By Lubna Zeidan, iACT’s Refugee Program Co-Director

English is one of those languages that seem simple (especially to those who speak it fluently). When I hear others speak about how hard Arabic is for example (my second language), I can see how they would think that. The sounds of the Arabic alphabet can give an English speaker a headache as well as a scratchy throat when trying to make some of those guttural sounds. However, Arabic generally follows grammatical principles whereas English is more sporadic in its rules. So I would say that English is the harder language.

We at iACT teach English language classes to newly arrived refugees. The basics of English are not too complex, but as soon as you try to teach some rules, you run into trouble. Something as simple as plurals can turn confusing. Though most words use an s to indicate plural there are numerous other words that don’t- teeth, children and men are some examples of the “creative “ plural. And don’t forget those nouns that don’t pluralize like joy or sadness and of course some other words for no reason at all:  like deer and fish – well fishes can be used if you mean different kinds of fish (what?)

Words that don’t translate well into other languages like modal auxiliaries are another example of English’s difficulty. Try to teach the difference between

I could go

I can go

I would go

I should go

Add to that expressions like “would you mind if I opened the window”-  I dare you to find one new English speaker who would answer that correctly.

Another wonderful English idiosyncrasy is our phrasal verbs. These are the words made of a verb and a preposition that combine to mean something else entirely. Just with the word “look” you can create so many other meanings that have nothing to do with actually looking. You can look up something, look into another, look over your work, look down on your competitors as you look forward to beating them.

Though difficult to learn they are probably not as hard as our idiomatic expressions. – which are defined, incidentally, as “groups of words with an established meaning unrelated to the meaning of the individual words”. That in itself is a recipe for linguistic disaster- because you first need to learn the meaning of the word, then you should ignore that meaning as you learn something else that word with others can mean. You could be burning the midnight oil as you stir up a hornet’s nest and if you’re barking up the wrong tree you could unintentionally upset someone’s apple cart.

These are not expression you learn in most English language books- you learn them as you grow up and develop with your native language.  My husband who is a very fluent English speaker, was confounded as he watched an interview on TV “What in the world does it mean when you say “for crying out loud”?

What indeed?