[triangleman83]

English having a few words with multiple if opposite meanings doesn't make it hard to learn. It's hard to learn due to the inconsistency in letter sounds, especially vowels, from word to word. Other languages such as Spanish are easy to pronounce because they use the same rules for letter sounds for all words.

Title was changed to be a bit less inflammatory now, or is it flammatory? I think they both mean the same thing...

[Aloisius]

Does most people who learn English as a second language learn both how to read and speak at the same time?

Native English speakers (as with all languages) learn how to speak years before they learn how to read. This makes inconsistencies in letter sounds irrelevant to having good conversational English and leaves learning the inconsistencies later, where you learn common rules that cover most of the language and absorb all the rule breakers while reading.

[rogerbinns]

I recommend reading Bill Bryson's book Mother Tongue: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mother_Tongue

One thing he notes was that originally there was no spelling consistency because there was no need due to limited written communication. Then as reading and writing became more widespread there became a need for consistency. This took something like 40 years to complete. Unfortunately half way through that period newspapers and dictionaries came out which resulted in some words being consistent and some not.

[lylemckeany]

I guess I got a bit cheeky with the title. I'm a marketer, so I can't help it. :-)