Why English is such a difficult

language!
 Problems teaching English
• The number 1 problem that English
teachers have in Korea is trying to get
students to speak in English.
• Students feel embarrassed and self
conscious when speaking because they
do not speak perfectly
• This is true in every country!
 Problems learning English
• Grammar and sentence structure
• First language interference
• Intonation
• Pronunciation
 Grammar and sentence structure
• English grammar is very strange.
• For example you only need to look at how
to form the simple past tense of verbs.
“If fight becomes fought
then surely Light becomes lought”
“If fly becomes flew
then surely try becomes trew”
“If write becomes wrote
then surely bite becomes bote”
 Grammar and sentence structure
• Or look at how to pluralize some nouns
“You have one mouse and two mice
Why not one house and two hice”

“You have one dish and two dishes

Why not one fish and two fishes”
Axis ~ Axes
Formula ~ formulae
Index ~ Indices
 Grammar and sentence structure
• From a sociological point of view the
reasons that grammar is so difficult is
because of the development of the
language and its many influences.
• The language developed first and the
grammar rules came later.
 First language interference
• Problem with sentence order.
– English (usually) follows Subject – Verb –
Object sentence structure
– Korean follows Subject – Object – Verb
sentence structure
• Not using articles.
• Easily mixed up words.
– Many / a lot of
– Fun / funny
• Konglish.
 Easily mixed up words
• There, They’re, Their
• You’re, Your
• It’s , Its
• Two, Too, To
• A lot, Lots of, A lot of
• Since , For
• Then, Than
• Has gone to, Has been to
• Enough
 Intonation
• Look at each of these sentences
– Which is the longest?
– Which one takes the longest to say?
“The beautiful mountain appeared
transfixed in the distance”
“He can come on Sundays as long as
he doesn’t have to do any homework in
the evenings”
 Intonation
• This exercise demonstrates a very
important point ~ English is a stressed
language.
• In English we give stress to some words
while other words are quickly spoken.
• This makes it difficult for the students to
understand
• And also difficult for them to speak
 Intonation
“He can come “He can’t come
on Friday” on Friday”
Content Words (Stressed) Function words
(unstressed)
• Nouns
• Determiners
• Most principal verbs
• Auxiliary verbs
• Adjectives
• Prepositions
• Adverbs
• Conjunctions
• Pronouns
 How to learn intonation?
• Listen to native speakers
• Try to mimic voice patterns
• Sing!
 Pronounciation
Often students will ask me “Why is ….
Pronounced like this when it’s spelt like …”
The answer…
To keep English teachers in business ^.^
 Pronunciation
• There are two main reasons why English
spelling seems to have no rules
• First external influences – words from
other languages
• The alphabet
How do we learn how to correctly
pronounce English?
 Some samples of English
pronunciation
• Heteronyms, homographs and
homophones
• English is a dreadful language
• English is tough stuff
 Web resources
Here are some helpful web resources with lots
of information and exercises about
pronunciation, intonation and grammar
•www.esl.about.com
•www.englisch-hilfen.de/en/index.htm
•www.dvc.edu/english/Learning_Resources/WhyEnglishIsSoHard.htm

•www.mapping.com/englishhard.html