Why Is English So Hard to Learn? The Challenges of Mastering a Difficult Language

On the surface, English looks like it should be an easy language to learn. Verbs have only a handful of forms, whereas Spanish verbs have nearly a hundred. Then, our nouns only have a couple forms (plural and possessive), and our adjectives are one-size-fits-all, whereas Russian nouns and adjectives have nearly a dozen forms. Plus, there are tons of apps to support English learners and lifetimes of English content to consume.

And yet, as it would turn out, English is a difficult language to learn.

Its vast vocabulary, confusing grammar rules, and unpredictable pronunciation make it a challenge for even the most dedicated language learners. While many reach a level where they can use English to get around, few master English to the point where they would be mistaken as a native speaker.

To explain why, this article will dive into questions like:

How does English spelling make it a hard language?

English spelling is infamous for being irregular. Words like "through," "tough," and "thought" are spelled similarly but sound completely different. This lack of consistency can make English a difficult language to learn.

Highlighting this messy nature, the playwright George Bernard Shaw famously joked that the word fish could in theory be spelled ghoti:

And this ridiculous example begs the question:

Why is English spelling so weird?

This is unfortunately not something we can answer in a few paragraphs. An entire article could be written about English spelling. Entire books, even.

In a nutshell, though, you can blame three things for English spelling:

Spelling Challenges:

As a result of the above factors, English presents a number of spelling challenges:

(Note: Britannica has quite a nice article on spelling changes across Old, Middle, and Modern English, if you'd like to explore this in more detail.)

Why is English pronunciation so difficult?

Following its spelling, one of the hardest aspects of learning English is mastering its pronunciation. English has borrowed words from so many languages over the centuries that its pronunciation, frankly, is a mess.

Here are a few of the hurdles that learners have to deal with:

The result is that you can't rely on the way a word is spelled to figure out how it should sound.

For example, take the word façade (also written as facade), shown below. Should that C be pronounced like an S, as in face, or like a K, as in academy? There's not really a way to be sure. You'll just have to Google it.

...Or, if you use software like Migaku, you can simply click on the word to bring up recordings of native English speakers pronouncing it. (The grey buttons to the right show things like images, definitions, example sentences, and AI explanations).

How Borrowed Words Complicate English

As discussed, English borrows words from many other languages. This presents challenges not only in the realms of spelling and pronunciation. You also have to learn these words, and there are a bunch of them.

Here's a small list of words English has borrowed from different languages:

Why are English verbs so confusing?

At first glance, English verbs look like they should be easy. The overwhelming majority of English verbs only have five forms:

Unfortunately, things quickly get messy:

This lack of consistency creates several problems for English learners that simply don't exist in other languages.

Why is English grammar so complicated?

There's a story worth telling here.

As discussed in our post on factors that make a language difficult, there are many ways that a language can be complex or simple.

Old English grammar was much more complex than modern English:

And then, in 1,066, the Duke of Normandy conquered England. As a result, people from several other countries began settling in England—people who didn't speak English, as Latin was the Lingua Franca back in those days. These settlers weren't keen on learning English, as it had no prestige or practical use, but they did need to be able to communicate with locals, so they tarzanned it: they learned the main words and stuck them in generally the right order, but they didn't bother with any of this fancy grammatical stuff.

Skipping a few steps, that caught on.

Over the next few hundred years, English lost much of its complexity. (We made up for the lack of lexical [in-word] complexity with rather strict rules about word order).

There were growing pains, to say the least.

And that leads me to:

Grammar challenges for the modern English learner

As a bonus, I'd like to toss in do, the dummy verb. While "do" is a perfectly good and normal verb, we also use it in a couple ways where it is frankly not needed:

A lot of things about English grammar (and, well, grammar in general) give similar vibes. "That's just the way English does things, and you either have to memorize it or spend enough time consuming English content that it comes natural to you."

How do English dialects add to the challenge?

There are many English dialects, and they can differ greatly in terms of vocabulary, pronunciation, and even grammar. This adds another layer of complexity for learners, especially when trying to communicate with or understand people who come from different countries.

Rather than reading about the differences between English's major accents, you can go ahead and listen to them.

Here is American English vs British English vs Australian English:

Making matters worse, there are regional variations of each of these accents! There are dozens of notably different English accents within just the small island of England alone.

As if that weren't enough, the fact that English is a lingua franca spoken around the globe means that it isn't just the native accents learners need to worry about.

Why are idioms hard to understand in English?

Alright, this one's not quite fair. By nature of meaning something other than what they literally appear to mean, idioms are difficult to learn in any language, not just English. Nevertheless, we'll keep them on the list because idioms do present a challenge for learners of English.

Here are a few English idioms that I personally find interesting:

Migaku's dictionaries detect idioms, and this makes it easier for English learners to consume content they enjoy. Simply click on a word, and if it's part of an idiom or fixed phrase, Migaku will show you what this special sequence of words means:

In a nutshell:

As much as you might see people on the internet talk about how easy English is to learn, compared to languages like Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, or Korean, English is hard to learn in its own right—it has many irregular grammar rules, a very difficult spelling system, and unpredictable pronunciation.

If you can overcome these challenges, you'll enjoy lifetimes worth of interesting content to consume on virtually any topic you might be interested in, a boost to your professional career, and the ability to communicate with people around the globe.

Good luck!

(P.S. — "In a nutshell" is another idiom, and it means "essentially" or "the most important point is that")