English vs Other Languages: Grammar, Structure & Expression Compared

English holds a central place in today’s interconnected world. With over 1.5 billion learners globally, it is the dominant language of international business, technology, science, and diplomacy. 

Whether you’re reading a research paper, programming software, or negotiating contracts, chances are English is involved. Its role as a global lingua franca makes it essential not just for native speakers, but for individuals from all linguistic backgrounds.

This article explores a comparative analysis of English grammar and structure with other languages, shedding light on both the uniqueness and commonalities of English in a broader linguistic landscape. 

From grammar rules to sentence structures and even cultural influences on expression, we’ll examine how English stands apart, and where it surprisingly aligns, with various world languages.

Understanding these comparisons is valuable for multiple reasons. For language learners, it clarifies why certain English rules feel unfamiliar or unintuitive. For linguists and educators, it offers insights into cross-language patterns and learning challenges. Ultimately, these comparisons reveal the diverse ways humans structure thought through language.

Language Typologies: Where English Stands

Languages across the world are grouped into families, clusters of languages that evolved from a common ancestral tongue. English belongs to the Indo-European family, one of the largest language families, encompassing a wide range of languages spoken in Europe, South Asia, and parts of the Middle East. More specifically, English falls under the Germanic branch, closely related to German, Dutch, and the Scandinavian languages.

But English’s identity is not purely Germanic. Thanks to centuries of invasion, colonization, and trade, it has absorbed significant influence from Latin (via French), Greek, and other languages. This blend has made English more lexically diverse than most of its Germanic cousins.

In contrast, languages like Japanese, Arabic, and Chinese come from entirely different roots.

• Japanese belongs to the Japonic family and uses an agglutinative structure with subject-object-verb (SOV) word order.
  
• Arabic is a Semitic language with rich morphology and a root-based word system.
  
• Chinese (Mandarin, in particular) falls under the Sino-Tibetan family and is known for its tonal pronunciation and logographic script.
  

These languages differ fundamentally in grammar, word order, script, and sound systems, which makes the comparison between English and other languages both fascinating and complex. Understanding these typological differences provides a strong foundation for exploring grammar and usage in the sections that follow.

Grammar Structure Comparisons

Grammar is the skeleton of every language, defining how words come together to create meaning. English follows a specific set of structural rules that make it distinct from many other languages. In this section, we compare English grammar with systems used in other major world languages to highlight key differences and the challenges they pose for learners.

A. Word Order

English follows a Subject-Verb-Object (SVO) word order. For example:

• She (S) eats (V) apples (O).
  

This is the most common pattern in English sentences, and deviations often sound unnatural to native speakers.

In contrast, many languages use different word orders:

• Subject-Object-Verb (SOV) is common in Hindi and Japanese. For example:
  
  • Hindi: वह सेब खाती है (She apple eats).
    
  • Japanese: 彼女はりんごを食べます (She apple eats).
    
• Verb-Subject-Object (VSO) occurs in Arabic and Classical Hebrew:
  
  • Arabic: يأكل الولد التفاحة (Eats the boy the apple).
    

These different orders can lead to confusion when learners translate literally from their native languages into English or vice versa. Understanding these patterns helps language learners shift their sentence construction appropriately.

B. Tense Usage

English has a strict and detailed tense system, including present, past, and future forms with continuous, perfect, and perfect continuous aspects:

• She eats, She is eating, She has eaten, She had been eating, etc.
  

This richness gives speakers precision in expressing time and action, but it can overwhelm learners from languages with fewer tense distinctions.

In contrast:

• Russian, an aspect-heavy language, focuses more on the completed or ongoing nature of actions rather than precise timelines. There’s no exact English equivalent for many Russian verb aspects.
  
• Chinese (Mandarin) is tenseless. Temporal information is usually conveyed through context or particles like 了 (le) or time expressions:
  
  • 她吃苹果 can mean “She eats apples”, “She is eating an apple”, or “She ate an apple” depending on context.
    

Learners from these backgrounds often struggle with choosing the correct English tense, as their native languages don’t require the same level of grammatical precision for time.

C. Articles (A, An, The)

English uses a definite article (the) and indefinite articles (a, an), a system that many languages do not have at all:

• She saw a cat. (any cat) vs. She saw the cat. (a specific one)
  

Languages like Russian, Hindi, and Chinese lack articles entirely. In these languages, nouns do not require a grammatical marker to show specificity, so context does the job.

As a result, non-native speakers often omit or misuse articles in English, saying “I saw cat” instead of “I saw a cat”, which can confuse or slightly alter meaning. Article usage is one of the most persistent grammar challenges for ESL learners.

D. Pluralization

In English, plurals are typically formed by adding suffixes like -s or -es:

• book → books, bus → buses
  

However, English also has irregular plurals:

• child → children, mouse → mice
  

Other languages handle plurals very differently:

• In Chinese, nouns generally don’t change form for plurals. Instead, measure words or context are used:
  
  • 三本书 (three [measure word] books) – the noun 书 stays the same.
    
• Vietnamese and Thai also rely on classifiers and contextual cues.
  
• In tonal languages, like Yoruba, plurals may involve tonal shifts rather than suffix changes.
  

These differences make English pluralization rules feel arbitrary and memorization-heavy for many learners, especially when irregular forms are involved.

Vocabulary and Borrowing

English is known for its extensive borrowing of vocabulary from other languages. In fact, it’s estimated that over 60% of English words come from Latin or French, despite English being a Germanic language at its core. For example:

• From French: restaurant, ballet, fiancé
  
• From Latin: science, exit, data
  
• From other sources: yoga (Sanskrit), tsunami (Japanese), algebra (Arabic)
  

This massive borrowing has made English one of the richest languages in terms of vocabulary diversity, but also one of the most inconsistent for learners. Synonyms often have different shades of meaning based on their origin. For example, “ask” (Germanic) and “inquire” (French) mean roughly the same thing, but have different usage tones.

In contrast, purist languages like Icelandic actively resist foreign influence. Instead of borrowing, Icelandic creates new native compounds for modern concepts:

• Tölva (computer) = tala (number) + völva (prophetess)
  

While this maintains linguistic integrity, it can slow down adaptation to global terminology.

For learners, English’s borrowed vocabulary means more memorization and fewer consistent rules, especially when pronunciation and spelling diverge from the original languages.

Pronunciation and Phonetics

English is notoriously difficult when it comes to pronunciation, largely due to its irregular spelling system. Consider:

• through, though, cough, rough ,  all ending in -ough, all pronounced differently.
  

This inconsistency contrasts sharply with phonetic languages like Spanish or Turkish, where pronunciation almost always matches spelling. In Spanish, for instance, the word gato (cat) is pronounced exactly as it’s written.

English also features a complex sound inventory:

• Consonant clusters like str (street) or spl (splash) are common, but rare or nonexistent in languages like Japanese.
  
• Vowel distinctions are subtle and numerous (e.g., ship vs. sheep), often confusing for learners.
  

In contrast, many tonal languages, such as Mandarin and Thai, use pitch to distinguish word meaning:

• Mandarin: mā, má, mǎ, mà ,  same spelling but four tones, each with a different meaning.
  

While tonal systems add difficulty for learners, they are consistent in pronunciation once learned. English, by contrast, can remain unpredictable for years.

Writing Systems and Scripts

English uses the Latin alphabet, an alphabetic system where each symbol (letter) corresponds to a sound. This is common across many European languages, though pronunciation rules differ.

Other languages use entirely different writing systems:

• Syllabaries like Japanese kana (hiragana and katakana) represent syllables, not individual sounds. For example, ka is a single character: か.
  
• Logographic systems like Chinese characters use symbols that represent entire words or concepts. One character, like 水 (water), carries meaning and sound together.
  

These systems impact literacy acquisition significantly:

• English readers must decode irregular spellings.
  
• Chinese readers must memorize thousands of characters.
  
• Japanese learners must juggle three scripts (hiragana, katakana, and kanji) simultaneously.
  

While English’s alphabetic system seems simple at first glance, the lack of phonetic consistency often delays reading fluency. Meanwhile, phonetic alphabets and syllabaries offer more immediate clarity, and logograms offer deep semantic connections but require extensive memorization.

Gender and Formality

One feature that often surprises learners is English’s neutrality in grammatical gender. Apart from pronouns (he, she, it), most English nouns are gender-neutral:

• The teacher can be male or female.
  
• There’s no grammatical gender agreement with adjectives or verbs.
  

In contrast, many languages like French, Spanish, and Hindi use gendered nouns:

• French: le livre (the book, masculine), la table (the table, feminine)
  
• Hindi: लड़का अच्छा है (The boy is good), लड़की अच्छी है (The girl is good) – adjectives change with gender
  

This gendered structure affects article choice, adjective agreement, and sometimes verb conjugation, requiring extra effort from learners to memorize gender rules.

Formality also varies greatly. While English does make polite distinctions (Could you… vs. Do this.), many languages have formal and informal speech levels:

• Korean has different verb endings and vocabulary depending on social hierarchy.
  
• Japanese uses keigo (honorific language), requiring entirely different phrases depending on the context.
  

These systems encode respect and social roles into the grammar itself, which is absent in most English usage. For learners, mastering these formal levels can be just as essential as grammar and vocabulary.

Idioms and Cultural Expressions

Languages are more than logic systems, they’re cultural carriers. Idioms are one area where this becomes clear.

English is full of idiomatic expressions:

• Kick the bucket (to die)
  
• Break the ice (to start a conversation)
  

These often don’t translate literally and may confuse learners. In contrast, some languages favor more literal expression:

• Chinese: 他死了 (“He died”) – straightforward and clear.
  

However, every language has culturally rooted idioms. For example:

• Spanish: Estar en las nubes (“To be in the clouds”) = daydreaming
  
• Japanese: 猫の手も借りたい (“I’d even borrow a cat’s paw”) = extremely busy
  

The challenge for English learners isn’t just vocabulary but also understanding when phrases aren’t meant to be taken literally. This is a key area where culture and language intersect.

Language Learning Difficulty

Is English easy to learn? That depends on your native language.

Pros for learners:

• Simple verb conjugations compared to highly inflected languages.
  
• No gendered nouns.
  
• Widely available learning materials and exposure.
  

Challenges:

• Irregular spelling and pronunciation (read vs. read, lead vs. led)
  
• Complex phrasal verbs and idioms.
  
• Rich but inconsistent vocabulary due to borrowing.
  

Languages like Arabic, Chinese, and Korean are often ranked as more “difficult” due to:

• Complex scripts (e.g., Chinese characters, Korean Hangul)
  
• Unique grammatical structures (e.g., Arabic verb roots or Korean honorifics)
  
• Tonality (in Mandarin or Thai)
  

That said, the influence of one’s native language is a major factor. A Dutch speaker will find English easier than a Japanese speaker due to shared linguistic roots. Ultimately, motivation, exposure, and learning strategies play just as big a role as language structure.

Conclusion

From grammar and syntax to idioms and script, English has both familiar and foreign features when compared to other world languages. Its lack of grammatical gender and global reach make it accessible, but its idiomatic usage and inconsistent spelling can pose challenges.

Understanding these differences helps learners approach English with more awareness and less frustration. It also highlights the beauty of linguistic diversity, each language reflects a unique worldview.

As English continues to function as a global bridge language, it’s important to embrace not just its rules, but also its irregularities. And in doing so, we gain not only fluency, but also a greater appreciation for the variety of human expression across cultures.

Frequently Asked Questions:

Mangesh Belekar

Belekar Sir is the founder and lead instructor at Belekar Sir’s Academy, a trusted name in English language education. With over a decade of teaching experience, he has helped thousands of students—from beginners to advanced learners—develop fluency, confidence, and real-world communication skills. Known for his practical teaching style and deep understanding of learner needs, Belekar Sir is passionate about making English accessible and empowering for everyone. When he’s not teaching, he’s creating resources and guides to support learners on their journey to mastering spoken English.