They say English is hard . . .

Mamie

When I taught in Yorkhire, the children said I talked like the Queen. 😂
I loved the use of thee and thou and it does, of course, avoid the singular or plural ambiguity of "you". Wait here while lights are red was a bit more confusing!
In Dorset I had children in my class who used the expression "where be 'e at?"
I love regional accents.

An just over the border it's 'where be to, me 'andsome?'

Milest0ne: “Regional accents seem to be disappearing. Pity.”

I don’t think they are. When I see members of the public interviewed on television I notice how few of them speak RP.

I don’t see it would be a pity if they disappeared - not that they will. They are a class indicator and a trigger for much snobbery, though less than there used to be.

English teachers teaching English to people who aren’t native speakers is like a native French (or German or whatever language) teacher, teaching their language to non-French people.
The ability to convey the accent(s) more easily is true, but the teacher is already so familiar with his/her own language that they aren’t always aware of what new speakers don't know.
I wonder how many English teachers of French or German have an FLE or DAF certificate?
I didn’t, though I only taught French in KS1&2.

Witzend

growstuff

I agree with you Witzend. I'm a former German/French teacher and did EFL training as another string to my bow (not bough ). English is much harder for foreigners than most native English speakers realise.

What I think many people don’t realise, is that it’s a very different thing from (say) a native English speaker teaching e.g. French or German to a class of ditto native speakers.
There are so many aspects you don’t even think about as a native speaker. My TEFL Thomson and Martinet ‘bible’ was an eye opener when I first started.

That’s why I get a bit worked up when people blithely say, ‘Oh, why would you need training to teach English? If you can speak it…’ etc.
And maybe you can teach it after a fashion, but IMO students paying often hard-earned money deserve something better.

I agree and even with years of experience as a teacher of English in English schools I still had a lot to learn from TEFL training.

growstuff

I agree with you Witzend. I'm a former German/French teacher and did EFL training as another string to my bow (not bough ). English is much harder for foreigners than most native English speakers realise.

What I think many people don’t realise, is that it’s a very different thing from (say) a native English speaker teaching e.g. French or German to a class of ditto native speakers.
There are so many aspects you don’t even think about as a native speaker. My TEFL Thomson and Martinet ‘bible’ was an eye opener when I first started.

That’s why I get a bit worked up when people blithely say, ‘Oh, why would you need training to teach English? If you can speak it…’ etc.
And maybe you can teach it after a fashion, but IMO students paying often hard-earned money deserve something better.

.... while used to mean until, that is.

When I taught in Yorkhire, the children said I talked like the Queen. 😂
I loved the use of thee and thou and it does, of course, avoid the singular or plural ambiguity of "you". Wait here while lights are red was a bit more confusing!
In Dorset I had children in my class who used the expression "where be 'e at?"
I love regional accents.

I still get amused by the memory of a young boy who had an English father and a German mother. He would answer a question in the “other” language and even use both languages in one sentence.
I find regional English interesting. I used to have to translate Cumbrian into Lancashire when relatives visited.
My GC are bi lingual in lancashire ( or is that Lancastrian) and Northumbrian..
In the Wigan area you hear “ I’m going out tonight, me”
Having lived in Blackpool as a teenager and working Saturday and holiday jobs we had to learn a different accent every fortnight. Glasgow was the most difficult. There were different words for the same thing. Tea cakes , oven bottoms, baps etc.
All our parents were from different parts of the country, speaking with different accents. When I moved to a different part of the county to teach, a pupil said “ Don’t you talk posh, Miss”
Our regional accents seem to be disappearing. Pity.

https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202506/medium-fcz58y-domaine-de-suscinio-rabouan.jpg https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202506/medium-a9602o-129905.jpg

There are times when genders matter very much. We went on a visit to a castle yesterday. When we returned, DH got them mixed up, and remarked to French friends, "Nous avons fait une belle tour du château." There I was, NOT, with my masonry trowel constructing the west tower!

Goldieoldie15

English is the easiest language to learn. Genders, declensions, conjugations, plural, singular almost absent.

Are you saying English has no declensions, conjugations, singular or plural?
Really?

Genders, declensions, conjugations, plural, singular almost absent.

A language with such structures is easier to learn as everything is logical.

English is the easiest language to learn. Genders, declensions, conjugations, plural, singular almost absent.

We get children of uni students whose first language isn’t even written in a recognisable script, who do well in KS2 Sats

Witzend

Just to add to my pp, within half a year you’d not have known that both children weren’t native speakers.

I knew a British child who emigrated with her parents to Quebec aged 6 very many years ago, went to a French-speaking school and came top of the class at the end of her first year.

Just to add to my pp, within half a year you’d not have known that both children weren’t native speakers.

Yes, indeed, inhibitions in both the psychological and physiological sense.

escaped

^there is no doubt immersion is the best way to learn^, yes, and interesting that your example mentions at a young age too, missdeke.
I was at school in France for a while when I was 13 and that was when my language really took off. Any older and all sorts of inhibitions seem to hold most people back.

I don’t think it’s just inhibitions - children’s brains are programmed to mop up languages, and the ability declines as you get older. A Swedish child of 4 or 5 who lived next door to us in Oman, acquired enough English during just one month at an English-speaking nursery, to be accepted at the English-speaking school.
Her brother, around 18m older, took a little longer.

That’s true, but Welsh has different grammatical structures, and pronunciation is very difficult because it uses unique sounds. There isn’t a lot in common between the two languages either, compared with between English and German for example, because Welsh is a Celtic language- it’s easier to learn if you already speak Gaelic though I guess.

Casdon

AGAA4

I found Welsh is not an easy language to learn because of mutations where the first letter of a word can change depending on the context for example c becomes g and there are lots more.

I definitely agree, Welsh is really hard to learn.

but it does follow some common phonetic rules, unlike English which mixes them up

English is relatively easy for foreigners at a basic level, having lost most of the inflections retained by other languages, notably German.
But reading and spelling, as others have observed, can be confusing. Also, English is a hybrid language with an enormous lexis, making it hard to achieve true fluency in a variety of registers.
Even really proficient speakers of English find our tenses hard to get right. (We went, we were going, we have gone, we have been - all past tenses of the verb to go, which is correct in which context?)

To make the difference clear between Past Simple and Present Perfect- I always introduce the first on its own for some time, and the the second with the concept of 'ever' (and 'never' for vague questions, and then the switch to 'ast simple' as soon as things like exact time, who with, etc, are precised.

Have you even been to New York?

And then, when did you go? Who did you go with, how did you travel, etc - precise info = past simple.

growstuff

Claremont

English is so so easy at the beginner to early intermediate stage. I teach English, French and German- and my favourite is English up to intermediate level, as it is so joyfuly sinple. The difficult part is prepositions and thos pesky mutli phrasal verbs (think about all the meanings for just one 'put down').

To teach the future tense in French takes weeks or more, but just a few minutes in English. Same for the simple past, apart from learning basic irregular verbs.

So how would you explain when to use "I didn't see" and when to say "I haven't seen"?

The future is easy in German and English ... just don't use it ... use the present instead. So how do you explain when to use a proper future ... and what's the difference between "I shall" and "I will"?

I never make the mistake of teaching both past simple and perfect at the same time, to avoid confusion. In French, the simplest of story in the past requires 3 different tenses- in English, just the simple past.

'Je suis allée à Paris (passé composé with 'être' which has to agree with subject). J'ai visité la Tour Eiffel (passé composé with 'avoir' which does not agree with subject, unless direct object is before!!! (as in 'la tarte que j'ai mangée était délicieuse). Il faisait beau et c'était fabuleux (imperfect). In English, easy peasy- just use past simple, just need to learn a few common irregular verbs.

No need to go into various forms of future at this stage, just use 'will' + infinitive. And for conditional 'would'. Can also introduce 'going to' - and 'shall' just for making proposals (shall we go to see the Sacré Coeur). Of course, at a later stage other forms can be introduced- but at the beginner to intermediate stage English is truly simple.

When I used to teach German, I had to stop after a few weeks and spend several lessons teaching basic English grammar so children understood the concepts of 'subject, direct object, indirect object' - as German cannot be learnt effectively unless this is understood.

Growstuff do you know if there is a German language equivalent of la plume de ma tante est dans le bureau de mon oncle for us oldies and my tailor is rich for the French?

I tried to learn some Cantonese while living in Hong Kong, made other languages seem easy to me!

At school I was good at too subjects - Inglish and Mafs but I was bestest at Inglish