MORE ABOUT LEARNING ENGLISH

English is an easy language to start learning because:

• it has no genders. Apart from people, all objects are 'neuter', not 'masculine' or 'feminine'. So you say 'it' for such things, and do not need to learn any genders.
• it usually has easy verb endings. Apart from a few 'irregular' verbs, verb endings are easy, and hardly change.
• adjectives remain the same for all words - there are no different endings to learn.
• the singular and plural pronoun 'you' is the same. There is no need to decide whether to use a polite form, or an intimate form, when speaking to someone as in French or German. (English used to have the singular form 'thou', which was often used in the intimate way like 'tu' or 'du'. In fact, in dialects in parts of England, this is still sometimes used. And in the Republic of Ireland, they have a very sensible plural form of 'you', when speaking to several people: 'yous'.)

The difficult parts of English are:

• the spelling of a word may not show what the pronunciation (way of saying) the word is.
  This is because English words came from many different sources. It is not a 'pure' language.
• because English came from two main sources - old French, and old Anglo-Saxon, there is a very large vocabulary of words. Words with similar meanings may have come from both sources. For example, START (from Anglo-Saxon) and COMMENCE (from old French). The meaning is similar, but not precisely the same.
• native English speakers use a lot of idioms, that is - words used in a way which is not their obvious meaning. An English speaker may say,

"I do not think much of apples."

This does not mean he doesn't often think about apples. It means that he does not like apples very much!

Yet he might say,

"I think nothing of going for a swim before breakfast."

What this really means is that he actually likes doing this, and that it is no problem to him!

But don't worry. You will find that you can understand and communicate even when you have not been learning English for long!