English Makes No Sense. At All.

11 responses to “English Makes No Sense. At All.”

1. 

   memeweaver

   May 29, 2017

   That English is the hardest / least-consistent language is an old canard.

   I’ve attended language classes in other countries, where students come from many different language backgrounds. Aside from the immediate observation that many countries teach English to kids better than Australia has done in nearly 50 years, many will offer alternate “harder” languages e.g. Polyglot Poles thought their native Polish was harder than other languages they learnt; some parts of Spain find bits of Spanish grammar so unwieldy that they simply don’t use them. Then of course you have countries where the spoken and written languages have zero relationship.

   Log in to Reply
2. 

   zenu

   May 29, 2017

   This video forgot the elephant in the room. ‘W’ should be double V.

   And that adding an ‘e’ to the end of words changes how the preceding vowel is pronounced. E.g dim, dime or tim, time.

   And yes, what is the deal with one/won and two/to. Teaching a kid to read uncovers the utter stupidity of language amalgamation.

   …Yes it’s ‘ch’, but not in orchestra.

   Grrr..

   Log in to Reply
   1. 

      Toby Tortoise

      May 30, 2017

      Another rule with an exception. Here’s a word puzzle for your friends: What is a three letter word where the E on the end *doesn’t* change the vowel?
      *
      *
      *
      The answer is ‘axe’.

      Log in to Reply
      1. 

         zenu

         May 30, 2017

         But adding an ‘e’ at the end of axe doesn’t make sense?

         Log in to Reply
         1. 

            adrunkenman

            May 30, 2017

            They mean that the ‘e’ on the end doesn’t change the way you would pronounce the preceding vowel. For instance in ‘axiom’ you sound out the ‘a’ as you would in axe, so the presence of the ‘e’ at the end doesnt change that.

            Log in to Reply
3. 

   stickman

   May 29, 2017

   Only English-only speakers think English is hard. It’s laughable. It’s incredibly easy to get the basics of it. Sure, you’ll make grammatical errors here and there, and probably entirely miss the localisation, but you will get your point across.

   Meanwhile, complex languages have: pronouns for everything, gendered speech; formality; variations on “the” (see: German) depending on the previous; strict grammar; etc.

   Log in to Reply
   1. 

      zenu

      May 30, 2017

      In comparisons, I would agree that English grammar is easy (as it’s so inexact). But I would debate that English spelling is difficult.

      Log in to Reply
4. 

   Menelas

   May 29, 2017

   Haha, ‘English is difficult to learn’ – Haven’t smirked that much in a while! It is such an easy language to learn with hardly any grammatical rules compared to numerous other languages. Out of the four compulsory languages we had to study at my German high school (namely English, Russian, French, and Spanish), it was by far the easiest! Only native English speakers will try to tell you that it’s a difficult language to learn. I have a feeling it’s to cover themselves and their complete inability to formulate a grammatically correct sentence in their mother tongue!

   Log in to Reply
   1. 

      memeweaver

      May 29, 2017

      It reminds me of dog-owners who say “Fido doesn’t do this because BREED REASON”, to cover their complete lack of training skills or intention.

      The pathetic standard of language in our schools only ten years after the cessation of grammar teaching was demonstrated by one of my HSC English teachers who was pretty much taxed by anything beyond “naming words” and “doing words”, couldn’t spell to save her life and had no ability to understand the nuances of language in a text.

      Log in to Reply
5. 

   kikadik

   May 29, 2017

   I call shenanigans here, almost every article I’ve ever read, says English is the easiest language, particularly when you compare it to Chinese, or Arabic etc, etc.

   Log in to Reply
6. 

   Jayd

   May 29, 2017

   English is trivially simple to learn to the point you can get by, but it’s complex to obtain fluency in.

   It’s also one of the most forgiving languages in the world. If someone says “Which clock, please” you would know to answer “5pm”.

   Now, Japanese on the other hand.

   Log in to Reply