Carlos Andrs Escalona Contreras

A01377517

Difficulties in learning English

Learning a second language always represents a challenge, in this case, English is very
different from Spanish in many ways so the task is bigger. Despite there are certain difficulties
all Spanish-speakers have to deal with when they are studying it, this does not mean that it is
as complicated as it sounds so if you are aware of these beforehand you will have a better
and faster progress.
English is one of the most spoken languages all over the world and due to our neighbour
USA; we have the necessity to learn English to communicate with them and with many other
nations, as well to succeed as international professionals. That is why, since decades ago in
Mexico, English has been incorporated to the educational basic system so that young
students could develop their abilities at early ages.
Spelling affects pronunciation and subsequently pronunciation influences listening and
speaking abilities. English becomes troublesome when there are silent letters in a word.
Although there are spellings rules for these, it is sometimes problematic to identify them. Also
the th sound is hard to pronounce, because it is comparatively uncommon in other
languages like in ours. Another difference is the number of consecutive consonants which are
able to group together in a syllable, up to three which give a different sound to the following
vowel.
Some of most common challenges are related to pronunciation because it is usually
inconsistent. For example, in our language, vowels have only one sound but in English that
depends on their position among the word. This becomes confusing since the beginning and
even when you have better skills, it is regularly needed a dictionary to check its pronunciation
because you can not always guess the pronunciation from the spelling. You can consider that
sounds in English are particularly tricky and spelling rules difficult due to their many
exceptions. Also, Spanish has a more remarked accent than English, this means that the
facial expressions which go with the sounds are wider and rounder than in Spanish and in
consequence, consonants have not the strength that Spanish accent do. If it is not enough,
there are also many homophones, words that are spelled and/or pronounced the same, but
that have different meanings, which makes it harder to learn the vocabulary and harder to find
out the meaning from how the word sounds.
As with all languages, in English there are colloquialisms and phrases commonly used by
native speakers which involve their culture and traditions, those are called idioms. They are
tough to learn when you do not know the context where they are used. Do not forget slangs,
too, which are words, phrases or contractions used by a certain group of society; as well as
variations as a result of dialects, which some of them are specifically hard to understand.
However, practise is the best way to master any language and English gives advantages and
many benefits for those that communicate with it. If you consider all of the above, learning
English will be easier and less arduous.