Why_Are_English_Hard_to_Learn

Why are English hard to learn Nearly every nation in the word can find its own language in English. For instant, Chinese can find taiji in English, Japanese can find tatami in English, while French can find bon voyage in English. As summed up in the Encyclopedia Americana, “the English language has vast debts. In any dictionary, some 80% of the entries are borrowed. The majority is likely to come from Latin, and of those more than half will come through French. A considerable number will derive directly or indirectly from Greek. A substantial contribution will come from Scandinavian languages, and a small percentage will be from various sources around the globe.” It’s true that borrowing had played the most active role in word formation. There are many factors accounting for this, I will develop it in two aspects. First, in the historical perspective, this is the dominant factor. 1. British history has been a history of invasion. In 43 AD Britain was invaded by the Roman empire. As a sequence, a considerable number of Latin words were introduced into the English vocabulary: bargain, cheap, inch, pound, cup, dish, wall, wine, etc. 2. Then the Anglo-Saxon began to settle in Britain in the 5th century. As they were the Germanic origin, they brought along a batch of Germany words, such as bismuth, cobalt, nickel and zinc. 3. The next invaders were the Normans, from the northern France. Since the French-speaking Normans were the ruling class, French was used for all state affairs and for most social and cultural matters. So the French loan words were found in every section of the vocabulary: law and governmental administration (judge, jury, justice, parliament, state…); military affairs (conquer, sergeant, victory…); religion (baptism, confess, divine, sermon…); literature (chapter, poet, prose, time…); food (beef, mutton, pork…); science (medicine, remedy, surgeon…). 4. From the 16th century onwards, English borrowed words from an increasing number of languages, the major ones being French, Spanish, and Italian. 5. At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, as a result of exploration, colonization and trade, many words came in from non-European language. Some examples are: boomerang, kangaroo and dingo from Australian; sugar, sultan and alcohol from Arabic. In a word, in the course of its historical development, English has borrowed words from almost every known language. Second, in the world development perspective. The great changes in industry, in political and social lives, in sports and amusements all have contributed a great deal to the English vocabulary. Since the Second World War the English vocabulary has been affected powerfully by social, political, economic, especially scientific and technical changes. The English vocabulary not only changes, but also changes quickly in this period. Thousands of new words are added, existing words acquire new meaning and old words die out. We can see that borrowing words greatly enrich the vocabulary and make the language flexible and resourceful, which works upon the difficulty of learning English.