Learn?
There are a lot of things that we have to do in order to survive in the world. If we don’t keep up with the world, it wouldn’t stop for us. We will get left behind and it would only be our own loss. For instance, a business that fails to understand the importance of the internet and doesn’t have a website or social media profiles cannot survive in a world full of people who are online most of the time. They may have older customers who don’t care about the internet, but in the future, they will not be able to connect with audiences if they don’t have an online presence.
There are a lot of things that changed in the last few decades and a person or company not willing to accept those changes will end up alone and out of business. Those of us who don’t join Facebook will find it hard to stay updated about the lives of their friends because even if someone isn’t talking to you regularly, they will be posting updates on their social media accounts. From Twitter and Instagram to Reddit and YouTube, each of these platforms have something unique to offer. Those who try to stay away from these sites will miss out on a lot of things and eventually won’t be able to make conversations with their friends who are active online.
One of the changes that happened around us and most of us adapted to was the popularity of the English language. More than seven billion humans live on earth and are divided in different regions. These people speak various languages and celebrate different cultures. The diversity on earth is beautiful but in order to talk to each other, we needed a universal method. The invention of telephone and later the internet has made communication a lot easier for us. But having a good method of communication wasn’t enough, we also needed a universal tongue we can talk in. And that position was taken by English.
There are plenty of reasons why English has become a sort of lingua franca among the citizens of the world. For starters, it is spoken in multiple countries. It is also one of the official languages of organizations like the United Nations. Hollywood and the music industry of the US and UK also contributed to the widespread popularity of the English language. Today, it has a lot more non-native speakers than native speakers. It is taught in schools in many countries around the world and therefore spoken by various nations.
Is English a Hard Language to Learn?
It is up to linguists to answer people’s questions regarding different vernaculars. Despite its popularity, there are still plenty of people on earth who don’t know English. But they want to fit in, just like everybody else. They want to understand the most circulated joke on the internet and they want to join in conversations when their friends are speaking in this foreign tongue. But they have to learn English before they can do any of that, which brings us to the question most people planning on studying this tongue asks, is English a hard language to learn? There is plenty of proof which says that it is not.
- Loanwords:
Almost all the tongues in the world have at least a few dozen loanwords from English in their vocabulary. So, even if someone doesn’t the tongue completely, they already know some words. Although knowing a few words doesn’t mean that learning a vernacular will be easy, it also doesn’t mean that it will be difficult.
- Similarities:
Some Indo-European languages share a lot of similarities with English. Linguists think that Danish had the same ancestor as English. Both vernaculars have taken a few loanwords from each other. Which means the native speakers of Danish can easily learn this close relative of their mother tongue.
- Entertainment & News:
If you aren’t watching news, movies, and TV shows with dubbing, your chances to learn English will increase by manifolds. There are many people who watched BBC and CNN to learn the tongue and it worked out quite well for them. This also proves that learning this tongue isn’t that difficult if something so simple as watching the TV can help.
- Grammar:
All the languages created by humans have a few weird points which can make any student frustrated. English is no different with its similar sounding words. But other than that, it has a pretty simple and logical grammatical system. Its rules are easy to follow and can be picked up in days.
- Literature:
Learning to read English is very easy and once someone succeeds in that, they can start reading books. Even if your grasp of the language is not extraordinary yet, reading books will help. People may not even understand the meaning of a word in a sentence but reading it will help them and they will start figuring out the meanings without the help of a dictionary.
- Accents:
There are no wrong accents when it comes to English. You can pronounce words in a number of ways and still be correct. This makes it pretty easier for people to start speaking in this vernacular. And speaking it with other people will eventually give the confidence to start talking in it fearlessly.
So, now you know that English isn’t difficult to learn and you can start studying it today.
