So easy a child could learn it.

Despite being told many times that the English language has many more words than some other popular languages used in the modern days, my feeling is that English is still one of the easier languages to learn. It is true that the rules are not consistently followed but I doubt any language follows certain rules 100% of the time. In terms of writing, English is relatively easy to get used to since all the words are just some combinations of the 26 letters. In terms of pronounciation, I find the phonetics very basic and pronounceable. It is far better than say, Mandarin which has 5 tones for each pronounceable word.

English is a brutal language to learn. Try explaining the letter X to a Korean. Try explaining the silent g in night. . .there are rules, exceptions, and thousands of tips and lessons that take years to get real proficiency in the language.

I would'nt say that english is the easiest or hardest language to learn, it has some sounds that other langauges don't have, take dutch for instance, the dutch people i can see have a problem doing the ZH sound such as the S in ASIA, having a langauge that you learn related TO english will not make it EASY TO learn, some sounds are different, and the vowel sounds, i have some dutch and hebrew friends, and they couldn't do the ZH sounds, it is also with the spelling of some words, that look and sound the same, and english does have a lot of monophthongs and dipthongs, at least over 40 in all, english has changed a few times in history, like at least 3, and this is the 4th english, when the great vowel shift happedn in english in the 1400s, i could imagine that many people speaking old english had a difficult time with it, so it is just as difficult to foregners of english to learn it, but it is ''pretty'' easy for a native english speaker to speak a different langauge related or totally different to english since it has so many sounds, no accents on the letters either, which makes it a little hard for spelling and pronouncing words, but learning it or at least like.....6 or 7 years you will get it right more often, it is also said that people who learn english, and ''only'' english are more likley to get dyslexia because of the sounds and mixing the letters with numbers, i pronounce words right for the first time that i have never even heard of and im 15, i was put in the highest and most advanced reading class in school, cause i read very fast and read the words correctly, so learning english first makes it easy, but it takes longer to learn, but anyways, yes i would say english ''is'' ahrd for a foreigner even if the language is related to english. :)

Of course we who were born and brought up in english speaking countries don't find it difficult, nobody finds their native language difficult duh. But overall, think about it. No language has as many synonyms (not sure if i spelled that right) as english. Think of their, there, they're. read, and read. lead, lead, and lead (the present and past tense of lead, and the metal. Think about how many ways we can use the word you

From what I can tell, English has to be the most difficult (and frustrating) language for someone to learn. Besides the obvious well known words such as to, too, two, and wood and would, how would you explain to someone phrases such as He wound the bandage around the wound or When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes? There is no egg in eggplant, and pineapples contain neither apples or pine. Quicksand works slowly, boxing rings are square and a Guinea pig is neither a pig or from Guinea. In what other language do people play at a recital and recite in a play, ship by truck but send cargo by ship, a slim chance and a fat chance are the same thing, yet a wise man and a wise guy are not. Your house burns up as it burns down and your alarm clock goes off by going on..... and Buick doesn't rhyme with quick. English is hard enough to learn even without slang terms and modern metaphors. With that having been said, I'll wind down this review by winding it up.

I'm so glad I learned this first because I have heard that picking it up later sucks.

English is a very easy language just look in the TV! But they do spell the words very stange sometimes though!

I don't think English is hard to learn... I learned English together with French, Spanish and Latin and always prefered it for it's few exceptions and the fact that it is very logical. I also got used to the misuse of this language - as it was called above - but I don't think that misuse does influence the difficulty of learning it.

English is my mother tongue, so I find it very easy to speak, read, and write. Yet the endings of the words are wacky! Although genders are easy. In German, you just have to memorize what is femine, neuter, and masclin, but in English what is male is fasclin, what is female is femine, and everything else is neuter. Then there is only one form of the word the so it makes it easier. There are two indefinate's, a and an, but it is easy to know when to use each word. We have a lot of slang, yes, so that is a downer, but it is not hard to learn if it is around you all the time. Most of the time the words are just ran together (ie gunna- go to, gotta- got to). I'm not sure about England, but in the states we're never literal when we speak in English (as most people do, although Spanish is starting to become very, very popular).

The two big problems with English: the orthography, we just have to think of works like colonel, and the different dialects (varieties).

It's a junky language because of the way it's misused around the world! Hence the non-stop slang.

It's a pretty junky language with a lot of slang and word pronounciations. Must be hard. I still can't pronounce some words and I'm 15.

The only reason that people you ask think that English is easy is because they themselves speak English as their native language! Any language is easy if it's your native one. But with the pronouciation oddities, slang, etc. it's rather complicated.

Think about it. There are so many inside twists to English, as I'm sure many languages, but think of aaaalllll the different ways in slang or in just grammar you could say just one sentence. And even the Japanese, of whom many people say have the hardest language, study from the start of middle school through the rest of their school life, not counting college unless they should choose, to learn English, or as they so often pronounce it 'Eingrish'. They are known for having a pretty good schooling system, oh how tidy it is, and yet a great sum of them still cannot speak it when they are adults. And the majority of the adults that DO pay attention enough to learn it STILL don't speak it completely right. I had a technology/shop teacher(strange, I know) from Asia that was most definetly passed his 20s, maybe into 40s, and had lived in America since he was 14 and still doesn't speak it COMPLETELY right. Don't get me wrong, I could understand him perfectly well. He would just often mix up words, and had a heavy accent, which I, and many others, thought was . . . . is cool. And take this into consideration: to two too; x sometimes sounding like z; wassup?; y counting as a consonant and a vowel; Wednesday. . . . why not just Wensday?; Why it is called a rainbow, rain, that makes sense, but wouldn't it make more sense if it would be rainribbon? For I am just telling you my opinion, others will think different. I hope you found this the slighted bit useful.

Apparently Bush is still trying to master it at 50+ years of age. It has to be hard if the President doesn't even master it.

Couldn't be that hard. I learned it when I was two.