Is English Hard To Learn? 13 Advantages, Challenges, and Tips

As one of the most spoken languages in the world, English is a valuable language to learn. But is English hard to learn and how difficult is it to become fluent? Whether English is easy to learn depends on a lot of factors, including your first language, your motivation and goals, and whether you’re immersed in an English-speaking environment.

English has a reputation for being a challenging language to master, but some aspects can make learning English feel harder (or easier) than other languages. 

Table of Contents

• 5 easy aspects of learning English
• 4 challenges of learning English
• Tips for learning English without stress
• Rosetta Stone simplifies the challenges of learning English

5 easy aspects of learning English

Is English easy to learn? While learning any language takes effort and focused practice, certain parts of the English language make it easier to learn than others—giving you an advantage in your language learning.

1. The alphabet is simple

There are only 26 letters in the English alphabet, and you don’t have to worry about accent or diacritical marks. The majority of written languages in the world use the Latin script, sometimes alongside a different alphabet or as a way of preserving and revitalizing an indigenous spoken language. Speakers of French, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, German, Swahili, Welsh, Turkish, Tagalog, and Vietnamese, among many others, will recognize the Latin alphabet when starting out in English.

Languages that use characters or other alphabets are among the hardest for English speakers to learn. 

2. English is not a tonal language

Unlike languages like Mandarin Chinese, Vietnamese, and Thai, where tones (raised or lowered pitches within a word) can change the meaning of words, English is not a tonal language. English does use some intonation to indicate emotions or questions, but it doesn’t change the meaning of the words themselves. 

3. English doesn’t have grammatical gender 

English nouns do not have grammatical gender like masculine or feminine, compared to Spanish and other “gendered” languages. This simplifies many parts of speech. For example, adjectives don’t need to agree with the gender of the noun, and there’s only one definite English article, the.  

4. English shares many cognates with other languages

The answer to “Is English a hard language to learn?” can depend on your first language and how many cognates it shares with English. Cognates are words in two languages that look and sound similar and share the same meaning. 

If you already know basic words in a Romance language like Spanish, French, or Portuguese, you have a head start on vocabulary due to all the cognates. That’s one reason why these are some of the easiest languages for English speakers to learn.

You’ll also find many cognates if you’re familiar with some of the closest languages to English, such as German, Dutch, and Frisian. 

English Word	Cognate	Language
accident	accidente	Spanish
characteristic	karakteristika	Albanian
dictionary	diccionnaire	French
false	falso	Portuguese
hotel	Hotel	German
island	eiland	Dutch
music	musica	Italian
rhyme	rým	Slovak
text	tekst	Polish

5. Verbs are easy to conjugate in English

Is English hard to learn when conjugating verbs? Some languages have hundreds of verb forms to indicate subject, tense, mood, and register. Changing these verbs to their correct forms is called conjugation. The good news is that verbs in English are generally much simpler. 

Compare the below irregular past tense French verb aller with English to go. French has an auxiliary verb with six different forms and a past participle that must agree in gender and in number with the subject. The verb in past tense English is always went. You just need to know the English pronouns to use. 

English	French
I went.	Je suis allé. (masculine)
I went.	Je suis allée. (feminine)
You went.	Tu es allé. (singular, masculine, informal)
You went.	Tu es allée. (singular, masculine)
He went.	Il est allé.
She went.	Elle est allée.
One went.	On est allé. (impersonal)
We went.	On est allés. (informal plural masculine/mixed)
We went.	On est allées. (informal plural feminine)
We went.	Nous sommes allés. (masculine/mixed)
We went.	Nous sommes allées. (feminine/mixed)
You went.	Vous êtes allé. (formal singular masculine)
You went.	Vous êtes allée. (formal singular feminine)
You went.	Vous êtes allés. (plural masculine/mixed)
You went.	Vous êtes allées. (plural feminine)
They went.	Ils sont allés. (masculine)
They went.	Elles sont allées. (feminine)

4 challenges of learning English

Is English hard to learn compared to other languages? English learners can face several unique challenges. However, if you’re aware of these, you can work to overcome them and find language learning success.

1. Pronunciation and spelling are very different

English pronunciation and spelling can be challenging even for native speakers. English is a Germanic language, but has been influenced by many other languages during its development. Because of these mixed origins, spelling doesn’t always make the pronunciation of English words obvious. And even if you know how to pronounce a word, the spelling may be hard to figure out.

English-speaking children learning to read and write often have a separate class for spelling, and participate in “spelling bee” contests to spell words correctly. This concept is surprising for speakers of other languages like Spanish, where pronunciation and spelling consistently match. 

English letters and combinations of letters make different sounds depending on the word. English has around 44 different sounds, with 20 distinct vowel sounds that don’t always correspond to the letters of the alphabet. For example, the letter “a” is pronounced differently in cat, cake, father, sofa, car, and climate.

English Words With “a”	Pronunciation
cat	kat
cake	keyk
father	FAH-ther
sofa	SOH-fuh
car	kahr
climate	KLAHY-mit

The sounds of the consonants are also inconsistent. For example, the letter “c” can sound:

• like an “s” in city
• like a “k” in cocoa
• like “sh” precious

In the words Pacific Ocean, for example, every letter “c” is pronounced differently! 

• (puh-SIF-ik OH-shuhn) 

English words can also have silent letters at the beginning, middle, or end of a word: 

• the silent “w” in write and wrestle
• the silent “k” in knife and knowledge
• the silent “l” in calf and should 
• the silent “b” in thumb and tomb 

Also, not all groups of letters are pronounced the same way, as with the below tricky pronunciation pairs.

English Spelling	Pronunciation
daughter	DAW-ter
laughter	LAF-ter
rough	ruhf
through	throo
eight	eyt
height	hahyt
cheese	cheez
geese	gees

2. Homonyms are easily confused

Another challenge of learning English is learning homonyms. Homonyms are pairs of words that are either spelled or pronounced the same, but have different meanings. 

Homophones are English words with the same pronunciation but different meanings: 

• plain (not decorated or seasoned) vs. plane (aircraft)
• son (male child) vs. sun (center of the solar system) 
• meat (flesh of an animal) vs. meet (make someone’s acquaintance) 

Heteronyms have the same spelling but different pronunciations and meanings: 

• wind (air blowing) vs. wind (to coil or wrap around)
  • pronunciation: “wind” vs. “waynd”
• tear (liquid from eyes) vs. tear (to rip)
  • pronunciation: “teer” vs. “tair”
• produce (to create/make) vs. produce (fresh fruits and vegetables)
  • pronunciation: “pruh-DOOS” vs. “PRO-doos”

3. English uses many phrasal verbs

Phrasal verbs are combinations of a verb plus an adverb or preposition. The phrasal verb meaning is often different from the meanings of the individual words that make up the phrasal verb. This can be challenging for learners.

Since they’re so common in conversation, becoming familiar with phrasal verbs can help you learn how to speak English. These are some of the most common phrasal verbs:

English Phrasal Verb	Meaning
back up	support
back down	retreat
break up	end a relationship
break down	stop functioning
look into	research investigate
look after	care for watch to keep safe
take on	assume responsibility for
take off	remove begin a flight on a plane
take up	begin a hobby
take down	tackle remove from a wall
take in	adopt/invite
take out	invite for a social engagement buy food at a restaurant to eat at home
take away	learn gain
talk up	speak or discuss favorably
talk down	talk to in a superior or haughty way
tell on	tattle on inform on
tell off	reprimand scold

4. English has irregularities and exceptions

While English learners can use grammar rules to figure out sentence structure and word forms, there are many exceptions to each of these rules, such as:

• irregular past tense verbs like went (past tense of to go) 
• irregular plurals like feet (plural of foot) and deer (plural of deer) 
• irregular comparatives like better (comparative of good) 
• exceptions to possessives like its (belonging to it)
• adverbs that don’t use “-ly” such as fast or well 

Tips for learning English without stress

While learning English can be a challenge, it’s worth the time it takes to learn. And because of its usefulness around the world as a common language, you have many opportunities to learn and practice English. These four tips can help you achieve proficiency as you pursue English language learning.

1. Take advantage of multimedia

English language movies, music, books, podcasts, social media influencers, and live broadcasts of news, sports, and events are often available throughout the world. Where available, combine English audio with subtitles in your first language to hear English in action while enjoying your favorite entertainment. 

2. Make friends with English speakers

Whether you’re limited to simple greetings and small talk or ready for intermediate conversations, practicing with a partner can be a great way to gain confidence. Search local groups for other English language learners or exchange with someone who wants to learn your language. 

3. Use a proven learning method

You learned to communicate in your first language naturally, without having to memorize long lists of vocabulary and grammar rules and exceptions. The easiest way to learn a new language is mirroring the way you learned language as a child, through context and reasoning.

4. Fall in love with your favorite English dialect

English is spoken in countries all around the world and includes a wide variety of accents, expressions, and slang. English speakers from England, Scotland, South Africa, Nigeria, Australia, Canada, India, and the United States can all communicate with each other, so learning standard English words will be helpful everywhere. 

When you explore the varieties of English spoken in Boston, Edinburgh, London, New York, or Kingston, you’ll enjoy a rich linguistic diversity. Pick up a few local terms and you’ll be able to impress the locals wherever you travel and connect with cultures around the world. 

Rosetta Stone simplifies the challenges of learning English

Whether you want to learn the basics of English or achieve fluency, Rosetta Stone can help you meet your goal. The Dynamic Immersion method is a proven way to learn new vocabulary, homonyms, and even phrasal verbs in context, without getting stuck on the complicated parts of English. And the TruAccent speech recognition engine makes sure you don’t have to rely on confusing rules about spelling and pronunciation as you learn. 

No matter what your first language or how different it is from English, you’ll be well on your way to speaking English with confidence!

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