English is the hardest language to learn

His pronounciation is hopefully better than his (partly non-existing) knowledge of grammar and word order!
Sausage, my friend, are you right! May God himself protect us against this "missionary" of English! Just kidding... ;)

I cannot speak for everyone, but I found French--a Romance language--pretty easy to learn. I got straight As in that class without trying very hard.

We were told that, between French and Spanish, Spanish was the easier one to learn. I have since heard, anecdotally, that Spanish is the easiest language on the Earth for an American.

>> We were told that, between French and Spanish, Spanish was the easier one to learn. I have since heard, anecdotally, that Spanish is the easiest language on the Earth for an American. <<

Yes, it's true, that many people think Spanish and Italian are easier to learn than French. But our teachers told us that's not correct, because in the beginning French is more difficult, but afterwards - after you have got the basics - Italian and Spanish are getting more difficult!
But I didn't care about that and took French, because it sounds more beautiful and it is easier to pronounce for a German speaking person!

In America, Spanish is a lot more common. Mexico is right below us and we have other Spanish countries around as well. So that's why more Americans learn Spanish rather than French... it's more applicable to the "real world." This is also why you don't see a lot of Americans learning languages such as Russian or German... they are not a language that you could easily go find a job with in America. I was in Thailand during the tsunami relief effort with the US Air Force and usually hung out everyday with a German interpreter. She spoke English very well, but I don't know if it is possible to sound like an American without living there. The way our speech sounds is what differentiates our ability to tell if one is a native/local. Keep in mind that the accents get very harsh in different areas as well. Although you may be used to hearing the English on TV, American English sounds much different in Texas than it does in New York... which is even different from Pennsylvania or Boston, and especially New Jersey. Regardless, German woman are gorgeous... I can't deny that.

I believe English is the hardest language to learn. Unless you are raised in America, it'll take you a long time to learn coming from another country with plans of a job or college. Kudos to all the foreigners who come to America to acheive the their dreams. It's just as hard for Americans to learn another language. German was a very difficult language for me to learn so I sympathize with anyone having to learn English.

I think I totally disagree with you, Meredyth Lynne, except on the part about the kudos, LOL!

Most people can learn one language, so why not two or three? I am no genius, yet I can manage to get out of trouble in five languages and understand a bit in several others and my job is NOT in languages/linguistics.

We come to languages with different expectations. I know that if I am enthusiastic about something or I MUST learn something, I can do it.
Did you WANT to learn German or was it an ordeal? I think it's an old myth that English is hard. We certainly have a lot of easy-to-learn verbs compared to many languages and our nouns are darn nice too.

At least we don't have to spend two extra years learning how to read like Japanese kids do!

My mom says this old-fashioned saying: If there is a will, there is a way.

"I cannot speak for everyone, but I found French--a Romance language--pretty easy to learn. I got straight As in that class without trying very hard.

We were told that, between French and Spanish, Spanish was the easier one to learn. I have since heard, anecdotally, that Spanish is the easiest language on the Earth for an American"-Jasper

I agree with you a lot, LOL!

"But of course, everybody thinks about the difficulty of certain languages in a different way!"

Yes!

I have just read the discussion of how difficult English is. Personally,English is even easier than my native language, Vietnamese. Anyone has ever tried learning Vietnamese? with 11 vowels and six tones!
English is easy to learn because it is an international language. we can find its material everywhere. I like it a lot.

One of my relatives learned Vietnamese. I know it's tonal, but I never heard him say that it was difficult.

I believe that the difficulty of English depends on the other languages you speak. Nevertheless, English grammar, especially verb conjugations, is by far much more simple than Romance languages. To use one of the examples above, for that native Vietnamese speaker English vowels are much more simple but for me, a Spanish speaker, it's much harder because Spanish uses only 5 vowels. For people whose first language uses the latin alphabet it is much easier to speak English because most letters represent at least similar sounds. I agree with Van Hoc because the ease of finding material in English makes it much easier tolearn it.

eeh by gum! gi over! al this faffing as left me flummoxed! why doesnt tha shut tha ceck ole lad before I di it missen and clip thee round lug ole!
lol

what I'm trying to say is... does it matter how anyone speaks? I'm a proper Yorkshire lass and I mostly talk in the manner I wrote the first paragraph! But that's not to say I don't understand the English language...
xxx

Yes, it does matter how you speak. If your accent isn't understood by your target audience, you have failed. Of course, you COULD try writing out your feelings.

<<Yes, it does matter how you speak. If your accent isn't understood by your target audience, you have failed. Of course, you COULD try writing out your feelings.>>

I agree.

Yorkshire, what difference does it make if no one can understand you?

I can't understand a single word of several dialects I hear on English TV. One example is Handy Andy who works with Trading Places. (sic?) What dialect is HE speaking?

I've spoken English from Day 1 of birth, but it still is the hardest language to learn due to our various antonyms, synonms, homophones, verbiage and other factors involved with the enunciation of words. I think Russian is the second hardest lang. to learn, hands down..