Whenever people are asked, what in their opinion the most difficult languages to learn are, some old favourites invariably pop up. Many people list Japanese, Chinese and Arabic as a matter of course and with a little more though, add Finnish and Hungarian too. It is worth noting though, that for many non native speakers, English ranks very highly amongst the most difficult languages listed.

The main reason for this inclusion in people’s lists, is not necessarily one of the difficulty of English words themselves, but more a question of contradictory rules and exceptions; here are just two examples. ‘I’ before ‘ E’ except after ‘C’ and the use of the word component ‘ough’. This can actually be pronounced in eight different ways; the following sentence contains all eight: “A rough-coated, dough-faced ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough, coughing and hiccoughing thoughtfully”.

The English language of course, has been subject to many influences during the history of its development; Celtic, Roman, Norman and Low German to name but a few; indeed, during the middle ages, this ongoing mixture meant that people from even different districts of the same County would be barely intelligible to each other.

This ‘bolt on’ development of our language must surely qualify it as the one most likely to cause confusion to learners…unless anyone knows differently.