english is awkward

[*Jess♥]

english is a very awkward language.

every week when i teach english, we have various exercises going over different grammar, verb inflections and all that.

most native english speakers do not realise how tricky it can be.

it's when your mind is working with a different language, that is when it becomes apparent how contrary english actually is.

a lot of people who may have english as their second language, are very self conscious about their ability. even though a lot of the time, their english is better than many native english speakers.

an interesting fact for you here...

I can not tell the difference between lend and borrow. it's not because i'm stupid or lazy, it is because i am welsh. the welsh language has no different word for lend and borrow. just one word. benthyg.

and so anyone who comes from this area simply has no distinction between the concepts of lend and borrow.

so even for native english speakers, you will find it's not always simple.

[*BananaKing]

I have a friend who is not a native english speaker and he told me that english is the hardest language he ever learned. He learned 2 languages before english and english was by far the hardest

[durendal]

Almost everyone who speaks the english language has only a grasp of the surface. If English is such an easy language, there wouldn't be such profession as an English professor. For every language, there are levels of complication. Language is not only limited to grammar, but also vocabulary and articulation. I'm afraid that colloquialism has far buried the intricacies and complexity of the english language.

Using the sample of lend and borrow, lend is used when the owner initiates the action of lending, while borrow is used when the borrower wishes the owner to lend his property. But I'm sure many will not notice the difference of these words.

Sad to say, the current usage of english can be compared to how the net uses leet speak. It is especially annoying wen u spk lyk dis. This is mostly common on mobile phone text message. I'm afraid with the advent of wireless and online communication, peoples ability to express themselves have made them lazy in using much more complicated terms, and only concern themselves in the expression using much simpler dialog.

I would also admit that without this board, my ability to speak in english might be hampered, as english is not widely used in a daily conversation from where I come from.

[*BananaKing]

I use leet speak when I text people, I don't do it as bad as that, but I do it because I only get 150 characters per message. If theres one thing I hate about the. english language, its the whole concept of "grammatically correct." The rules of english grammer do not make sense sometimes and when you change a sentence to being grammatically correct it just sounds bizarre and weird.

EX: The whole "Good & Well" change. There are times when using good sounds correct however it is more grammatically correct to use the word well. (coincidentally, I don't think that last sentence was grammatically correct)

[RazorLaser]

I was born in Bosnia, came to Australia when I was 5 and I found English very easy. I speak it, have a better understanding of it and spell better than most people I know.

[Yamato381]

Funny.

I never found out that the world "lend" existed until 8 years and then on I've been using it properly.

And since I find it hard to read large messages compiled of ASL I get miffed when people decide to devote a whole and gigantic forum post longer than five sentences composed of ASL.

But I understand why people use it.

And yes, I found out that English as a language is extremely opposite to the majority of all languages (including the ability to flip a sentence in three or more different ways and having it make sense to the ear, though only one may be grammatically correct).

Then there's the case in spelling (i before e except after c, which has a contradiction: their) and the fact that conjugations are almost never canon.

Much unlike Cantonese. :3

That's why I like Cantonese so much; conjugation is a matter of adding another character before the "infinitive" verb (which doesn't exist: it's called the verb base, and is always in present tense).

The one thing I dislike about both of them is that the same sound could be applied to three words that sound exactly the same.

So...

Biggest English pet peeve: people arguing "it's" is NOT a contraction of "it is."

[symbol]

Every language has its, lets say... difficult points. But, yes, english is quite ridiculous especially when it comes to spelling and word definition/usage. I didn't learn much about english in school. I mostly learned proper english from emailing, chatting, forums, and gaming believe it or not. People would ridicule my spelling and grammar until I finally started picking up on it bit by bit. Was not easy, so I can't imagine learning it as a second language.

[durendal]

Funny.

I never found out that the world "lend" existed until 8 years and then on I've been using it properly.

And since I find it hard to read large messages compiled of ASL I get miffed when people decide to devote a whole and gigantic forum post longer than five sentences composed of ASL.

But I understand why people use it.

And yes, I found out that English as a language is extremely opposite to the majority of all languages (including the ability to flip a sentence in three or more different ways and having it make sense to the ear, though only one may be grammatically correct).

Then there's the case in spelling (i before e except after c, which has a contradiction: their) and the fact that conjugations are almost never canon.

Much unlike Cantonese. :3

That's why I like Cantonese so much; conjugation is a matter of adding another character before the "infinitive" verb (which doesn't exist: it's called the verb base, and is always in present tense).

The one thing I dislike about both of them is that the same sound could be applied to three words that sound exactly the same.

So...

Biggest English pet peeve: people arguing "it's" is NOT a contraction of "it is."

Actually oriental language almost have the same grammar. Cantonese, Fookien and Mandarin all have the same grammar and only differ in pronunciation. Japanese sentence structure is also similar to them. So it is fairly easy for oriental people to learn of thier other counterparts language. Example, "my name":

Ngo ge Meng - cantonese

Wo de ming - mandarin

Gwa eh mya - fookien

Ore no Namae - Japanese

see the pattern? But when it comes to learning english, they would have to reverse the way they construct sentences. This is mostly the predicament of most non-english speaking countries. But like Ryuki mentioned, there are some non-native english speakers that speak fluent english and is able to manipulate words. I think the reason for this is that they really study the language and how sentences are properly formed. Unlike for native speakers, they learn the language mostly by ear and sometimes accept colloquial phrases as the correct vernacular.

And lastly, I also wonder how some people couldn't distinguish the usage of "its" and "it's".

[*Jess♥]

the apostrophe is pretty awkward though.

a lot of people have even talked about scrapping it altogether.

I'm pretty good with english and i don't even know what stupid rules there are for an apostrophe.

see, "its" just seems wrong to me. because it is possessive. and the way i learned, a posessive, is a contraction of "has". so "it has" - "it's" in my view. but apparently i'm wrong.

so this compounds the fact that english is awkward.

not to mention the bloody pronunciation.

half the words come from french, half from latin, half from germanic, half from somewhere else.. meaning that you have completely mixed pronunciation rules.

[Yamato381]

Plus, in English, I've found some ridiculously long words that AREN'T "pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis."

Somehow.

You know what

I'mma start speaking in Cantonese at home all the time now.

...

And yes, English is, in all truth, a pidgin/creole language.

Just it became popular during the British Empire.

[durendal]

Just a thought, I happen to find it amusing that the language is called English in general, but in the UK, it is what some people would call British English, when in fact, when you say English, you are denoting a Gentleman from England, which is ironically a part of the UK. Should there be then such a language that should be called Americanish?

Also, when you name a certain language, you simply put -ese at the end the country's name? Like Chinese, Japanese, Porteugese, etc, why not Englese?

[*Jess♥]

the English name for some other languages...

France - French

Germany - German

Spain - Spanish

Italy - Italian

South Africa - Afrikaans

Thailand - Thai

China - Mandarin

hmm.. interesting thought on that last one,

a lot of people in the UK would say that Mandarin is the name for the language spoken as the 'official' language of China.. and would think that 'Chinese' would be insulting or somehow improper. however, most of the actual Chinese people i have spoken to, would say their language is Chinese.

although, actually the majority of Chinese people i have known have been from around Guangdong and thus spoken Cantonese more than mandarin.

[*V Guyver]

China has a good number of languages and dialects, Chinese isn't used often as a language description because it's basically lumping all the languages together as if they were all the same, that's why it's insulting to some. Yes that would showcase ignorance.

Although I do speak English better then most Americans, in recent years I've given into American slang, however, I still have slightly odd subtle way of talking, I tend to pronounce my I's and E's differently when first learning a word. And by habit I still pronounce a few incorrectly, but they fit a national level of pronunciation. My Friend who's an English major loves me talking English because she can tell the accent I have, but notes that I'm surprisingly good with the language more so then actual USA born citizens. This of course means, I talk American English, with an second Sub American accent on top of my traditional Portuguese, though I can mimic a Brazilian and British accent a little.

[*Jess♥]

I love accents.

I sometimes analyse a different accent and think about the sound they are actually making, is completely different from the sound i make. and yet it is recognisable?

very cool.

kinda like an advert on TV has some jamaican guys, and the one word i listen to an awful lot is "always" and so i tried to mimic their accent.

well taking my own accent into consideration, the noises i have to make to sound like the jamaican guys would sound more like "I'll where's" in my own accent.

i suppose to those guys, if they listen to my normal way of saying it, it may sound something like "ole wiz" or something like that.

[durendal]

Sometimes I find it difficult to understand other people due to their accent. Although I understand what they are saying, it takes me a moment to analyze what they were saying. I myself don't have an accent, even when I speak other languages, so it's not difficult for me to speak other languages. My Japanese instructor even commended me that I speak like a Japanese.

[*Jess♥]

heh heh,

well (most notably in english), EVERYONE has an accent

if you speak like a british person, americans will hear a british accent. if you speak like an american, british people will hear an american accent.

even japanese... if you speak to a person who was raised in tokyo and they say you have no accent, then people from kansai will say you have a tokyo accent.

although i am sure you would be very skilled at adapting to the accent of the person you are talking to?

or maybe you are similar to me in that your accent is very well balanced between all available accents.

my accent is actually quite balanced and results in some strangers thinking i am canadian.

not sure why they say canadian.. probably because they can tell i'm not american or australian but they think i don't sound british... so they pick an accent they think might sound like british or american and choose canadian which they probably haven't heard much of.

[Yamato381]

More like Canada's form of "English" is a mixture of both British and American dictionaries.

Which probably explains the "Canadian" accent.

Though I seriously hate people who think I'd pronounce "about" as "a boot."

[*V Guyver]

You know what, I really find it strange how they'll update some words to match more modern day uses. But then entirely ignore older words that don't spell our sound anything like they are supposed to. really now, I don't care if there is a history to the word, simplify and make it simple to spell. The Original websters dictionary did just that with tons of british words, so why not do it again in modern times. Here's a couple of them.

"Colonel"

Colonel comes from Old Italian colonello, commander of a column of troops, which in turn derives from colonna, column. English usage followed Spanish practice (also a French variant) and spelled the word "coronel," pronounced the way it looks. Eventually this was corrupted to ker-nel. When the written version became "colonel" (reflecting its Latin origin), the "kernel" pronunciation remained. <BR style="DISPLAY: block; CLEAR: left">

"Wednesday"

Wednesday comes from the Middle English Wednes dei, which is from Old English Wēdnes dæg, meaning the day of the Germanic god Woden who was a god of the Anglo-Saxons in England until about the 7th century. <BR style="DISPLAY: block; CLEAR: left">

So... what's preventing us from agreeing to spell these two Wensday, and Kernel? Nothing, just stuck up spellers who think it shouldn't be changed because they are in common use. Well, I say, change the bloody dictionary and watch as over the coure of 25 years it falls out of complete use.

I pitty the international communities having to learn english as a second language for political and financial reasons. We'd be far better off with a simpler language like Latin or perhaps one of the newer languages like Esperanto that was designed for that very purpose. It's already been proven that if you learn either of the previous two instead of english (You can look up the studies, wiki esperanto for example) which allowed a 25% improvement in most students studying a new language.

[*Jess♥]

I'm disagreeing with you there though dude.

the tendency you describe.. to 'simplify' the spelling of the words is seen by many as 'dumbing down' and is probably one of the originators of the myths of 'dumb americans'.

now, I know plenty of very intelligent americans, but the general view of people is that americans are stupid.

it is the opinion of some people i have spoken to that the american spelling of words exists because the people aren't intelligent enough to spell properly.

you could thank this webster person for that.

I mean, take these following words.

grey, armour, laser,

these are not tough for me to spell, and i would imagine that they would not actually be tough for any american person to spell. but these words have been effectively 'dumbed down' probably by this webster person?

I see a lot of bad spelling from american people on the internet and i think it is an attitude that spelling is not important. i think perhaps the schools do not put emphasis on spelling and so you get a lot of very poor spelling.

if you remove common instances of certain spelling conventions, such as the o-u-r in armour, then when people come across words that have not been altered, you get more confusion.

this is why you see non-english speakers, when they learn english, they do it better than native english speakers.

reely, iz it eny wunder that sum peepul get it rong? if there not tort proply?

anyway, with specific reference to those words you mentioned, the way they are spelled, actually effects the pronunciation. if you spell it kernel, it sounds different from if you spell it colonel. see, with an 'r' in the word, I am prompted to pronounce an 'r', but with no 'r' in it, I do not pronounce any 'r'. I pronounce colonel, very similar to 'cone-l' but the 'o' is changed by the addition of the extra 'ol' it is less rounded and drawn out a bit. is this important or not? well yes. I say of course it is important because when a person says 'kernel' to me, I think of a seed.

the pronunciation of wednesday.. well the way that is spelled produces a lightly audible 'bump' in the word. it's subtle but it's there. and if it wasn't there, it would sound dumb. i think maybe it would sound like a child was saying it?

[*V Guyver]

I'm disagreeing with you there though dude.

the tendency you describe.. to 'simplify' the spelling of the words is seen by many as 'dumbing down' and is probably one of the originators of the myths of 'dumb americans'.

now, I know plenty of very intelligent americans, but the general view of people is that americans are stupid.

it is the opinion of some people i have spoken to that the american spelling of words exists because the people aren't intelligent enough to spell properly.

you could thank this webster person for that.

I mean, take these following words.

grey, armour, laser,

these are not tough for me to spell, and i would imagine that they would not actually be tough for any american person to spell. but these words have been effectively 'dumbed down' probably by this webster person?

I see a lot of bad spelling from American people on the Internet and i think it is an attitude that spelling is not important. i think perhaps the schools do not put emphasis on spelling and so you get a lot of very poor spelling.

if you remove common instances of certain spelling conventions, such as the o-u-r in armour, then when people come across words that have not been altered, you get more confusion.

this is why you see non-english speakers, when they learn english, they do it better than native english speakers.

reely, iz it eny wunder that sum peepul get it rong? if there not tort proply?

anyway, with specific reference to those words you mentioned, the way they are spelled, actually effects the pronunciation. if you spell it kernel, it sounds different from if you spell it colonel. see, with an 'r' in the word, I am prompted to pronounce an 'r', but with no 'r' in it, I do not pronounce any 'r'. I pronounce colonel, very similar to 'cone-l' but the 'o' is changed by the addition of the extra 'ol' it is less rounded and drawn out a bit. is this important or not? well yes. I say of course it is important because when a person says 'kernel' to me, I think of a seed.

the pronunciation of wednesday.. well the way that is spelled produces a lightly audible 'bump' in the word. it's subtle but it's there. and if it wasn't there, it would sound dumb. i think maybe it would sound like a child was saying it?

Well, I'm going by American accents, and we do use a different dictionary. My proposal doesn't necessarily have to apply to England, or other english speaking countries. But since websters purpose was to simplify the English language, I felt changing the spellings to not only reflect the accents, but also fit the pronunciation more would of been fitting. It's not a matter of dumbing it down, that wasn't websters purpose, there was a huge problem presented in the US by the sudden influx of multinational immigrants, which led to a language divide in the country. In fact, Most of the western states early on spoke french, New York up until the 1800's spoke mostly Dutch, and with all this, we started to develop a distinct set of accents in the US that differed from Standard English. The result was a need to accommodate these new accents, and so the websters dictionary was partially born from that reason, the other reasons was a lack of proper dictionaries, and those that did exist were limited. Noah Webster expanded on the words used, not just literary, but words in terminology. In that regard, his work upped the standard.

By the way, though yes, Americans can be lazy, our education system can be pretty bad over here... actually in the cities it's pretty sub par from my experience. Well, that's aside the point. What I'm getting at is that is that it isn't a matter of idiocy, or even negligence, a lot of those spellings are purposely done. It's really expanded thanks to IM and texting. Faster ways of getting out sentences in cumbersome keypads, and lazy youths on AIM/IXQ/MSN that are truly too lazy to spell out the full word.

I'm my case, it's a mix of problems, I pronounce things and try to spell it as I pronounce them... big NO NO in English since you have to memorize the spelling from what I can gather from the ludacris spelling rules in the language. Combine that with lots of typo's from an unskilled typer constantly multitasking, and a little laziness. Then yes, it's pretty horrible spelling on my end. Oh did I mention inzomia,which I often suffer, that doesn't help things either. ^^0

Well back on topic... Simplifying the spelling of the words to the general population, and pruning out spellings that are no longer commonly used in the language would be a big benefit I think. I'm not suggesting this out laziness, but instead for the benifit of the language in general. We have 20 vowels in this language, having over 200 different ways to spell them out is absurd. (I don't remember the exact number, but 20 vowels in the englsuh language do indeed exceed that spelling range.) When you consider that, makes you wonder how the language even works with all these absurdly redundant spellings. I'm sure everyone will love spelling "ghoti" all day long sicne you can pronounce it like "Fish". *sighs*

[*Jess♥]

your spelling is normally good though.

I'm not sure about having to memorise spelling of certain words _{(I noticed you spelled ludicrous like that performing artist ; )}.

my spelling always came sort of naturally. I think as long as you understand how certain words behave in certain situations, you can pretty much figure out the spelling.

like.. I know the theory behind ghoti, but actually, in practice, it is incorrect. yes, 'ti' can make a sound like 'sh' but only within certain letter groups. like 'action', or 'station' or other similar words. but at the end of a word, it will NEVER make a 'sh' sound.

and yeah of course you are right, there will be different standards of schools all around the place.

and of course, my spelling is good but not always perfect. it's why i have a spellchecker enabled on firefox

but then you do have to know the difference between words that are Homophones.

[durendal]

Not many people are aware that "ghoti" may be pronounced as "fish". I myself has never heard of it before my high school teacher played us with it during class.

This word may not sound like "fish", but its somewhat difficult to say 10 times fast: supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

[Yamato381]

That's interesting.

On that topic.

I've seen a really funny moment in America and Canada where:

A Canadian Tim Horton's spelled "doughnut" as "donut" and nobody noticed.

An American Tim Horton's spelled "donut" as "doughnut" and somebody actually noticed.

...

Fail.

[durendal]

Based on my observation, American English tends to be more lax in terms of spelling. They use the term donuts more mainly because it is easier to spell. Since it is made of dough, I would say that the correct term is doughnut, but "donut" is also an accepted vernacular with the popularity of Dunkin' Donuts. The spelling "doughnut" is more widely used outside the US.

Oh great. Now I'm craving donuts.

[Yamato381]

Plus, if you take the syllable "dough", its vowel is similar or identical to that of the "do" in "donut."

I believe (but I'm not sure) the vowel is the Close-mid back rounded vowel, but I'm not all too sure.

But yes, donut is a shortening of doughnut, seeing as the two can be decidedly pronounced similarly.