English is the most difficult language EVER!

F

FreeThinkers

Registered Senior Member
I study three languages at school, and I'm starting a fourth, and English is the most difficult language of all! People who already know English don't know how hard it is to learn! Any comments?
 
FreeThinkers said:
I study three languages at school, and I'm starting a fourth, and English is the most difficult language of all! People who already know English don't know how hard it is to learn! Any comments?
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there are no hard or easy languages to learn. All languages are equally hard and easy to learn. The mind is not an obstacle, it is an opportunity so learn, and enjoy the language to really grasp the people who stand behindd it.
 
draqon said:
there are no hard or easy languages to learn. All languages are equally hard and easy to learn. The mind is not an obstacle, it is an opportunity so learn, and enjoy the language to really grasp the people who stand behindd it.
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You don't know what you are saying. English just isn't logical. Look at these words: bough; rough. Logic would tell you that they should sound the same, but no, they don't. I don't know any other languages like that.
 
i wouldnt listen to him freethinkers...he's gone mad!!

yeah my exchange student told me how hard he found english to learn
 
FreeThinkers said:
I study three languages at school, and I'm starting a fourth, and English is the most difficult language of all! People who already know English don't know how hard it is to learn! Any comments?
Click to expand...
this can mean that it's a complex language.
 
FreeThinkers said:
You don't know what you are saying. English just isn't logical. Look at these words: bough; rough. Logic would tell you that they should sound the same, but no, they don't. I don't know any other languages like that.
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I know what I am saying, because I am saying it. ;)

bough is with a b
rough is with an r

almost pronounced the same , but differently written.

Take example of Russian language ( I am Russian), there is a word tolko...means "only"...and word talka...means small grained stone used for cement. Well they are written differently, yet pronounced the same. (bad example) Anyways English is as hard as Russian, and so as French. C'est la vie
 
draqon said:
bough is with a b
rough is with an r

almost pronounced the same , but differently written.
Click to expand...

bough is pronounced to rhyme with now.
rough is pronounced to rhyme with buff.

Quite different.

FreeThinkers,

I picked this up somewhere a while back - I thought you might appreciate it...

We’ll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes; but the plural of ox became oxen not oxes.
One fowl is a goose, but two are called geese, yet the plural of moose should never be meese.
You may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice; yet the plural of house is houses, not hice.
If the plural of man is always called men, why shouldn’t the plural of pan be pen?
If I spoke of my foot and show you my feet, and I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?
If one is a tooth and a while set are teeth, why shouldn’t the plural of booth be beeth?
Then one may be that, and three would be those, yet hat in the plural would never be hose, and the plural of cat is cats not cose.
We speak of a brother and also of brethen, but though we say mother, we never say methren.
Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him, but imagine the feminine, she, shis and shim.
Some reasons to be grateful if you grew up speaking English
1) The bandage was wound around the wound.
2) The farm was used to produce produce.
3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
4) We must polish the Polish furniture.
5) He could lead if he could get the lead out.
6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.
8) At the Army base, a bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
10) I did not object to that object.
11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
13) They were too close to the door to close it.
14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.
15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into the sewer line.
16) To help with the planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
18) After a number of Novocain injections, my jaw got number.
19) Upon seeing the tear in the painting, I shed a tear.
20) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
21) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?
22) I spent last evening evening out a pile of dirt.
Screwy pronunciations can mess up your mind!
For example, If you have a rough cough, climbing can be tough when going through the bough on a tree.
Let’s face it - English is a crazy language.
There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren’t invented in England or french fries in France.
Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren’t sweet, are meat. We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea not is it a pig.
And why is it that writers write but fingers don’t fing, grocers don’t groce and hammers don’t ham?
Doesn’t it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend?
If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?
If teachers taught, why don’t preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?
Sometimes I think all the folks who grew up speaking English should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what language do people recital at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?
You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which and alarm goes off by going on.
 
The major problem with studying English is the illogical pronounciation. (also spelling) Otherwise it is a rather easy language to learn. Try some languages with conjugation and you will shit your pants! :)
(megverethetne'm = I could get him beaten up)

In some other languages once you learn how to write you can write down anything, because the pronounciation/spelling is pretty much the same as the written words.

Also try to learn to READ Chinese. I think it takes 6 or so years to learn it in a way that one can understand a newspaper. In most languages 1 year is enough to learn how to write/read.
 
one_raven said:
bough is pronounced to rhyme with now.
rough is pronounced to rhyme with buff.

Quite different.

FreeThinkers,

I picked this up somewhere a while back - I thought you might appreciate it...

We’ll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes; but the plural of ox became oxen not oxes.
One fowl is a goose, but two are called geese, yet the plural of moose should never be meese.
You may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice; yet the plural of house is houses, not hice.
If the plural of man is always called men, why shouldn’t the plural of pan be pen?
If I spoke of my foot and show you my feet, and I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?
If one is a tooth and a while set are teeth, why shouldn’t the plural of booth be beeth?
Then one may be that, and three would be those, yet hat in the plural would never be hose, and the plural of cat is cats not cose.
We speak of a brother and also of brethen, but though we say mother, we never say methren.
Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him, but imagine the feminine, she, shis and shim.
Some reasons to be grateful if you grew up speaking English
1) The bandage was wound around the wound.
2) The farm was used to produce produce.
3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
4) We must polish the Polish furniture.
5) He could lead if he could get the lead out.
6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.
8) At the Army base, a bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
10) I did not object to that object.
11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
13) They were too close to the door to close it.
14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.
15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into the sewer line.
16) To help with the planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
18) After a number of Novocain injections, my jaw got number.
19) Upon seeing the tear in the painting, I shed a tear.
20) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
21) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?
22) I spent last evening evening out a pile of dirt.
Screwy pronunciations can mess up your mind!
For example, If you have a rough cough, climbing can be tough when going through the bough on a tree.
Let’s face it - English is a crazy language.
There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren’t invented in England or french fries in France.
Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren’t sweet, are meat. We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea not is it a pig.
And why is it that writers write but fingers don’t fing, grocers don’t groce and hammers don’t ham?
Doesn’t it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend?
If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?
If teachers taught, why don’t preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?
Sometimes I think all the folks who grew up speaking English should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what language do people recital at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?
You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which and alarm goes off by going on.
Click to expand...

Excellent post , one raven ......
 
One of my biggest problems, and boy is it minor, is that so many languages attach a gender to inanimate objects. Spanish is the one I studied, and was struck amused by the conflict with "If it ends in -o it's masculine, -a it's feminine." Except for the word for 'map', mapa. According to their own rules, it should be la mapa. It isn't. It's el mapa. Why the exception for a map? And what about nouns that end in a consonant, such as lapiz? Is it el lapiz or la lapiz? I've never understood the reasoning for this, but it's a minor thing at best.

I'm told that in Japanese, the slightest change in how long you hold a syllable can make all the difference in being in a bar and ordering either a beer or a building. Both, I am told, are biru, but one (can't recall which) has the first syllable held slightly longer. (Fortunately for my friend, the bartender wasn't an idiot.)

Aren't the German words for 'please' and 'you're welcome' the same (bitte)?

I've been told by several foreign friends that English is one of the most difficult languages on the planet to learn. I think only Mandarin Chinese beats it out.
 
How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same
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Ah, this I can answer; sarcasm. Like when you roll your eyes and say 'Brilliant deduction, Sherlock."
 
Oxygen said:
One of my biggest problems, and boy is it minor, is that so many languages attach a gender to inanimate objects. Spanish is the one I studied, and was struck amused by the conflict with "If it ends in -o it's masculine, -a it's feminine." Except for the word for 'map', mapa. According to their own rules, it should be la mapa. It isn't. It's el mapa. Why the exception for a map?
Click to expand...

I know there's a joke in there somewhere about not using a map if you are masculine.
 
Ha, lai pamēģina iemācīties latviešu valodu! Paskatīsimies, ko tad viņš teiks. :D
 
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