So many things make learning English difficult and confusing. Its grammar structure, its spelling, meanings and rules that contradict existing rules are difficult to master. But remember that the situation is the same for English speakers trying to learn a foreign language.
Synonyms cannot be interchanged
Many words in English mean the same thing, such as see and watch. However, it is not always possible to swap them. It is all right to say, ''watch or see a film'' or ''watch TV'' but you should never say, ''see television'' as the phrase does not sound right.
To make it more complicated, you are not called a ''watcher'' when you watch TV or movie, but rather a ''viewer'' but the latter's use is altogether different. You cannot say view television but you can say television viewer.
A number of homophones
Aside from the above, homophones abound in the English language. These are words that are written in the same way but difference in pronunciation effectively makes the meaning different as well. This factor is very difficult for English language learners to grasp. For example:
Bass is pronounced as written when you want to indicate a specific fish species.
Bass is pronounced as base when you want to describe a musical instrument.
Bow, when used to indicate lowering one's head it's pronounced as bau or baw.
When talking about a hunting implement, such as bow and arrow, it is pronounced as boh.
Pronunciation
Spelling is only one area that makes learning English difficult. The student also has to contend with pronunciation. There are languages, such as Spanish, where you pronounce the words as they are written. In English, there are several ways to pronounce words that have almost the same letter combinations, such as through, bough, roughand trough. Silent letters are also present in the beginning, middle and end of some words as well.
Rules and exceptions
Another thing that confuses English learners is that there are too many rules to follow. On the other hand, there are too many exceptions to the rules as well.
One rule that can confuse: Use ''I" before "E" except when either letter is positioned after the letter "C,'' thus you write believe or relieve but write receipt differently. You spell seize or weird with "E'' before ''I'' yet science is spelled with ''I'' after ''C,'' which contradicts the first rule.
Some contradictions
Many students find that the contradictions in the English language are reasons why it becomes difficult to learn it. Maybe they are just finding that the language is like a riddle. Some of the things that they question:
- Hamburger has no ham.
- There is no pine or even apple in pineapple.
- Taught is the past tense of teach however, the past tense of preach is preached and not ''praught.''
Word order
If you speak English naturally, you immediately know the order in which words are placed. This is another thing that learners find difficult to understand. Explaining why there is a logical order in the positioning of words can be difficult to grasp.
You can say "an interesting small cup'' but it does not sound right if you say ''a small interesting cup.'' It could be grammatically correct but it's how it sounds that makes a subtle difference in the execution.
There are still so many things to learn and discover about the language. Let’s explore some of them.
• Town is the oldest word in the English language; strengths is the longest word with just a single vowel; dreamt is the only word that ends with mt, and I am is the shortest complete sentence in English.
• Listen has the same letters as the word silent.
• The word underground is the only word in the English language that begins and ends with und.
• If you take a closer look at the word therein you will see that you can extract several words - the, there, he, her, here, ere, herein, in and rein from it without rearranging anything.
• Conventionally, you will get 25 meanings for the word set as a verb, 13 meanings as a noun, and 7 as an adjective. Set is also the name of an evil god in Ancient Egypt, who was the brother and murderer of Osiris, the god of the afterlife.
The English language can be very challenging and a fun language to learn.