Yeah, Arabic is much harder than Mandarin... Nothing is harder than Finnish though. That language makes no damn sense. Everything about it is bizarre.
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Just A Thought: How "Jacked-Up" Is English To Native Speakers Of Spanish?
- Thread starter OV1kenobi
- Start date
Yeah, Arabic is much harder than Mandarin... Nothing is harder than Finnish though. That language makes no damn sense. Everything about it is bizarre.
....and what is the point of silent letters ??? Do other languages have silent letters ?? Do they have letters that make multiple sounds ??
That list would drive a learner insane. Especially if they natively spoke a syllable-timed language like Spanish.
To all you with your confusing English posts I think we have one in Sweden that will outclass you! "Får får får? Nej, får får inte får. Får får lamm."
Translates to: "Do sheep birth sheep? No, sheep don't birth sheep. Sheep birth lambs." This comes from the Swedish word for sheep being "får" but "får" can also mean that you get or receive something which in this context can be used as giving birth.
And on the topic of hardest language to learn I would definitely say Hungarian. It is insane!
Translates to: "Do sheep birth sheep? No, sheep don't birth sheep. Sheep birth lambs." This comes from the Swedish word for sheep being "får" but "får" can also mean that you get or receive something which in this context can be used as giving birth.
And on the topic of hardest language to learn I would definitely say Hungarian. It is insane!
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Everyone is forgetting Vulcan of course. Very logical, but very difficult for il-logical humans.
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.
Fe0ffer 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, ***, 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!!!
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.
Fe0ffer 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, ***, 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!!!
Slash McCoy
I freehand dog rockets
French has LOTS of silent letters, especially at the end of words.Silent T's, silent R's, silent S's, silent everything. A lot of silent stuff for people who talk so much. I guess not pronouncing the end of most words helps them to get more words said, faster.
Far out!
Let's not forget our beloved homonyms, how many can a bare* bear bear? English must be a difficult language to learn, there is a depressingly large number of people who have lived here their entire lives and can still barely speak or write it.
*Yes, technically that one's a homophone.
*Yes, technically that one's a homophone.
eh, english is just a crazy language that makes this a logical sentence: "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo"
link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo
link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo
Well, my wife speaks Portuguese and didn't know English very well when she and I first met. In a matter of a few months though, she picked up English very quickly. On the flip side, I am learning Portuguese. While my wife is now fluent in English, I am not fluent in Portuguese and the reason why is because she had to speak English and I don't need to speak Portuguese right now to get by. The best thing to do is to get yourself into circumstances where you simply have to speak the language you are learning, otherwise you really won't be communicating much at all. I would say that no matter the language, this holds true. When learning a new language, you are always going to come across things that will make you scratch your head and ask "Why?" or say "That doesn't make sense." The bottom line is, it makes sense in that language and it is what it is. Once you can just tell yourself, "Don't ask why they say it this way, they just do," you'll find yourself letting loose and learning the language quicker. Not to mention, it makes the experience more enjoyable and less frustrating.
Hope I stayed on topic and answered the question. I found this topic interesting and just began typing what was on my mind so I hope I didn't stray too far off topic!!!!
As an English speaker , speaking Spanish, and traveling around South America, I found the further I traveled the more uncertain the translation became. I spoke, they translated to English -then most of the time I agreed.Good luck with your travels.
I lived in South Africa for a long time and the accent sounds perfectly normal to me
which might explain a few things about me ... a bit strange at times!
When I was activated and sent to England for Desert Storm back in '91( USAF Contingency Hospital) I roomed with a surgeon from California who was born and raised in S Africa, and had lived in England and Canada before finally landing in the US. While his accent was not pure American everything was totally understandable, even after an evening of pub rounds.
I hired a contractor to build the cabinet for me.
The contractor billed me for the cabinet.
The contractor billed me for the cabinet.
My warranty was transferable so I had it transferred.
French. You basically say the first letter of the word, then drop the rest!
As an Illinoisan (don't get me started) I can agree with the sentiment. It wouldn't even be an issue if the rules applied across the board, but they don't.
An example;
Des Moines, Iowa is pronounced "deh-Moyn"
While the Des Plaines River is pronounced "dez-playnz"
These are interesting threads. Language is fascinating. Particularly working at university. You hear a lot of different languages. We recently had one of our student workers graduate who was a real help with language barriers. He was French but his mum was German (don't ask about the family tensionsLOL) so he grew up speaking both languages fluently. He came to the U.S. about five years ago and spoke no English other than curse words. He picked up English really well. And more than that he grasps humorous slang. The hardest thing of all I think.
He said learning his girlfriend 's Korean language very hard. He still only speaks a few words. She has good English. He also told me that while German was our root language is was not as easy to make the jump based on that criteria. He said English did not sound any more coarse or smooth to him than any other language. Like most have stated here he thought it was easier to be illiterate about a language and just pick it up from native speakers. Learn to write the language later.
About Spanish speakers thinking English must sound messed up. Probably no more than Spanish sounds to us. In fact my experience with Spanish speakers has been the further south you go the more it sounds like machine gun fire! Folks from South America sound like they are speaking perceptibly faster than most Mexicans I have been around.
Silent letters? Try looking at written Irish! I have been listening to Pimsleur discs trying to pick up basics. It sounds totally different than it is spelled. I love it though. I wish there was a native speaker locally.
Cheers, Todd
He said learning his girlfriend 's Korean language very hard. He still only speaks a few words. She has good English. He also told me that while German was our root language is was not as easy to make the jump based on that criteria. He said English did not sound any more coarse or smooth to him than any other language. Like most have stated here he thought it was easier to be illiterate about a language and just pick it up from native speakers. Learn to write the language later.
About Spanish speakers thinking English must sound messed up. Probably no more than Spanish sounds to us. In fact my experience with Spanish speakers has been the further south you go the more it sounds like machine gun fire! Folks from South America sound like they are speaking perceptibly faster than most Mexicans I have been around.
Silent letters? Try looking at written Irish! I have been listening to Pimsleur discs trying to pick up basics. It sounds totally different than it is spelled. I love it though. I wish there was a native speaker locally.
Cheers, Todd
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