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Philosophical debate

de Islander, 2007-februaro-07

Mesaĝoj: 76

Lingvo: English

EL_NEBULOSO (Montri la profilon) 2007-februaro-11 00:41:46

Well, English has (like Esperanto) only one gender. Actually, I think the fact that Esperanto has only one gender is one of the main reasons why it's so easy to learn it. In Spanish and Italian, you know for most words by the ending, what gender it has. In French you rarely know, is German it's even worse, additionally, you do have 3 different genders...

For personal pronouns: In other languages, they depend on the subject (English) or object (French, Italian, Spanish), in German they depend on both, so it's more difficult for a beginner.

Irregular verbs you have in all of these languages (German, French, Italian, English, Spanish), so there is no big difference.

From other aspects of grammar, these languages are also similar, pronunciation might be rather difficult in French, partly also in English, Spanish, Italian and German should be easier there (some English-speaking friends told me, the fact that (without little exceptions) you know how to pronounce a German word by seeing it, is the only easy thing when learning German). Also in Esperanto the direct correlation between the written and the spoken word (concerning pronunciation) is one of the main advantages.

In Spanish and other romanic languages the subjuntivo is a bit difficult for some people to learn, also things like estar and ser, both of which mean "to be" and you just have to know when to use which. Similarly, for can be "por" or "para"...

Anyways, I am not the big language expert, but I guess from what I know English ist the easiest of the 5 languages to learn, especially at the beginning. As said before, it's still difficult to speak it well.

Anyways, I know several people who are scientists and live in Austria or Germany since 15-20 years. They speak German most of the time and use English mostly to talk to other scientists. Still, there English is much better than their German (despite having less training)...

Hope I don't have too many typos, it' already quite late here, just wanted to add a little comment...

Geraldo

T0dd (Montri la profilon) 2007-februaro-12 14:31:41

Basic English grammar is fairly simple. English spelling is a nightmare, even for native speakers. It may be a surprise to some to realize that there are many highly educated native speakers of English who cannot spell. In conjunction with this is the fact that English pronunciation is very hard, mainly because we have so many vowel sounds, in comparison with other languages. In my dialect of English, the following words are all different: bat, bait, bet, beet, bit, bite, bot, bought, boat, bout, but, boot...not to mention bird.

English has many idiomatic phrasal verbs. "Put down" (let go of, insult); "put up" (place higher, get someone to do something, commit to do something (put up or shut up), tolerate (put up with)); "put over" (get away with); "put on" (don an item of clothing, deception); "put out" (extinguish, make available)...to name a few.

Something can blacken, whiten, or redden, but nothing can brownen, greenen, or bluen.

Rope (Montri la profilon) 2007-februaro-12 14:53:54

I agree with Todd on his points.
And to add my bit. The spell checker was a great invention. okulumo.gif

Confusion also exists with the variation of spelling from American English and British English.
We also have the problem of some words are pronounced in a different way by a Brit and an American.
For example buoy, from a Brit is pronounced as "Boy", but from an American it has another pronunciation.

But hey variety is the spice of life.

Islander (Montri la profilon) 2007-februaro-12 15:06:12

I agree that the English language does have its particularities and difficulties but to say that some of its native speakers have spelling problems (and I assumed you meant more than other languages) is unfair.

Often do I find myself asking how a (french) word is spelled, if it does have 1 or 2 "L" or "N". I actually find English spelling more strait forward. I do use the spell checker a lot more for French, my native language, then I do for English. I do, however, use the grammar checker a lot more in English.

All modern countries have their share of people who cannot write properly, some not at all. Measuring the difficulty of any given language by this standard is simply not accurate as may other factors would come into play.

erinja (Montri la profilon) 2007-februaro-12 17:07:09

T0dd:Basic English grammar is fairly simple. English spelling is a nightmare, even for native speakers. It may be a surprise to some to realize that there are many highly educated native speakers of English who cannot spell.
There was a very interesting article about this in the Washington Post's weekly magazine a couple years ago. One of their reporters, a horrible speller for his entire life, submitted to extensive training and testing to try to improve his spelling. I don't think it made a bit of difference. In the end, he was just as bad a speller as when he started out. I think they concluded that there's something in your brain that makes you a good or bad speller, and it has nothing to do with intelligence.

Fascinating article. You can still read it online; here's the link, for anyone interested: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A270...

Electric Prophet (Montri la profilon) 2007-februaro-13 20:51:28

What I don't get is why would want genders? I am an intermediate student in Latin and I think genders are just a huge headache.

Islander (Montri la profilon) 2007-februaro-13 22:45:04

And what I don't get is why one would care to know the gender of whoever owns a thing as it doesn't give much details other than that and any elaborate phrase construction would specify it elsewhere anyway.

For example, in "her table" we know that whoever owns the table is a girl, but nothing states who specifically. And if we say "Alice's table", we're pretty sure it is own by a girl (or a rock star) without further precision.

I can get why some may think it's weird to put a gender on a table, but I do wonder why you don't on an actual male or female of anything other than a human...

T0dd (Montri la profilon) 2007-februaro-15 02:49:40

Electric Prophet:What I don't get is why would want genders? I am an intermediate student in Latin and I think genders are just a huge headache.
Nobody *wants* them; they're just there. It's best not even to think of them as "genders" at all, since the term is misleading. It's not as though the speaker of French thinks there is something feminine about a table, or something masculine about a wall. Even in Latin, "agricola" and "poeta" do not connote anything feminine about farmers and poets. And I'm sure Germans don't think of a girl (Mädchen) as neuter.

erinja (Montri la profilon) 2007-februaro-15 03:22:07

T0dd:Even in Latin, "agricola" and "poeta" do not connote anything feminine about farmers and poets.
Don't forget "nauta"; I don't think sailors are thought of as being terribly feminine either!

I always thought it was funny how these are in the first word list in so many Latin courses. I understand starting with the first declension feminine, but including the three best-known masculine words in the feminine declension always struck me as a bit odd. Way to make people feel comfortable with the language, start them off with an exception to a rule, right? Plus some way-cool-interesting sentences "Poeta silvam laudat" "Nauta feminam amat", "Agricola nautam laudat", etc ad infinitum.

Islander (Montri la profilon) 2007-februaro-15 16:31:02

Don't forget "nauta"; I don't think sailors are thought of as being terribly feminine either!
Several months alone at sea may do something for that, but that's a whole different debate! lango.gif

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