English is extremely difficult for its pronunciation (utterly changing, by the way, among English-speaking Countries!!); its grammar is, on the other hand , rather basic in comparison with other Western languages such as German or French, or Italian . But at school, teachers primarily focus on grammar! Such a mistake!!
I'm brazilian student and I've been learning english for almost 6 months and nowadays i can share my emotions in this language easily. But i admit, is not easy to understand native speakers.. to be honest i get understand about 70% depending on the situation. But I'm happy with my progress. Thanks for sharing your tips!
That sounds great, man I've been studying English for 1 year and I have the same problem, I still have problems with my listening, how many hours do you study everyday?
@@briban65 thanks buddy, actually i feel like.. i need to improve more my skills in english mainly the listening. Because if i understand another person, i will be able to talk to anyone. So.. that's it. What about you bro.. have you studying for a long time?
@@kanocano22 hi bro, honestly i spend 1 hour every day studying, and after that i listen some podcasts on RUclips to try to improve my skills on listening
@kervenson orisme hey buddy how's it going.. so i study english by books on youtube.. i really recommend this strategic to improve your habilities. I usually read and repeat every word like a native speaker.
Great points Steve. Another thing, as a native English speaker it's sometimes very difficult to speak German in Germany, French in Paris, etc - they want to speak English with you! But if a German or French person travels to Britain or America, he/she HAS TO speak English. That's motivation to learn the language.
Steve, cieszę się, że trafiłem na na twój kanał i na twoją aplikację. Myślałem, że skoro jestem już po 50, to dla mnie za późno na naukę języka. Kiedy oglądam twoje filmy, odzyskuję pewność siebie i znowu wierzę, że wszystko jest w moim zasięgu. Bardzo dziękuję ci za to co robisz.
The hardest part of learning English in my opinion is the phrasal verbs, other than that is easy at least for me since I am a Spanish native speaker and English and Spanish have a similar vocabulary.
Are you Latin American or a "Spanish Spanish" native speaker? I have not yet heard the extent to which a native speaker can discern a difference bewteen the two. PS I've recently learned that Saint Seiya was always immensely popular in the Spanish & Portuguese-speaking worlds, etc and now am beginning to notice pfps everywhere, lol *I always remembered it pretty fondly, though unknowningly in part
@@Tehui1974 a phrasal verb is a phrase that includes a verb and a preposition (or a different part of the sentence). If you put them together, they have a particular meaning. For example, give in, give out, give away, get rid of, stand up for, look after, etc. Nonnative speakers find it difficult to remember all these combinations and that’s why they prefer to say the actual word that carries the meaning, instead of the phrasal verb. For example many would say “resemble” instead of “take after.”
As I learned my English in adulthood times, it is pretty frustrating when you mix your mother tongue language and English it will result in an incorrect grammar structure even in speaking. I put myself into intensive learning of English for precisely two years. I use whatever is available online, but I prefer reading novel books and listening to many podcasts to Spotify any topics that make me listen for the whole day. Watching Netflix and other media like RUclipss helps a lot of my improvement. I agree that living in an English country doesn't help you to become fluent. It would be best if you worked for it to improve. Make many mistakes talk to people when you have time or your co-workers. I can hold conversation talk right now and communicate. I still encounter this problem at work when I'm trying to explain something, but I cannot deliver it fluently. Grammar mistakes, and it isn't very pleasant. Just keep learning and enjoy the journey
Your English is great!. I assume you are striving for perfection so I will say I only see a few errors that still doesn't matter too much is: "..other medias like RUclipss helps a lot of my improvement" *RUclips not pluralized, but I think you may have seen some content that may have said, for example, "RUclips's greatest videos (suggesting possession of those videos) and forgot the little ' in between the "E" and the "S " n that case. Not a _significant_ detail but helps prevent confusion when you read words. Such as.... Lusia's car (but if you replaced Lusia with HER it would be HER CAR and not HER'S CAR for some reason, same for HIS CAR) And for "helps a lot of my improvement" you would write "helps a lot with my improvement". I don't know how I would explain that one, its just an example of tricky preposition words.
Hello, steve. I'm from Hong Kong. I studied in Japan when I was young and found it easier to learn Japanese than English. It may be the relationship with the Asian region. I can easily find a cultural connection in Japanese and find resonance in emotional expression. Now I'm trying to learn English, but it's hard for me to see that emotional connection to English.
I believe that when someone says "English is hard" what they really mean is that they don't accept imperfection. As for me, I don't like when I might sound clumsy or with a little grammatical mistake. When it comes to pronunciation everyone seems to be even more perfectionist. - E aqui, de brasileiro pra brasileiro, nós sabemos que brasileiro é muito fdp nesse sentido. Quando vê alguém aprendendo vai tirar sarro da pronúncia e muitas vezes essa mesma pessoa que critica nem fala inglês. Isso intimida e tira a confiança de muita gente que tem o desejo de aprender.
I have been learning English for so long and I can assure you that I still find some obstacles or/and difficulties to deal with in my language learning journey. One of the main reasons of my struggle is to understand certain English speakers who speak extremely fast due to their formidable speech rate when speaking so quickly which can get you overwhelmed as a committed English learner. This could radically change my perspective on it when I move to the United States, I hope so. It's truly difficult to understand some natives but understanding the majority of English speakers is not really hard and mostly turns out that they were quite clear to understand making the task more straightforward to carry on. It happens so often and it doesn't necessarily have to do with particular, given accents of English, the matter is the way of speaking English many people have around the world, I know that there are also individuals who don't even speak their native language well, they usually do it in a very wrong way and English is no exception. I'll continue learning and brushing up on my existing English knowledge which is quite large and giving my ability to comprehend and speak English more value whatever happens.
Thank you Steve. This is a quite encouraging piece of advice for language learners. As a linguist and Chinese language professor, I also reflect a lot on this aspect. I think teachers, on the other hand, also need to put ourselves in students’ shoes and design fun, digestible, and effective curriculum so students can keep on going. 😀💪
A new language is difficult if this language has some concepts languages you already know do not have. Example: I have Slavic background and those languages do not have a concept of articles. So for me, after 30 years of exposure to the English language, articles are still difficult topic.
I never get bent up on all that “A1 or B2.” Too me it doesn’t matter what some piece of paper or computer says. In my opinion, if your brain doesn’t get it all that means nothing!
agreed...there are like tons of registered,licensed translators and interpreters out there who have studied languages in college and they still suck when it comes to translating....
@@purplebutterfly4078 A lot of the translations on certain TV shows where the English person talks over the Spanish person, I am just like, whoever hired that translator should be fired!
@@MDobri-sy1ce I do the same thing lol...languages require time and dedication,but also natural inclination which is in my opinion the most important criteria if you want to be very good at it!
Are you learning English? Do you find it difficult? Why? 10 Secrets of Language Learning ⇢ www.thelinguist.com LingQ Grammar Guides ⇢ www.lingq.com/en/grammar-resource/ My blog ⇢ blog.thelinguist.com/ The LingQ blog ⇢ www.lingq.com/blog/ My Podcast ⇢ soundcloud.com/lingostevepodcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/learn-languages-with-steve-kaufmann/id1437851870 --- Social Media Instagram ⇢ instagram.com/lingosteve_/ TikTok ⇢ www.tiktok.com/@lingosteve Facebook ⇢ facebook.com/lingosteve Twitter ⇢ twitter.com/lingosteve LingQ Discord ⇢ discord.gg/ShPTjyhwTN
As a Finnish speaker I found two things difficult: -English has richer phonology than Finnish. I had to learn so many new sounds. -English spelling is a bit weird. But after a while you can guess how words are spelled and pronounced English isn't that hard. I'd say around the same level as Swedish
Didn't expect that Finnish was phonologically poor compared to English. For the very few moments I heard Finnish in my life, it simply seems to be one of those "impossible" languages to learn.
@@jopeteus I’m a native English speaker, I felt so spoiled that most if not all Italian words are spoken the way they’re spelled. It’s one of my favorite features of Italian.
@@Littleton3513 Yeah, I am learning Italian right now. And I agree. I simply love this language so much. It would make so much more sense to improve my Spanish because of where I live, but I simply prefer Italian and French more. And I will work on French once I have at least around a B2 level understanding of Italian. I truly have learned that when it comes to language learning that you learn a language that you are interested in, not necessarily one that is immediately useful. There are people out here learning Estonian and stuff like that. It takes a real interest and passion to learn something like that.
In my experience, I consider the ability to learn/study language is an inate talent, it is like most other talents which means it's a gift, if you find acquiring second language is hard in the first place then you have nothing much to do. Having this gilf help you learn much faster and much more efficient, however, you can still master a language if you play slow, and most importantly, your dedication.
On the contrary I think inate talent has nothing to do with it. It all comes down to motivation and learning practices as I believe our brains are wired to learn languages.
@@BlessedTea555 i completely get it, my opinion is based on my observation and my experiences through years of interacting with non english speakers in term of academic level aspect (writing, thinking, researching, reading, etc), not communicate and daily life aspect, it's true that our brains are wired to learn english but it's actually hard to study and well-use in high level purposes, our brains take a lot of time maybe thousands of hours of hardworking, somebody with inate talent makes it way faster at these levels. That's why i consider the ability to learn/study language is an inate talent. Hope my opinion has value to you and others.
I don't think English is difficult, so why many people say English is very difficult? because they do not have high morivation to learn it. I live in small town in Indonesia, and no one here who could speak English, thats why I learn English by memorizing words every single day, its look like old method, but I did and only about4 months or more, I almoat memorize all the words in my simple dicyionary. Now I try to combine from one word to another with stand up in front of the mirror and start to talking with my self laudly. To practice, I teach some kids and students and make basic Englush video and upload to my RUclips Channel. Thanks for great English abd motivated me in keep learning Best regards
As a Chilean, during the last 4-5 years i've been really into languages. Currently i speak English and Portuguese in a very good level. Italian (getting better but i make mistakes) and Swedish (I understand it) but i have no one to talk to lol. So the thing with English: basically the hardest part are phrasal verbs, i haven't seen that in any other language. However after a couple of years i realized and (as Steve said) the role of English, the function of English is to be able to communicate with people from different places. Right now i'm studying a lot of phrasal verbs coz i wanna add that "native level" but most of my friends aren't natives, so what can we do guys? To give u an example: As non native speakers we are gonna use "cancel" most of the time, instead of using "to call off" and that's absolutely okay. Steve Te amo❤
I didn't realize English had so many phrasal verbs until I read this comment. I am a native speaker of english and I am trying to learn spanish. All that matters is understanding and being understood.
Mr.kaufmann since I came across your channel I've become a regular viewer, and therefore I learned a lot of words and sentence structures from you. I've been following your channel for 4 years or so at least I even recognize many speech patterns that I use when you speak, including accent. I find it very fun to be able to trace back the somewhat biggest influence in the way that I speak. It is like the speech pattern that a person acquires from one's parents.
Someone pointed out here in the comment that I completely agree. How hard you find the language really depends on what is your mother language. I feel European people can quickly learn each other’s languages because they have so many common roots and similarities. However for me my mother language is Chinese mandarin so Latin roots language just seem very foreign to us and therefore it takes a lot more efforts for us to learn English because there are simply no common grounds at all. I’ve heard of some of my Chinese friends saying they find it a lot easier to learn Japanese well. I’ve met someone who have spent almost the same amount of time trying to learn both Japanese and English, this person ended up giving up on English and decided to continue with her Japanese 😂. So I think another factor is it really depends what your mother language is.
Europeans have several language families that are totally different. Romanic, Germanic, Slavic, Finno-Ugric and some others. Their speakers can't understand each other. 😊
Hi Steve, I recommended LingQ to my English students but they have pointed out that it doesn’t recognise phrasal verbs. This is a major flaw as they are such an important and confusing part of the lexis!
As a native British English speaker I want to say I massively applaud people who learn and manage to master English. honestly we dont even think of or try to attempty consistant pronounciations not ever! haha its more just by rote memorisation because it's very much a hybridised if not mongrel language. Even I speak poor English and it's my first native tongue! (Unless i study it more) it really is as Steve says about communication at the end of the day And like him I too am baffled when people come along complaining "my English is bad, I want to improve my English" I'm like - youre speaking it fine, what is to improve I have come across people who's it is very bad but that's rare and where people really don't even bother to try you can tell and you can hardly comprehend! The rest of you if you love it you're fine just keep doing it! :D
I would disagree about IELTS and TOEFL tests. After a TOEFL preparation course, my English improved immensely. And when I came to the US for the first time, I was able to comprehend English speech and to express myself in English. The only problem was that I sounded too formal in the beginning, but I quickly acquired slang and casual expressions
Haha yes the spelling drives me often crazy :-). Can't emphasize enough how important it is to find interesting input and with english there is just sooooo much stuff out there. So find things that are interesting for you and then set yourself process oriented goals instead of outcome oriented goals. Thanks again Steve for your great videos.
As a native English speaker who speaks several foreign languages, and having taught ESL, I can say that BASIC English is super easy. The only real difficulty in English are the phrasal verbs, the slang, idioms, and sometimes the accent, depending on the country. I think this is one reason English has become the global language: It is really easy to get a basic working knowledge of it. I'd say , on a 1-10 scale (1 being easiest), English is about a 3.
*Athletes dont worry about taking TOEFL/TOEIC/IELTS/etc* (paraphrased). And im sure with that also comes not worrying about grammar and its a load off. I feel that confidence is a big factor. Like Steve said, these athletes talk with their teammates, and dont care about making mistakes - which helps them improve. We can learn a lot from this example!
The two languages I've studied seriously have phonetically consistent writing systems. I would struggle with English as a none-native speaker, simply due to the writing system.
Steve, students from some countries have high TOEFL scores with bad English because exam dumps are available in these countries, and not because TOEFL is bad.
English grammar is "easy", but the listening is a hell! Whatever, I can't complain because I have made some things wrong. One of them is I wasn't practicing the shadowing since I started learning. In that time I didn't know it.
Motivation and learning resources are the most important Paramount things in learning languages. In that regard, English has super Plentiful resources. If I studied other languages, I must not have made it. Because they don't have many resources and I don't have money to take lectures.(even if I made it, not so fast like English). I sometimes see some people say that I can't succeed English, I will try other languages like French or Spanish... but they will be much more difficult than English.. grammer, resources and so on...
It really depends how much good you want it to be in Englsih. For the basic B1 and even B2 level is realtively an easy language comparire to other language like Hungarian. But if you want it to do it clearly high level like C1 where you have to pay attention to chose the correct prepostion, tenses consider every important rules like gerund, reported speach, correct spelling English exponetianally gets really hard. So yeah on basic and mid levele Englsih is easy if you don't care about too much to the correct grammar and phonetics but C1 or God shake C2 it is suddenly become a nightmare like Hungarian.
Steven Kaufmann, thank you for your videos. They are enogh clear and motivational. I understand approximately 70% what do you speak. When I am watching american series, I understand 50% so so. English is my first language after my mother tongue, that is brazilian portuguese. In future, I intend to learn spanish and french, because, I wonder, that is more easy for me because de commom root. Thanks. Ps.: sorry for my poor write.
Your English isn’t bad, you had some punctuation errors (honestly, it’s not that important unless you want to be a professional writer) but good job 👍 Sto imparando l’italiano, Ciao lingua latina amico!
Testing itself isn't the problem. It's the test taking mindset that predominates mainland Han Chinese schooling where the test is regarded as the sole proxy of competency and not a measure. The PRC gaokao is necessary to enter university and entry is an nearly absolutely guarantee of graduation. I agree that that English spelling is one of its main drawbacks and is in need of reform. Another problem is that so few native English speakers understand their own language that they can seldom understand how English itself works or its challenges but this is, in part, due to the rest of the world making life too complacent for them and learning to speak English, often mandatorily
in my opinion, lots fo vacabulories are the biggest nut to crack !! every time when I would like to describe a thing/event , I usually need to try my best to search it my mind for some seconds. I'm quite struggling with words....
The most difficult thing for me is the lack of material. No matter how hard I try, I'll never find a perfect material that cover everything. Well, it's impossible to know everything anyway. I don't even know every word in my native language. Still, I hope there was a material that cover most things in a comprehensible input format. edited: I love the last part where you talk about keep getting more inputs! That's what I always tell people! People always say "oh I don't have anyone to talk to." And I always tell them "just keep getting more inputs and when the opportunity comes, you'll be able speak!"
I think people don't realize how difficult contractions are for a foreign language learner. We have almost a hundred accepted formal ones, along with many more informal ones. They're difficult at every level of the language. Reading, use, grammar and especially listening. Not to mention all the subtle elements to them. Anyway anything possible.
I think that non-phonetic spelling of English words is actually good. Good for becoming an international language. If Australians and South Africans start spelling the words the way they actually say them then English would break down into many languages. Written Arabic is also non-phonetic to some extent, and that's why modern standard Arabic could become a lingua franca among many countries. Chinese graphic writing system requires too much time and efforts. Purely phonetic languages can break down beyond a locality. English spelling system is exactly the right one. BTW, English is my second language.
I think the problem with perfecting English through interaction with native English speakers in America, is that the population is mostly rural, and not very civilized. Even big cities in US/Canada can be populated by provincial crowds which makes the task sometimes very difficult if not unpleasant altogether.
@@Thelinguist I said the population is mostly provincial- people raised in small or smaller cities, on farms, ...few if any speaking any foreign languages or having any appreciation for such. No need to get angry at me Steve for stating the facts.
one thing i find crazily hard about english is they seem to have a word for everything. like, in my native tongue we call this "a place for you to dock your boat" but in english it's a slip? in my native tongue, it's a small pole but in english they call it a bollard? like adjudicate, sentence, and judge mean practically the same thing to us in my native tongue but in english, it's "oh no they're three different words and they can't be used interchagably" like what??? (this is why most of the time i feel like learing english isn't exactly learning a foreign language but learning about a whole differently world because how they do it over there in the us or uk is completely different from how we do it over here.) and not to mention there are a lot of idiomatic expressions and native english speakers use them A LOT. and when i say A LOT i mean A LOOOOOOOOOT. like sometimes you don't say "oh he deceived her" you say 'he led her down the garden path." ect. fixed expressions are also a pain in the ass. we also have to learn too whether a word is plural or singular. like oh prey is uncoutable so normally you don't say preys (but you could say "preys" to mean different types of prey? i don't know). is it's been years since i started learning english and i stil find new words every day. like today i came across this word "leper" which i understand isn't exactly the same as "outcast" but still they're more or like the same so why make it more complicated and say "leper" when there is outcast? in my native tongue we have this one word that could mean both leper and outcast but which one it is depends on who you're talking about or the context. learning english has made me feel so inadequate linguistically.
everything is difficult about learning English. i am Chinese from Hong Kong. honestly, its pronunciation like compared to Spanish, Italian and Japanese. its grammar is also complicated as compared to Chinese. its vocabulary is huge, to say the least.
I am from Hong Kong too, but I guess people from non Chinese background may say Chinese is also difficult - every language somehow has difficult aspects for the non-native speakers I guess.
7:00 There is borderline nil Celtic words in Old English, it was wholly Germanic. This fact is the smoking gun for the ethnic replacement of the Celts from at very least the Eastern side of England, that somehow now gets disputed. Compare that to the arrival of the Normans, and the fusion of Norman French with Old English over the course of the next couple of centuries, that emerged as English
Dear Steve, there is a problem with English being so widespread which might actually make it more difficult for people to speak it. Here where I live it is perfectly acceptable to speak to an American in another language that we are both learning even if our mother tongue or primary language is English, on the other hand in many countries it would be very socially inappropriate for people who share the same mother/tongue or primary language to speak English to each other as it is seen as being insulting to your culture, your language etc.
Wow this topic is for me ya i practice my english always i use your video to practice my english listening skills, i'm still struggling with new words any idea mr. Steve? However i keep practing yesterday i watched Ice Age Advanture Of Buck( 2022) in english + english subtitles on movies streaming websites i didn't understoob some of the sentences but it was blast.😊
It's "understand." Normally I wouldn't trouble myself to correct a small mistake in a RUclips comment section, but seeing the rest of your comment claiming perfect written English - I felt compelled.
Bonjour Steve, le problème de l'anglais c'est l'absence de règle pour la prononciation, on a l'impression que l'apprentissage de l'alphabet ne sert à rien. Et si on n'entend pas (input) , on ne s'habitue pas à la langue, et alors votre output et très faible. Le I n'est pas toujours un I le o le e le a et etc changent tout le temps. The spelling is really different. To estimate, the estimate. Sorry teacher
English is difficult for several reasons: 1. Incredible huge vocabulary comes from different languages, especially French, Latin and Greek. Words are always unrelated to basic ones and they have different versions 2. Horrible pronunciation. Most languages in the world have only five or a bit more vowels but not English. Different English speaking countries can have very different accents, utterly changed. Native speakers tend to be gibbering with lots of shortened and weakened forms, that you will be hard to pick a word from language flow. No one will speak clearly. 3. Tons of phrases consist of verb and preposition, like break down, break up, break out... They always carry different meanings and very similar to each other. 4. Grammar. Lacking most cases and verb conjugations, do you think it's easy enough? It may be easy for basic uses like traveling and shopping. But long sentences are quite hard to understand unless you know every word well, because no cases can help you, only confused prepositions here to make you feel sad. 5. Prepositions are the worst part of English. On the bus, in the car, on the train, on the plane, at the airport, at the park??? On Monday, in the morning, at night??? How hybrid English can be
I can understand almost everything in English. I can follow you completely. But I am not able to make a proper English sentence without Google Translate.
Hi, Steve. Excellent video. But I don't know if it's only me or something, but I notice the [ ENG CC ] is not adjusted properly and off by seconds with the audio. You might want to fix that later. Thank you.
In my humble opinion, I find phrasal verbs and idiomatic expressions difficult to learn, because I don't get exposed to them in my environment. I am an Arabic native speaker.
I am a bit bias because, I am a native speaker of English but it is not speaking for me and a lot other languages with certain exceptions but it is writing and grammar rules that are hard to get right. I have been learning English since, I was age 3 now 32 and, I still struggle!
i think the only advantage for you as native english speaker is your not thinking about it when you speak. It just comes naturally and not worried about the grammar and rules etc. For us, English as 2nd language is quite complex. I have this struggle sometimes when I speak to other people, and even me I will spot my mistakes when I say it incorrectly.
@@wazakiYEAH Yeah but, I think, it’s only natural to do that when a language is not your native tongue. For example, I have been learning Russian off and on for years and actively, learning Swedish right now as well. And there are plenty of grammar rules like the word “man” is used in different contexts. For example, jag ar en man. “I am a man.” (State of being). Man. “Men.” (Except with the umlaut over the “a). Jag man ar fran Sverige. “My husband is from Sweden.” And Man tar vad du har. “You/one takes what one/you has.” (The word “Man” is this context is more of general usage where it could apply to any individual ). Also, certain words in Swedish are reused but have different meaning depending on the context.
I'm a native English speaker and there are two things I want to say about the language - and I love the language btw. The first is because it is spoken as a native language in multiple countries, some vocabulary differences arise (e.g. tap to faucet, boot of a car to trunk of a car. I'm English for the record) as well as idioms and expressions exclusive to that nation which, at times, means even native speakers from different countries get confused. So Lord only help non-native speakers. The second point - and this may well be an issue exclusive to English - is that precisely because English is so widely spoken across the globe in different capacities, and is the lingua de facto of the internet as when international people speak on apps etc, English, or broken English, is the default language. This is great for me as a native speaker BUT I also see so many incorrect things all over the place and sometimes deliberate bastardisations of the language...and this saddens me in some ways. The language is so wide, so bastardised that it is difficult to even pin down what "proper" English even is anymore as noone seems to give a crap.
People learn their English from idiotic people on the net, and in turn think that is acceptable. It seems to be a self-perpetuating cycle to me. I'm certain if most other languages were treated the way English is in informal settings; the mutilation of it and the abhorrent and quickly added crude slang, I am certain everyone would be up in arms about language appropriation, or something like that. Somehow when it comes to the desecration of proper English by native and non-native speakers alike, it's progress or evolution. I just say not all changes are good.
The most frustrating thing about English is listening to Americans mispronounce words and then get yelled at for not understanding them. I worked VERY hard at learning English and it's very difficult to understand black people.
l must say it’s not that difficult well for me at least it’s not that much l’ve been learning English for a while recently l just started on the Advance book but l always know l was advanced before start the book 📚 but the main point is l want to keep going to learn more then l know and l also l would it something l’ll be learning for the rest of my life thank you for your tips they really help
To be honest, a Caucasian person who lives in China or japan for example, local people are willing to make friends with you and more than happy to help you with their language because they are so happy that you would like to learn their language. However on the other hand, immigrants in the west, western people don’t give a shit about them and never bother to teach or help with their English. They also don’t come to make friends with you like those say in Japan or China many people would like to approach you. Immigrants in Canada or England have to make extra many times more efforts than the white expats who live in the East. This makes a huge difference in the level of difficulty of learning a language. I’m just being honest here.
English is extremely difficult for its pronunciation (utterly changing, by the way, among English-speaking Countries!!); its grammar is, on the other hand , rather basic in comparison with other Western languages such as German or French, or Italian . But at school, teachers primarily focus on grammar! Such a mistake!!
@@ellaspeed2061 huh? english has 2 tenses, just like german (everything else in german grammar is another story though...)
I'm brazilian student and I've been learning english for almost 6 months and nowadays i can share my emotions in this language easily. But i admit, is not easy to understand native speakers.. to be honest i get understand about 70% depending on the situation. But I'm happy with my progress. Thanks for sharing your tips!
6 MONTHS YOUR INSANE HOW ARE YOU SO GOOD
That sounds great, man I've been studying English for 1 year and I have the same problem, I still have problems with my listening, how many hours do you study everyday?
@@briban65 thanks buddy, actually i feel like.. i need to improve more my skills in english mainly the listening. Because if i understand another person, i will be able to talk to anyone. So.. that's it. What about you bro.. have you studying for a long time?
@@kanocano22 hi bro, honestly i spend 1 hour every day studying, and after that i listen some podcasts on RUclips to try to improve my skills on listening
@kervenson orisme hey buddy how's it going.. so i study english by books on youtube.. i really recommend this strategic to improve your habilities. I usually read and repeat every word like a native speaker.
Great points Steve. Another thing, as a native English speaker it's sometimes very difficult to speak German in Germany, French in Paris, etc - they want to speak English with you! But if a German or French person travels to Britain or America, he/she HAS TO speak English. That's motivation to learn the language.
Steve, cieszę się, że trafiłem na na twój kanał i na twoją aplikację. Myślałem, że skoro jestem już po 50, to dla mnie za późno na naukę języka. Kiedy oglądam twoje filmy, odzyskuję pewność siebie i znowu wierzę, że wszystko jest w moim zasięgu.
Bardzo dziękuję ci za to co robisz.
i am studying english online
be my friend..
The hardest part of learning English in my opinion is the phrasal verbs, other than that is easy at least for me since I am a Spanish native speaker and English and Spanish have a similar vocabulary.
I’m American and I don’t even know what a phrasal verb is lol. It’s crazy how little we think about grammar in our native languages.
Are you Latin American or a "Spanish Spanish" native speaker? I have not yet heard the extent to which a native speaker can discern a difference bewteen the two.
PS I've recently learned that Saint Seiya was always immensely popular in the Spanish & Portuguese-speaking worlds, etc and now am beginning to notice pfps everywhere, lol
*I always remembered it pretty fondly, though unknowningly in part
@@峯芽苗 English is my native language too and I also have never heard of a 'phrasal verb'. LOL
yes,for example ‘you are welcome’,'as well as','as soon as','give up' and more that I am fucking well
@@Tehui1974 a phrasal verb is a phrase that includes a verb and a preposition (or a different part of the sentence). If you put them together, they have a particular meaning. For example, give in, give out, give away, get rid of, stand up for, look after, etc. Nonnative speakers find it difficult to remember all these combinations and that’s why they prefer to say the actual word that carries the meaning, instead of the phrasal verb. For example many would say “resemble” instead of “take after.”
As I learned my English in adulthood times, it is pretty frustrating when you mix your mother tongue language and English it will result in an incorrect grammar structure even in speaking. I put myself into intensive learning of English for precisely two years. I use whatever is available online, but I prefer reading novel books and listening to many podcasts to Spotify any topics that make me listen for the whole day. Watching Netflix and other media like RUclipss helps a lot of my improvement. I agree that living in an English country doesn't help you to become fluent. It would be best if you worked for it to improve. Make many mistakes talk to people when you have time or your co-workers. I can hold conversation talk right now and communicate. I still encounter this problem at work when I'm trying to explain something, but I cannot deliver it fluently. Grammar mistakes, and it isn't very pleasant. Just keep learning and enjoy the journey
Your English is great!. I assume you are striving for perfection so I will say I only see a few errors that still doesn't matter too much is:
"..other medias like RUclipss helps a lot of my improvement"
*RUclips
not pluralized, but I think you may have seen some content that may have said, for example, "RUclips's greatest videos (suggesting possession of those videos) and forgot the little ' in between the "E" and the "S " n that case. Not a _significant_ detail but helps prevent confusion when you read words.
Such as....
Lusia's car (but if you replaced Lusia with HER it would be HER CAR and not HER'S CAR for some reason, same for HIS CAR)
And for "helps a lot of my improvement" you would write "helps a lot with my improvement". I don't know how I would explain that one, its just an example of tricky preposition words.
Hello, steve. I'm from Hong Kong. I studied in Japan when I was young and found it easier to learn Japanese than English. It may be the relationship with the Asian region. I can easily find a cultural connection in Japanese and find resonance in emotional expression. Now I'm trying to learn English, but it's hard for me to see that emotional connection to English.
Very interesting. This reason is exactly why i have a hard time learning any language besides french (as a native english speaker).
Your positive attitude is a never-ending source of inspiration, Steve.
i am studying english online
be my friend thank uou
English is not that difficult, comparing to other languages.
Learning languages in general is not something easy, I think.
Depende de que idioma vc já fala, por exemplo português e espanhol.
você quer dizer : English is not that difficult compared to other language , In general learning languages is not an easy thing to do.
I agree with your first point listening and reading makes english easeir than you think now I +but Other languages I think it's more hard than english
@@eliezerkraiman48 si. Yo entiendo lo que vos has escrito aunque no hablo portugués
I believe that when someone says "English is hard" what they really mean is that they don't accept imperfection. As for me, I don't like when I might sound clumsy or with a little grammatical mistake. When it comes to pronunciation everyone seems to be even more perfectionist.
- E aqui, de brasileiro pra brasileiro, nós sabemos que brasileiro é muito fdp nesse sentido. Quando vê alguém aprendendo vai tirar sarro da pronúncia e muitas vezes essa mesma pessoa que critica nem fala inglês. Isso intimida e tira a confiança de muita gente que tem o desejo de aprender.
I have been learning English for so long and I can assure you that I still find some obstacles or/and difficulties to deal with in my language learning journey. One of the main reasons of my struggle is to understand certain English speakers who speak extremely fast due to their formidable speech rate when speaking so quickly which can get you overwhelmed as a committed English learner. This could radically change my perspective on it when I move to the United States, I hope so. It's truly difficult to understand some natives but understanding the majority of English speakers is not really hard and mostly turns out that they were quite clear to understand making the task more straightforward to carry on. It happens so often and it doesn't necessarily have to do with particular, given accents of English, the matter is the way of speaking English many people have around the world, I know that there are also individuals who don't even speak their native language well, they usually do it in a very wrong way and English is no exception. I'll continue learning and brushing up on my existing English knowledge which is quite large and giving my ability to comprehend and speak English more value whatever happens.
Thank you very much, Steve, for always encouraging us to continue improving our languages. You're so inspiring! Thanks for existing!
Thank you Steve. This is a quite encouraging piece of advice for language learners. As a linguist and Chinese language professor, I also reflect a lot on this aspect. I think teachers, on the other hand, also need to put ourselves in students’ shoes and design fun, digestible, and effective curriculum so students can keep on going. 😀💪
A new language is difficult if this language has some concepts languages you already know do not have.
Example:
I have Slavic background and those languages do not have a concept of articles.
So for me, after 30 years of exposure to the English language, articles are still difficult topic.
I never get bent up on all that “A1 or B2.” Too me it doesn’t matter what some piece of paper or computer says. In my opinion, if your brain doesn’t get it all that means nothing!
agreed...there are like tons of registered,licensed translators and interpreters out there who have studied languages in college and they still suck when it comes to translating....
@@purplebutterfly4078 A lot of the translations on certain TV shows where the English person talks over the Spanish person, I am just like, whoever hired that translator should be fired!
@@MDobri-sy1ce I do the same thing lol...languages require time and dedication,but also natural inclination which is in my opinion the most important criteria if you want to be very good at it!
Are you learning English? Do you find it difficult? Why?
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As a Finnish speaker I found two things difficult:
-English has richer phonology than Finnish. I had to learn so many new sounds.
-English spelling is a bit weird. But after a while you can guess how words are spelled and pronounced
English isn't that hard. I'd say around the same level as Swedish
Didn't expect that Finnish was phonologically poor compared to English. For the very few moments I heard Finnish in my life, it simply seems to be one of those "impossible" languages to learn.
@@moisesgomes6191 It's mostly the grammar that seems impossible in Finnish
@@jopeteus I’m a native English speaker, I felt so spoiled that most if not all Italian words are spoken the way they’re spelled. It’s one of my favorite features of Italian.
@@Littleton3513 Yeah, I am learning Italian right now. And I agree. I simply love this language so much. It would make so much more sense to improve my Spanish because of where I live, but I simply prefer Italian and French more. And I will work on French once I have at least around a B2 level understanding of Italian. I truly have learned that when it comes to language learning that you learn a language that you are interested in, not necessarily one that is immediately useful. There are people out here learning Estonian and stuff like that. It takes a real interest and passion to learn something like that.
In my experience, I consider the ability to learn/study language is an inate talent, it is like most other talents which means it's a gift, if you find acquiring second language is hard in the first place then you have nothing much to do. Having this gilf help you learn much faster and much more efficient, however, you can still master a language if you play slow, and most importantly, your dedication.
On the contrary I think inate talent has nothing to do with it. It all comes down to motivation and learning practices as I believe our brains are wired to learn languages.
@@BlessedTea555 i completely get it, my opinion is based on my observation and my experiences through years of interacting with non english speakers in term of academic level aspect (writing, thinking, researching, reading, etc), not communicate and daily life aspect, it's true that our brains are wired to learn english but it's actually hard to study and well-use in high level purposes, our brains take a lot of time maybe thousands of hours of hardworking, somebody with inate talent makes it way faster at these levels. That's why i consider the ability to learn/study language is an inate talent. Hope my opinion has value to you and others.
Try not to be shy to practise my little english in any occation and at any subject ... your speech is very encouraging ... thank you so much sir 🙏
You are a genius with a very broad outlook. Many thanks for your work.
Thank you so much for this video mr Steve Kaufman I use a lot LingQ
In LingQ I learning Portugues, Italian and English your app is amazing 🤩
Thanks a lot Steve! I admire you, thanks for sharing those helpful advices, like always.
I don't think English is difficult, so why many people say English is very difficult? because they do not have high morivation to learn it.
I live in small town in Indonesia, and no one here who could speak English, thats why I learn English by memorizing words every single day, its look like old method, but I did and only about4 months or more, I almoat memorize all the words in my simple dicyionary.
Now I try to combine from one word to another with stand up in front of the mirror and start to talking with my self laudly.
To practice, I teach some kids and students and make basic Englush video and upload to my RUclips Channel.
Thanks for great English abd motivated me in keep learning
Best regards
As a Chilean, during the last 4-5 years i've been really into languages.
Currently i speak English and Portuguese in a very good level.
Italian (getting better but i make mistakes) and Swedish (I understand it) but i have no one to talk to lol.
So the thing with English: basically the hardest part are phrasal verbs, i haven't seen that in any other language.
However after a couple of years i realized and (as Steve said) the role of English, the function of English is to be able to communicate with people from different places.
Right now i'm studying a lot of phrasal verbs coz i wanna add that "native level" but most of my friends aren't natives, so what can we do guys?
To give u an example: As non native speakers we are gonna use "cancel" most of the time, instead of using "to call off" and that's absolutely okay.
Steve Te amo❤
I didn't realize English had so many phrasal verbs until I read this comment. I am a native speaker of english and I am trying to learn spanish. All that matters is understanding and being understood.
Mr.kaufmann since I came across your channel I've become a regular viewer, and therefore I learned a lot of words and sentence structures from you. I've been following your channel for 4 years or so at least I even recognize many speech patterns that I use when you speak, including accent. I find it very fun to be able to trace back the somewhat biggest influence in the way that I speak. It is like the speech pattern that a person acquires from one's parents.
Someone pointed out here in the comment that I completely agree. How hard you find the language really depends on what is your mother language. I feel European people can quickly learn each other’s languages because they have so many common roots and similarities. However for me my mother language is Chinese mandarin so Latin roots language just seem very foreign to us and therefore it takes a lot more efforts for us to learn English because there are simply no common grounds at all. I’ve heard of some of my Chinese friends saying they find it a lot easier to learn Japanese well. I’ve met someone who have spent almost the same amount of time trying to learn both Japanese and English, this person ended up giving up on English and decided to continue with her Japanese 😂. So I think another factor is it really depends what your mother language is.
Europeans have several language families that are totally different. Romanic, Germanic, Slavic, Finno-Ugric and some others. Their speakers can't understand each other. 😊
Hi Steve, I recommended LingQ to my English students but they have pointed out that it doesn’t recognise phrasal verbs. This is a major flaw as they are such an important and confusing part of the lexis!
As a native British English speaker I want to say I massively applaud people who learn and manage to master English. honestly we dont even think of or try to attempty consistant pronounciations not ever! haha its more just by rote memorisation because it's very much a hybridised if not mongrel language. Even I speak poor English and it's my first native tongue! (Unless i study it more) it really is as Steve says about communication at the end of the day
And like him I too am baffled when people come along complaining "my English is bad, I want to improve my English" I'm like - youre speaking it fine, what is to improve
I have come across people who's it is very bad but that's rare and where people really don't even bother to try you can tell and you can hardly comprehend!
The rest of you if you love it you're fine just keep doing it! :D
I would disagree about IELTS and TOEFL tests. After a TOEFL preparation course, my English improved immensely. And when I came to the US for the first time, I was able to comprehend English speech and to express myself in English. The only problem was that I sounded too formal in the beginning, but I quickly acquired slang and casual expressions
Great video! As a language learner and an ESL teacher, I completely agree.
Haha yes the spelling drives me often crazy :-). Can't emphasize enough how important it is to find interesting input and with english there is just sooooo much stuff out there. So find things that are interesting for you and then set yourself process oriented goals instead of outcome oriented goals.
Thanks again Steve for your great videos.
Inspiring, approachable, knowledgeable. Thanks, Steve.
As a native English speaker who speaks several foreign languages, and having taught ESL, I can say that BASIC English is super easy. The only real difficulty in English are the phrasal verbs, the slang, idioms, and sometimes the accent, depending on the country. I think this is one reason English has become the global language: It is really easy to get a basic working knowledge of it. I'd say , on a 1-10 scale (1 being easiest), English is about a 3.
*Athletes dont worry about taking TOEFL/TOEIC/IELTS/etc* (paraphrased). And im sure with that also comes not worrying about grammar and its a load off. I feel that confidence is a big factor. Like Steve said, these athletes talk with their teammates, and dont care about making mistakes - which helps them improve.
We can learn a lot from this example!
Hello i am studying english online
be my friend
The two languages I've studied seriously have phonetically consistent writing systems. I would struggle with English as a none-native speaker, simply due to the writing system.
I'm not sure if English is the easiest language, but I'm sure English is the easier language to learn given so many contents in every field...
Yes! When it comes ro learning English the sole variety of content available is enough to make it easy to learn.
Steve, students from some countries have high TOEFL scores with bad English because exam dumps are available in these countries, and not because TOEFL is bad.
This is really helpful, thanks for all your tips steve! Saludos desde México
English grammar is "easy", but the listening is a hell!
Whatever, I can't complain because I have made some things wrong. One of them is I wasn't practicing the shadowing since I started learning. In that time I didn't know it.
Thank you Steve. As a old person, it is hard for me to improve my English. I keep on forgetting word, and i find little chance to use Eenglish.
Motivation and learning resources are the most important Paramount things in learning languages. In that regard, English has super Plentiful resources. If I studied other languages, I must not have made it. Because they don't have many resources and I don't have money to take lectures.(even if I made it, not so fast like English). I sometimes see some people say that I can't succeed English, I will try other languages like French or Spanish... but they will be much more difficult than English.. grammer, resources and so on...
Obrigado pelas ótimas dicas senhor Steven.
It really depends how much good you want it to be in Englsih. For the basic B1 and even B2 level is realtively an easy language comparire to other language like Hungarian. But if you want it to do it clearly high level like C1 where you have to pay attention to chose the correct prepostion, tenses consider every important rules like gerund, reported speach, correct spelling English exponetianally gets really hard. So yeah on basic and mid levele Englsih is easy if you don't care about too much to the correct grammar and phonetics but C1 or God shake C2 it is suddenly become a nightmare like Hungarian.
I learn English for 3 months but i gave up but after watching your clip i think i will come back to learning english
Steven Kaufmann, thank you for your videos. They are enogh clear and motivational. I understand approximately 70% what do you speak. When I am watching american series, I understand 50% so so. English is my first language after my mother tongue, that is brazilian portuguese. In future, I intend to learn spanish and french, because, I wonder, that is more easy for me because de commom root. Thanks. Ps.: sorry for my poor write.
Your English isn’t bad, you had some punctuation errors (honestly, it’s not that important unless you want to be a professional writer) but good job 👍
Sto imparando l’italiano, Ciao lingua latina amico!
Thank you so much Sir. I find your videos and information interesting and very helpful. Great respect from India.
Testing itself isn't the problem. It's the test taking mindset that predominates mainland Han Chinese schooling where the test is regarded as the sole proxy of competency and not a measure. The PRC gaokao is necessary to enter university and entry is an nearly absolutely guarantee of graduation. I agree that that English spelling is one of its main drawbacks and is in need of reform. Another problem is that so few native English speakers understand their own language that they can seldom understand how English itself works or its challenges but this is, in part, due to the rest of the world making life too complacent for them and learning to speak English, often mandatorily
in my opinion, lots fo vacabulories are the biggest nut to crack !! every time when I would like to describe a thing/event , I usually need to try my best to search it my mind for some seconds. I'm quite struggling with words....
From my point of view, I don't consider English as a difficult language, on the contrary, I consider it as an easier language to learn.
I agree. English is together with dutch the easiest languages to learn for swedes outside the north germanic dialect continuum.
Learning English is difficult but speaking it would be an important skill
The most difficult thing for me is the lack of material. No matter how hard I try, I'll never find a perfect material that cover everything. Well, it's impossible to know everything anyway. I don't even know every word in my native language. Still, I hope there was a material that cover most things in a comprehensible input format.
edited: I love the last part where you talk about keep getting more inputs! That's what I always tell people! People always say "oh I don't have anyone to talk to." And I always tell them "just keep getting more inputs and when the opportunity comes, you'll be able speak!"
@Beaudile the good ones in comprehensible inputs style
The Italians say English is easy because we have so few articles. After studying Italian, I think I agree. Great advice Steve.
Si inoltri non cincischi
I think people don't realize how difficult contractions are for a foreign language learner. We have almost a hundred accepted formal ones, along with many more informal ones. They're difficult at every level of the language. Reading, use, grammar and especially listening. Not to mention all the subtle elements to them. Anyway anything possible.
I think that non-phonetic spelling of English words is actually good. Good for becoming an international language. If Australians and South Africans start spelling the words the way they actually say them then English would break down into many languages. Written Arabic is also non-phonetic to some extent, and that's why modern standard Arabic could become a lingua franca among many countries. Chinese graphic writing system requires too much time and efforts. Purely phonetic languages can break down beyond a locality. English spelling system is exactly the right one. BTW, English is my second language.
Thank you very much for your good advice!
I've always assumed that English was easy to learn, simply for the fact that almost everyone can speak it these days.
FANTASTIC ...ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC LESSON!!
It's what I need to know
That's right, language resist measurement, a sort of amalgamation
When I was learning English I was learning phrases no words so if you want to learn English
I advice you to lessening and reading books
I'm learning a lot watching your videos.
I think the problem with perfecting English through interaction with native English speakers in America,
is that the population is mostly rural, and not very civilized. Even big cities in US/Canada can be populated
by provincial crowds which makes the task sometimes very difficult if not unpleasant altogether.
North America is mostly rural? You don't make very much sense, not in English and probably not in any language. Maybe that's the problem.
Yea they just insult you if you make mistakes very rude people.
@@Thelinguist I said the population is mostly provincial- people raised in small or smaller cities, on farms, ...few if any speaking any foreign languages or having any appreciation for such. No need to get angry at me Steve for stating the facts.
@@sezwo5774 that’s not true though
@@sezwo5774 that’s not true though
Perceived difficulty is always a subjective thing. There's no such thing as the most difficult language in the world.
Hi
I am Niyas from sri Lankan.
Well Done👌👌
Thanks
Hello sir. Great to see you
I help Spanish speakers learn English and pronunciation is by far the most difficult aspect.
Good Video, Very Useful, thanks for sharing
one thing i find crazily hard about english is they seem to have a word for everything. like, in my native tongue we call this "a place for you to dock your boat" but in english it's a slip? in my native tongue, it's a small pole but in english they call it a bollard? like adjudicate, sentence, and judge mean practically the same thing to us in my native tongue but in english, it's "oh no they're three different words and they can't be used interchagably" like what??? (this is why most of the time i feel like learing english isn't exactly learning a foreign language but learning about a whole differently world because how they do it over there in the us or uk is completely different from how we do it over here.) and not to mention there are a lot of idiomatic expressions and native english speakers use them A LOT. and when i say A LOT i mean A LOOOOOOOOOT. like sometimes you don't say "oh he deceived her" you say 'he led her down the garden path." ect. fixed expressions are also a pain in the ass. we also have to learn too whether a word is plural or singular. like oh prey is uncoutable so normally you don't say preys (but you could say "preys" to mean different types of prey? i don't know). is it's been years since i started learning english and i stil find new words every day. like today i came across this word "leper" which i understand isn't exactly the same as "outcast" but still they're more or like the same so why make it more complicated and say "leper" when there is outcast? in my native tongue we have this one word that could mean both leper and outcast but which one it is depends on who you're talking about or the context. learning english has made me feel so inadequate linguistically.
Thank you
I really like your clues to achieve my goal with English🔝🌐
Brazil here. 🇧🇷
Thank you❤❤
Non ho capito quasi niente ma ti seguo perchè mi ispiri fiducia e simpatia
Hi, Steve sir, i am from India, i am watching your video at morning 5am here.
everything is difficult about learning English. i am Chinese from Hong Kong. honestly, its pronunciation like compared to Spanish, Italian and Japanese. its grammar is also complicated as compared to Chinese. its vocabulary is huge, to say the least.
I am from Hong Kong too, but I guess people from non Chinese background may say Chinese is also difficult - every language somehow has difficult aspects for the non-native speakers I guess.
7:00 There is borderline nil Celtic words in Old English, it was wholly Germanic. This fact is the smoking gun for the ethnic replacement of the Celts from at very least the Eastern side of England, that somehow now gets disputed. Compare that to the arrival of the Normans, and the fusion of Norman French with Old English over the course of the next couple of centuries, that emerged as English
I like all your videos it's help me to improve my english (thank you )
Thank's
Dear Steve, there is a problem with English being so widespread which might actually make it more difficult for people to speak it. Here where I live it is perfectly acceptable to speak to an American in another language that we are both learning even if our mother tongue or primary language is English, on the other hand in many countries it would be very socially inappropriate for people who share the same mother/tongue or primary language to speak English to each other as it is seen as being insulting to your culture, your language etc.
English language really difficult to master. After learning and d it daily for 40 year, still no confident in using it
Wow this topic is for me ya i practice my english always i use your video to practice my english listening skills, i'm still struggling with new words any idea mr. Steve? However i keep practing yesterday i watched Ice Age Advanture Of Buck( 2022) in english + english subtitles on movies streaming websites i didn't understoob some of the sentences but it was blast.😊
I don't understood the point of this video; it was so dull I fell asleep after five minutes. And my written English, as you can see, is perfect!
It's "understand." Normally I wouldn't trouble myself to correct a small mistake in a RUclips comment section, but seeing the rest of your comment claiming perfect written English - I felt compelled.
@@Loroths Got you!
Thanks for the video
Bonjour Steve, le problème de l'anglais c'est l'absence de règle pour la prononciation, on a l'impression que l'apprentissage de l'alphabet ne sert à rien. Et si on n'entend pas (input) , on ne s'habitue pas à la langue, et alors votre output et très faible. Le I n'est pas toujours un I le o le e le a et etc changent tout le temps. The spelling is really different. To estimate, the estimate.
Sorry teacher
English isn’t hard. English is together with dutch the easiest languages to learn for swedes outside the north germanic dialect continuum.
It's perspective depending on what your L1 is but, no way English is hard.
Japanese, Portuguese, and Korean have been 10xs harder for me.
I love improving my English 💓
English is difficult for several reasons:
1. Incredible huge vocabulary comes from different languages, especially French, Latin and Greek. Words are always unrelated to basic ones and they have different versions
2. Horrible pronunciation. Most languages in the world have only five or a bit more vowels but not English. Different English speaking countries can have very different accents, utterly changed. Native speakers tend to be gibbering with lots of shortened and weakened forms, that you will be hard to pick a word from language flow. No one will speak clearly.
3. Tons of phrases consist of verb and preposition, like break down, break up, break out... They always carry different meanings and very similar to each other.
4. Grammar. Lacking most cases and verb conjugations, do you think it's easy enough? It may be easy for basic uses like traveling and shopping. But long sentences are quite hard to understand unless you know every word well, because no cases can help you, only confused prepositions here to make you feel sad.
5. Prepositions are the worst part of English. On the bus, in the car, on the train, on the plane, at the airport, at the park??? On Monday, in the morning, at night??? How hybrid English can be
English is not hard. English is together with dutch the easiest languages to learn for swedes outside the north germanic dialect continuum.
I can understand almost everything in English. I can follow you completely. But I am not able to make a proper English sentence without Google Translate.
That is perfectly normal. Just keep working at it. You will improve gradually.
@@Thelinguist Das ist für mich eine anregende Antwort. Dank dafür
Hi, Steve. Excellent video.
But I don't know if it's only me or something, but I notice the [ ENG CC ] is not adjusted properly and off by seconds with the audio. You might want to fix that later. Thank you.
You are correct
In my humble opinion, I find phrasal verbs and idiomatic expressions difficult to learn, because I don't get exposed to them in my environment. I am an Arabic native speaker.
Here is one aspect of English that makes it difficult for learners to understand and speak well: stress timing and vowel reduction.
The morphology of English is simple, but the syntax is extremely complicated in comparison with languages like Latin, Russian or Spanish.
I am a bit bias because, I am a native speaker of English but it is not speaking for me and a lot other languages with certain exceptions but it is writing and grammar rules that are hard to get right. I have been learning English since, I was age 3 now 32 and, I still struggle!
i think the only advantage for you as native english speaker is your not thinking about it when you speak. It just comes naturally and not worried about the grammar and rules etc. For us, English as 2nd language is quite complex. I have this struggle sometimes when I speak to other people, and even me I will spot my mistakes when I say it incorrectly.
@@wazakiYEAH Yeah but, I think, it’s only natural to do that when a language is not your native tongue. For example, I have been learning Russian off and on for years and actively, learning Swedish right now as well. And there are plenty of grammar rules like the word “man” is used in different contexts. For example, jag ar en man. “I am a man.” (State of being). Man. “Men.” (Except with the umlaut over the “a). Jag man ar fran Sverige. “My husband is from Sweden.” And Man tar vad du har. “You/one takes what one/you has.” (The word “Man” is this context is more of general usage where it could apply to any individual ). Also, certain words in Swedish are reused but have different meaning depending on the context.
Speaking english is easy but things such as writing and reading is hard
I'm a native English speaker and there are two things I want to say about the language - and I love the language btw. The first is because it is spoken as a native language in multiple countries, some vocabulary differences arise (e.g. tap to faucet, boot of a car to trunk of a car. I'm English for the record) as well as idioms and expressions exclusive to that nation which, at times, means even native speakers from different countries get confused. So Lord only help non-native speakers. The second point - and this may well be an issue exclusive to English - is that precisely because English is so widely spoken across the globe in different capacities, and is the lingua de facto of the internet as when international people speak on apps etc, English, or broken English, is the default language. This is great for me as a native speaker BUT I also see so many incorrect things all over the place and sometimes deliberate bastardisations of the language...and this saddens me in some ways. The language is so wide, so bastardised that it is difficult to even pin down what "proper" English even is anymore as noone seems to give a crap.
People learn their English from idiotic people on the net, and in turn think that is acceptable. It seems to be a self-perpetuating cycle to me. I'm certain if most other languages were treated the way English is in informal settings; the mutilation of it and the abhorrent and quickly added crude slang, I am certain everyone would be up in arms about language appropriation, or something like that. Somehow when it comes to the desecration of proper English by native and non-native speakers alike, it's progress or evolution. I just say not all changes are good.
lol stay mad, it's not "yours" to gate keep. Natural change is a good thing and we'll speak it as we please.
@@pants10000 oh it doesn't make me mad. You carry on doing you, human.
This is so inspiring
The subtitles are not correctly aligned to what you are saying. The cold open threw them off.
Could receive more under the table
The most frustrating thing about English is listening to Americans mispronounce words and then get yelled at for not understanding them. I worked VERY hard at learning English and it's very difficult to understand black people.
l must say it’s not that difficult well for me at least it’s not that much l’ve been learning English for a while recently l just started on the Advance book but l always know l was advanced before start the book 📚 but the main point is l want to keep going to learn more then l know and l also l would it something l’ll be learning for the rest of my life thank you for your tips they really help
say
To be honest, a Caucasian person who lives in China or japan for example, local people are willing to make friends with you and more than happy to help you with their language because they are so happy that you would like to learn their language. However on the other hand, immigrants in the west, western people don’t give a shit about them and never bother to teach or help with their English. They also don’t come to make friends with you like those say in Japan or China many people would like to approach you. Immigrants in Canada or England have to make extra many times more efforts than the white expats who live in the East. This makes a huge difference in the level of difficulty of learning a language. I’m just being honest here.