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Why English is hard to learn | ||
Tags: Difficulty | English | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| ColdBlue Groupie Angola Joined 6574 days ago 40 posts - 41 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Russian | Message 25 of 84 10 April 2007 at 9:25pm | IP Logged | |||||
Yes, I'm a native speaker. Watch CNN/Fox News all the time. Read news online (if that counts as the paper) and my major is political science. Seamstress, sewer (as someone who sews), sow, invalid (as in handicapped)... all of these I've never heard of in speech. People call hogs hogs, never heard them use sow. Seamstress/sewer... is this like an 1800's occupation I've never heard of? I've heard invalid a bunch of times in its other context but never really as someone handicapped. I would hardly call any of these words common, but I guess a lot of people think they are, oh well. Not here to argue! Edited by ColdBlue on 10 April 2007 at 9:26pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| AlexL Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7085 days ago 197 posts - 277 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Italian | Message 26 of 84 10 April 2007 at 9:34pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Can't say I often hear sow for hog, but all the others are pretty common. Invalid is pronounced a little differently when referring to the handicapped person--the a in the middle is more of an "uh" and the stress is on the "in". And about the pronunciation of refuse -- the e sounds like "eh" and the stress shifts to the "ref". Edited by AlexL on 10 April 2007 at 9:34pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7157 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 27 of 84 10 April 2007 at 10:43pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Actually, a hog is a castrated pig. A sow is a female pig. Nothing special. "Pig" is the general term for that animal that grunts and oinks.
I don't live on a farm, but knowing the difference between a hog and sow is comparable to knowing the difference between a bull and a cow or a rooster and a hen. One doesn't need to live on a farm to learn about the difference. Perhaps you've never heard of some of those words in the speech of your age group and thus they don't seem common to YOU and your friends, but let's be honest... You're in college and presumably no older than your mid-20s. You watch and read the news regularly (in my opinion, the jargon, tautologies, and cliches used by journalists and their ilk are instructive in showing students how NOT to use English, but that's for another time). As a politics major, you naturally read articles and textbooks about political theory and political philosophy with their attendant jargon (I'm not ripping politics specifically, since articles and textbooks in every field of study are full of their own jargon). It seems that your exposure to English lacks a certain access to other sources of the language (i.e. from prose, poetry, or even descriptions of life in places and periods outside urban America in the 21st century). I wouldn't be so quick to insinuate that a lot of us are somehow weird for seeing iieee's point in the original post just because you've never heard of those usages. (Mind you, I'll give you credit for admitting to consulting a dictionary in order to find out what some of the words meant.) P.S. Coldblue, I don't mean to start a fight or anything, but some of your comments betray your youth. Forgive us (or well... at least me - the grumpy old bugger) if we seem a little pointed in our responses. Edited by Chung on 10 April 2007 at 10:51pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Andy_Liu Triglot Senior Member Hong Kong leibby.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6787 days ago 255 posts - 257 votes Speaks: Mandarin, Cantonese*, EnglishC2 Studies: French | Message 28 of 84 11 April 2007 at 12:12am | IP Logged | |||||
Does Esperanto apply in this case?
Indeed, this happens in my native language too. In older dictionaries, pronunciation was the standard Guangzhou variant (everybody learns this), but slightly "slang" or "dialectal" sounds are also given. Yet, due to the mere influence of some local scholars, there are some so-called "proper pronunciation" schemes of government/schools for students/ordinary people. Every TV programme on the subject prescribes that version of "proper pronunciation". Yes, common words are pronounced the same as they have been. But no, obscure words are prescribed with very obscure sounds. I shall admit that some Hongkongers do make obvious pronunciation mistakes. Even the university graduates do pronounce a few simple words wrongly. But language changes over time. Irregularities of natural ones simply emerge naturally. There might be a need for some regularities to make life easier, but not to the extent that they are to be dogmas (of the scholars themselves). In view of the irregularities of English, I had thought there should be some reforms. But no, that's not necessary. Even if it were spoken only by a few millions of people, a spelling reform is likely to cause much inconvenience. Every English speaker/learner gets used to the irregular spelling. Communication is alright. So why change? Language is not very scientific. Though I like the idea of a streamlined, perfectly regular artificial language, irregularities are also fun, when we think about the origins of them. I think the world is beautiful because of diversity. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| That_Guy Diglot Groupie United States Joined 7099 days ago 74 posts - 87 votes Studies: Hindi, English*, Spanish | Message 29 of 84 11 April 2007 at 1:46am | IP Logged | |||||
Are you serious? Wound, sow, seamstress, refuse, and invalid aren't archaic old English words. They might not be used daily but they are used. And just because you don't use them doesnt mean that no one uses it. Admittedly, I haven't heard "sewer" used to mean "someone who sews". Do you really think anyone would say "The insurance was invalid for the cripple", hardly. I'm not saying English is hard, but these are legitimate difficulties that people have. As for those words never being used: CNN uses "refuse" to mean "garbage" CNN uses "sow" to mean "female pig" too Time even uses the two meanings of "invalid" to create a title Don't be so quick to make sweeping decisions regarding the English language. Edited by That_Guy on 11 April 2007 at 2:04am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7157 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 30 of 84 11 April 2007 at 9:19am | IP Logged | |||||
Yes. When Zamenhof designed Esperanto he drew heavily on living Slavonic, Romance and Germanic languages and set it up with rules that he felt were consistent. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Declan1991 Tetraglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 6440 days ago 233 posts - 359 votes Speaks: English*, German, Irish, French | Message 31 of 84 12 April 2007 at 10:39am | IP Logged | |||||
You never heard refuse to mean rubbish? Maybe the frequency of use in Ireland is different but you cannot be for real, if you say you are about to graduate college. Back on the point, I think that English is a difficult language to learn. All the different root languages, "regal, kingly, queenly" all mean the same thing, but we just use the Latin more often. English is full of idioms, colloquialisms, accents and dialects, none of which are really standardised. There is also varied spelling, "color vs. colour", "neighbor vs. neighbour", "program vs. programme" and a word I just used, "standardise vs. standardize". As for the grammar being easy, I totally disagree. Pronouns retain a full case system, even though the majority now ignore that, what does the person learning English decide? What about syntax? There are many varied ways of putting everything into sentences. I could have said, "Varied are the ways in which everything is put in a sentence". So there is a case system that is largely ignored, complicated and largely varied syntax, and a massive variety in vocabulary, to the extent that three root languages can give to English a word meaning the same thing! "Foreign (Latin), Xeno- (Greek), and Outlandish (Old English)." Edited by Declan1991 on 12 April 2007 at 10:40am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Karakorum Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6570 days ago 201 posts - 232 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written)* Studies: French, German | Message 32 of 84 12 April 2007 at 12:26pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I think English must be one of the easiest languages to learn. At least the basics are pretty straightforward. I studied English at a very early stage, so it came naturally to me, which could be why I find it easy. But I was also studying French and classical Arabic at the time, and compared to these two, English was soooo much of a relief. I don't know why some native speakers of English take this as an insult! If English is capable of doing the same things as other languages with less idiosyncrasies then it is simply a more evolved and logical language.
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