Съобщения: 24
Език: English
JenniferatLernu (Покажи профила) 05 декември 2007, 05:02:11
I remember years ago in French class many students (all native english speakers) were complaining about how hard French was and that everyone should just learn English as it is so easy. They couldn't understand why other cultures might have a hard time. The French teacher then told us this poem. Enjoy. 
-----
I take it you already know
Of tough and bough and cough and dough?
Others may stumble, but not you
On hiccough, thorough, slough, and through?
Well done! And now you wish, perhaps
To learn of less familiar traps?
Beware of heard, a dreadful word
That looks like beard and sounds like bird. And dead; it's said like bed, not bead;
For goodness sake, don't call it deed!
Watch out for meat and great and threat,
(they rhyme with suite and straight and debt)
A moth is not a moth in mother.
Nor both in bother, broth in brother.
And here is not a match for there.
And dear and fear for bear and pear.
And then there's dose and rose and lose --
Just look them up -- and goose and choose.
And cork and work and card and ward,
And font and front and word and sword.
And do and go, then thwart and cart.
Come, come, I've hardly made a start.
A dreadful language? Why, man alive,
I'd learned to talk it when I was five,
And yet to write it, the more I tried,
I hadn't learned it at fifty-five!
--------
-----
I take it you already know
Of tough and bough and cough and dough?
Others may stumble, but not you
On hiccough, thorough, slough, and through?
Well done! And now you wish, perhaps
To learn of less familiar traps?
Beware of heard, a dreadful word
That looks like beard and sounds like bird. And dead; it's said like bed, not bead;
For goodness sake, don't call it deed!
Watch out for meat and great and threat,
(they rhyme with suite and straight and debt)
A moth is not a moth in mother.
Nor both in bother, broth in brother.
And here is not a match for there.
And dear and fear for bear and pear.
And then there's dose and rose and lose --
Just look them up -- and goose and choose.
And cork and work and card and ward,
And font and front and word and sword.
And do and go, then thwart and cart.
Come, come, I've hardly made a start.
A dreadful language? Why, man alive,
I'd learned to talk it when I was five,
And yet to write it, the more I tried,
I hadn't learned it at fifty-five!
--------
mnlg (Покажи профила) 05 декември 2007, 07:28:29
A few years ago I found this. My apologies if it has been posted already:
No wonder the English language is so very difficult to learn:
We polish the Polish furniture.
He could lead if he would get the lead out.
A farm can produce produce.
The dump was so full it had to refuse refuse.
The soldier decided to desert in the desert.
The present is a good time to present the present.
At the Army base, a bass was painted on the head of a bass drum.
The dove dove into the bushes.
I did not object to the object.
The insurance for the invalid was invalid.
The bandage was wound around the wound.
There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
They were too close to the door to close it.
The buck does funny things when the does are present.
They sent a sewer down to stitch the tear in the sewer line.
To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
After a number of Novocain injections, my jaw got number.
I shed a tear when I saw the tear in my clothes.
I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?
I spent last evening evening out a pile of dirt.
No wonder the English language is so very difficult to learn:
We polish the Polish furniture.
He could lead if he would get the lead out.
A farm can produce produce.
The dump was so full it had to refuse refuse.
The soldier decided to desert in the desert.
The present is a good time to present the present.
At the Army base, a bass was painted on the head of a bass drum.
The dove dove into the bushes.
I did not object to the object.
The insurance for the invalid was invalid.
The bandage was wound around the wound.
There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
They were too close to the door to close it.
The buck does funny things when the does are present.
They sent a sewer down to stitch the tear in the sewer line.
To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
After a number of Novocain injections, my jaw got number.
I shed a tear when I saw the tear in my clothes.
I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?
I spent last evening evening out a pile of dirt.
JenniferatLernu (Покажи профила) 06 декември 2007, 01:48:48
Nice! Even as a native English speaker it seriously hurt my brain to read some of those sentences.
And now you've given me a tee-shirt idea. Perhaps something with:
------
English is easy? Not!
I spent last evening evening out a pile of dirt.
The present is a good time to present the present.
Don’t bother to give both brothers the broth.
Esperanto: an easier alternative for world communication. ~ lernu.net ~
------
Well I guess that would be too wordy for a shirt but you get the idea.
And now you've given me a tee-shirt idea.
Perhaps something with: ------
English is easy? Not!
I spent last evening evening out a pile of dirt.
The present is a good time to present the present.
Don’t bother to give both brothers the broth.
Esperanto: an easier alternative for world communication. ~ lernu.net ~
------
Well I guess that would be too wordy for a shirt but you get the idea.
Stefano B (Покажи профила) 06 декември 2007, 05:48:16
Why is it then that so many people have told me that English is a relatively easy language to learn? This is coming from people who learned it as a second language. It has always confused me when people say that, because these poems (which I have seen before) make English seem difficult, but nevertheless people have always told me that it is relatively easy compared to other natural languages like German, Chinese, or Russian.
English is certainly more difficult to learn than Esperanto, in any case, but I'm not so sure it's more difficult than many natural languages.
English is certainly more difficult to learn than Esperanto, in any case, but I'm not so sure it's more difficult than many natural languages.
annadahlqvist (Покажи профила) 06 декември 2007, 06:03:16
haha, and then there is all the irregulars:
bend, bent, bent,
spend, spent, spent
lean, lent, lent
cut, cut, cut
put, put, put
broadcast, broadcast, broadcast
teach, taught, taught
fight, fought, fought
catch, caught, caught
think, thought, thought
see, saw, seen
be, was, been
show, showed, shown
shoot, shot, shot
choose, chose, chosen
take, took, taken
shake, shook, shaken
break, broke, broken
...
and all dialects... British in school American on TV etc, resulting in a strange mix. pavement-sidewalk, roundabout-?, trailer-caravan, trailer-truck, chips and crisps and french fries...
bend, bent, bent,
spend, spent, spent
lean, lent, lent
cut, cut, cut
put, put, put
broadcast, broadcast, broadcast
teach, taught, taught
fight, fought, fought
catch, caught, caught
think, thought, thought
see, saw, seen
be, was, been
show, showed, shown
shoot, shot, shot
choose, chose, chosen
take, took, taken
shake, shook, shaken
break, broke, broken
...
and all dialects... British in school American on TV etc, resulting in a strange mix. pavement-sidewalk, roundabout-?, trailer-caravan, trailer-truck, chips and crisps and french fries...
mnlg (Покажи профила) 06 декември 2007, 09:55:52
Stefano B:Why is it then that so many people have told me that English is a relatively easy language to learn?My humble opinion (as someone who learned it as a second language) is that it suffers from generality. The grammar and morphology leave a lot to the reader to figure out. Take the word "round", for instance. It can be a noun, a verb, an adjective or an adverb; it doesn't receive suffixes, it doesn't (or barely) decline. It's certainly easier to remember one word for all meanings (compare this with committing to memory long declination tables for irregular verbs), but it also relies on the fact that the reader will have to figure out what its real role is, what it really means within the given context. Please notice that I say "reader". I find it much easier to understand English in writing than in speech (for the same reason I am a terrible speaker, while I am rather comfortable in writing). The effect of its incoherent and illogic pronunciation/spelling is that I have to learn every word twice, once to know how to write it, and another to know how to say it. I consider this to be a waste of cerebral capacity (you have to do twice the work) and I think it plays a part in explaining why an average native English speaker has difficulties learning other languages.
Stefano B (Покажи профила) 06 декември 2007, 20:36:01
mnlg:I agree, one of the things I hate about English is that the spelling doesn't very well match the pronunciation. English spelling reforms have been proposed in the past, but I think it would be hard to reform the spelling since the pronunciation varies so much from one place to another.
My humble opinion (as someone who learned it as a second language) is that it suffers from generality. The grammar and morphology leave a lot to the reader to figure out. Take the word "round", for instance. It can be a noun, a verb, an adjective or an adverb; it doesn't receive suffixes, it doesn't (or barely) decline. It's certainly easier to remember one word for all meanings (compare this with committing to memory long declination tables for irregular verbs), but it also relies on the fact that the reader will have to figure out what its real role is, what it really means within the given context. Please notice that I say "reader". I find it much easier to understand English in writing than in speech (for the same reason I am a terrible speaker, while I am rather comfortable in writing). The effect of its incoherent and illogic pronunciation/spelling is that I have to learn every word twice, once to know how to write it, and another to know how to say it. I consider this to be a waste of cerebral capacity (you have to do twice the work) and I think it plays a part in explaining why an average native English speaker has difficulties learning other languages.
I was just saying... some people have told me English is a hard language to learn, and other people have told me it's easy. That's what confuses me. I mean, I have talked to people who learned English as a second language, who told me that they didn't think Esperanto should be the international auxiliary language and they were happy with the international language being English. Why would non-native speakers of English say that, if English were an extremely difficult language to learn?
donmiguel (Покажи профила) 06 декември 2007, 20:59:43
Stefano B:I have talked to people who learned English as a second language, who told me that they didn't think Esperanto should be the international auxiliary language and they were happy with the international language being English. Why would non-native speakers of English say that, if English were an extremely difficult language to learn?selfishness and vanity like: " I've been able to learn english and communicate with it. So I don't think it might be hard for others. And if I've learnt it, it's the highest of all high feelings to communicate in english leaving behind those who weren't able to.. so i'm special"
ok, maybe I drew quite a drastic picture there...
JenniferatLernu (Покажи профила) 07 декември 2007, 09:19:17
Just a couple of thoughts.
Everyone has different strengths and weaknesses. Perhaps some people who find English easy are people who have a natural talent for learning languages?
The problem is that everyone can probably think of one or two people who think English is easy (or hard). However, basing it on just a few test subjects does not mean you have good statistical data.
I am curious though about statistical analysis/experiments as I admit that I do not have any references for experiments proving that English is harder than many other languages to learn.
(I can find websites with their own rank order of difficult languages but so far I have yet to find any that quote actual scientific research as opposed to just opinion.)
Everyone has different strengths and weaknesses. Perhaps some people who find English easy are people who have a natural talent for learning languages?
The problem is that everyone can probably think of one or two people who think English is easy (or hard). However, basing it on just a few test subjects does not mean you have good statistical data.
I am curious though about statistical analysis/experiments as I admit that I do not have any references for experiments proving that English is harder than many other languages to learn.
(I can find websites with their own rank order of difficult languages but so far I have yet to find any that quote actual scientific research as opposed to just opinion.)
JenniferatLernu (Покажи профила) 07 декември 2007, 09:21:19
Oh and here's an interesting quote from the following website:
http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Literacy/reading.asp
Of course such quotes as these do not really prove anything scientifically -- it's more just for fun.
---
Let's face it - English is a crazy language.
There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat. We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig. And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham?
If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices? Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it? If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?
---
http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Literacy/reading.asp
Of course such quotes as these do not really prove anything scientifically -- it's more just for fun.
---
Let's face it - English is a crazy language.
There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat. We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig. And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham?
If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices? Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it? If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?
---