To think no actually, English isn't piss easy for non natives

[twiney]

I'm in France and you wouldn't believe the amount of people who have this idea that English is really basic and easy, the irony being of course that they don't actually speak it.

Last night I was out with a woman who got on to the subject of helping her son with his English homework (she literally doesn't speak a word of it).
"Don't trouble yourself with complexity," she appparently told him. "In English they just make really basic and easy sentences. Keep it simple."

She then got onto the subject of English-language music, and how basic and straightforward lyrics are compared to the dense richness of French music.

I was brought up bilingual and between countries so i feel well placed to say that actually most French music is basically just poetry they've added a few instruments to.

But why do people think this? Is it true? Personally I don't see it that way, and I find that with French at least, I would consider it easier in the sense that:
A) Once you've learnt how the pronunciation works, there are practically zero variations on it. You can see a French word you've never seen before, and know how to pronounce it.
B) I find stock turns of phrase crop up again and again in French, whereas I find English "looser".

I can only think it has something to do with conjugation, or lack of feminine/masculine? There's also the fact that I rarely hear English speakers correct non natives, perhaps giving them a false sense of confidence.

What's your experience/opinion?

YABU. I also live in France. I learned English as a second language and it IS very easy compared to my native language. Now that I am also fluent in French, I agree with your friend that English is an easier language to learn (no conjugation, easier tenses, non-gendered nouns etc) and (in general) English pop songs have far simpler lyrics than French ones.

Obviously, autocorrect has made decisions on the use of prepositions that I don't agree with

You've asked me for my advice and will probably take it. This is the response to "Should I ask Charlotte?"

If I wasn't sure of how my input would be received, I could see myself saying

I'd have thought you'd be better off asking Jane

Drifting slightly, but growing up, I used to love hearing people who were born and bought up in the UK, but from a non-UK family (or parent) chatting in their "second" language, but having to drop into English for a place name, or road.

I saw a Dutch film, many years ago (obviously in London) and I was struck how the odd word in Dutch sounded very English.

i could never work with someone who spoke another language, and not ask some basic words or phrases.

"Most non-native English speakers, no matter how easy they think English is, never manage to become truly fluent."

Actually no, I know many non-native English speakers who are truly fluent. Non-native but fluent speakers of French are much rarer.

"Fluent" doesn't mean "indistinguishable from a native speaker", though. Few people get mistaken for native speakers in a foreign language, even if it is a relatively easy language to learn.

@LurkingHusband

I always feel weird speaking in French here and being like "En fait mes parents vivent à Lee-ver-poule". Because pronouncing English words the English way just makes you sound like a dick. Same when I go to McDonalds here and order "po-té-toze" (wedges).

It is the combination of complex vocabulary, idiomatic use and multiple synonyms that would make it v tough to master.
That's not specific to the English language though.

My first language is French, but I've spoken English longer than French. Yet because of my accent, people assume that I'm more fluent in French. Also, I'm a very poor writer, but people don't realise I am as bad in French as I am in English.

I have access to French channels, and ironically, Countdown is just before the French equivalent! I definitely find the French version much harder than the English one!

I have always thought that English is very easy to be understood in, i.e make a noise , like with a recorder, but that it is very difficult to speak it well, just as it's very hard to play a recorder and make a nice noise.

@RestingGrinchFace

No leasehold in Scotland. It does not exist. Every property is freehold.

I've taught English as a foreign language to Spanish speakers and no, it isn't easy. Aside from pronounciation issues, grammatically it can be tough too.

However most of the Spaniards I knew were very keen that their DC learned English at an early stage and to a high standard which was great for me as I picked up a lot of private work from teachers at the school I was working at. Certainly at that time in Spain, the general opinion was that French/Portuguese was the easy option and if your DC was bright, they did English/German - or both.

I've been teaching EFL for over 20 years and general feeling in the trade, at conferences/exam meetings etc, is that English is not particularly difficult when compared to other languages.
The actual phonology is tough, but only really for vowels and the odd batshit consonant cluster like the -GH at syllable end.
Vocab is immense, but the latest corpora findings show that even native speakers' active vocab is much smaller than you at first imagine.
English grammar is relatively very simple when compared to many other languages, to the point where many syllabus writers are now omitting it altogether.
There is also the indisputable fact of the exposure to English that non native speakers have, music, ads, slogans etc, all of which contribute to the so-called affective dimension, without which nobody will be "good" at a language. You have to like it first.

I did English, French, and German on school, plus my mother tongue. There were options open to study Spanish and Russian, too, but it never occurred to me as something I would want to do at the time.

in

The problem with writing in English these days is that one doesn't type anything out, only the first few letters, and then let Google's auto-correct automatically type out the most likely word (and change it only if Google picked the wrong one, that's why Champion easily turns into Champignon if one is too sloppy to read what is suggested before pressing "post message"...)

I learned Russian at school. It was very, very difficult. I can only remember a few words now but can remember and read the alphabet so if it's a translation from English to Russian and not a different word entirely, I could work out what the word is. I think.

Has anyone studied Esperanto? How does that language compare?

Have a go at learning Chinese or Turkish and then we will talk about how English compares to languages that are really difficult to learn.

I suppose it depends on your starting point, though, doesn't it? People speaking other Turkic languages are probably not going to find Turkish as difficult to learn as people who don't. DH found Russian very easy to learn, English much harder- I imagine this is because his native language is much more like Russian than English.

As someone whose main regret in life is not learning more languages (I'm hardly fluent in my DFs tongue(s)), in us Brits defence, it can be very hard to expose ourselves to other languages in they way some Europeans can. We have a few family friends who can speak French, Italian, German (I didn't realise Austrian was somewhat different) as well as English. But then as they said, growing up in Turin made it almost compulsory. Then there's one chap whose Moroccan is pretty good (he ran a cous-couse restaurant) as he was bought up in Tunisia - to Franco-Italian parents.

Trying to speak any other language than English in England is a hard task, as almost everyone you meet is more keen to improve their English ...

That said, if the English did have a language gene, you'd think we'd all be fluent in Welsh . And in my defence, when I went bike touring around Wales after my finals, I did pack a copy of "Living Welsh".

My Godfather is Basque (but my family isn't). His mother was expelled by Franco in the 1930s for being a lawyer, and his brother was re-expelled in the 1970s for going back and demonstrating against him.

DH found Russian very easy to learn, English much harder- I imagine this is because his native language is much more like Russian than English.
I'm a native Russian/Ukrainian speaker and I found English easier to learn in comparison to French,think Polish or Bulgarian would be very easy ,it would be like learning dialect of Ukrainian or Russian, not entirely new separate language!

I speak Russian (native English speaker( and was always told that Polish was much harder than Russian. Since confirmed by talking to Polish pal on subject of grammar (yes, I am that nerdy).

Have a go at learning Chinese or Turkish and then we will talk about how English compares to languages that are really difficult to learn.

Chinese isn’t a language. Husband has learned Turkish and found it easier to master a business proficiency in it than English, as there are hardly any exceptions and the grammar is straight forward.

I believe it is not about having family friends speaking this or that other language. I don't have any such family friends, never had, and have never lived in any English-speaking country (apart from a few weeks here and there on holiday) but the telly is blaring out spoken English every day (often subtitled) and has been since I was a toddler. I find the Texan accent easy perhaps as a consequence of having watched too many episodes of "Dallas". But in the UK, I'd imagine, any foreign film or program is dubbed into English (as opposed to run in the original with subtitles). I believe this to be a important differences. This, plus having taken proper weekly lessons for the Cambridge certificate CPE I believe it was called.

Funnily enough, MrsLH and I were chatting about travel, and Russia came up ... I've never been (would love to go, but then you could say that of anywhere in the world). I was saying as long as I have something printed - even in a language I'm not familiar with - there's something to get your teeth into.

Of course Russian starts with a different alphabet (which I can't help but feel is cheating).

That said, having done some ancient Greek, it's not as fearsome as it might be, and English really has too many letters anyway .

I take it people here have tried out the Google Translate app with the camera pointing at some text ? And seen it translate before your very eyes ?

Polish was much harder than Russian but its somewhat similar to Ukrainian .I don't speak Polish at all but when I hear polish speaking in their language ,I can understand the gist of their conversation and if to read very slowly I'd make sense of the writing too.