Why the English Language Is Hard to Learn (part 2 - the poem)

- Hello, this is Jack from tofluency.com

and this is why the English language

is hard to learn, part 2.

Now, be sure to stay until the end,

because I have an important lesson for you.

And, basically, I'm going to give you the key

to why I am making this video.

Now, today, we are going to read a poem

by Gerard Nolst Trenite.

And, it was written in 1920

by this Dutch writer, traveler, and teacher.

And, it's called "The Chaos"

and it says that this is a poem demonstrating

the irregularity of English spelling and pronunciation.

So, it's outlining the fact that English isn't phonetic,

that you can't know how a word is said

just from the spelling alone.

So, it's going to give us some examples of where

you're going to see words that have similar spellings

but different vowel sounds.

Okay?

So, let me read this poem to you,

but before I do, know that I had to look up

quite a few of the words here, because I didn't know

what some of them meant and I didn't know

how to say some of them.

And I'm probably going to make one or two mistakes in this,

and I'll let you know in the comments section if I do.

So, I'm going to read you this poem now.

And then, like I said, at the end,

I've got an important lesson from this poem.

Okay.

Here we go.

"Dearest creature in creation,

"studying English pronunciation,

"I will teach you in my verse

"sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.

"It will keep you, Susy, busy,

"make your head with heat grow dizzy,

"tear in eye, your dress you'll tear,

"So shall I!

"Oh, hear my prayer.

"Pray, console your loving poet,

"make my coat look new, dear, sew it?

"Just compare heart, beard, and heard,

"dies and diet, lord and word,

"sword and sward, retain and Britain.

"Mind the latter, how it's written.

"Made has not the sound of bade,

"say, said, pay, paid, laid, but plaid.

"Now, I surely will not plague you

"with such words as vague and ague,

"but be careful how you speak,

"say break, steak, but bleak and streak.

"Previous, precious, fuchsia, via,

"pipe, snipe, recipe, and choir.

"Cloven, oven, how, and low,

"script, receipt, shoe, poem, toe."

Okay, so that is the poem.

It is difficult to read.

Something that is interesting is

if we go back to this part here.

Just compare heart, beard, and heard.

When these words are part of a different sentence,

for example, we have a heart, and grow my beard,

he heard that, then I have no problem

saying them automatically.

But, when they're all together, you have to think about it

a little bit, and think, "Okay, what?

"Oh yeah, that word, that word, and that word."

So, the first thing is that, while this poem

is fun and it is difficult to read,

it's not representative of normal English.

So, it has been written in a way

to make it difficult to read to outline the fact

that when you have the word combo or letter combinations,

such as E-A-R, there could be three different

vowel sounds here.

Now, another example which isn't in this poem

is O-U-G-H.

There are many different ways that you can say,

I think there are eight in total,

O-U-G-H, like though, through,

plough, thought, for example.

I don't want you to try and read this poem

and then feel down about it.

I don't want you to say, "Ugh, English is too hard,"

because the key is this.

If you do the right things in English,

and if you get lots of listening practice,

and if you learn how words are pronounced,

either through online dictionaries, or by listening,

or by reading and listening at the same time,

then you're just going to naturally know

how to say these words.

Don't think about this as a logical problem,

the fact that we can have these letter combinations

that have different vowel sounds,

because if you do that, you're just going to feel down

about the fact that logically,

English is difficult to learn.

So, do the right things in English.

Do things like listening and reading at the same time.

Look up how a word is pronounced.

Listen a lot to English.

And then, you're just going to internalize

the way that words are said.

Just like everyone else who has learned English

has done in the past.

So, again, this poem is a bit of fun,

it's like a challenge, but don't take it too seriously.

Don't feel down and don't get upset about the fact

that, yes, English can be heard to learn.

But, just focus on doing the right things

and you are going to make fantastic progress

with your English.

Now, just another quick thing on this.

There are other languages in the world

that are difficult to learn because of a certain reason.

For example, in Spanish, you can conjugate a verb

in various different ways.

So, I see memes and pictures that say,

like, a verb in English, the different ways

to conjugate the verb, okay?

And then, you have the verb in Spanish

and the different ways to conjugate the verb.

And, when I was learning Spanish, I looked at this

and thought, "Ugh, this is difficult.

"How am I ever going to learn it?"

But, I used methods like the To Fluency method

just to internalize the conjugations,

to learn Spanish through sentences,

and then, learn the most commonly used phrases

and internalize that type of grammar.

So again, it's just about doing the right things

and don't worry about why something might be

difficult to learn.

Just do the right things on a daily and consistent basis

and make fantastic progress.

Okay, if you have enjoyed this lesson,

please like and share it.

Go to the description and check out lessons

that are similar to this one.

And also, I've got some great resources for you.

Things like my book "The 5-Step Plan for English Fluency",

which is free to download, and also, the To Fluency program,

which teaches you things like

how to say vowel sounds, consonant sounds, minimal pairs,

the schwa sounds, connected speed, relaxed pronunciation,

everything you need to know

in order to be able to speak English fluently.

So, go check that out too.

Thank you so much for watching.

Buh-bye for now.

(upbeat electronic music)