This 100-year-old poem tells you everything you need to know about why so many people struggle to learn English

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There's a reason English is one of the hardest languages to learn.

Tricky pronunciation can make English one of the hardest languages in the world for foreign speakers to learn.

Why does "done" rhyme with "fun," for example, and why doesn't "done" rhyme with "gone"?

No poem illustrates the counterintuitive nature of the English language better than "The Chaos." Written by Dutch traveler Gerard Nolst Trenité in 1920, the poem is packed with hundreds of examples of irregular English spellings and pronunciations.

"The Chaos" has become a favorite of English teachers worldwide for its tendency to trip up the reader. Just take a look at the first four lines and you'll get the gist:

Dearest creature in Creation,
Studying English pronunciation,

I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse.

From there, it only gets trickier:

Tear in eye your dress you'll tear.
So shall I! Oh, hear my prayer,

Pray, console your loving poet,
Make my coat look new, dear, sew it?

There's a dizzying lineup of similarly spelled words in this verse:

Sea, idea, guinea, area,
Psalm; Maria, but malaria;

Youth, south, southern; cleanse and clean;
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

And the author wraps it up with a murderers' row of "-ough" words:

Finally: which rhymes with "enough,"
Though, through, plough, cough, hough, or tough?

Hiccough has the sound of "cup"
My advice is - give it up!

The English Spelling Society lauded "The Chaos" following its rediscovery in the early 1990s, and said the poem resonates not just with people learning the English language, but native speakers too.

"Many native English-speaking readers will find the poem a revelation," the society wrote in 1994. "The juxtaposition of so many differently pronounced parallel spellings brings home the sheer illogicality of the writing system in countless instances that such readers may have never previously noticed."

Since the poem's revival, language enthusiasts have recorded videos of themselves reciting it flawlessly and even transcribed it in the International Phonetic Alphabet.

Take a look at the full poem below and see if you can make it through without stumbling.

Read the full poem below:

Dearest creature in Creation,
Studying English pronunciation,

I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse.

It will keep you, Susy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy;

Tear in eye your dress you'll tear.
So shall I! Oh, hear my prayer,

Pray, console your loving poet,
Make my coat look new, dear, sew it?

Just compare heart, beard and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,

Sword and sward, retain and Britain,
(Mind the latter, how it's written!)

Made has not the sound of bade,
Say-said, pay-paid, laid, but plaid.

Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as vague and ague,

But be careful how you speak,
Say break, steak, but bleak and streak,

Previous, precious; fuchsia, via;
Pipe, snipe, recipe and choir,

Cloven, oven; how and low;
Script, receipt; shoe, poem, toe,

Hear me say, devoid of trickery:
Daughter, laughter and Terpsichore,

Typhoid; measles, topsails, aisles;
Exiles, similes, reviles;

Wholly, holly; signal, signing;
Thames; examining, combining;

Scholar, vicar and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far.

From "desire": desirable-admirable from "admire";
Lumber, plumber; bier but brier;

Chatham, brougham; renown but known,
Knowledge; done, but gone and tone,

One, anemone; Balmoral;
Kitchen, lichen; laundry, laurel;

Gertrude, German; wind and mind;
Scene, Melpomene, mankind;

Tortoise, turquoise, chamois-leather,
Reading, Reading, heathen, heather.

This phonetic labyrinth
Gives moss, gross, brook, brooch, ninth, plinth.

Billet does not end like ballet;
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet;

Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.

Banquet is not nearly parquet,
Which is said to rhyme with "darky".

Viscous, viscount; load and broad;
Toward, to forward, to reward,

And your pronunciation's O.K.
When you say correctly croquet;

Rounded, wounded; grieve and sieve;
Friend and fiend; alive and live;

Liberty, library; heave and heaven;
Rachel, ache, moustache; eleven.

We say hallowed, but allowed;
People, leopard; towed, but vowed

Mark the difference, moreover,
Between mover, plover, Dover,

Leeches, breeches; wise, precise;
Chalice but police and lice.

Camel; constable, unstable;
Principle, disciple; label;

Petal, penal and canal;
Wait, surmise, plait, promise; pal.

Suit, suite, run, circuit, conduit
Rhyme with "shirk it" and "beyond it",

But it is not hard to tell,
Why it's pall, mall, but Pall Mall.

Muscle, muscular; gaol; iron;
Timber, climber; bullion, lion,

Worm and storm; chaise, chaos, chair;
Senator, spectator, mayor.

Ivy, privy; famous, clamour
And enamour rhyme with "hammer."

Pussy, hussy and possess.
Desert, but dessert, address.

Golf, wolf; countenance; lieutenants
Hoist, in lieu of flags, left pennants.

River, rival; tomb, bomb, comb;
Doll and roll and some and home.

Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.

Soul, but foul and gaunt, but aunt;
Font, front, wont; want, grand, and, grant,

Shoes, goes, does. Now first say: finger,
And then: singer, ginger, linger.

Real, zeal; mauve, gauze and gauge;
Marriage, foliage, mirage, age.

Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.

Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth;
Job, Job, blossom, bosom, oath.

Though the difference seems little,
We say actual, but victual,

Seat, sweat, chaste, caste; Leigh, eight, height;
Put, nut; granite, but unite.

Reefer does not rhyme with "deafer,"
Feoffer does, and zephyr, heifer.

Dull, bull; Geoffrey, George; ate, late;
Hint, pint; senate, but sedate;

Scenic, Arabic, pacific;
Science, conscience, scientific;

Tour, but our, and succour, four;
Gas, alas and Arkansas!

Sea, idea, guinea, area,
Psalm; Maria, but malaria;

Youth, south, southern; cleanse and clean;
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion with battalion,

Sally with ally; yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, key, quay!

Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, receiver.

Never guess-it is not safe;
We say calves, valves, half, but Ralf!

Heron; granary, canary;
Crevice, and device, and eyrie;

Face but preface, but efface,
Phlegm, phlegmatic; ass, glass, bass;

Large, but target, gin, give, verging;
Ought, out, joust and scour, but scourging;

Ear, but earn; and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with "here", but "ere".

Seven is right, but so is even;
Hyphen, roughen, nephew, Stephen;

Monkey, donkey; clerk and jerk;
Asp, grasp, wasp; and cork and work.

Pronunciation-think of psyche!-
Is a paling, stout and spikey;

Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing "groats" and saying groats?

It's a dark abyss or tunnel,
Strewn with stones, like rowlock, gunwale,

Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict!

Don't you think so, reader, rather,
Saying lather, bather, father?

Finally: which rhymes with "enough,"
Though, through, plough, cough, hough, or tough?

Hiccough has the sound of "cup"......
My advice is-give it up!