They say English is hard . . .

My favourite imperfect subjunctive in French is ...que
nous assassinassions.
Fortunately I have never had occasion to use it.

Witzend

*Mamie*, I once had to teach someone else’s higher level class the third conditional. Had to look it up to see what it was! And yet native speakers use it all the time without even thinking. And I’d used it in e.g. French without being aware that it even had a name.
In case anyone’s wondering, the 1st conditional goes e.g. ‘If I win the lottery, I’ll buy a house.’
2nd, If I won the lottery, I’d buy a house’
3rd, If I’d won the lottery, I’d have bought a house.

3rd in particular, very tricky for learners, especially perhaps for speakers of Arabic, as mine were.

@#£%&+(

What I have observed is that people have started to use the conditional after "if". This is the German construction (Wenn ich Geld hätte, würde ich mir ein Haus kaufen/ If I had money I would buy..."). My German/English bilingual children often make this mistake, and many Americans do it. I have often noticed Americans using German constructions, which I think may date back to the many Germans moving to the States during the lean years of the 19th Century and during the second world war, many of whom would have also used Yiddish.

By using the conditional in "if" sentences they are complicating matters for themselves, as if English wasn't complicated enough. French by the way, use the same mode as English (Si j'avais assez argent, me m'acheterais. .. ")

AuntieE

No language is hard to learn if it is your first languge.

Any other langanguage can be hard if you have never been taught grammar, or if you have, but your teacher hasn't, if you have no flair for languages, or if you only learn it sitting in a classroom talking to other speakers of your first language.

The letters of the alphabet are pronounced differently in different languages. In Danish p and b, are far nearer to each other than they are in English, as indeed are c, ck, and k to g.

So the Dane learning English cannot hear the difference between dog and duck, properly and probably - this may not matter so much, but when we get as far as fog and f-ck, it becomes distinctly embarrassing.

AuntieE

So the Dane learning English cannot hear the difference between dog and duck, properly and probably - this may not matter so much, but when we get as far as fog and f-ck, it becomes distinctly embarrassing.

Don't think English is that hard as I don't know if it's still true or not but it used to the language of the air and sea. Meaning all airline pilots and sea captains had to speak English when communicating with towers and ports .

I read a lot of books written by American,Canadian and Australia authors and for ever correcting the spelling in my head as I read.

All the le , la , tous etc learning French I found hard .

I enjoyed learning languages at school, partly because my dad was bilingual. I could speak French and German quite well which helped me in my various working visits abroad. I used to teach English to visiting foreign students which was fun too. Unfortunately I've lost the plot now but have been learning Welsh as a challenge because my granddaughter's partner has Welsh relatives and they're coming to the wedding in the summer. So, I have been learning Welsh via Duolingo and yes, it's not easy. In fact it's very challenging especially as I find it hard to remember things [not just languages!!!] BUT I shall persevere and hope my brain doesn't go blank.

Mamie

I still love the example:
Time flies like an arrow.
Fruit flies like a banana. 😂

😁

Witzend

*Mamie*, I once had to teach someone else’s higher level class the third conditional. Had to look it up to see what it was! And yet native speakers use it all the time without even thinking. And I’d used it in e.g. French without being aware that it even had a name.
In case anyone’s wondering, the 1st conditional goes e.g. ‘If I win the lottery, I’ll buy a house.’
2nd, If I won the lottery, I’d buy a house’
3rd, If I’d won the lottery, I’d have bought a house.

3rd in particular, very tricky for learners, especially perhaps for speakers of Arabic, as mine were.

I thought I knew the tenses but DD, who teaches academic English to foreign students, was explaining to me some of the different tenses she is teaching them. I was beginning to glaze over whilst trying to look interested!

Witzend It is true that the conditional tenses are the most complex to teach but are not half as difficult as the equivalents in other Latin languages: Italian! I have been teaching English to Italians to Cambridge university entrance level for many years but French is my second language.

The truth is that the English language is the easiest language to speak BADLY. The English landlady and the Indian stall seller will speak in a vastly different way but will understand each other (with a bit of patience). This cannot be said of other languages.

Mamie, I once had to teach someone else’s higher level class the third conditional. Had to look it up to see what it was! And yet native speakers use it all the time without even thinking. And I’d used it in e.g. French without being aware that it even had a name.
In case anyone’s wondering, the 1st conditional goes e.g. ‘If I win the lottery, I’ll buy a house.’
2nd, If I won the lottery, I’d buy a house’
3rd, If I’d won the lottery, I’d have bought a house.

3rd in particular, very tricky for learners, especially perhaps for speakers of Arabic, as mine were.

I still love the example:
Time flies like an arrow.
Fruit flies like a banana. 😂

There is a lot of grammar to learn in French and other Latin based languages, but once you have learnt the rules (no mean task) they are much more consistent than English, which has its roots in so many languages.
You can learn to use the subjunctive in French and understand the rules, but most of us don't even know when we are using it in English.
My son teaches English at the highest levels of the Cambridge exams in Spain and I teach U3A classes in France; we constantly discuss the vagaries of the language! My Norman friends try to teach me patois and it is fascinating when we find words that are in English but not in French.
I love Bill Bryson's book Mother Tongue. English is such a wonderfully rich language.

One of my favourite stories was the English lady, living in Italy, who told her neighbour about a falcon she had seen in her garden. She thought her neighbour was looking at her oddly and then realised that she had actually told her that she'd seen a fairy in the garden! The two words are very similar. Pitfalls everywhere!

No language is hard to learn if it is your first languge.

Any other langanguage can be hard if you have never been taught grammar, or if you have, but your teacher hasn't, if you have no flair for languages, or if you only learn it sitting in a classroom talking to other speakers of your first language.

The letters of the alphabet are pronounced differently in different languages. In Danish p and b, are far nearer to each other than they are in English, as indeed are c, ck, and k to g.

So the Dane learning English cannot hear the difference between dog and duck, properly and probably - this may not matter so much, but when we get as far as fog and f-ck, it becomes distinctly embarrassing.

You'll love this fella

youtube.com/shorts/DP2vbxWFPQ0?si=WSrbqgZEamTtiHcr

winterwhite

Witzend you’re right about didn’t it / wasn’t it. My eldest daughter as a young child persistently said bettern’t I, as in I’d better put my shoes on bettern’t I. Neither of her sisters did it and I never came across it anywhere else.

I’ve heard that from a young sibling. I do find it fascinating how very young children misapply rules of grammar that they’ve unconsciously absorbed. Eg saying ‘I goed’ instead of went’, not to mention a young sister saying, ‘We’ve brunged them all in, Mummy’ re toys left in the garden.

For communication purposes, genders don't really matter. However, tenses do matter. Even though my French is reasonable and my ability to read and write French is very good, I find it difficult to "sound French". I struggle with ellision and the fact that colloquial French doesn't use the grammatically correct forms. For example, to say "I don't know" is "je ne sais pas" but in colloquial French it's just "je sais pas".

Jaberwok

To, Too, and Two can be a problem for foreigners learning English, along with others, Bough and Bow. Bow and Bow, etc, according to our Dutch friends who speak English fairly fluently.

Along with hard g or soft g etc!

I'm currently in France, speaking fluent French with French friends. They all find English very difficult. They do enjoy trying a few phrases, but that's it.

DH has been subjected to French life for many years. He understands most of what is being said in the language, but struggles with tenses and genders in his own sentences.

Laura when I started learning Welsh and didn't understand mutations I would look up a mutated word in the dictionary and of course it wasn't there. Very confusing for learners.

What I find amusing about mutations in the Welsh language is that the word for a fear of mutations is treiglaphobia, however if you want to say ‘I have a fear of mutations’ this mutates to ‘my gen i dreiglaphobia’.
Perhaps the ph is ff, not sure, but you get my drift.

To, Too, and Two can be a problem for foreigners learning English, along with others, Bough and Bow. Bow and Bow, etc, according to our Dutch friends who speak English fairly fluently.

growstuff I love German, always have done, the language, its poetry and how it sounds when sung.

When other girls were sticking photos of Adam Faith and Cliff Richards on their walls. My friend and I opted for Dietrich Fischer-Diskau, his seductive voice and the seductive sound of German when sung.

Grandma70s

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.

Agreed! I am good at languages on the whole, but really struggled with Welsh. I gave up in the end.

When you see Gymru and Cymru it becomes very confusing, especially when the signs say Croeso i Cymru when apparently it should be Croeso i Gymru!

At least I know what Araf means 😀

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.

Yes, just chatting to DD and she said the same thing. She showed me some other videos showing examples of the vagaries of the English language.

Is this because it's an amalgam of other languages?

M0nica

silverlining48

I find French with all its silent letters in almost every word very difficult, particularly if I have to read it out loud in French conversation group.
In German every letter is pronounced but they too have the der die das, le la les situation, always awkward.
I am glad we just use ‘ the’ for anything other than an obvious male or female noun. Much less complicated but as has been said there are anomalies in spelling of similar sounding words.
I wish my Italian was better, it’s a beautiful language to speak.

I find French an impossible language, not just the silent letters and even silent syllables but all those letters all pronounced the same et, est, e, ee ait, etc etc etc.

Despite having a holiday home in Normandy for 33 years, my French is still appalling. Yet I started German again, after not studying it for over 40 years. I did a level 2 course,missed the first class, was late for the second (not a habit) and walked into a listening exercise and understood nearly everything.

I wish more people realised that German isn't that hard.