from Hacker News

English is relatively easy to learn, but not to master (2018)

by silasdb on 3/26/21, 10:08 PM with 314 comments

by cehrlich on 3/28/21, 9:55 AM
I agree with the premise of the article. I started going to International school (all classes in English) at age 9. Got two University degrees in England. Have several academic papers published. There are still moments where I'm made aware that I'm not a native English speaker - for example I sometimes translate German figures of speech into English, where they don't exist.
However I'd disagree that the article's premise is unique to English. I've been learning Japanese for the past few years, and while it's definitely more difficult to learn than English for someone who's coming from another European language, I think the long tail of being native-like is equally infinite. It's just based on different things. Examples would be は vs が (this is a beginner-level topic as well, but comes back in a different way much later), sentence-level pitch accent, the fact that writing in formal language is basically the world's most elaborate game of madlibs, etc.
by gruppe_sechs on 3/26/21, 10:16 PM
Something I've heard fairly consistently from people who've learned English as a second language is that it's relatively easy to learn English to a basic or intermediate level, since English grammar is relatively simple (no genders, no cases, simple verbs, etc), but taking your English from intermediate to advanced is much harder because of all the weird quirks, irregularities, idioms, phrasal verbs, inconsistent spelling etc..
My experience of learning several Asian languages as a native English speaker is kind of the opposite - the initial learning stage is very hard and it took me a long time to get to a point where people would understand me at all. But once I got over the initial hump, things progressed from "basic" to "intermediate" quite smoothly. (I never stuck around for long enough to get from "intermediate" to "advanced" though, so who knows.)
by leephillips on 3/28/21, 3:22 AM
I am, at the moment, learning Spanish and also teaching English to native Spanish speakers. The languages present almost opposite sets of challenges. English is chaos: the connection between spelling and pronunciation is so random that one practically has to memorize how to say every word, as if they are ideograms; there are few conjugations to learn, but in place of that many rules for modal and auxiliary verbs; word order is extremely free, but that means that a listener needs to figure out the meaning of a sentence that might have a half dozen different structures; almost any verb can be combined with any preposition to form a phrasal verb with a meaning that needs to be memorized (put up, put down, put out (!), etc.); there are ironclad rules on one hand, but on the other, more exceptions than rules. I am fascinated by the challenge of really learning English grammar for the first time, so that I can try to explain how it works. Spanish, by contrast, is almost a formal mathematical system. There are many rules, but they are actual rules. They are difficult to master, but once you have them, they define the language. The spelling of a word tells you exactly how to pronounce it. The rules demand to be followed. My teachers are on my case for even a minor variation in punctuation, that would be perfectly normal in English. And one must beware of the different vocabularies in neighboring countries, which can get you in trouble. That situation is way worse than the differences between US and UK.
The notes in the article were interesting, but I was puzzled by the one about the present continuous tense, which does exist in Spanish. Also, the usage is the same as in English, although the use of simple present for present continuous is common in casual speech, and impossible in English (just because there are rules doesn’t mean people follow them).
by dragonwriter on 3/28/21, 9:48 AM
> The “-ing” progressive form of present tense (“I am reading”) is unique to English from other European languages (in French “Je mange” can be translated as both “I eat” and “I am eating.”)
At a minimum, Dutch and Spanish, among European languages, are also generally recognized as having a present continuous/progressive tense. Though this is somewhat arbitrary:
In English, the sense of the present continuous can be subsumed by the simple present, too, the present continuous emphasizes the continuous nature, but is not essential to communicate it.
And French has a construct that serves a similar emphatic function (être <conjugated in simple present> en train de + <infinitive>)
So this construct that communicates the exact same thing is not a present continuous tense but the english (to be <conjugated in the present tense> + present participle) construct is a present continuous tense; a fairly arbitrary distinction as to which productions that are applied to verb roots to form an expression which conveys a particular semantic combination of tense (time/location), aspect, mood, etc. is considered a grammatical tense and which productions that serve that purpose are instead considered idiom or something else that isn't a grammatical tense.
by cletus on 3/28/21, 3:21 AM
I find the transformation and evolution of languages in general and English in particular fascinating.
Old English was a Germanic language primarily. After 1066, the court language of England became French and remained so for centuries. It was in this period that the Middle English transformation happened.
The fascinating thing about this is that the language became much more regular in that period and, more importantly, it dropped a lot of what I as a native English-speaker at least consider pointless grammatical cruft.
For example: Old English had 3 noun genders (male, female, neuter; this being the norm for European and Semitic languages). Middle English lost that (other than male and female for people). Old English had 5 cases. By comparison, modern German has 4, Latin has 6, some Eastern European languages have more. The concept of case has almost completely disappeared from English (pronouns and the Saxon genitive notwithstanding).
It's fascinating because it seems what keeps languages unchanging is a ruling class. It's a bit like the philosophical view of grammar as being descriptive (my view) vs prescriptive. It's almost a model for conservatism being the resistance to change.
As a native English speaker I've found it difficult to learn other languages not just because of the ubiquity of English but because other languages have concepts that English just doesn't, like in German where adjectives and pronouns have to agree by case, number gender and article of a noun (eg "the" vs der/die/das/den/dem/denen/der/des). That structure just seems like such pointless cognitive load, at least to learn. I'm sure it's zero cost if you grew up with it.
But it does seem like it makes English easier to learn. Obviously there are some complexities in English (eg adjective order and the tenses).
And before anyone mentions Asian languages for simple grammar let me just point out: no clear word separators and the writing system in general (although this varies too).
by dorkwood on 3/28/21, 8:35 AM
I know people who have spoken English for over 10 years, but still give themselves away as non-native speakers by using the incorrect tense.
A common one is that they'll type something like "I didn't understood what he said". I can see their reasoning here: "understood" seems like the correct word to use when talking about a past event. Sadly, I don't know enough about my own native language to explain to them why they should be using the word "understand" instead.
by schrodinger on 3/28/21, 4:49 AM
After talking to people from a lot of other countries (inc. europeans who use English as their "lingua franca"), the main benefit of English is that it's incredibly fault tolerant. It's difficult to learn well enough to sound like a native speaker, but even if you are very far from it, you're still understandable.
Think about these phrases:
* I go store now
* I hungry
* I wash car later
* I cook food grill tomorrow if no rain
These all immediately sound like a "foreigner" speaking, yet are completely understandable. Many other languages, relying on conjugations and implicit subjects & objects are way more inaccessible to new learners!
by ekianjo on 3/28/21, 2:49 AM
That sounds like a blanket statement valid for most languages.
by axaxs on 3/28/21, 4:54 AM
I'm convinced English is impossible to master. There are just too many corner cases.
That said, English is also a very abused language. Sadly these days, correcting someone leads to 'oh it's a living language and use determines definition', and more sadly, dictionaries play along with this idea.
This both makes the language harder to understand, and impossible to master IMO.
by bane on 3/28/21, 3:39 AM
Being a de facto global language where listeners also have to learn to tolerate very wide differences in pronunciation and grammar, I wonder how this simplifies the perceived learning of the language. I know when I try to learn and use languages in other countries even mild issues with pronunciation will get you blank stare in return which is highly frustrating.
by jiggawatts on 3/28/21, 12:00 PM
As a point of reference, I just watched a video of a non-native speaker speaking Hungarian: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S44KrRp7QgA
He's trying really hard, but it's like nails on a chalkboard listening to him. It's worse than a bad computer text-to-speech converter.
Hungarian is one of those languages where it is shockingly difficult to learn to a level where you're intelligible at all, and learning to be fluent as an adult is borderline impossible. I've never met a person who has managed it.
For comparison, I once came across some Dutch primary school teachers on holiday that were more fluent in English than most native speakers that I know. They had a bigger vocabulary and used more complex sentence structures than I was used to from the typical locals. They had a mild, barely detectable accent.
Not all languages are equal!
by KaiserPro on 3/28/21, 9:43 AM
Learning to read english is not simple.
I've been learning dutch, and teaching my children to read (english, native language) The one thing that struck me is how impossible it is to "sound out" english. That is use the letters to make a stab at what the word will sound like.
Unlike dutch, the written word is only a slight guide as to how its supposed to sound.
I can't spell for shit in english, but I can spell quite well in dutch.
by nullsense on 3/28/21, 6:32 AM
Easy vs hard is dominated not by grammar and vocabulary, but by access to the language and interest in it.
Nothing is more accessible than English, and there is absolutely mountains upon mountains of pop culture from the Anglosphere which no other language comes close to matching except for Japanese.
If you have access to people that speak the language, access to native media, and there is lots of stuff on that language that interests you, then it's easy.
If you want hard vs easy you could move to Antarctica and try learn Kimbundu.
by soldehierro on 3/28/21, 3:25 AM
The part about European langauges not having a present progessive tense was painful to read. Many european languages do have a present progressive, just not French and German, which aren't much of a representative sample.
by auganov on 3/28/21, 1:21 PM
Everything about English is very different just because of its standing in the world. People aren't even that interested in "mastering" other languages. Not just a native vs non-native thing either [0]. You'll see fewer books about style, copywriting and so forth targeting the native population too. People just don't do it as much in these languages and it's not as good of an investment. An American may be as interested in better writing skills as any ESL speaker. Fewer Frenchmen will think French skills are a good investment.
[0] Though this is interesting too. "Natives" of English may be more invested in this distinction than those of other languages. Native vs non-native dynamics are very different in English too.
by npmn on 3/28/21, 2:49 PM
So English is like Javascript, both languages are spoken/written by the majority of its intended engineers, have ton of resources/books/materials and lastly both the languages are easy to start but difficult to master.
by Waterluvian on 3/28/21, 4:07 AM
This got me wondering about the concept of a custom designed language focused on functionality, unambiguity, ease to learn.
My understanding is that all commonly used spoken languages are basically organically evolved and not designed?
by dqpb on 3/28/21, 2:58 AM
Everything is relatively easy to learn, but not to master
by Arete314159 on 3/29/21, 2:04 AM
I've 45, a native English speaker, and extremely literate. A few months ago I got into a disagreement with my husband on how to pronounce a word ("satiety"). Because I'd never seen it before, and while I could figure it out from context, it turns out my guess at the pronunciation was wrong.
English is humbling. You are still learning words in middle age. You are still learning pronunciations in middle age. It just never ends.
by ggambetta on 3/28/21, 9:09 AM
> The “-ing” progressive form of present tense (“I am reading”) is unique to English from other European languages (in French “Je mange” can be translated as both “I eat” and “I am eating.”)
Huh? We have the same construction in Spanish, which is another European language. "I read" -> "[yo] leo"; "I am reading" -> "[yo] estoy leyendo".
by sershe on 3/28/21, 7:37 PM
Comparing Russian (my native language), English, and Turkish (that I've learned to lower-intermediate level 15 years ago and have since forgotten)... English has very simple rules, and tons of irregularities and exceptions everywhere. And as some have mentioned, tons of vocabulary. Aspects of Turkish sometimes felt to me almost like a programming language, it's very modular with complex rules compared to English (for a non-native learner of both), but there seem to be relatively few irregularities. Russian has both - complex rules, and tons of irregularities.
I am guessing rote learning without many complex rules is easier for most people?
PS. The biggest gap in my English that is obvious in my daily life is that I cannot for the life of me understand half of ZZ Top lyrics. Can native English speakers understand ZZ Top lyrics, e.g. "Poke Chop Sandwich" or "Two Ways To Play"?
by hahahahe on 3/28/21, 11:19 AM
Mastering a language is not easy even for native speakers.
by eckza on 3/28/21, 10:12 AM
Ah, English: the Javascript of spoken language.
by Razengan on 3/28/21, 3:13 PM
English is not easy to learn (or teach) without being [involuntarily] exposed to it in one way or the other since childhood.
One of the best examples of the convoluted mess of ambiguities and exceptions in English: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23581841
It's particularly frustrating when English-speakers arrogantly make fun of other languages (like Chinese/Japanese) as if English doesn't have its share of stupid shit.
by iamacyborg on 3/28/21, 10:04 AM
This feels like a general truism for pretty much everything.
by quattrofan on 3/28/21, 11:42 AM
Why does he keep referring to here as "the English isles" it's really annoying. These are the British Isles.
by mxcrossb on 3/28/21, 4:16 AM
The article has some interesting notes about English, but I don’t really understand the connection to the post title?
by surfsvammel on 3/28/21, 5:04 AM
I’ve thought, for years, about improving my English. But I don’t know how to go about doing so. I already speak, read, and write English without effort. But I want to improve further. There seem to be a lack of options for someone in this situation, all English learning resources seem to be aimed at beginners.
by emrah on 3/28/21, 4:47 PM
Relative to other languages, the premise might be correct but learning English was still not easy due to all the irregularities and overloaded words one has to memorize.
by singingfish on 3/28/21, 8:49 AM
In this sense it's like perl. In fact perl is this way by design as it was not designed by a theoretical linguist but a practical linguist.
by nathias on 3/28/21, 10:20 AM
Easy to learn and easy to master compared to other languages.
by anticensor on 3/28/21, 8:23 PM
I think that applies to all languages, not only English?
by HPsquared on 3/28/21, 1:55 PM
So, English is like Python?