To think it's embarrassing how English has one of the easiest grammar systems, and yet so many people don't know the basic rules...

[Skyeboat]

I'm a linguist, and the languages I studied have very complex grammar rules compared to English. So much so that native speakers have to memorise verb tables, moods, cases etc. at primary school level, and even those who didn't study to a high level know the basic rules.
English is one of the simplest languages, and yet the amount of native English speakers I see making really obvious mistakes is just embarrassing.
Is the problem that we just don't teach grammar and syntax in school?
For example, I saw a FB post today selling "Teddy's" (as opposed to teddies). That's actually the most common mistake I see - people, even businesses, not knowing how to use apostrophes and form plurals. I'd understand if it was a complicated rule that required memorisation with a lot of exceptions, but it's soo basic. It takes about 10 minutes to learn then you're all set.
I went to a pretty average state school, and I remember they did teach us these things, but we weren't rigorously tested on them or required to repeat them regularly. So I do believe the problem is with a lack of focus on basic English from a young age.
Am I being unreasonable or is this really embarrassing that we have such a poor grasp of our own mother tongue?

These sorts of tolerated bad auto-corrections (which probably account for the vast majority of the plural/possessive errors), shortcuts, and consistent mistakes are now the norm in casual writing, including casual business writing, even in linguistic cultures that put massive emphasis on grammar studies in education. I find it odd that as a linguist you're embarrassed by those sorts of things in English specifically, but I have noticed that very often linguists don't have a very practical connection with the way the languages they study are used colloquially, especially how they are used since texting has become ubiquitous.

And I'd disagree with the assertion that English has remarkably simple grammar. It's been simplified over time, yes, but in such a random way with so many weird remnants from otherwise-obsolete conventions that there are probably more distinct style guides out there than I've had hot meals. My experience has been that English grammar is extremely frustrating for EFL and ESL learners whose native grammar is seemingly more complex, but also much more consistent.

That having been said it's a shame that grammar education isn't a much bigger part of most English-language curriculums, not so much because people should be writing proper as because once you understand the principles behind your own language's grammar it's much easier to learn new languages as an adult.

Interestingly, a quick Google doesn't even count English in the top 10 of hard languages to learn on any of the first few websites that come up.

You're a good example of your own argument; it's 'number of English speakers', not 'amount'.
Be careful who you criticise.

Oh this is delicious! 😆

The cunning linguist is not as smart as she thinks she is!!! 😂

Oh and @Skyeboat YABVVU. Stop being so judgemental! Not everyone is perfect. No, not even you!

@Redbrickrebel How exactly is English the most difficult to learn?
From anecdotal experience it is the easiest. And i have studied German, French, Italian and Japanese..English is the only one I'm fluent in.

On the topic of learning English: it was once described to me in terms of skiing and snowboarding. It's generally thought that skiing is easier to learn at a basic level, but harder to master, whereas snowboarding is harder to learn but then much easier to master once you have the basics. In the same sense, it is possible to learn the basics of English communication relatively quickly, but English is a very difficult language to master to a native level of fluency because of the large vocabulary (although other languages, such as Korean, are larger) and high levels of irregularity in grammatical structures. Other very difficult languages are much harder at a basic level but once you have mastered these basics it is much easier to progress to a high level of expertise.

Clearly not simple; you shouldn't use those two commas, they are not needed.

Are you English/British?

I agree with you entirely, but when I point it out I am told:

a) People might be dyslexic. I'm a lecturer and very few students who ARE dyslexic EVER write could of/would of, or confuse there/they're/their.

b) #BeKind.

@WhileMyGuitarGentlyWeeps Nope. Moved to UK in my mid twenties from a non-English speaking country..

I would suspect you have had more exposure to English. It may be just through pop music or cinema etc

What is your first language, as that will have an impact on how easy you found it to learn English.

I speak Urdu, English and Swedish. I’m native fluent in Urdu and I’m near enough in Swedish, I have been learning English since I was eight years old and I have lived in England since then. My Swedish studies started about four years ago, I found it very easy to learn, my English however doesn’t naturally progress at all.

I have a child with an iq 140+ who at 11 is beginning to grapple with quantum mechanics/philosophy etc and is extremely emotionally intelligent and sociable. He can’t yet spell simple words and we get creations like ‘pulec’ for police and ‘djz’ for cheese. He only recently learned to spell his own name. I fully doubt he will ever be able to apply grammar rules at all, certainly not accurately, I could show him until I was blue in the face he just won’t get it. It doesn’t make him slow, or careless, or undereducated.

What having a child like this has shown me is that there are numerous reasons someone may not be able to spell/use grammar, and that life is just too short to judge. Let it go lovely, you will feel so much more chilled!

Many children have complicated lives. Why is this seemingly more of an issue in the UK compared to other countries?

This happens when you see people write been instead of being, for example "My job is great, I love been a bus driver" because where I live, some (not all, and not me) people don't sound the final g on some words. So if they don't read - newspapers, books, but do read Facebook) they won't know.

Same with "Seen as you're (or maybe they'd put 'your') going to the shop will you bring me back a packet of crisps?" when they should be writing 'seeing'.

A lot of it is not down to dyslexia, but a multitude of factors. Mainly not reading other than on social media and therefore copying down what they hear.

Similarly, "I done" is so prevalent.

Well known by whom?

TBH, this is an example of the English exceptionalism you criticise in your third point. English is not uniquely difficult.

Some of my friends, when studying translation and interpretation at university, chose to specialise in English and Mandarin or English and Arabic. I have other friends who've studied Japanese or Korean as a hobby. These are all Catalan/Spanish natives, and none of them would say that English is the most difficult language to learn.

I'm currently studying Vietnamese. That means hours and hours of practising tones and learning the different ways to address an aunt older than my parents or an aunt younger than my parents. But sure, English is the most difficult language of all. 🙄

It’s very difficult to categorise the difficulty of learning languages as so much depends on the existing schema from the learner’s native language. It would be helpful if the posters offering judgement on the relative ease of learning English were willing to tell us their native language(s).

That's kind of the point isn't it? We don't, as a nation, seem to value the correct use of our language.

Grammar is taught in primary schools every day.

Indeed. The number of times I'm told "it doesn't matter, it's only on Facebook/Twitter/Insta."

Apart from phases such as big bad wolf, which should be bad big wolf strictly, because ‘bing bang bong’ ordering takes precedence.

My daughter is dyslexic, and her main problem is spelling. She is clever though, and asks people to spell out things like their names in her job, but some spelling errors are present. The last thing she should feel is ashamed! Learning grammar rules doesn't help her massively as she overapplies them (due to not having a pictorial representation of the word in her head) so double 'll's or 'e' on the end of words appear everywhere in her writing. Homophones are impossible, you just have to 'know'.

All those saying they judge, but not those who are dyslexic, if you met my dd in her job, how would you know she was dyslexic?

I often edit other people's work and almost no-one makes no grammatical errors, even at a high level, that's why we all have editors!

MFL teacher here

Grammar is taught very poorly so they don't understand grammar rules correctly. For example, my Yr7 students call verbs "action words" so in the sentence " I play with a ball" some think "ball" is the verb 😣 they don't understand what is an adverb, adjective, etc. This makes teaching languages very difficult.

@Gettinagoldtoof Your post makes me think there must be a problem with the way the language/writing is taught! How come your genius 11 year old can't grasp how cheese is spelled, if my 11 year old niece's whole class in my home (non-english speaking) country can 😵‍💫 And this is an actual fact. I've seen her school books, and the way they study.