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Why is English so easy? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| cordelia0507 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5840 days ago 1473 posts - 2176 votes  Speaks: Swedish* Studies: German, Russian | Message 57 of 78 05 January 2010 at 7:02pm | IP Logged | |||||
Exactly. For those who arrive there there with a positive view of the country and who really want to learn, there is a very good and free system available. With millions of man years of experience in the system. I doubt that even English can match the unique experience of Israel in this area because it's very much part of the Israeli society and tradition to take care of new arrivals to the country, including their language training. But some people for whatever reasons aren't interested. No method or fancy equipment in the world can change that. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Jurga Triglot Newbie Lithuania Joined 5439 days ago 19 posts - 24 votes Speaks: Lithuanian*, English, Latvian Studies: German, Arabic (classical), French | Message 58 of 78 05 January 2010 at 9:27pm | IP Logged | |||||
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English is easy. My mum once said: 'Oh, and how can you understand it? It is written in one way, and pronounced in completely another!' Pronounciation is the thing that seems to be extremely hard at first (being 4th former in my first English lesson I even didn't understand why teacher said it was incorrect when I read a sentence how it was written . )
But after some time it becomes so easy. In English, for instance, there are no things like declining (not sure whether it's a right term) when a word (noun) changes depending on um... for example, in some languages you say 'This is sugar' and 'Could you pass me sugar?' and a word 'sugar' changes depending on...em, what are you doing with it:) It's quite a simple language, as far as grammar is concerned. Sure, it is not a language that you can learn like a native speaker. But still, I've always thought that if you don't lack determination and stamina, anything can be done. And any language can be learned:) mick 33< Well, I am sure that foreign speakers do less spelling mistakes because most of them have learnt English words by heart. It's usually like- there is a book consisting of many units, each on a different topic. (e.g. 'Political and social matters'. Throughout the whole unit you read texts,do excercises and there are some new words which you write down to your vocabulary notebook, write pronounciation, translation into your langugage, then you have to learn it all and then write a test.(If learning at school). Therefore, spelling I'm sure it's not a most common mistake among foreign learners.(Sure, everyone does them sometimes, me as well:) ) Edited by Jurga on 05 January 2010 at 9:38pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| elvisrules Tetraglot Senior Member BelgiumRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5471 days ago 286 posts - 390 votes Speaks: French, English*, Dutch, Flemish Studies: Lowland Scots, Japanese, German | Message 59 of 78 05 January 2010 at 9:35pm | IP Logged | |||||
Zionism and a deep love for Israel are quite seperate things I believe. Zionism is usually the belief in the ethnic right of Jews for the Lands of Israel, which you don't have to support to like the country. 6 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6013 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 60 of 78 06 January 2010 at 12:53am | IP Logged | |||||
There may be other courses, but when 90%+ of the learner population uses one system, and that's the officially supported, financed, mandated etc etc etc one... that's still an effective monopoly. No-one's going to plough lots of money into other courses when getting publicity meaning pushing past a behemoth of that size to get noticed.
So what are you saying? That 60% of the population of Israel are less intelligent than a dead dog... almost? Turn it any way you want, but a 40% success rate is pretty feeble, and hardly qualifies as "relatively efficient" in my book. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| christian Senior Member United States Joined 5252 days ago 111 posts - 135 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Japanese, German | Message 61 of 78 11 March 2011 at 10:08pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Sorry if someone else has said this, but I just didn't feel like rummaging through 8 pages. As a native English
speaker, this same topic frustrates me. But the thing is, English is just so vast. The products people buy, the movies, the TV, the scientific world, and diplomacy is basically all universally English. Children in other countries will grow up watching American movies and the like. Thus they are more apt to learn it to its fullest. It's also a requirement in school, unlike in America; thus, doing well at the language has that extra incentive. There seems to be a need to do so in Europe, where there are so many languages all in one small area. If one were to learn English, they would all have some basic way of communication. Here in the U.S., we really don't need it. Sure Spanish may come in handy few times, but one would have absolutely no problem with surviving and living with only knowing English. My 2 cents. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| RogerK Triglot Groupie Austria Joined 5077 days ago 92 posts - 181 votes Speaks: English*, German, Italian Studies: Portuguese | Message 62 of 78 12 March 2011 at 10:45am | IP Logged | |||||
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My mother always said English was one of the most difficult languages to learn. I had no understanding back then and can't ask her now what she based her opionion on. I think she learnt some French at school but that would have been all. I known one thing for sure, she never tried to learn German.
Antway, this has been an intresting topic to read. It is ironic, you have been discussing whether English is easy to learn or not and all of the non native English speaking forum members leave many native English speakers for dead. When I compare the English written here to some of the rubbish I read on other websites, I wonder what has been happening in our schools (Australia) recently. Congratulations! Everybody! :-) Some may laugh or disagree but I find many English speaking people don't understand the difference between words such as: there, they're and their, or its and it's. A friend of mine, who is 50 has just returned to university and he said the two most important words in English now are: like and but. I think we slaughter our own language more than non native speakers. This excludes all forum members of course and the non natives here are generally excellent. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tornus Diglot GroupieRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5145 days ago 82 posts - 113 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: Spanish, Swedish, Danish | Message 63 of 78 12 March 2011 at 5:43pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Tenses are easy compared to french or Spanish, tenses have only 1 or 2 endings
in Spanish every tenses have 6 differents endings, you have to know them by heart, otherwise you don't know who is talking since pronouns are not used. Then there are not a lot of link words. if you don't use the right link word in french or in Spanish, it may change the sentence meaning. the link word "that " in English is useless in numerous cases, in others languages, its translation is necessary everytime Unlike many languages, words have no gender. most language have two ways to translate words like "the" and "a/an". furthermore there is no plural form for "a/an", you just add a s at the end of the word (a dog --> dogs).In swedish, German, french, Spanish (and in many others tongues), everytime you learn a word, you have to learn its gender, and there's no logic. it sounds really weird if you don't use the right gender. besides, according to the region, people may use different genders (french belgian and french canadian don't use everytime the same gender for the same word. thus if you're a french learner you have to use the correct gender according to where you are) Then when you know a word, you can easily guess, form, understand a lot of related words. if it's a noun, for instance fish, the related verb is the same!( to fish ). in french a fish is "un poisson", to fish is "pêcher", there is no link between this two words. when you know a adjective, you just have to add ness at the end to refer to a state with happy you can form happiness, whereas when you know the translation for happy in french "heureux", you can't guess the translation for happiness "bonheur". then you can add at the end of an adjective "less" or "ful" and you can do a lot of other things like these ( "er" at the end of a verb to describe someone who execute the activity, "ing" at the end of a verb to describe the activity,...) but it would be too long to explain. the related words are much easier to learn, it's much more logical. in my last English test i had to translate the verb "to skin", i understood its meaning perfectly but i never managed to translate it in my native language. i could list a lot of easy things about English, but it concerns specific languages. i just have written common hard aspects which don't exist in English Edited by tornus on 12 March 2011 at 6:50pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Gorgoll2 Senior Member Brazil veritassword.blogspo Joined 5148 days ago 159 posts - 192 votes Speaks: Portuguese* | Message 64 of 78 12 March 2011 at 9:32pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Everybody grows up able to speak English. Beyond its simple granmar, we´re shotted with
words since our birth. It´s a fact. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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