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Why is English so easy? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Silvance5 Groupie United States Joined 5493 days ago 86 posts - 118 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, French | Message 10 of 78 27 December 2009 at 7:29am | IP Logged | |||||
Wait, what? What logic are you talking about? By that statement I was simply saying that Americans are less likely to want to learn foreign languages than people of other countries, due to the need not being as high. As opposed to European countries where foreign languages are more widely taught. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Aquila Triglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 5480 days ago 104 posts - 128 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, German Studies: French | Message 11 of 78 27 December 2009 at 10:28am | IP Logged | |||||
Yes, I fully agree with this. I also don’t think English is such a very easy language, but all the songs we hear on the radio, TV-series etc. are in English! And the most had English on school of course. So you almost can’t escape for English in daily life. It’s just the most dominant language in this world. Besides, I suppose it’s much harder to learn for speakers of non-Germanic/Romance languages. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Sprachjunge Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 7164 days ago 368 posts - 548 votes Speaks: English*, GermanC2 Studies: Spanish, Russian | Message 12 of 78 27 December 2009 at 10:32am | IP Logged | |||||
The logic Tombstone was referring to was your, no offense, rather lax use of the strong adjective "xenophobic," which implies an active dislike of foreigners and the foreign, not just a "take it or leave it" attitude. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6271 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 13 of 78 27 December 2009 at 12:11pm | IP Logged | |||||
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English, as a language, is not easy. Verbs are quite subtle and complex, and the spelling causes problems even for native speakers. Some English sounds are difficult to master for many non-native speakers.
Lingua francas, of which English is the most powerful recent example, are not necessarily easy to learn and often are adopted for political/religious reasons. Greek swept much of the ancient world because of Alexander the Great, Arabic in its turn because of Islam. Neither language is easy to learn. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| hcholm Heptaglot Groupie Norway Joined 6060 days ago 43 posts - 65 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Swedish, Danish, German, French, Polish Studies: Czech | Message 14 of 78 27 December 2009 at 12:31pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Don't forget this classic:
ENGLISH IS TOUGH STUFF Dearest creature in creation, Study English pronunciation. I will teach you in my verse Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse. I will keep you, Suzy, busy, Make your head with heat grow dizzy. Tear in eye, your dress will tear. So shall I! Oh hear my prayer. 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.) Now I surely will not plague you With such words as plaque and ague. But be careful how you speak: Say break and steak, but bleak and streak; Cloven, oven, how and low, Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe. Hear me say, devoid of trickery, Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore, Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles, Exiles, similes, and reviles; Scholar, vicar, and cigar, Solar, mica, war and far; One, anemone, Balmoral, Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel; Gertrude, German, wind and mind, Scene, Melpomene, mankind. Billet does not rhyme with ballet, Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet. Blood and flood are not like food, Nor is mould like should and would. Viscous, viscount, load and broad, Toward, to forward, to reward. And your pronunciation's OK When you correctly say croquet, Rounded, wounded, grieve and sleeve, Friend and fiend, alive and live. Ivy, privy, famous; clamour And enamour rhyme with hammer. River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb, Doll and roll and some and home. Stranger does not rhyme with anger, Neither does devour with clangour. Souls but foul, haunt 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, gouge and gauge, Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age. Query does not rhyme with very, Nor does fury sound like bury. Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth. Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath. Though the differences seem little, We say actual but victual. Refer does not rhyme with deafer. Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer. Mint, pint, senate and sedate; Dull, bull, and George ate late. Scenic, Arabic, Pacific, Science, conscience, scientific. Liberty, library, heave and heaven, Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven. We say hallowed, but allowed, People, leopard, towed, but vowed. Mark the differences, moreover, Between mover, cover, clover; Leeches, breeches, wise, precise, Chalice, but police and lice; Camel, constable, unstable, Principle, disciple, label. Petal, panel, and canal, Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal. Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair, Senator, spectator, mayor. Tour, but our and succour, four. Gas, alas, and Arkansas. Sea, idea, Korea, area, Psalm, Maria, but malaria. Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean. Doctrine, turpentine, marine. Compare alien with Italian, Dandelion and battalion. Sally with ally, yea, ye, Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key. Say aver, but ever, fever, Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver. Heron, granary, canary. Crevice and device and aerie. Face, but preface, not efface. Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass. Large, but target, gin, give, verging, Ought, out, joust and scour, 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, Turk and jerk, Ask, 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 grits? It's a dark abyss or tunnel: Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale, Islington and Isle of Wight, Housewife, verdict and indict. Finally, which rhymes with enough -- Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough? Hiccough has the sound of cup. My advice is to give up!!! 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Taihen Diglot Newbie Brazil Joined 5446 days ago 6 posts - 8 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Japanese Studies: English | Message 15 of 78 27 December 2009 at 4:16pm | IP Logged | |||||
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English is not easy, but we can just enjoy some movies/series/cartoons/songs and learn it naturally...
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6908 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 16 of 78 27 December 2009 at 4:59pm | IP Logged | |||||
Several have pointed out necessity, exposure etc. as important factors. The level of English here at HTLAL compared with "out in the real world" is probably a bit different, since we're here because we love languages. Apart from varieties of English in the inner circle (e.g. UK, US, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Canada), you also have the outer (e.g. India, Pakistan, Kenya, South Africa) and the expanding circle (such as Europe, Egypt, Indonesia). I'd say that a great number of people "out there" are in fact not so good at English, but "get away" with it, since anglophones (and others) are forgiving about pronunciation, grammar, spelling and so on. Just take basic expressions as "I ate", "I have eaten", "I had eaten", "I was eating", "I have been eating" and "I had been eating" (all implying a past tense)... I'm pretty sure that there are some speakers who merge all these into just one or two forms. 5 persons have voted this message useful |
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