Is it true that English is one of the hardest languages to learn?

Question

I have heard this before.  Is that true?

Answer 1

Favorite Answer

For a lot of people, it certainly isn't the easiest (Esperanto is). English is teeming with synonyms, homonyms, homographs, homophones.... and has spelling contests for *native* speakers.

Losing most grammatical endings made it easier to write songs in it, but also makes wordorder a lot trickier

Answer 2

Well, I sure don't know what anybody around here is talking about. 

Answer 3

About 1/3 of the worlds population have learnt at least basic English, which makes learning to that level easier - it's just about everywhere. Advancing beyond that is where it gets more difficult as there are so many exceptions to rules, special cases, irregular spellings and non-English words which are now part of the English language.

@Big Igloo 2020 - All languages borrow from each other; English takes other languages down dark allies, beats them senseless and steals what vocabulary it can...

Answer 4

I didn't find it hard to learn. It only depends on people ...

Answer 5

It is not true.  English is as easy or difficult to learn as any other language.  Most people find that the closer a native language is to the language being learned, the easier learning is, but that is not always so.  

Answer 6

I have, too, because it is a mutt language of all the other languages.