Many people may agree that English is a relatively easy language. How about this English sentence: "I love you." ? Don't you think it is easy to learn or understand? But English may not be that easy as it may seem to be. Even popular "small" words such as "in", "at", "on", or "the" can cause confusion - mistakes related to such small prepositions or articles are not uncommon, not to mention English idioms or phrasal verbs or collocations or the differences between British and American English. Even though you have learned all the basic English grammar rules or even though you have learned English for a very very long time, chances are you'll still hesitate or even make mistakes when you try to use the language (e.g. try to wirte or say something in English).
The problem is that you may have to use this language. English may probably be the most popular second language in the world. You may have been very familiar with American music, songs, movies or news, which are all in English. English seems to be so suitable for a "global language" (like Esperanto). It is most likely that people from different cultures with different first languages will communicate by using English.
If only the English language were/was easier to use! Then we wouldn't have to spend so much time learning it, and then we could have made many more friends whose first language is English, and then we could understand what they exactly want to convey, and then we could appreciate all the English movies, songs, news, novels or poems, and then...
Comments
Thanks for the nice comment, nida!
Yeah, only if it were easier to use!
Great post and awesome comments. I enjoyed reading everything here.
Thanks for the comment, Alexandra.
I'm glad you're enjoying your learning. Yes, it can be fun to learn a foreign language.
Thanks for enjoying my blog, jin!
I just reread the post and edited it - the "familiar to " should be "familiar with". So you see English can be so tricky.
Thanks again!
Hi Scarlett,
Happy to see your comment again and I'm so glad you know some Chinese!
Yes, Chinese language may not be as hard to learn as it may seem to be. In fact, there's no such thing as "tense" in Chinese - most of the English learners may have difficulty learning the English tenses.
Ancient Chinese poems can be so charming if you really know Chinese. I even tried to translate some of the great poems into English, but only found that the English versions didn't make any sense in English.
The traditional Chinese characters are no longer used in the mainland of China, but still in use in Hong Kong, Taiwan, or in Japan etc - people here (where I live) are now using the simplified Chinese characters.
I wish I knew a little Vietnamese! Thanks for the nice talk about the languages!
Dear Mr.Expector
I'm glad to know that Chinese is your native language, I admire Chinese literature. The most is poems. They are such romantic things I could know. Yeah, I know a little bit about two kinds of Chinese character. I think the ancient one looks nicer than the modern one. I love to write Chinese and love the way of constructing each word from other words as well. But it's really hard to remember many words.
You are absolutely right. Everyone would loves their mother language and think that is the finest one in the world. And I love Vietnamese by this way :)
@Tara
Great to see your comment! I wish I were a native English speaker too - I love Chinese as well, though.
I wonder if any of the languages can be used sufficiently to express all of the thoughts, feelings, opinions, sympathy, fear or whatever we really want to express. Some people may wonder/doubt if other languages are as effective or good as their own native language. Personally, I find some English expressions or words are more suitable for a situation than those in my first language. On the other hand, if you try to translate some of the ancient Chinese poems into English, the English version may not make sense at all.
I am very thankful that I was born with English as my native language. I don't think I'd want to learn it! Great post! I love how it ends...
@Scarlett
Amazing comment indeed! I'm glad you're interested in this topic.
Vietnamese is an amazing language - at least it seems to be that way. Yes, Chinese is an ideogram or pictogram or hierographics - many people think it's hard to learn. Ancient Chinese character "horse" looked just like a real horse - funny? But Chinese language has changed so much - modern Chinese character "horse" doesn't really look like a real horse any more. Chinese is my first language, though - one's mother tongue is always the easiest and nicest for them. Right?
To me, French is more difficult than English, especially the grammar - I know many people in Vietname can speak French. Yes, it takes enthusiasm to learn a language other than your first one - it even takes efforts and pain to learn a foreign language.
See you!
@Hala
Thanks for the nice comment! Yes, you can say that again. You really have a point there. Mastering a foreign language can be one of the toughest things, even though there are so many ways to help us learn a new language.
I think you chose the right word "routine". It's so true that learning English should be our daily routine if we really want to improve our English - just as we need to eat everyday:)
I don't really know French, even though I did learn some of it and I even lived in a French-speaking area for a short period of time - Montreal, Canada. It's said French may be the most beautiful language in the world.
I also think your language Arabic may be one of the most difficult big languages on the global. It seems it's hard to write - every word seems to be the same to me. If only I had the guts to learn it! Do you think some people are really good at learning foreign languages - "multilingual"? I call them "language talent". I wish I were one of them!
Cheers!
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