Challenges Adults Face When Learning English as a Second Language

Learning a new language can be challenging for adults, especially if they have been speaking their native language for a long time. As a bilingual person who learned Shona and English as a child, I have noticed some differences between these two languages that affect how I learn grammar from new languages. In this essay, I will discuss some of these differences and how they make it harder for adults to acquire a new language.

The spelling & pronunciation differences

The first difference is that Shona is a phonetically written language, meaning that the spelling matches the pronunciation. English, on the other hand, is not, meaning that there are many irregular spellings and sounds. For example, the letters ph, gh, and f can all have the same sound as in “phone,” “fort,” and “tough.” This means that if I had been an adult speaking only Shona and tried to learn English, this would be very difficult for me as word formation in Shona is simpler than in English. Moreover, English has spelling variations depending on whether it is British or American English.

Grammar

Another difference is between languages like German and English. In German, the verb “to have” is used where the verb “to be” is used in English. For example, some of my German students have said, “I have hunger” instead of “I am hungry.” Another common mistake is the use of “for my own” instead of “for my myself.” For example: “I want to see it for my own” instead of “I want to see it for myself” or “I can do it for my own” instead of “I can do it by myself.” For younger learners, this is not a big problem as they have not had years of language rules ingrained in their minds.

Tenses

The next thing is the expression of events with reference to time or tenses. I have noticed that some of my students from Asian countries such as Korea and Japan have problems with some of the English grammatical tenses. Most languages have only three tenses, while English has 12 grammatical tenses. I will use my second native language as an example. In Shona, the main verb does not change its form depending on the tense, but we use a word before the verb to show which tense it is. But in English, both the auxiliary and the main verb change to match the tense.

Articles and genders

One more thing I noticed with some of my students from European countries with languages that have articles with genders is that sometimes they use an article for female nouns. This is only for students who are pre-intermediate level or lower. Another thing that may also be confusing is that some letters have different sounds in different languages. For example, the German v is pronounced like the English f, and the German w is pronounced like the English v.

Phonetics

The last thing I want to look at is phonetics. I have noticed how some English sounds are unnatural for speakers of other languages. For example, some of my Arabic students struggle with the p sound in English as they make a sound very close to b. I also had an experience when I was teaching Chinese children how to read, and I struggled to pronounce their names as the vowel sounds were unfamiliar to me in both my native languages, English and Shona.

Due to these experiences, I have an understanding of what adult students go through when they try to learn English as a second language. As an English tutor, I try to understand the cause of the student’s recurring problems by looking for a root cause in their native tongue, and this has helped me assist many students in improving their speaking confidence.