Job Discussion Forums

[leeroy]

Compared to, say, most prominent world languages out there today - how hard is English to learn?

[Mike_2003]

I think it largely depends on the learner's L1.

[Capergirl]

I agree with Mike. It depends largely on what the students' L1 is. If their L1 is a Latin language, I think they will generally find it easier to learn English than if it is another type of language. Thus, my Portuguese-speaking students are able to pick up English fairly quickly. With only about 9 months of English instruction, they generally arrive here at the low to mid-intermediate level. After a year here in Canada, they leave at the advanced level. It really is quite amazing to see students who had never learned any English growing up basically acquire it in under 2 years. On the other hand, my Arabic students struggle with the language a lot more. The alphabet is different, the grammar is different, they are used to reading from right to left, etc. I was also surprised to discover that Russian is in fact not a Latin language, but a "cyrillic" (sp?) one. As such, my Russian students are struggling with the language quite a bit and are lagging behind the Portuguese speakers considerably.

When I was teaching in Taiwan, I found that the earlier students had been exposed to our writing system, the quicker they caught on to the language in all areas. They were even able to get the pronunciations when they had had a lot of exposure to "native speakers of English" early on.

There are so many factors, but I think it comes down to two basic criteria: (1) whether or not their L1 is a Latin language; and (2) whether or not they have had an early introduction to written/spoken (by native speakers) English.

That's my two cents, anyway.

[leeroy]

Naturally, whether or not a language is difficult is subjective - owing a lot to L1, culture, etc...

But if we're trying to evaluate English's level of difficulty objectively, what have we got?

* No male/female nonsense (bueno/buena), that's nice.
* A few irregular verbs, but lots of regular ones
* A tenuous link between spelling and pronunciation
* A daunting array of regional dialects
* A massive global exposure
* Phrasal verbs. Oh.. God.. Phrasal verbs

Let's phrase it differently, if 10 Chinese people went over to London to learn English, and 10 British guys hopped over to Beijing - which group would be "better" at the host language after 6 months?

[guest of Japan]

That's not a fair example. The ten British guys would have Chinese people constantly trying to learn English from them, where as the Chinese guys would have virtually no one trying to speak Chinese to them.

[leeroy]

?

So, would the british guys be better at Chinese or vice-versa?

[Capergirl]

Leeroy, I think Mandarin is a lot more insular, so the British guys would have a harder time being that they have likely had virtually no exposure to Mandarin Chinese. This may be a huge generalization, but I'm willing to bet that most (many? some?) Chinese people are (somewhat) familiar with English sounds and the Latin writing system. The average Brit, however, would not have had any exposure (through movies, internet, various forms of media) to Mandarin Chinese and would be starting at the most basic of basic. To illustrate, how many Chinese people know "hello", "goodbye" (or "bye bye"), "thank you", etc. in English? Now think how many British people would know the same phrases in Mandarin. Not too many, I'm sure. Ergo, I feel that basic exposure gives them a slight edge. Nonetheless, after the six months, the two groups would probably be close to the same level in their L2 - that is, if they've had the same quality and quantity of instruction.

[guest of Japan]

In that situation the Chinese guys would be better at Enlish because they would be more fully immersed. It's time for bed. I'm sorry for throwing a wrench into your poll for no reason. Have a nice day.

[Will.]

It is obvious that the British would be better! Look at our reputation for learning French and other languages.

I must also add that I am still learning English.

[Mike_2003]

Other non-grammatical reasons also need to be taken into account. Whatever your interests are there is a good chance you'll have some kind of access to English books, websites, magazines, newspapers, journals and so forth. The net has thousands of websites with grammatical information, tutorials, quizzes and online help. In most major cities you'll probably be able to attend English course or find a native-speaking tutor. You can also often get a variety of English language radio or television broadcasts. You might encounter English in your work and many people have English lessons as part of their school curriculum. Even through the medium of popular music some learners can pick up and model basic expressions without even trying. The opportunities are endless.

If you were to study a less popular language, you could be really stuck for a chance to hear it spoken, and even less likely to find an opportunity to practise it with a native speaker. Consequently, it may not be that the language is harder in grammatical terms, but without the same kind of exposure, learning it (ie. reaching a good communicative level) could be said to be more difficult.

Mike

[Slim Pickens]

X

[shmooj]

As most native English speakers go, there isn't a major city in the world where you can't find someone who speaks English to help you out if you need it. Because this is a well known fact for most English speaking travellers, extrinsic motivation (I think I got that term right) is way down.

Also, what about image. English is seen to be cool by people in Beijing is it not? Can't say the same for Chinese in London.

More than any descriptive features of the languages themselves e.g. gender, regular verbs etc, these sociolinguistic features affect the likely success of the language learners.

[FGT]

1) Mention has been made of students with a Latin language as L1 having an advantage when it comes to learning English. Whilst I agree with this, I think the same can also be said of those with a Germanic/Scandinavian background. English is a mongrel language and therefore people from a variety of different linguistic backgrounds will find some aspects easier/ some common ground.
To what extent is this true of all speakers of other Indo-European languages?

2) How does the basic structure of languages vary? Does this affect the ease or difficulty of a learner trying to acquire a foreign language?

a) I live and teach English in Turkey, and have been a student of Turkish for far too long, considering my inadequate grasp of the language. It has been suggested (not here) that the acquisition of these languages and the problems encountered by the learners are in inverse proportion to one another: Learners of English can produce (and vary) a grammatically correct sentence within a very short space of time ("My name is..., Her name is... etc) whereas a learner of Turkish first has to deal with vowel harmony, agreement etc so can't be grammatically flexible, cannot do substitution drills etc until much later ( eg: In Bodrum = Bodrum'da, In Gaziantep = Gaziantep'te etc. To Istanbul = Istanbul'a, but to Konak = Konak'a WHEN WRITTEN but pronounced Konaaaaa!).

However, Turkish is very logical, has phonetic spelling, and a comparatively small vocabulary. So once the "ground rules" are mastered, it should be a piece of cake!

Students of English, though, often find it hard to progress beyond the basics towards proficiency. Subtle variations in word usage and collocation, for example, are often a stumbling block. (see our own discussion in another post about just what the difference is between the meaning of dialect and vernacular. If we aren't sure, how can a student learn?)

b) A question asked tonight by a fellow teacher (and learner) over a few beers: "Are there any languages that don't use the passive voice?"
Languages must vary tremendously in the scope of grammar, vocabulary, phonetics, written alphabet etc. So some languages must be easier to learn than others because the options are reduced.

c) We (mistakenly) assume that everything we have a spoken concept of, must exist in every other language, and vice versa. Language grows and changes to accommodate the needs of the speakers and reflects their culture, history, religion, contact with the outside world etc. Languages must be fundamentally different from one onother unless more than one group of people lead a very similar lifestyle, or come into contact with one another and therefore adopt attributes from a "foreign" language or culture.


I'm blathering - sorry!!!!! My main question is "How does the basic make up of one language differ from another? Does this mean that one language is intrinsically easier to learn?"

[Roger]

Capergirl,
by "Latin" languages you actually mean "Romance" languages, right? Your point as for the ease with which Romance speakers acquire English is true from the grammar point of view, but many of us doubt there are better English learners in Spanish-speaking countries, for example.
Russian is not a Romance language, true, it's a SLAWIAN language, Cyrillic is its alphabet, a modified version of Greek. But it too is an Indo-European language as can be gauged from its grammar apparatus (six cases for nouns, for example, much like Latin). It's rather quaint and archaic - note for instance that women's surnames always end in -A; thus you may be introduced to "Mr Dimovsky and Ms Dimova" (don't flame me if I got the masculine form wrong - I don't know Russian).
But in common with Scandinavians, Romance speakers and many others, Russians find the English grammar easy to master, and their more intellectual uses of English never leave you unimpressed.
For a Chinese, the major challenge is grammar, and to a considerable degree, pronunciation. The latter, however, could be taught more efficiently if the Chinese English teachers made better use of romanisation of Chinese. Currently, Chinese students learn the Roman letters first before they learn how to write Chinese characters. Once they start writing in Chinese, they ignore what's called "pinyin" (romanisation of Chinese words and names). THis is why many can't even transliterate Chinese place-names properly.
So, to come back to leeroy's suggestion: The Brits in China would probably pick up more day-to-day Chinese than the Chinese would pick up English in Britain. The fact that Chinese has considerably simpler grammar would take care of this. Let's not ignore the instructions of use of our language - they stay longer tyhan phrases and many words do; words can always be replaced with new ones. Rules don't disappear so fast - literature is there to make sure they don't.
But, perhaps, the main reason why the Brits would acquire more CHinese in China than the Chinese would acquire English in England is to be found in psychology: The Chinese are not open-minded enough. Or put less negatively: They hail from an insular place, practise a culture without asking questions, always taking for granted that there always is one answer to every one question. They wouldn't try to show curiosity and try and test their new environment to elicit unexpected responses.
The Brits would, I surmise, try to test the limits of ther interaction with Chinese. They would try to establish the rules of etiquette, of the law and much else. They would be motivated not merely by survival interests but by fascination with a new environment. Not that I think we whites always are like that - but the prwesence of TEFLers in China amply and aptly demonstrates this.

[leeroy]

Thanks everyone

Roger (or anyone else in China for that matter), would you say you are a 'more efficient' learner of Chinese than your students are of English - bearing in mind the cultural issues that you have outlined?