For non-native speakers of english

[Devonitar]

I assume you are Finnish, what do you mean there are no perfect verb forms?

I'm actually Polish. Maybe I didn't say it right, but I meant grammatical tenses. We only have three of them, in the most basic form. That's why perfect aspects of tenses were quite outlandish to me, especially in speech.

[ingsve]

I'm a native English speaker, but to me, it would seem that the most difficult thing to fully grasp, would be the verb "to be." Its conjugations and usages seem to be unlike every other language.

No, that's not really true. The copula (the verb to be) in the indoeuropean languages is very old and is rather similar between many indoeuropean languages predating the various major spilts in the language family. that said, since it is such a common word to use in each language it does lend itself to alot of evolution so there will be some uniqueness to how the copula is specifically used in each language dispite the overall similarity.

[Puupi]

I'm actually Polish. Maybe I didn't say it right, but I meant grammatical tenses. We only have three of them, in the most basic form. That's why perfect aspects of tenses were quite outlandish to me, especially in speech.

Oh okay, just made a guess as Finnish doesn't have articles and your name sounds Finnish. -tar/tär ending is the same as -ess in English. Like Countess - Kreivitär. So your name is like Devoni-lady.

[Machismo]

No, that's not really true. The copula (the verb to be) in the indoeuropean languages is very old and is rather similar between many indoeuropean languages predating the various major spilts in the language family. that said, since it is such a common word to use in each language it does lend itself to alot of evolution so there will be some uniqueness to how the copula is specifically used in each language dispite the overall similarity.

Thanks for the information, guys. I have learned something today.

[Sigxy]

Hardest part for me is to understand why the english language wants to decorate the words so much. The word Queue does't need all the ueueueueueues. Just use 'Q' like the word 'I', one letter!

[Lord Pebbleton]

Nothing was hard.
In fact I get extremely annoyed when people make errors like "would of", "Your in trouble", It's you're turn".
And they even get mad if you point out their mistakes...

[Wildtree]

Hardest part for me is to understand why the english language wants to decorate the words so much. The word Queue does't need all the ueueueueueues. Just use 'Q' like the word 'I', one letter!

Queue isn't an English word. It's French. Derived from Latin

[SirMeo]

In/on/at/from etc.
Prepositions of time and place, basically :T I always pick the wrong one, it seems, and I rarely get corrected either so I keep making those mistakes :S

And I also have a bad habit of using the syntax of my native language, or just using weird expressions. I might accidentally say "I saw a dream" instead of "I had a dream" because the former would be how it's in my native language.

[Puupi]

Queue isn't an English word. It's French. Derived from Latin

But it's the Briton's favourite pastime!

[Deleted]

In fact I am confused how native speakers come to a point where they use "should of" instead of "should have"

pure ignorance, im afraid. or laziness.

[Vargur]

What was the hardest part in learning english for you?

I always struggled with things like hour because I pronounced the h not realizing it should be silent, three vs free, pronouncing the as de, a/an their/they're/there and "you" since english seemingly lack the means to distuingish one person from a general "you".

I have problems with remembering when to double letters and seldom with the simple past tense.

[Wildtree]

But it's the Briton's favourite pastime!

Now there he would have had a good example..
OU vs O..
Colour, Honour, Favourite, etc etc.. vs color, honor, favorite...
Spelling varies in English too. Which one is correct of the above examples?
My spell checker flags the British spelling. I'm pretty sure the Brit will see the American spelling flagged.

[W1sp]

For me it was 2 things the first which I still sometimes struggle with is there/their and also that when using the word I that it should be a capital letter where in Swedish it is not a capital letter

[Shoat]

Didn't really have any specific difficulties to report, but of course it took a while. I guess the hardest part was that I started really really late, we only had english lessons starting in 5th grade (and current kids start in 2nd or 3rd grade I think) which resulted in almost everyone of my generation just not even giving a shit and never attempting to learn.

What helped me most, alongside actually wanting to learn it, was... actually using english in my free time alongside learning it in class (reading/websites/games/subtitles). My reading/writing/understanding was pretty good, but I didn't really sound right until a few years later when I got into youtube big-time and started listening to youtubers (who were a good example of everyday-english, very helpful).

[Wildtree]

For me it was 2 things the first which I still sometimes struggle with is there/their and also that when using the word I that it should be a capital letter where in Swedish it is not a capital letter

there/their cannot confuse it if you use logic.
the caps issue.. sure, but unless you have to write something official, you can just write everything in lower caps the entire time.
If anyone bitches about that in casual conversation tell em to go fuck themselves while you fix your grammar lol

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My only problem I had briefly was how Americans decided to throw in roman numerals for shit and giggles.
No such thing as 1 in hand writing.. They make a plain | .. and if you choose to ignore it, then your 1 will likely be mistaken for a 7.
Took me really several weeks to get adjusted and not writing the 1 anymore.

[Explicit Teemo Nudes]

Nothing really, especially when I woke up and stopped trying to speak in an English or American accent. The words and the language generally aren't hard, faking your accent is.

As you are a Swede, you probably speak like other Swedes; so here is a question for you: why do you pronounce English words with an English/American accent when you are speaking Swedish? If you say an English word in the middle of Swedish and use an entirely different accent for that word it sounds absolutely idiotic. Swedes always do this. o_O

Can you give some examples of those words?
We say them as we hear them being spoken. To add some super Swedish accent to them would be weird unless you, on a personal level, do that naturally.

In the past we "Swedinized" English words to fit our grammar rules and overall language better, but nowadays we usually just take the words without changing them, which in turn gets weird when we use them together with our Swedish grammar rules(really common when talking gaming terms).
Some English words that we pronounce like English words but have changed to fit our language:
mail - mejl
site - sajt
and some that we translated one part of the word but not the other(don't ask me why):
grapefruit - grapefrukt
hair spray - hårspray

American English is like the "default" English we pick up. It's a lot harder for us to get a hang on British English and make it sound nice compared to American English.
Unfortunately a lot of Swedes seem to think that your English is bad if you speak with an accent - which really isn't the case.

@OP
I have no problem with their/there/they're, your/you're, a/an, etc - and I don't understand why other people do.
I also have no problem saying "three", "thing"(I don't understand why some people replace th with f) - but I most likely fail at using prepositions correctly("Should it be 'at' or 'in'?") and of course a lot of other grammar related things I fail at :P

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Not different pronunciation, but accent. I don't change the tone and pitch of my voice when there is an English word mixed in a sentence when I'm speaking Finnish. But Swedes do, and it's god damn weird - and they only do it for English. Or do you use Italian accent when you use the word "pizza" in a Swedish sentence?

We don't hear Italian or Italian accents often in our everyday lives. English we hear daily on TV, movies, music, etc so it isn't weird we pick up on one accent but not the other :P

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If this doesn't mess with a person's brain, I don't know what will when it comes to learning English.

http://conjugator.reverso.net/conjug...h-verb-be.html

I've had had it!

[ingsve]

Often when you see people get there/their/they're wrong it has nothing to do with confusion or not knowing the differnce. It's often just a quirk with muscle memory. You think the word "there" in your head but the connection between your thought and the muscle memory is not perfect so you can often just type out "their" instead since the words are identical in your head. Because of this you'll find that this mistake is not nearly as common when people have written something with pen and paper because that is not as automated in muscle memory as writing on a keyboard is. The same goes for its and it's for example and other homophones.

[Machismo]

Can you give some examples of those words?
We say them as we hear them being spoken. To add some super Swedish accent to them would be weird unless you, on a personal level, do that naturally.

In the past we "Swedinized" English words to fit our grammar rules and overall language better, but nowadays we usually just take the words without changing them, which in turn gets weird when we use them together with our Swedish grammar rules(really common when talking gaming terms).
Some English words that we pronounce like English words but have changed to fit our language:
mail - mejl
site - sajt
and some that we translated one part of the word but not the other(don't ask me why):
grapefruit - grapefrukt
hair spray - hårspray

American English is like the "default" English we pick up. It's a lot harder for us to get a hang on British English and make it sound nice compared to American English.
Unfortunately a lot of Swedes seem to think that your English is bad if you speak with an accent - which really isn't the case.

@OP
I have no problem with their/there/they're, your/you're, a/an, etc - and I don't understand why other people do.
I also have no problem saying "three", "thing"(I don't understand why some people replace th with f) - but I most likely fail at using prepositions correctly("Should it be 'at' or 'in'?") and of course a lot of other grammar related things I fail at :P

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We don't hear Italian or Italian accents often in our everyday lives. English we hear daily on TV, movies, music, etc so it isn't weird we pick up on one accent but not the other :P

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I've had had it!

All the faith he had had had had no effect on the outcome of his life.

[Deleted]

If this doesn't mess with a person's brain, I don't know what will when it comes to learning English.

http://conjugator.reverso.net/conjug...h-verb-be.html

Irregular verbs exist in most languages.

I raise you the verb "to be" in Portuguese: https://www.priberam.pt/dlpo/Conjugar/ser.
Furthermore, depending on the context and the meaning that you wish to convey, translating a sentence with the verb "to be" from English to Portuguese could result in one of two different verbs being used, "ser" or "estar".

From the point of view of any Romance-language speaker, understanding how to conjugate verbs in English (and in other Germanic languages) is quite easy.

Some other concepts are far worse, however. For instance, as opposed to Spanish, Portuguese doesn't have "it", only "he" and "she", so understanding the correct use of "it" takes a bit to master. The same is equally true (or arguably worse) for an English speaker trying to get into Portuguese: since there is no "it", every single (singular) subject is either a "he" or a "she", which also has an impact on, fx, how subjects are adjectivized.

I better stop here.

[Machismo]

Irregular verbs exist in most languages.

I raise you the verb "to be" in Portuguese: https://www.priberam.pt/dlpo/Conjugar/ser.
Furthermore, depending on the context and the meaning that you wish to convey, translating a sentence with the verb "to be" from English to Portuguese could result in one of two different verbs being used, "ser" or "estar".

From the point of view of any Romance-language speaker, understanding how to conjugate verbs in English (and in other Germanic languages) is quite easy.

Some other concepts are far worse, however. For instance, as opposed to Spanish, Portuguese doesn't have "it", only "he" and "she", so understanding the correct use of "it" takes a bit to master. The same is equally true (or arguably worse) for an English speaker trying to get into Portuguese: since there is no "it", every single (singular) subject is either a "he" or a "she", which also has an impact on, fx, how subjects are adjectivized.

I better stop here.

Conjugations in Spanish weren't too bad, and they are quite similar to Portuguese. Ser and estar weren't too rough, but their indicatives weren't as big of a pain to deal with as it seems we have in English. the standard conjugations are very similar, but the indicatives in English seem to be a major pain.