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By William R. Jones
A while back, a gentleman wrote, "Why is English hard to learn?" He covered the topic quite well. He mentioned why English is confusing and that it demands great effort to learn it. He called attention to the vast vocabulary, spelling, grammar, pronunciation and even different accents. All of these things make almost any language hard to learn.
As English conversation teachers, we very much appreciate the effort made by Koreans and others to improve and increase their English skills.
English is my first language and due to the vast vocabulary, I am still learning. I always tell my students that American English is a combination of all the languages of the world. Some source languages of the English vocabulary include Latin (29 percent), French (29 percent), Germanic (26 percent), Greek (6 percent), other languages and/or unknown (6 percent), and (4 percent) derived from proper names. We have so many loanwords (borrowed words) and once they are placed in Merriam-Webster's dictionary, they are considered English words. For example, we have these from Korea: kimchi, taekwondo, hapkido, chaebol, gochujang, bibimbap, bulgogi, etc. and most recent are K-pop and soju.
English spelling has always been a rote memory problem for students. School spelling tests and spelling bee contests and writers and editors and publisher style guides maintain the conventional importance of the correct spelling of words. Today we see shortcuts in spelling with text messaging. The dictionary corrects me often. You probably know that the founders of Google misspelled by accident the word "googol," which is 1 followed by 100 zeros to describe the size of their database after checking if it was taken as a domain name. Google was registered as a trademark and web address before someone noticed that it was not correct.
What I have to say about grammar is, if I get what one is conveying, that's enough for me. But, I suppose grammar is very important to writers and news reporters, etc., and of course, pedantic English teachers. The meaning of English (semantic aspect) is so much more important than grammatical accuracy. Language functions properly only when it expresses meaning. The linguist Noam Chomsky's famous sentence "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously." is grammatically correct, however, it does not pass an information quality test. The sentence is meaningless and the content can be labeled as "non-information."
Sometimes we have no clue about the pronunciation of certain words when we look at the spelling of those words. For example, "via" can be pronounced with a "long i" or with a "long e." Usually, the first pronunciation shown in Webster's is the one that most people use. Silent consonants and silent vowels also confuse us. What makes English pronunciation even more challenging are the diverse non-native accents that are sometimes difficult to follow.
Overall, students do quite well in attaining English skills despite the mentioned obstacles and difficulties. A Canadian writer, Mark Abley stated, "Modern English is the Wal-Mart of languages: convenient, huge, hard to avoid, superficially friendly and devouring all rivals in its eagerness to expand." And perhaps, that is why it is the most chosen second language to be learned in the world.
I always tell my English conversation students: What you think, you can speak. What you speak, you can write. Too, I remind them of what the teddy bear Winnie-the-Pooh said: It is more fun to talk with someone who doesn't use, long, difficult words.
The author (wrjones@vsu.edu) published the novella "Beyond Harvard" and presently teaches English as a Second Language.
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