SNG you crack me up!
Sherry
21 Reasons why the English language is so hard to learn
by Larry 24 Replies latest jw friends
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seattleniceguy
Just doing my job, ma'am.
SNG
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Simon
We have more words too .. not sure on the exact numbers but something like 500,000 (English) to 200,000 (French)
I think it would be hard to learn. French seems very 'literal' and much more straightforward.
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myauntfanny
I just have to say (and I speak as someone struggling - rather unsuccessfully - with learning German for a year and a half now) that English is a doddle, homonyms and all, compared with German. It has 4 cases, gendered articles, separable verbs (which means the first little part of the word has to be broken off and wait till the end of the sentence, by which time you've completely forgotten it). Under certain circumstances the verb also comes at the end of the sentence, but not always, so you have to memorise exactly when. If there are two verbs, then the second verb usually comes at the end of the sentence, but sometimes the first verb comes after the second verb, again you have to memorise exactly when. Verbs involving a change of state (running, walking, arriving) take a different auxialiary than all the others in the past tense. But who stops to think about whether the action they are describing is actually a change of condition? I mean, that's pretty metaphysical, you know? Jeesh. Every time you say the word "it" you have to think about the gender of the noun you are referring to, because there are three different "its", plus you have to think about whether you are doing something to "it" or taking something from "it" etc, because there are four different ways to act on "it" and each has its own word. That's twelve different possibilities to choose from every bloody time you say "it". Gosh, I miss English.
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Farkel
Even though it's not May, may I point out that you write right to the point, too?
Farkel -
Gordy
What is "English" ?
"English" through the centuries has absorbed words from many different countries from Europe and from around the world.
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ChrisVance
I'm living in Mexico doing my master's in applied linguistics. Compared to what myauntfanny said about German Spanish is easy. Although Spanish is considered the easiest language for English speakers to learn, it is very dificult. The verbs are much more complicated than English. There is "gender" to think about every time you open your mouth even though is has no communicative value unless you're speaking about people or animals. The same situation exists with "it" that exists with German but with less possibilities. Then there's the subjunctive. It doesn't really exist in English, but every time you open your mouth in Spanish you must think, "Does the subjunctive apply here?" and if it does, is it present or past?
I teach English in Mexico and although the students have a problems with the pronunciation, which is much harder than English, English is easy. Why do you think so many people learn it as a second language? One reason is that it's so easy.
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Crazy151drinker
French dear,
No worries, 98% of Americans cant figure it out either. Why mess with such a mess.
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seattleniceguy
ChrisVance -
Applied Linguistics? Sounds fascinating! What applications do you study for it?
I've often marveled at the level of intrasentence agreement in Latin-based languages. Take for example the following Spanish sentence:
Los gatos blancos comen: The white cats eat.
Every single word carries information regarding the plurality of the cats, as opposed to only the one word in English.
Also, in English there is subject-verb agreement, but only in the present tense. For example, we must say:
She goes to school. (verb matches the singular subject "she")
but
They go to school. (verb matches the plural subject "they")But, this doesn't occur in the past tense:
She went to school.
They went to school.Whereas in Spanish (and other Latin-based languages), there is much more complex subject-verb agreement, and for every tense and mood!
So yeah, I think English is pretty gramatically simple compared to that. But if you think English is simple, Japanese would blow you away: no subject-verb agreement, no gender on nouns, no plurals (with a couple exceptions), only two basic tenses, and explicit markers indicating the function of each grammatical piece in a sentence. If only they didn't have their extraordinarily complex writing system, it'd be awesome!
SNG
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ChrisVance
SNG -
Applied Linguistics? Sounds fascinating! What applications do you study for it?
For this program I?ve had to sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, child language acquistion, a class which included semantics, phonology, syntax, and morphology among other things, literacy, several investigation classes. I?ve also taken syntax, Spanish linguistics, and educational technology. I?m going to do my thesis on family literacy. I?m about half done with the program/
I've often marveled at the level of intrasentence agreement in Latin-based languages.
I find it frustrating, especially when I don?t know if the noun is masculine or feminine
Take for example the following Spanish sentence:
Also, in English there is subject-verb agreement, but only in the present tense. For example, we must say:
She goes to school. (verb matches the singular subject "she")
Have you ever noticed how many learners of English have problems with this one. Imagine if every tense, mood, person and number required a change. As you say:
Whereas in Spanish (and other Latin-based languages), there is much more complex subject-verb agreement, and for every tense and mood!
So yeah, I think English is pretty gramatically simple compared to that. But if you think English is simple, Japanese would blow you away: no subject-verb agreement, no gender on nouns, no plurals (with a couple exceptions), only two basic tenses, and explicit markers indicating the function of each grammatical piece in a sentence. If only they didn't have their extraordinarily complex writing system, it'd be awesome!
Actually, one things linguists love to study is this type of language where there's an explicit marker for grammatical function. Seems to me that would be very difficult, like the verb tense, mood, number and person markers in romance languages. In english we're used to using order to indicate the grammatical function.
BTW, do you live in Seattle? I've lived in Olympia for about 22 years, while I was a dub, and in Seattle for 10 years, after I left the dubs.