If you were to ask any linguist or polyglot what the most difficult language is to learn, the chances are that they would say it was Mandarin Chinese.
Why?
Well, it’s a tonal system for one-the meaning of a word changes depending on the pitch used-there are four main tones, plus a neutral one.
Then there’s the writing system itself-when we are learning English there are just 26 letters for us to remember and master but, in Mandarin Chinese, there are thousands of unique characters, each needing to be memorised.
Don’t forget the cultural context either-the languages meanings and expressions are often tied to history, tradition, and subtle nuance.
Finally, there’s the art of pronunciation-some sounds that make up Mandarin Chinese don’t exist in many other languages, making them hard to master for any learner.
English, on the other hand, is considered to be one of the easier languages to learn.
Why?
Our grammar rules are comparatively simple-we don’t have gendered nouns like there is in French or German and there are relatively few verb endings. English also has, as a language, massive global exposure (eg) films, music, internet, business, so there is ample and constant opportunities for students to learn and practice.
Having said that, English does have its trickier moments.
Spelling vs pronunciation for example-its widely inconsistent, think, for example, though, through, thought and tough.
Plus there are idioms (a phrase or expression that doesn’t relate in anyway at all to what is being described), for example, kick the bucket, spill the beans and let the cat out of the bag -and they don’t translate well either.
Many years ago I wrote to a friend of mine who lived in Portugal and, in a reference to the nations usual political turmoil, referred to everyday life as being dominated by ‘general mayhem’.
He genuinely thought that we were on the verge of a political coup that was being led by a General Mayhem.
And before you laugh-how’s your Portuguese?
Then there are those other quirks of the English language, namely homophones.
A homophone is a word that sounds exactly the same as another but has a different meaning and, quite often, a different spelling. Amongst the (numerous) classic examples are ‘to’, ‘too’ and ‘two’, or ‘flower’ and ‘flour’.
The term itself comes from the Greek, with homo- meaning ‘same’ and -phone meaning ‘sound’. The first recorded use of the word in English dates back to the early seventeenth century, with the Oxford English Dictionary citing an example from 1623.
English is particularly rich in homophones because our spelling system has, surprise surprise, a habit of clinging to the past.
Words like knight once had a pronounced k and gh but over time those sounds disappeared, while the spelling remained untouched. This left knight and night sounding exactly the same. Regional accents have added even more to the mix.
In many modern English dialects, pane and pain are now identical in sound, as are toe and tow. The distinction between wine and whine has vanished in most accents, and in some, even pairs like look and Luke or full and fool are impossible to tell apart in conversation.
Writers and poets have always been fond of homophones, especially for their potential in puns, wordplay and double meanings.
Dylan Thomas used them in Under Milk Wood with his ‘shops in mourning’ and ‘shops in morning’, while nineteenth-century poet Thomas Hood revelled in them: ‘His death, which happen’d in his berth, / They went and told the sexton, and / The sexton toll’d the bell.’
Homophones can be a source of humour and subtlety in literature, but they are also a stumbling block for learners of English. Teachers often turn to visual aids, rhymes and other tricks to help students tell them apart, as relying on spell-check alone won’t stop you from accidentally writing about a military colonel when you meant a popcorn kernel.
And here’s a little trivia for you. The longest set of English homophones is praesidii and presidii, both pronounced ‘pre-si-dee-eye’.
Colonel is a homophone of kernel because English borrowed it from the French coronel, then changed the spelling but not the sound.
Shakespeare was fond of them too. Much Ado About Nothing plays on ‘nothing’ and ‘noting’, which were pronounced the same in his time.
In most American accents, Mary, merry and marry are indistinguishable, though in some parts of New England they remain distinct. And while Guinness hasn’t officially confirmed it, wordplay enthusiasts have crafted entire sentences in which every word has at least one homophonic twin (eg) ‘Aisle bee sew shore two reed you're righting’ meaning ‘I’ll be sure to read your writing’.
Homophones, in short, are a reminder that in language, as in life, the same sound doesn’t always tell the same story.
They can trip us up, make us laugh or enrich our writing…
…but they always keep English interesting.
