Why is English a difficult language?

Answer 1

English is a difficult language because it is not really so recognisable to the languages it is related to, for example: English has many Germanic words, Latin words, and French words, but people of those languages can not understand fully what someone who speaks English say, unless they know English. Unlike with Swedish, where you can fairly get by understanding written and spoken Norwegian and Danish. And the same with Italian and Spanish. But also a huge factor with English is that it has one of the most amount of words than any other language in the world. It contains over 900,000 words, meaning that there is at least 2 to 3 ways of saying anything in English. The reason why it is so hard to pronounce words that are written down if you have not seen them is because even though the spelling of most English words have been spelt the way they are for hundreds of years, the Speech of English has changed Dramatically. English words are not really pronounced as they are spelt. For example. Cough, Weigh, Weight, live, live etc. The English vowels have many different sounds. Unlike most languages where the vowels are usually as they are written, for example Finnish "a" is always an "a" sound, no matter what word its in. Where as in English "a" can have different sounds, for instance: the a in Car, and Cat are different. There is no specific rule why it is pronounced that way but, its just how the speech of the language has evolved. By Angloswede

Also there are so many exceptions to the rule, that even if you do learn a rule, you can still be confused. ie. the plural of goose is geese, yet the plural of moose is NOT meese.

Answer 2

English is a difficult language due to contact and extensive borrowing from other languages, combined with obscure rules which have many exceptions, and an orthography (Alphabet) with no standardization whatsoever.

It is also an analytical language, meaning it has a large vocabulary, and relies off of context.