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the hardest part of learning to speak English is memorizing over 20,000 English words

I think that with most latin languages, the grammar would be hardest. My native is English but I'm currently learning French which is similar I could say is similar in terms of the depth of the grammer. I'm also learning Chinese and it's like a breath of fresh air. It has its grammar and exceptions but not as challenging as English or French grammar. In fact, I can say that from my experience, people think English as a subject in school is the hardest. In all my years of school, everybody always fails. English grammar=headache.

I come from china, I think, the hardest part of learning English is pronunication, because you know, many techer in china, especially rural English teachers, their pronunciation were non-standard, so student they taught couldn`t pronunce well. In addition, lack of opportunity talk and communication with people form English-spoken nation maybe another reason for this. Language is a tool of communication, if they don`t have chance to communicate with others, then they couldn`t improve their pronunciation level, I think. ：）