Why English is so hard to learn (and what to do about it)

When you learn English, do you feel like your head is going to explode?

If so, you’re not alone.

In this article, I’ll discuss 5 reasons why English is so difficult to learn.

Then I’ll offer advice on how to deal with the difficulty of learning English.

Let’s get into it.

Reason #1: Complicated Grammar Rules

If you’ve ever studied English grammar, you know how confusing it is.

There are a lot of rules (and exceptions) to remember.

For example, you have to memorize many irregular verbs like these:

become	became	become
begin	began	begun
choose	chose	chosen
do	did	done
feel	felt	felt
get	got	got / gotten
know	knew	known

You also have to study English tenses, which are impossible to master because their usage is so confusing.

For example, the Present Continuous tense (I am doing) has various usages.

We can use it to talk about something that’s happening at the time of speaking. (I’m writing an article.)

We can use it talk about an activity that’s ongoing, unfinished, or incomplete. (I’m learning to play the guitar.)

Or we can use it to talk about future plans. (“I’m visiting my parents on Saturday.)

That’s not all. You also have to learn other difficult topics like prepositions (in, on, at, of), confusing sentence structure (I saw him do something vs. I saw him doing something), and much more!

To top it off, even after a lot of studying, most English students still cannot speak English well…even though they know most grammar rules.

This is because when they’re speaking English, they have to form sentences quickly. There’s no time to think about those rules.

Reason #2: You’re Not a Baby Anymore

When it comes to language learning, babies have a couple of advantages over adults.

First of all, their hearing is amazing. They can easily hear the difference between two very similar sounds in any language.

But as they get older, they start to lose the ability to hear sounds that are not present in their native language.

For instance, a 6-month-old Japanese baby can hear the difference between the R and L sounds of the English language (although the two sounds aren’t present in Japanese).

But at one year old, that same baby can no longer hear the difference.

This is why many Japanese people can’t differentiate between words like “rock” and “lock.” To them, they sound the same.

Personally, I have trouble hearing the difference between the ‘ch’ and ‘sh’ sounds. (My native language has only one sound that’s similar to these two.) So it’s hard for me to differentiate between words like “chair” and “share.” They kind of sound the same to me.

But to a baby or native English speaker’s ears, the difference is as clear as night and day.

Reason #3: Language Interference

Language interference is when the knowledge of your native language causes you to use English incorrectly.

An obvious example is when you speak English with a foreign accent (because your native language influences your pronunciation of English).

Unfortunately, your first language not only affect your accent, but also your English grammar.

For instance, the German noun “information” can also be used in the plural from: “Informationen.” So some German students use “informations” in English too, which is incorrect.

Here’s another example: as a Thai person, I find English prepositions (at, in, on) to be particularly difficult. The Thai language has prepositions too, but we use them differently.

In Thai, There are no “perfect” counterparts for at, in, and on.

So when I use English prepositions, I sometimes accidentally apply the rules of the Thai language, which leads to grammatical mistakes.

Of course, children don’t have this problem because they have no preexisting knowledge of any language.

It’s no wonder why learning English as a second language is so hard.

Reason #4: Ineffective Learning Methods

If you’re like me, you probably started learning English in school (or in college).

In school, you probably sat in class, listening to the teacher, or memorizing some grammar rules.

Or if you’re learning English by yourself, you might be spending a lot of time passively watching English lessons on YouTube.

Sadly, this is not an effective way to learn English at all. It’s completely different from the way you learned your first language.

I’m speaking from personal experience here.

I used to study grammar in school and college. (I always got the best grades.) But after graduating and getting a job at an international company (where I had to communicate in English with my foreign co-workers), I realized that my spoken English was pretty bad.

Have you studied grammar a lot? Have you watched many English lessons on YouTube?

If so, are you able to speak English well?

If not, it means what you’ve been doing isn’t working.

When you use ineffective learning methods, it’s going to be difficult (or even impossible) to improve your English.

Reason #5: No Speaking Partner

If you want to improve your listening, reading, or even writing skills in English, that’s quite manageable. You can learn and practice these skills by yourself at home.

But what if you want to improve your spoken English?

This is when things get complicated.

To improve your English speaking skills, you need a practice partner — someone you can speak English with. (That person should be able to speak English quite well.)

For many people, it’s hard to find someone like that.

Perhaps they don’t live in an English-speaking country.

Or maybe they do, but their lifestyle doesn’t allow them to communicate in English much.

If this is you as well, it’s going to be hard to learn to speak good English.

So What Should You Do?

Okay. Enough about the problems.

What about the solutions?

How can you make it easier to learn English?

Let me offer some English learning tips for you.

1. Use proper methods to learn English

Let me ask you a question?

What is your native language? (Mine is Thai.)

Whatever your native language is, I’m pretty sure it has a lot of confusing rules and exceptions just like English.

Despite how complicated your language is, you became fluent in it without studying grammar rules!

How was that even possible?

It was possible because you learned the language the proper way: by listening and speaking the language every day.

If you want your English to be good, you must learn English in a way that’s similar to how you learned your first language.

First, you must listen and read English materials that interest you.

When you listen to or read something in English, you get to see many examples of how the language is used. This is the proper way to learn any language.

Don’t worry about English grammar. Your brain has the ability to learn grammar automatically (by simply being exposed to English).

When you listen to an English conversation, your brain is actually learning English grammar behind of scenes. You don’t need to waste time studying grammar at all (unless you want to improve your writing skills).

If you want more information about this automatic learning process (including scientific explanations), I highly suggest that you read my article about how to learn English grammar.

2. Learn to practice English speaking alone

Do you want to improve your English speaking skills?

These are “active” skills. Which means they require “active” practice.

Listening and reading alone will not make you speak English well.

You need to practice speaking.

If you don’t have a speaking partner, no worries.

There are ways to practice speaking English by yourself.

Check out this guide: How to practice speaking English.

You’ll love this guide because most of the speaking exercises in it can be done alone.

3. Put in the time

English fluency is like any other skill. The more time you spend learning and practicing, the better you get.

And since English is complicated, it requires a huge time investment.

Even if you use the right methods, you will not get results unless you dedicate a lot of time to it.

So if you’ve been learning English (the right way) for a while but still feel like your English hasn’t improved much, it simply means you have not put in enough time.

The solution is simple: spend more time learning and practicing.

The more time you spend, the easier English will be for you.

There’s no way around it.

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Thanks for reading. I hope you find this article useful.

As an English student myself, I also think the English language is very hard to learn.

But there’s nothing to fear. If you have proper learning strategies, the right mindset, and patience, you can certainly improve your English.