English: a difficult or easy language to learn? Why Russian is harder to learn than English

20.07.2022

More than 100 years ago, the playwright Oscar Wilde, through the mouth of one of his heroes, said that in England and America "today everything is the same, except, of course, the language."

It turns out that, according to linguists, he was not far from the truth. Recently, however, the two languages have begun to converge. Languages change over time - some faster than others. Some languages reflect the changes taking place in the world around them, highlights a new study published by the Royal Society of London (Royal Society).

Universal and historical factors come into play, and languages have been found to change at different rates. The authors of the study used the Goole Books Ngram corpus database to analyze the use of words and expressions over the past five centuries in eight languages. They analyzed 8 million books, which, according to Google's own data, is approximately 6% of all published books. Google also scanned these books, thus creating a corresponding database.

Linguists have always been aware of the differences in language changes, but this time the gigantic Google database was explored, which in its volume far exceeded all previous objects of research. The group of scientists participating in this work turned out to be international in composition, which, paradoxically, caused its own language problems.

The study's lead author was Søren Wichmann, a Dane at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. Its co-authors were Valery Solovyov, a linguist at Kazan Federal University, located in the Republic of Tatarstan in Russia, and astrophysicist Vladimir Bochkarev, also from Kazan, whose interests include languages.

This study was carried out at the Kazan Linguistic Laboratory.

The work was complicated by the fact that Wichman does not speak Russian, and Bochkarev does not speak English. Wichman's wife sometimes acted as an interpreter. When it wasn't there, they used Google translator, which wasn't always helpful.

Each verbal form was considered a separate word; words such as "parking" (park) and "parked" (parked) were counted as two different words.

The process they used is called glottochronology by linguists. Language is shaped by culture “One word that used to be special can take on a broader meaning and replace another word that had an equally broader meaning,” Wichmann noted. Sometimes it's just a matter of fashion, sometimes external events have an influence.

So, for example, in early English, the word "hound" was used to refer to a dog (dog). Today the word "hound" denotes a special breed of dog.

The reverse process probably occurs with the word "vodka" (vodka), which sometimes replaces the word "liquor" (alcohol).

“Any important change in society is reflected in the frequency of the use of words,” Wichmann emphasized.

According to researchers, for the most part, languages change at the same rate, but this rate is usually measured in time terms such as half a century, unless something special happens, such as a war.

According to Wichmann However, during the wars, language vocabulary changed faster as new words like “Nazis” were included, and people began to think about things that they had not thought about before the outbreak of hostilities, Wichmann noted.

During the Victorian era, at the height of the British Empire and at a very stable time for Britain, the language remained fairly stable. With the advent of unrest and chaos in the 20th century, the change in the vocabulary of the language began to occur more rapidly. Since about 1850, British English and American English have been the same - except that the British version was about 20 years behind. New words entered the lexicon of American English, and in Britain they appeared only 20 years later.

Then, starting in 1950, under the influence of the media, these two languages began to converge. Today they are much more similar than before, Wichmann noted.

I have always been interested in the question of why some languages are more difficult for adults to learn than others?

According to the researchers, our languages contain what linguists call a "kernel lexicon", that is, a list of words that make up 75% of the written language. If you know these words, then you can understand most of the literature. These are also words that are less susceptible to change even if the language itself changes.

The basic lexicon of the English language includes less than 2400 words. If you know them, then you can read 75% of the text. The basic lexicon of the Russian language includes approximately 24,000 words. Although there are about 600,000 words in the English language, and Russian has only a sixth of this number, without knowing the 21,000 basic Russian words, texts written in Russian will be largely incomprehensible.

“Just because a particular word may be in active use in a given period doesn't mean it has to be new,” said Brian Joseph, noted professor of linguistics at The Ohio State University in Columbus.

So, for example, at present, the word “cupcake” (capcake) has a similar trend in English. Sometimes words are combined, as happened with the word "labradoodles" (labradoodles). Definitions also change. Some words in Shakespeare's time meant one thing, but we use them to mean something else, said David Lightfoot, a professor at Georgetown University in Washington, DC. The word "scientist" is present in the modern lexicon, but until the 19th century, people in this profession were called natural philosophers."

photo: primuzee.ru

Sometimes vocabulary changes can tell us more than we think.

In recent years, the word "divorce" has become more common than the word "marry" (marry), Wichman noted. Here, perhaps even more tellingly, the word "information" (information) replaces the word "wisdom" (wisdom). Joel Shurkin is a freelance journalist based in Baltimore; he is the author of nine books on science and the history of science, and teaches journalism at Stanford University, the University of California, and the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

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Learning English, like any foreign language, comes with a number of challenges. Where do these difficulties come from and can they be overcome? This vital issue for any person learning English will be discussed.

Reason one: differences in mentality. It is obvious that the pictures of the world of a Russian person and an Englishman are very different. Accordingly, the language as one of the embodiments of the national worldview is mastered along with new outlooks on life, which can be quite useful, but requires additional efforts. Differences in linguistic pictures of the world are especially visible in folk wisdom - proverbs and sayings, which quite often cannot be adequately translated. For example:

The proof of the pudding is in the eating- To know what a pudding is, you have to taste it (literal translation).

Reason two: differences in the articulation base. When setting up pronunciation, a good teacher will certainly pay attention to those sounds that are not typical for the Russian language. It is their development that should be given time. For example, English [r], which is pronounced differently than Russian [r]. Another stumbling block is interdental sounds, which many Russian speakers, especially adults, are simply embarrassed to pronounce.

Reason three: different grammatical systems. English differs from Russian in the absence of a developed case system. However, this is offset by numerous aspects and tenses of the verb. English is strong with a verb, the forms of which Russian speakers have to learn for a long time, since often there are no similar differences in our native language. For example, a Russian sentence:
I wrote a letter
Can be translated in three ways if there is no context
I've written the letter. or
I wrote the letter. or
I had written the letter.
And the more exercises you do on the use and comparison of temporary forms, the stronger your knowledge will be.

Reason four: syntactic differences. In Russian, such wonderful phrases as “Evening” are possible. Unlike Russian rules for constructing sentences, English syntax does not allow such pearls, but requires the obligatory presence of a subject and a predicate.

So our “Evening” in English will be “Night was falling”. Particular attention is required to the word order in the interrogative sentence and the use of auxiliary verbs.
These are the main difficulties that prevent native Russian speakers from learning English. Now that you know what to pay attention to when working on your English, you will achieve good results and your Russian will not interfere with your English.

Read more about the problems of learning English and how to solve them on the So-Easy conversation club website!

Probably, many of you have heard the following phrase: "English is very easy to learn to speak it, and very difficult to learn to speak it well." But we want to reassure you: this is just a joke. Is there any truth in it? Is it difficult to learn English? The coin has two sides, so we invite you to find out why English is considered easy and why it is also considered difficult. At the end of the article, we will give some interesting facts about the language and tell you how to cope with the difficulties that arise.

Why is English so easy

Everything is relative, isn't it? If we compare English with some other languages, we realize that it is quite easy. Admire the Chinese or Japanese characters, and the Arabic script is worth something ... No, compared to them, English is definitely a very simple language!

When I hear somebody sigh, “Life is hard”, I am always tempted to ask, “Compared to what?”.

When someone sighs: "Life is a hard thing ...", I always want to ask: "Compared to what?"

And now let's move on to the details. Why do we consider English easy:

English is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world. And this is no coincidence, because it is considered one of the simplest and most logical grammar among European languages.
Relatively simple lettering, there are only 26 of them in the English alphabet. For comparison: there are more than 80,000 hieroglyphs in Chinese, and the number of strokes in one character can reach 30!
Quite a lot of words "migrated" from English to Russian. Even those who do not learn English automatically memorize several hundred words that are often encountered in life. For example, we are all familiar with the concepts of "businessman", "bestseller", "management", "price list", "office". Some words even seem to us “our own”, Russian.
Nouns do not agree with adjectives in gender, number, and case. For example: “tall girl” - “tall girl”, “tall girls” - “tall girls”, “tall boy” - “tall boy”. As you can see, the adjective "tall" does not change despite the change in the number or gender of the object.
The noun has only singular and plural and two cases. That is, you can say “girl” (girl) and “girls” (girls) - this is one case that names an object.
The second case is used when you need to say that something belongs to someone, for example: “girl's doll” (girl's doll). And if something belongs to many girls, then we move the apostrophe behind the letter “s”: “girls’ dolls” (girls’ dolls).
In all other cases, the word "girl" does not change. For example, you can give a girl her doll: give a GIRL her doll. You can talk to the girl: talk to the GIRL.
As you can see, dealing with cases in English is much easier than in Russian.

Why is English so difficult

There is also an opposite point of view: English is difficult, in order to master it well, you need to learn it for a long time. You probably have a question: how long to learn it and is it possible to “learn” it? We advise you to read the article "", it will answer your questions.

English, like any other language, is constantly changing: new idioms, slang expressions, words borrowed from other languages appear, and part of the vocabulary becomes obsolete and disappears from the spoken language. However, this is not the worst thing for students. Most students are afraid of grammar. What is difficult about it?

Time. It seems that there are a lot of them: as many as 3 tenses and each of them has 4 aspects, and if we also remember the passive voice ... Nevertheless, it is believed that English grammar is one of the most logical and simple. Do you know what is the most difficult thing in learning all these subtleties? Stop being afraid of them!
Articles. It is not always easy for a Russian person to understand why this cat is both “a cat” and “the cat”. There are no such difficulties in our native language. But nothing, and it can be dealt with!
Management of verbs. Verbs in English are used with different prepositions in different meanings. Since the control of verbs in Russian and English is not the same, students have to memorize them. For example, borrow smth FROM smb - borrow, borrow something At anyone. And how do you like such discrepancies: to approve OF smth - approve something, to depend ON smb/smth - depend FROM someone/something, to be popular WITH smb - to be popular At anyone.
The English language is full of paradoxes, you can read about some of them in the article “Paradoxes of the English language. Do you think English is easy? ".

And to make it easier for you to cope with the most common "difficulties" of English, use our life hack article "", from which you will learn how to easily get around all the "slippery places" in English grammar.

How to overcome difficulties in learning English. A few simple tips

Let go of fears and doubts. It is the fear of failure that stops us. Millions of people learn English, most often they are not geniuses, not linguists, they have an average ability for languages. Do not be afraid of mistakes, even carriers make them. We also do not always write correctly or speak Russian. However, this does not prevent us from communicating with people and understanding each other. Experience is the son of difficult mistakes, so don't be afraid to get this experience.
Try to find similarities in Russian and English. This will not only help you learn new vocabulary, but also broaden your horizons. For example, the word “talk” is very similar to the old Russian “interpret”, the word “child” is similar in sound to “child”, and the word “brave” is consonant with our “bravy”. And the word “humor” - “humor”, didn’t it come from the good old word “hilarious”? And “skate” - “horse”, it’s from the word “roll down”! Agree, it is much easier to learn English this way.
Study not only the textbook, but also fascinating supporting materials: videos, audio lessons, songs, films in English. In the social network, you can subscribe to the news of communities of English lovers. We advise you to pay attention to the blogs of language teachers and linguists, where you can find useful tips and subtleties of learning English.
If you have difficulty with any section of grammar, devote as much time as possible to it, use the studied material in communication with the teacher, classmates, foreigners. Bring skills to automatism.

The most interesting "difficulties" of the English language

Summing up, we cannot tell you that English is very simple and easy to learn in 1-2 months. But it is not at all as complicated as it seems at first glance. Yes, it has its own characteristics and "pitfalls", but these barriers can be overcome if there is a desire. Good luck with your learning!

It is interesting to know which language is more difficult to learn - Spanish, English or some other. One of the most difficult is Russian, and the most common is English.

Is English difficult?

We often hear about the question of the difficulty of learning English. It must be admitted that English is far from being the most difficult language in the world. When compared to Polish, Chinese, Arabic or Russian, it is easy.

Why is it so difficult for Russian-speaking people to learn English? This is due to the fact that the Russian language is inflectional, that is, words can be put in a sentence as you like, while in English each word is in its specific place.

Some words are known to us due to the fact that they are used in Russian as borrowed from English. These are words such as elevator, rails, manager, finish, as well as jeans, content, and so on. In addition to such words, there are international words that sound the same in many languages. These are the words satellite, microscope, republic, police, etc.

If we believe the conclusions that British researchers made in their time, English is the most positive and simple language in comparison with other world languages.

Grammar is the backbone of every language. English in terms of grammar is one of the most logical and simple European languages. Due to the fact that there are practically no personal endings in English, it can be classified as an analytical language. Due to the lack of personal endings, it has a wide structure of grammatical tenses.

The main thing when studying is to understand that knowing the times does not mean knowing the language. Many have a fear of the times, which makes it impossible to continue the study.

The real difficulty in learning English is the many prepositions. They have to be taught for a long time and conscientiously, they have noticeable semantic functions, prepositions are used very actively in the language.

However, learning a language of any complexity will require both time and effort. It is impossible to learn any language both well and quickly. By the way, according to the site, the longest word in the world is in English. You can read more about the longest words in the world.

Difficult Russian

All those who have decided to study Russian declare considerable difficulties. Comparing Russian with other languages, we can confidently say that it has features that are absent in many other languages. Most often in Russian, the order of the placement of words in a sentence is confusing, this is due to the fact that it is not fixed. So, words can go in absolutely different sequences, the most important thing is that the meaning and logic of what was said does not change.

The difficulty during the study of the Russian language by foreigners causes case declension. Another difficulty lies in the very long spelling of some words. It also causes difficulties that in Russian there are a considerable number of rules and an even greater number of exceptions to them. This language is difficult not only for foreigners, but also for ordinary students, for whom it is native.

Is Spanish difficult?

The question of the complexity of the Spanish language is not uncommon, as it is taught in universities and schools in many countries. Being a Romance language, this language is similar to Portuguese, Italian, Romanian and French. They have a lot in common. This melodic language is not considered difficult to learn.

If we compare the grammar of Spanish with the grammar of the Russian language, then it is simpler. To master it, with hard work, one month is enough. In the same month, it is quite possible to learn a thousand words. This will be enough for simple communication.

It is believed that learning Spanish is much easier for native speakers of an Indo-European language, such as Russian or Icelandic. When communicating with Spanish speakers, it is difficult to get used to the fact that they pronounce consonants indistinctly. Having mastered elementary grammar and having some vocabulary, it is often recommended to start communicating with a Spanish speaker, which will greatly speed up the learning of Spanish.

The most difficult foreign language in the world

When learning any foreign language, one should not take into account many myths. We often hear that the language must be learned by all means from early childhood. There is also a myth that the teacher must necessarily be a native speaker of the language being studied. Another myth is that the language must be learned in the country where it is the state language.

It is known that, according to conservative estimates, there are no less than forty thousand languages and dialects in the world. Eastern groups of languages are considered one of the most difficult. Problems in the study cause both Arabic script and hieroglyphs. However, it is impossible to say unequivocally which language is the most difficult. This is influenced by several factors, including the degree of complexity depends on what language is native to a person who has begun to study a foreign language.

Neurophysiologists report that the most difficult language to master is the one that is difficult for the brain of a native speaker to perceive. The most difficult languages they call Chinese and Arabic.

We can confidently say that the Russian language, which is very difficult for the majority, is easier to learn by Czechs and Ukrainians, but for the Japanese it can be too difficult. If we talk about the complexity of the language, evaluating its writing, then the most difficult languages \u200b\u200bare recognized as Chinese, as well as Japanese and Korean.

Many people agree that Basque is the hardest language, since it is not related and does not resemble any known language, this applies not only to the languages of the living, but also of the dead. Its carriers are approximately six hundred and sixty thousand people. Basque has an extremely complex verbal structure. Scientists conclude that it arose even before the appearance of the Indo-European language group. The conclusion suggests itself that no matter what language a person is native to, mastering Basque will be extremely difficult for him. Eskimo, Chippewa, Tabasaran and Haida are also recognized as the most difficult.
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More than 100 years ago, the playwright Oscar Wilde, through the mouth of one of his heroes, said that in England and America "today everything is the same, except, of course, the language." It turns out that, according to linguists, he was not far from the truth. Recently, however, the two languages have begun to converge.

Languages change over time, some faster than others. Some languages reflect the changes taking place in the world around them, highlights a new study published by the Royal Society of London (Royal Society). Universal and historical factors are influencing, and languages have been found to change at different rates.

The authors of the study used the Goole Books Ngram corpus database to analyze the use of words and expressions over the past five centuries in eight languages. They analyzed 8 million books, which, according to Google's own data, is approximately 6% of all published books. Google also scanned these books, thus creating a corresponding database. Linguists have always been aware of the differences in language changes, but this time the gigantic Google database was explored, which in its volume far exceeded all previous objects of research.

The group of scientists participating in this work turned out to be international in composition, which, paradoxically, caused its own language problems.

The work was complicated by the fact that Wichman does not speak Russian, and Bochkarev does not speak English.

Wichman's wife sometimes acted as an interpreter. When it wasn't there, they used Google translator, which wasn't always helpful.

In this study, participants analyzed written languages that are more conservative in their forms and did not study spoken languages for which the necessary data had not yet been collected. They mainly paid attention to how often the words were used. Each verbal form was considered a separate word; words such as "parking" (park) and "parked" (parked) were counted as two different words.

The process they used is called glottochronology by linguists.

Language is shaped by culture

“One word that used to be special can take on a broader meaning and replace another word that had an equally broader meaning,” Wichmann noted. Sometimes it's just a matter of fashion, sometimes external events have an influence. So, for example, in early English, the word "hound" was used to refer to a dog (dog). Today the word "hound" denotes a special breed of dog. The reverse process probably occurs with the word "vodka" (vodka), which sometimes replaces the word "liquor" (alcohol).

“Any important change in society is reflected in the frequency of the use of words,” Wichman said. Most languages change at the same rate, according to the researchers, but that rate is usually measured in time terms such as half a century, unless something special happens, such as a war. According to Wichman, the vocabulary of the language changed faster during the wars, as new words like “Nazis” were included, and people began to think about things that they had not thought about before the outbreak of hostilities, Wichmann noted.

Since about 1850, British English and American English have been the same - except that the British version was about 20 years behind. New words entered the lexicon of American English, and in Britain they appeared only 20 years later.

Then, starting in 1950, under the influence of the media, these two languages began to converge. Today they are much more similar than before, Wichmann noted.

Challenges related to learning languages

I have always been interested in the question of why some languages are more difficult for adults to learn than others? According to the researchers, our languages contain what linguists call a "kernel lexicon", that is, a list of words that make up 75% of the written language. If you know these words, then you can understand most of the literature. These are also words that are less susceptible to change even if the language itself changes. The basic lexicon of the English language includes less than 2400 words. If you know them, then you can read 75% of the text. The basic lexicon of the Russian language includes approximately 24,000 words. Although there are about 600,000 words in the English language, and Russian has only a sixth of this number, without knowing the 21,000 basic Russian words, texts written in Russian will be largely incomprehensible.

“Just because a particular word might be in active use in a given period doesn’t mean it has to be new,” said Brian Joseph, noted professor of linguistics at The Ohio State University in Columbus. So, for example, at present, the word “cupcake” (capcake) has a similar trend in English.

Sometimes words are combined, as happened with the word "labradoodle" (labradoodles).

Definitions also change. Some words in Shakespeare's time meant one thing, but we use them to mean something else, said David Lightfoot, a professor at Georgetown University in Washington, DC. The word "scientist" is present in the modern lexicon, but until the 19th century, people in this profession were called natural philosophers."

Sometimes vocabulary changes can tell us more than we think. In recent years, the word "divorce" has become more common than the word "marry" (marry), Wichman noted.

Here, perhaps even more tellingly, the word "information" (information) replaces the word "wisdom" (wisdom).

Joel Shurkin is a freelance journalist based in Baltimore; he is the author of nine books on science and the history of science, and teaches journalism at Stanford University, the University of California, and the University of Alaska Fairbanks.