Why Is Matura English So Hard To Learn – And How To Make English Easy
English is the most widely spoken language in terms of global coverage. It’s also one of the most complicated and confusing to nail thanks to some mind-boggling rules. Even native English speakers don’t know all the rules around grammar and punctuation.
Non-native students learning Matura English also have to contend with sentence structure – which can be very different from other Germanic and Indo-European languages.
Matura English students often find it difficult to get their heads around this. After all, the English language is a combination of other European languages in the first place; Germanic, French and Latin.
Veering away from its roots is not the only illogical head-scratcher associated with their English language either. Check these brain teasers out.
Same – Erm, Not Same
The English language is rife with grammatical complications, weird spelling, silent letters and rules that don’t always work.
Your schoolteacher will probably tell you the “i” comes before the “e” but that is not always the case. As a matter of fact, there are multiple words in English that are an exception to this rule.
Synonyms are not always synonyms either. Like any other language, you can use a number of descriptive words to mean the same thing. But in English, two ways of saying the same thing in one context doesn’t always mean you can use it in another context.
For example, you could say “I went to see a film at the cinema last night.” Or you could say, “I went to watch a film at the cinema last night.”
The verbs “to watch” and “to see” have the same meaning in this context. But you wouldn’t say “I saw the television last night”. You would say, “I watched the television last night.”
But you could say, “I saw a program on the television last night” or “I watched a program on the television last night.”
If that’s not confusing enough, we also have words that are spelt the same and sound the same but have a completely different meaning. They are called homonyms.
Getting To Grips With Homonyms
Homonyms are particularly confusing when reading Matura English. When you don’t know both words and the context they are used in, your head explodes during conversations in English as well.
Lead is a good example. Most people will know this word to describe an act of a person in a learning or following role. For example, a man leads a woman in a dance, you take the lead from your teacher and you walk the dog on a lead.
The word lead is also a heavy metal – pronounced ‘led’. When you know both words exist, deciphering the difference is not difficult. But if you only know the verb “to lead”, you can see why it would be confusing if you read about alchemists turning lead into gold.
To master Matura English the easy way, private tuition with an experienced British native speaker is advantageous. English 4 Professionals is based in Westbahnhof and offers a convenient location in a congenial learning environment for Matura English students in Vienna.
