They say English is hard . . .

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.

Nandalot

Was just talking about this with my half Spanish DGS. He says English is easy compared with Spanish and French!

French is quite easy for most Spanish speakers because vocabulary and syntax is quite similar.

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 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.

"English is a difficult language. It can be understood through tough thorough thought, though."

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.

Was just talking about this with my half Spanish DGS. He says English is easy compared with Spanish and French!

Managed to unmute.
It is funny!

Mollygo

fancythat

From what little I know, English is not a hard language. Except for the spellings.

Did you like the cartoon? So many spellings for the same sound and such a funny sentence to demonstrate it.
English spellings are difficult because of pronunciations like cough and rough and bough, but it’s our verantwoordelijkheid to learn them if we want to speak the language, as I’m finding out with Dutch.

I am not on Facebook , and I am wary of opening some links.

I am surprised I could see some of it, but I cant hear it so dont really know what the cartoons are like.

While it’s true that (except for the 3rd person singular) English doesn’t have conjugations/declensions/genders to cope with, it does have a vast vocabulary, and having taught EFL, I realised that some aspects were quite difficult for early learners.

E.g. in English we say ‘Did you go?’ whereas in many other lingos they just turn it around - ‘Went you?’ and what are called ‘question tags’ - didn’t you? - aren't they? - ‘wasn’t she? etc. very complicated for them to get their heads around, whereas in e.g. French and German you just have n’est-ce pas?, night wahr? etc. - the same every time. Ditto in other European languages, e.g. Russian and Greek, AFAIK.

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.

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.

I couldn't get to grips with the male/female rules of other languages. Love the cartoon,

fancythat

From what little I know, English is not a hard language. Except for the spellings.

Did you like the cartoon? So many spellings for the same sound and such a funny sentence to demonstrate it.
English spellings are difficult because of pronunciations like cough and rough and bough, but it’s our verantwoordelijkheid to learn them if we want to speak the language, as I’m finding out with Dutch.

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.

From what little I know, English is not a hard language. Except for the spellings.

I think the issue with English, as I understand it, is the rules change.

We don’t have the issues with grammar and “male” and “female” that some languages have like French, or the issues around a completely different alphabet.