Comment by hn_throwaway_99

> English is one of the most difficult languages to learn

I'm curious if this is just an opinion, or if there is data on this. As a native English speaker, I would have thought this to be true. But I have literally never heard this from people who learned English as a second language, and I was always surprised when these folks said they thought English was pretty easy to learn. My guess was that the "loosey goosey" rules of English are a double edged sword. Yes, there are tons of irregular sentence constructions and exceptions to the rules, but at the same time, most native English speakers (at least in the US) don't actually care all that much if you get all the exceptions right, so if you follow the general rules, people will understand you and respond. I mean, tons of native speakers mix up lay/laid/lie/lied (or sometimes throw in a layed for good measure) all the time, and people don't really care.

This is in contrast to other languages where people will give you blank stares (or worse, take offense) if you get one verb conjugation wrong.