The chaos behind learning a foreign language

But is English really so easy for non-native speakers to learn?

After all, it's the evolution of a Germanic language, Anglo-Saxon, that along the way begged, borrowed and stole from Latin, ancient Greek, French and many other languages.

As its speakers spread across the globe, it developed regional variants that remain comprehensible, but odd to other speakers. A British colleague once said after hearing one of my Americanisms, "Ah, the British and Americans－two peoples divided by a common language".

And through its many roots, vast spelling inconsistencies arose that carry over into pronunciation. In 1920, Gerard Nolst Trenite demonstrated the point with The Chaos, a poem that rhymes when the spelling says it shouldn't, and that doesn't when your eye tells you it must. Here's the beginning:

I will keep you, Susy, busy,

Make your head with heat grow dizzy;

Tear in eye, your dress will tear:

Queer, fair seer, hear my prayer.

Pray, console your loving poet,

Make my coat look new, dear, sew it!

Just compare, heart, hear and heard,

Dies and diet, lord and word.

Why is it that Chinese can so readily learn English, but expats in China have such difficulty with Chinese?

There must be er bai wu (250) reasons.

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