Dominix
Warlord
Hehe, only in English can a house burn down while it's burning up. 
Why English is the hardest language to learn
- Thread starter Knight-Dragon
- Start date
"He finally made his decision. But he went through tough thoughts though." 
Oh yeah, I've read once that Icelanders are very smart. Cos who the hell is able to speak Icelandic on this world?
Oh yeah, I've read once that Icelanders are very smart. Cos who the hell is able to speak Icelandic on this world?
MrPresident
Anglo-Saxon Liberal
Someone who is "cracking up" can be doing two completely different things.
Lt.Col. Kilgore
C.O. of 1st of the 9th
Its really easy. I started learning English when I was 1!
duke o' york
It don't mean a thing....
Well it can't be that easy because he was unable to read the rest of the posts here before making such a wonderful joke.
I have speaking English for my whole life (25 y/o right now) and I still have a hard time. I get confused with comas sometimes and the to and too makes it a pain. 
I believe that English is more expressive than Spanish though. Anyone know if this is true?
I believe that English is more expressive than Spanish though. Anyone know if this is true?
duke o' york
It don't mean a thing....
Well I can imagine that trying to communicate would be rather difficult if you have trouble with comas. 
And is this some kind of big spam crusade for you PH, as you seem to have posted in every one of the top 20 threads here in about an hour? I hope that it's to drum up some interest in our beloved H&J forum and give a
to all those people who voted "No" in the OT poll.
And is this some kind of big spam crusade for you PH, as you seem to have posted in every one of the top 20 threads here in about an hour? I hope that it's to drum up some interest in our beloved H&J forum and give a
to all those people who voted "No" in the OT poll.
Originally posted by duke o' york
Well I can imagine that trying to communicate would be rather difficult if you have trouble with comas.
I noticed the same thing.
Anyway, "to" "too" and "two" are very distinctive.
"two" means "twee",
"too" means "ook" and
"to" means "te" or nothing.
Sodak
Paha Sapa Papa
Certainly, as long as english is your first language.
Whatever you learn as a baby will be the most expressive for you!LEGALESE english is almost indecipherable to native speakers. People earn outrageous salaries just to be patient enough to slog thru it.
Sodak
Paha Sapa Papa
Two more "to" meanings: "naar" or "aan", too.Originally posted by Matrix
Anyway, "to" "too" and "two" are very distinctive.
"two" means "twee",
"too" means "ook" and
"to" means "te" or nothing.
You should include dutch "toe", too!
Switch625
I don't care.
Multi-national personnel at North Atlantic Treaty Organization headquarters near Paris found English to be an easy language... until they tried to pronounce it. To help them discard an array of accents, the verses below were devised. After trying them, a Frenchman said he'd prefer six months at hard labor to reading
six lines aloud. Try them yourself.
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 sieve,
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!!!
Author Unknown
six lines aloud. Try them yourself.
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 sieve,
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!!!
Author Unknown
Spectator
Chieftain
Haha! English the hardest language to learn?! Try french! All sorts of stupid exceptions and rules that dont make sense! Trust me, english is really easy compared to french.
Spec.
Spec.
hzm
Ecco the Dolphin
French makes no sense!
duke o' york
It don't mean a thing....
Croyez-moi, il y a beaucoup plus d'exceptions en anglais. Et les systèmes ne sont pas aussi difficiles que vous avez dit.
In fact, French is organised in a very straightforward way and the few exceptions are easy to learn and implement once learnt. As you can see here, very few anglophones use the language perfectly and neither do the French. It would be rude if you were to snigger when someone mispronounced something or used the wrong word, but it does happen just like it does in English. No-one expects you to deliver speeches and essays like a Victor Hugo de nos jours, but if you make an effort you can be easily understood.
Except in Paris, where as soon as the staff anywhere recognise the English accent, they immediately start talking to you in English!
Of course I just kept talking in French, and they would talk in English, and we'd both be quite happy.
In fact, French is organised in a very straightforward way and the few exceptions are easy to learn and implement once learnt. As you can see here, very few anglophones use the language perfectly and neither do the French. It would be rude if you were to snigger when someone mispronounced something or used the wrong word, but it does happen just like it does in English. No-one expects you to deliver speeches and essays like a Victor Hugo de nos jours, but if you make an effort you can be easily understood.
Except in Paris, where as soon as the staff anywhere recognise the English accent, they immediately start talking to you in English!
Of course I just kept talking in French, and they would talk in English, and we'd both be quite happy.
Just learned awhile ago that the plural form of forum is fora, rather than forums.
To think that I thought I have finally mastered the English language all these years...... <shakes head>
To think that I thought I have finally mastered the English language all these years...... <shakes head>
Black Fluffy Lion
Qxria
- Joined
- Oct 13, 2001
- Messages
- 977
Originally posted by Knight-Dragon
Just learned awhile ago that the plural form of forum is fora, rather than forums.
To think that I thought I have finally mastered the English language all these years...... <shakes head>
excellent, yet another one converted...
Converted? Nah, I'll still prefer forums. Like TF said, fora sounds too biological.
I'd rather be wrong than sound strange.Black Fluffy Lion
Qxria
- Joined
- Oct 13, 2001
- Messages
- 977
bah, fora sounds much better!
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