Are homonyms/homophones more common in English? As a non-native speaker, I remember the vowel shift causing more trouble at first. Also, rules for shortening/combining words can be tricky. They’re/their is the obvious example. But then there’s won’t, where the apostrophe doesn’t simply substitute a letter in two words that work independently. And it’s/its is very confusing, as possessive is normally also marked with 's. Is/are is a whole new thing if your native language doesn’t distinguish.