Despite how common it is for people to speak at least a little English, it is widely regarded as one of the most difficult languages to master. There are many reasons why it’s so tricky, but a common difficulty non-native speakers cite is the use of idioms. As English speakers, we use so many phrases that are not to be taken literally. We often don’t realize it, but idioms are a dime a dozen in English. We’ve got to remember to cut non-native speakers some slack when they’re trying to wrap their heads around this crazy language.

Other common frustrations people find with the English language are homophones, homographs, and homonyms (oh my!). Homophones are words that sound the same but are different in meaning or spelling. For example, I want to hear you play music here at home. They're going to be there any minute now. Homographs are spelled the same, but differ in meaning or pronunciation. For example, on your birthday, I will present you with a present. I’m going to record an album to sell at the record store. My garden produces produce. You get the idea. And lastly, homonyms can be either or even both. Yeah, that explanation is even confusing for me. We can just agree to ignore homonyms...

English creates varying challenges depending on the learner’s native language. One issue many find with English is the level of formality can be unclear. As the United Language Group explains on their site, “Languages like Spanish, Korean, and Japanese have different verb conjugations based on the level of formality.” It can be very challenging to learn the appropriate vocabulary used in various situations when communicating in English. 

Next, due to the vast amount of English speakers worldwide, dialects can be hard to navigate. The United Language Group notes that, “Standard American English is different than British English, which is also different than Australian English.” Each country also contains a multitude of dialects and accents, causing confusion for native speakers as well.

Speaking from my own experience as a native Texan who has also lived in California, Northern England and Southern England, English is not "just English". I have made a fool out of myself more times than I would like to admit because I didn’t know what a “jumper” was in England or that the word “pants” in England does not mean the same thing that it does in Texas. (The word I was looking for was trousers, and the thing they thought I was mentioning was what I call underwear…) Knowing that I've had a hard time navigating vocabulary in the same language I’ve spoken my entire life, I feel a lot of empathy for those trying to tackle this behemoth of a language.

Another reason English can be so challenging is because often, grammar “rules” just go out the window. My elementary school teachers drilled into my head rules such as “I before E except after C” (to remember how to spell words such as piece and receive), but it’s simply not always true. What about words like protein and leisure? Past tense verbs are hard to remember as well, because they don’t always follow the “just add -ed to the end” rule. We danced and dined, but we also drank, ate and sang. There are countless instances in English of the grammar rules proving to be less than 100% effective. 

Another fun quirk of English is how many words look like they should rhyme but are pronounced differently. Let me give you some examples: cough, though, tough, through. I’d like to hear the rule teachers use to try to justify words like that. On the contrary, words like bed, said and read do rhyme. Just thinking about these words is starting to give me a headache, so I’m going to take a break. And we'll move onto the wonderful world of silent letters...

English is by no means the only language featuring silent letters (anyone who took French in college knows the silent letter struggle well). But they are quite common in English. Countless words end in silent e's for some reason: have, bake, excite, desire, etc. But many words feature silent letters in the beginning or middle as well: psychology, doubt, listen, debt, subtle, design, foreign, etc. Then there is the complication of confusing letter combinations. Both letters help to create a sound, but not what would be expected at first glance. I'm talking about words like physics, enough, burn, great, etc. We're used to these words, but when you really stop to think about them, the spelling is questionable.