There are many people said that study English isn’t difficult, but there are also said that study English is very difficult too much. Yes, maybe it depends on each their motivation, or maybe because we have not talent to have bilingual or multilingual. But it seems that study English is not difficult as imagined but not easy as expected.
There are some problems that causes study English difficult:
1. Hard to remember English’s words.
Sometimes the word which we just know with easy gone from our brain. Maybe one factor is our concentration strength and our memorize strength. “We are getting older and older”.
2. Spelling the words.
Many people complain with this. I think there are not standard on English how to spell the letters on particular words, such as letters U, the word “PUT” we speak /u/, but the word “CUT” we speak /a/, besides that the different just P and C. confused, right? More examples letters O, the word “BOOK” read /u/, but the word “BLOOD” read /a/.
There are sounds on English that on Indonesians are not. Fortunately the words that not occur on our language are limited, such as sound –th- on the word THINK and THAT. But nevertheless many of us who can’t spell its correctly, replace it with sound /t/.
3. The sound is same but the word is different.
It makes us doubt, what the word that speaker speaks. Because sound that speaker speaks maybe different with our understanding. Such as “too”, “two”, and “to”; “whether” and “weather”; “hear” and “here”; “buy” and “by”; “there” and “their”; “witch” and “which”; “threw” and “trough”. It will make us misunderstanding what the speaker’s mean.
4. Hard to distinguish between Noun, Verb, adjective and etc.
Such as “smoke”, it be Noun and also Verb. Example: “Smoke on the water” (smoke = ASAP) but if “I smoke everyday” (smoke = MEROKOK). But “ROKOK” on English is “cigarette”. More example is “The accountant at the music store records(1) records(2) of the records(3). ( MENCATAT (1), Catatan/transaksi (2), KASET/REKAMAN (3) ).
5. Hard to write the word.
Don’t surprise if there person that very fluent, counts 1 – 10 on English very fluent and smooth, but try to write with word. Probably correct just “one” and another simple number. That for who still beginner. But who have felt the level of “intermediate to advanced” also have the same problem such word “ANGKET” and “KEWIRAUSAHAAN” on English.
6. The same word has different meaning.
While we translate from English to Indonesians or vice versa, we will find some problem especially if find the word that seems ordinary but when we translate, it disconnected with context of other sentences. It needs basic knowledge of the field to be translated. Such as “marketable security”, if not careful that word can be translates to be “SATPAM PASAR”. Besides the translation is “Surat-surat berharga”.
7. Irregular Verb.
This is what makes us does not irregular in making sentences. The problem is that our language has no irregular verbs. If we want to say “SAYA MAKAN” no matter whether the time is now, past, perfect, or routine. At least we add it, sentences “SEDANG, KEMARIN/TADI SIANG, SUDAH, SELALU”.
8. Irregular Plurals.
Usually if to make words plural just add -s behind the words, BOOK – BOOKS, etc. but not able to CHILD (to be CHILDREN), MAN (to be MEN), WOMEN (to be WOMEN), MOUSE (to be MICE).
9. Must be study much tenses.
In English, there are 16 tenses with different rules for each of tenses. They say if you want to speak English fluently his tenses must be fluent. Dizzy indeed. Try imagine if we could memorize all the tenses it outside of the head but could not do as well as communication with “jago kandang”. Yes, it is better than no good at all. Often, we understand tenses but does not know which one to use when they want to express an idea to know want to make a sentence.
10. Afraid false while speak English.
It is a psychological problem I guess, there are actually English is OK but not at all communication for fear of ridicule and fear, ultimately can not talk at all. There is a willingness to try to practice with the teacher or the fear of English that can be mistaken for someone else pretended to be “Bule”. If this rate when we can talk?
