English words that conflict with your language.

[Fragony]

This is for people who don't have English as their native language. There are many words in English I have to think about before typing them.

'Dungeon', it just seems wrong to me. Did it in a single try but only because I use it as an example. I also tend to type 'there' when I mean 'their', and 'than' when I mean 'then'. There is no cure but trying really hard.

Where do you get it wrong.

[Ferret]

This should be interesting. Don't worry about 'there' and 'their', countless English people get those two mixed up, and hardly anyone seems to use 'they're'

[Fragony]

Don't worry about 'there' and 'their', countless English people get those two mixed up, and hardly anyone seems to use 'they're'

Probably because that means something else, 'they are' ;)

[Ferret]

Probably because that means something else, 'they are' ;)

What I mean is that people write either 'there' or 'their' when the correct word to use would be 'they're'. I assume this is because they all sound the same.

[Fragony]

What I mean is that people write either 'there' or 'their' when the correct word to use would be 'they're'. I assume this is because they all sound the same.

Just teasing ya

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

What I mean is that people write either 'there' or 'their' when the correct word to use would be 'they're'. I assume this is because they all sound the same.

They don't actually sound the same in most dialects. Their and There are inflected slightly differently, They're is actually pronounced very differently.

[Ferret]

Here they are all said exactly the same

[KukriKhan]

They don't actually sound the same in most dialects. Their and There are inflected slightly differently, They're is actually pronounced very differently.

Yeah, english contractions used to drive my German friends nuts. Especially when speaking with fast-talking northern americans.

"They're moving their camp over there.", spoken aloud with my Michigan accent = sounds identical, though I admit "they're" should have a longer "ay" sound in the middle to recognize the 'ey' of they.

"Of" is another one that confuses. 'Should've', 'would've', could've' get written as should of, would of & could of, because of the similar sound. Drives me crazy.

[CCRunner]

What I mean is that people write either 'there' or 'their' when the correct word to use would be 'they're'. I assume this is because they all sound the same.

Yeah, but their all stupid

[Centurion1]

I'm Chinese. Just imagine the transfer between phonetic and character-based......

I also speak a bit of French, Spanish, and German. English, with no genders for words, is unbelievably simple. Of course, we have to balance that out with absurd pronounciation.

i speak some mandarin thanks to my family and uh....... yeah it is a very different transition.

i also know a pretty solid amount of russian thanks to family as well but i can't evenn imagine being fluent.

english is a hard language and i have trouble with our own grammar let alone russian and mandarin grammar. ugh

[miotas]

Yeah, lots of native english speakers also mess up then and than.

[The Stranger]

This should be interesting. Don't worry about 'there' and 'their', countless English people get those two mixed up, and hardly anyone seems to use 'they're'

its very simple... i misspell it only when im in a hurry and typing casually, because then i tend to start writing phonetically... than and then i still find very hard, but apart from a few odd words, i tend to have little problems...

one thing i find very odd though, why do you pronounce sword as if the W isnt in there... its not the same with sworn, swagger, swollen, swallow etc...

[Andres]

This is for people who don't have English as their native language. There are many words in English I have to think about before typing them.

'Dungeon', it just seems wrong to me. Did it in a single try but only because I use it as an example. I also tend to type 'there' when I mean 'their', and 'than' when I mean 'then'. There is no cure but trying really hard.

Where do you get it wrong.

"Their", "there" and "they're" and "then" and "than"; I usually spot them when I re-read (thank Tosa for the edit button), but I make many mistakes against those pre-edit.

I usually mix up "hear" and "here" and "where" and "wear" as well and anything else that sounds similar.

[Strike For The South]

About half of this language confuses me.

Spanish is so much simpler

[Centurio Nixalsverdrus]

None of you posted a word that conflicts with his native language, although this should've been the topic of this thread, according to the OP.

[Centurio Nixalsverdrus]

That said, I'm incredibly thankful that English in not my mother tongue. It would be a total waste to have it as native language.

• the grammar is so simple, it suffices to learn it at age 90, no need to start as a baby
• English native speakers normally don't care if anyone uses the language right, leading to an incredibly high amount of bad grammar and orthography among speakers, even native ones
• English native speakers normally have no clue about vowels thanks to the incredibly ridiculous pronounciation of their mother tongue
• due to the limited English grammar, it must be really hard for native speakers to learn a foreign language, since these normally tend to have grammar

Which leads me to the conclusion that nobody really has to dominate English because nobody really cares. Heck you are even so friendly in the U.S. and start to make all signs etc. bilingual in Spanish and English from what I've heard. In fact there's only one place to find English grammar nazis, and that's undoubtedly Germany. Just come over here to learn it right.

P.S. I know you will pardon my mistakes, if you spot them.

P.P.S. The most common mistake by native speakers I come across in this forum is "definately" and other ways to write "definitely" wrong. Ah the vowels...

[Megas Methuselah]

Yeah, English grammar is practically non-existent. In fact, despite all my years of learning French, I basically forget its complicated grammar when speaking it, instead favouring a basic form of pigeon French. Those Quebecois can scowl at my butchering of their mother-tongue all they want; it's the best I can do.

[ajaxfetish]

[*]the grammar is so simple, it suffices to learn it at age 90, no need to start as a baby[*]English native speakers normally don't care if anyone uses the language right, leading to an incredibly high amount of bad grammar and orthography among speakers, even native ones[*]English native speakers normally have no clue about vowels thanks to the incredibly ridiculous pronounciation of their mother tongue[*]due to the limited English grammar, it must be really hard for native speakers to learn a foreign language, since these normally tend to have grammar

*English grammar is just as complex as that of any human language.
*English native speakers definitely care about correct use of the language, and are as unlikely to make genuine grammatical mistakes as native speakers of any language.
*English vowels experienced a shift in the early modern period. If the orthography hadn't already been fixed, there'd probably be no confusion between English's and other languages' vowels. It's an artifact of the orthography, as English has basically the same vowels as most other European languages (though our mid vowels are universally diphthongized, and we've got a particularly rich lax vowel inventory).
*Again, English grammar is as rich as any natural language's. The greatest problem faced by English speakers learning other languages is the worldwide prevalence of English. If English speakers felt a greater need to learn other languages, and especially if we started learning them much younger, it would be much easier for us.

It could still drop the inflection of verbs according to grammatical person:

I am
you am
we am
he, she, it am
they am
you am

English syntax is sufficiently rigid that it doesn't require a richer morphology. Most verbs have only one present-tense variant (the 3rd person singular), a random relic, and would be just as clear if that form were the same as all the others. Because be is still highly inflected, it looks weirder to level it, but it would do no more to inhibit meaning.

Ajax

[Furunculus]

This is for people who don't have English as their native language. There are many words in English I have to think about before typing them.

'Dungeon', it just seems wrong to me. Did it in a single try but only because I use it as an example. I also tend to type 'there' when I mean 'their', and 'than' when I mean 'then'. There is no cure but trying really hard.

Where do you get it wrong.

i imagine; where, were, we're, ware, would also be confusing.

[TinCow]

This is a very interesting conversation. It's a particularly odd one for me, because I put a great deal of effort into mastering the English language, but am very poor at speaking other languages. I very much agree that grammar is less important in English than in other languages, or at least in the Romance languages, which are the only other ones I am familiar with. There is a great deal of grammar in English, but most of it is not necessary. Even with improper grammar usage, it is very easy to understand what someone is saying.

One of the main differences, as far as I am aware, is the depth of the Enlish vocabulary. I have seen statistics indicating that English has approximately 3 times as many words as German and approximately 6 times as many words as French. In most other languages, words tend to be combined together to explain a more specific or nuanced concept. While this can also be done easily in English, most of these concepts seem to have their own very specific word as well. In my experience, what separates and experienced English speaker from an inexperienced speaker is not so much the grammar, but the depth of the vocabulary. Those who are considered 'expert' speakers of English tend to achieve that perception based on the words they use, not how they arrange them.

[ajaxfetish]

Those who are considered 'expert' speakers of English tend to achieve that perception based on the words they use, not how they arrange them.

I think this is a good point. Pretty much every native speaker (except those with language disabilities) is going to arrange their words correctly. With the exception of a few prescriptive rules (unnecessary, as you pointed out), the most noticeable difference is likely to be word choice. With English's extensive borrowing from other languages, and its highly productive derivational system, we've got an awfully large set of words to choose from. Mastering the nuances of each term and reliably recalling the best word for each situation takes both talent and work.

Ajax

edit:

Even with improper grammar usage, it is very easy to understand what someone is saying.

This, on the other hand, I can't really agree with. If we take all the words in your post and arrange them without proper grammar usage, the result is incomprehensible, at least to me. I even kept each word in the same sentence to make it easier, but while I might get a vague idea of the topic from some of the words used, I wouldn't have a clue what was being said about it.

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[Tellos Athenaios]

Why do I think of Scandinavia when I read that garbled post??

(Or more precisely: why does the cadence of the garbled post make me think of Scandinavian languages?)

[Viking]

Why do I think of Scandinavia when I read that garbled post??

(Or more precisely: why does the cadence of the garbled post make me think of Scandinavian languages?)

I can't think of any reason..

[Fragony]

Why do I think of Scandinavia when I read that garbled post??

Same reason I do, think of Scandinavian women all the time.

[Ironside]

Why do I think of Scandinavia when I read that garbled post??

(Or more precisely: why does the cadence of the garbled post make me think of Scandinavian languages?)

Most likely is that it reminds you of the parodied versions they have in English speaking media.

The only thing I can think of is that scandinavian grammar is often the same as the English one, but using constant direct translations would occationally give sentences with odd grammar.

[TinCow]

This, on the other hand, I can't really agree with. If we take all the words in your post and arrange them without proper grammar usage, the result is incomprehensible, at least to me. I even kept each word in the same sentence to make it easier, but while I might get a vague idea of the topic from some of the words used, I wouldn't have a clue what was being said about it.

LOL, you've got me there. Clearly there are some levels of grammatical butchery which make English essentially incomprehensible. What I was imagining were the numerous grammatical errors which are common in people who are still in the early phases of learning or who have otherwise not learned the language properly. It seems like it would be almost impossible to know enough English words to actually use the proper ones, yet know so little of the structure that you speak gibberish. The paragraph you altered seems like something that would only be encountered in someone who had suffered damage to the language section of the brain, not something that would ever be encountered in an otherwise normal person.

That said, I don't have a lot of experience to base any of this on. One of my friends teaches adult literacy, and he's told me about some amazing difficulties that his students encounter which are almost inconceivable for those of us who learned to read when we were young.

[ajaxfetish]

The paragraph you altered seems like something that would only be encountered in someone who had suffered damage to the language section of the brain, not something that would ever be encountered in an otherwise normal person.

Very true. You're really only ever going to run into that kind of serious grammatical deficiency in people who never learned a first language (deaf people not exposed to signing until teenagers or later, abused children isolated until the same age), people who've suffered strokes or otherwise damaged the language-related parts of the brain, and people with (probably heritable) language impairments.

What I was imagining were the numerous grammatical errors which are common in people who are still in the early phases of learning or who have otherwise not learned the language properly.

I know what you mean here, but I'd argue that those aren't errors, but features of non-standard dialects/ideolects. When it comes to language, the early phases of learning are 1.5 to 2.5 years. By 3 years old, the grammar is pretty much known. Rules that have to be drilled later are not a part of the language itself, but artificial add-ons. Of course, that doesn't mean it's not important to observe them in certain social settings, because a lot of how we judge people depends on whether they've learned those little add-ons.

Ajax