English words that conflict with your language.

[Centurio Nixalsverdrus]

*English grammar is just as complex as that of any human language.

How that? You * don't inflect, conjugate or do other things...

*almost

[ajaxfetish]

How that? You * don't inflect, conjugate or do other things...

*almost

What's your point?

Ajax

[Owen Glyndwr]

Weird has always been a funny word to me. Doesn't it just look so weird?

What I have learned over the years is that there is no most difficult/easiest language to learn in the world. All recognized languages have some facets to them that are incredibly easy to learn, and others that are exceedingly difficult.

For example, grammar and conjugation are for the most part simple in English, however pronunciation and learning to read/spell are both supposed to be rather difficult.

Compare that to Spanish, which has fairly simple and rigid pronunciation, but has a rather difficult grammar riddled with tons of rules and even more exceptions.

French, on the other hand, has a much simpler grammar, (only one subjunctive wut?) but pronunciation and spelling can be rather difficult.

[Centurio Nixalsverdrus]

What's your point?

Ajax

The point is that if I don't have to learn any grammar, there is no grammar, no matter what you say.

It's really strange that I seem to be able to communicate in this language fairly well although I have never made any effort to learn its grammar, whereas my French skills are zero, although I have put the double effort into learning it's ridiculously difficult grammar and orthography.

Compare that to Spanish, which has fairly simple and rigid pronunciation, but has a rather difficult grammar riddled with tons of rules and even more exceptions.

Yeah but the RRRRRRR still gives me headaches even after eight years... the grammar is not that difficult. OK, it's very difficult to be honest, but "riddled with tons of rules and even more exceptions" is a little strong. I mean, their they're there are like no exceptions at all.

French, on the other hand, has a much simpler grammar, (only one subjunctive wut?) but pronunciation and spelling can be rather difficult.

Really? I remember it as the epitome of difficulty. Man how I hated it. Their weird constructions with apostrophs made me sick regularly.

[A Very Super Market]

l'apostrophes? As far as my mandatory French lessons go, I haven't seen them used except for words that start with vowels. Don't start me on "H" being a vowel. That's just weird.

[Owen Glyndwr]

I mean, their they're there are like no exceptions at all.

Look up the rules on the usage of por and para, or the subjunctive, or preterite vs imperfect. I guarantee you, your head will explode.

[ajaxfetish]

The point is that if I don't have to learn any grammar, there is no grammar, no matter what you say.

It's really strange that I seem to be able to communicate in this language fairly well although I have never made any effort to learn its grammar, whereas my French skills are zero, although I have put the double effort into learning it's ridiculously difficult grammar and orthography.

You seem to be equating grammar with morphological complexity. Do you think Mandarin Chinese is an easy language to learn? If so, more power to you, but most of us westerners would not agree. I, for one, struggle tremendously distinguishing tonal differences. Yet English has much more morphological complexity than Chinese, and much more phonotactic complexity, especially in syllable codas. English does not have the morphological complexity that some languages do (including older varieties of English), but like all languages, it makes up for lack of complexity in some areas with greater complexity in others. English phonology is quite complex, including interdental fricatives and highly complex syllable codas and onsets (a single syllable may have three segments in both its onset and its coda), and its syntax is quite complex as well. Word paradigms may be quite easy to pick up; correct word order is likely to cause more problems.

The point of language is communication. To accomplish this it must have a fine balance of complexity, or you won't be able to communicate. Your statement that you are able to communicate fairly well in English is a testament to the complexity of the language's grammar. (edit: and by the way, your written grammar is quite impressive, probably indistinguishable from a native speaker. I'd have to hear you speak to know whether you've mastered English phonology as well as its syntax and morphology)

Ajax

[CCRunner]

Look up the rules on the usage of por and para, or the subjunctive, or preterite vs imperfect. I guarantee you, your head will explode.

Or the sheer number of different conjugations.... I hate you ir, ser, ar verbs, er verbs, ir verbs, haber, saber, decir, dar, car/gar/zar verbs, 2vv verbs, o-> ue, e->ie, e->i, o->u, ir sole verbs, informal commands, go verbs, and any other verbs I may have missed

[Azathoth]

Look up the rules on the usage of por and para, or the subjunctive, or preterite vs imperfect. I guarantee you, your head will explode.

Or the sheer number of different conjugations.... I hate you ir, ser, ar verbs, er verbs, ir verbs, haber, saber, decir, dar, car/gar/zar verbs, 2vv verbs, o-> ue, e->ie, e->i, o->u, ir sole verbs, informal commands, go verbs, and any other verbs I may have missed

It's not that bad. But I guess that's why I got a hundred in Spanish OHHHH SNAAPPP

[CCRunner]

Corro ~~ Corremos
Corres ~~ Correis
Corre ~~ Corren

Run ~~ Run
Run ~~ Run
Runs ~~ Run

[Azathoth]

Corro ~~ Corremos
Corres ~~ Correis
Corre ~~ Corren

Run ~~ Run
Run ~~ Run
Runs ~~ Run

I Run ~~ We Run
You Run ~~ You (all) Run <----Blame the Spanish for this
He/She/You Run(s) ~~ You/They Run

[Veho Nex]

At my school I work with a lot of ESL students. What I've learned is that when people from primarily spanish or deep latin roots countries or households write in english they write how its spelled. Messes a lot of them up.

I tell them they have to add an accent to everything if there is a silent letter. Teach them selves to say their there and they're slightly different so they know which one to write.

[Azathoth]

I tell them they have to add an accent to everything if there is a silent letter. Teach them selves to say their there and they're slightly different so they know which one to write.

According to my Spanish teacher, everyone in her neighbourhood speaks a kind of Spanglish (ie. advertisements for frozen goods say "freezado" instead of "congelado").

[Major Robert Dump]

"Drunk Cherokee"

"Frat boy with homosexual tendencies"

"Bingo players in sweatpants"

No, wait, those are redundancies, never mind.

[Owen Glyndwr]

It's not that bad. But I guess that's why I got a hundred in Spanish OHHHH SNAAPPP

Your skill at the language does not make the language itself any less complex. I got a 5 on the AP test, but I still respect how outrageously difficult Spanish grammar can be. What Spanish are we talking about? Spanish 1 is a lot easier than Spanish 4.

[Husar]

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

It's better then waking up and than missing the train to work.

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

That's because the Americans are doin' it 'rong.

Imho English grammar is incredibly straightforward and easy. German and French are much more complicated.

German is pretty easy, trust me, I grew up with it.

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.

Can't be, I don't know any german who would be an english grammar nazi...

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...

That's deffo correct.

It's really strange that I seem to be able to communicate in this language fairly well although I have never made any effort to learn its grammar, whereas my French skills are zero, although I have put the double effort into learning it's ridiculously difficult grammar and orthography.

I'd say I pick(ed) up english rather naturally, never learned the grammar either but then it was similar with german, I learned most of the german grammar during latin lessons long after we were supposed to learn it in german lessons. One of the few things I find difficult in both are things like indirect speech in some kind of past tense or whatever.

About conflicting words, 'wand' would be one, in english a magical one can turn you into a frog and in german it divides rooms in a building.

[Hax]

Damn you all to infernity!

Dutch is one of the hardest languages to learn, or so I heard.

[miotas]

It's better then waking up and than missing the train to work.

Depending on the context, that could actually work... maybe...

[Subotan]

Here they are all said exactly the same

Same here.

Damn you all to infernity!

Dutch is one of the hardest languages to learn, or so I heard.

Dutch is just German with more Oos.

[ajaxfetish]

How that? You * don't inflect, conjugate or do other things...

*almost

By the way, you're absolutely right that English has an impoverished inflectional morphology. Most of our verbs have just four distinct forms (for instance, jump, jumps, jumped, jumping), though some of our strong verbs have slightly more or fewer. By contrast, classical Latin, a language with a rich inflectional morphology, has I believe about 100 distinct forms for each verb. Other languages blow Latin out of the water. (edit: I understand that Kivunjo has about 500,000 distinct forms for each verb)

But the lack of complexity in that part of the English grammar is made up for in the syntax, with our especially rich system of auxiliary verbs. I can throw out a sentence like

If I were to have been being helped, I wouldn't have come to complain

with a string of five auxiliaries and a main verb in the first subordinate clause. Between them all, I know the verb is subjunctive, non-finite, perfective, passive, and progressive. Replace any of them with a differently inflected form, or change the order, and the sentence would immediately become incorrect. Furthermore, because overt subjects are obligatory in English and the verb and subject agree, I also know the verb is first-person singular. That's some serious complexity. Even with 100 different inflected forms, Latin can't encode more verbal information in a single clause than that.

Ajax

[Riedquat]

According to my Spanish teacher, everyone in her neighbourhood speaks a kind of Spanglish (ie. advertisements for frozen goods say "freezado" instead of "congelado").

Thats very true, here in Argentina we speak Spanglish every day, mostly because of foreign terms that don't have a proper translation into Spanish; freezado, chateando are examples of every day words we use.

There isn't any single written word in English that conflicts with my language... and there isn't any single spoken word that doesn't

[InsaneApache]

It's a 'soft' G, as in Geoffrey. Not a 'hard' G as in goal.

Anyroad, these days I have all on speaking in Yorksheer. Ecky thump.

[Centurio Nixalsverdrus]

You seem to be equating grammar with morphological complexity.
[...]

Yes I was. I didn't know there was a difference. Thank your for explaining that.

(edit: and by the way, your written grammar is quite impressive, probably indistinguishable from a native speaker. I'd have to hear you speak to know whether you've mastered English phonology as well as its syntax and morphology)

Ajax

Wow, thank you very much! Though if you would hear me speak you would be disappointed I think, I haven't actually spoken English a long time. All my practice basically comes from the .Org!

If I were to have been being helped, I wouldn't have come to complain

I must confess that I probably get the meaning of your sentence just 75%. You beat my English skills.

[Centurio Nixalsverdrus]

Corro ~~ Corremos
Corres ~~ Corréis
Corre ~~ Corren

Always keep an eye on the accent.

Or the sheer number of different conjugations.... I hate you ir, ser, ar verbs, er verbs, ir verbs, haber, saber, decir, dar, car/gar/zar verbs, 2vv verbs, o-> ue, e->ie, e->i, o->u, ir sole verbs, informal commands, go verbs, and any other verbs I may have missed

There are fairly simple rules concerning that. The great thing about Spanish is that it's logical. The orthography is completely logical, the use of the accents, even the conjugations. The shift between indicative and subjunctive is logical... Once you have seen and revised all the grammar (morphological changes ;)), you'll suddenly understand and be deeply satisfied.

Look up the rules on the usage of por and para, or the subjunctive, or preterite vs imperfect. I guarantee you, your head will explode.

I *know* all this rules. It's the four great dualisms of Spanish, you forgot ser vs. estar. I don't know if there are so many exceptions to the rules. As stated above, it's really quite logical. Also, I believe you can't learn them all, you better get a feeling to when to use what.

l'apostrophes? As far as my mandatory French lessons go, I haven't seen them used except for words that start with vowels. Don't start me on "H" being a vowel. That's just weird.

Qu'est-ce que c'est? (What's that?)
Est-ce que c'est? (Is that...?)
How can you invent such combinations...

[ajaxfetish]

Yes I was. I didn't know there was a difference. Thank your for explaining that.

No problem. I just tend to get a little excitable on this topic, since I'm making the study of grammar, and especially the history of English, my pursuit in life. Incidentally, German's one of the other languages I'm working on picking up, though I'm nowhere near fluent yet (and I'm not exactly surrounded by German speakers I can practice using it with over here).

Ajax

[Azathoth]

Your skill at the language does not make the language itself any less complex. I got a 5 on the AP test, but I still respect how outrageously difficult Spanish grammar can be. What Spanish are we talking about? Spanish 1 is a lot easier than Spanish 4.

T'was in Spanish 3, I'm now in Spanish 7/AP Spanish. Mostly we've just been practising for the AP Exam and going over grammar that we should have learned years ago. I think I'll just start a new language next year, I'm getting tired of Spanish.

[CCRunner]

Always keep an eye on the accent.

I tried to input it directly but that didn't work on the browser, and I'm to lazy to open up word to do it

[Louis VI the Fat]

Every single word of English conflicts with my language and plans for global domination.


For specific words, too many to mention:

1) Prix - price, prize. It never dawned on me until I learned English that 'prix' has two distinct meanings.


2) Actuel / actual:

Actuel - present
Actuellement - at the moment
Réel - actual
Réellement - actually


3) To ask = Demander. To demand = Réclamer. To reclaim = Récupérer. Etcetera.

[A Very Super Market]

Yet we're closer to French than anything else...

[Azathoth]

Yet we're closer to French than anything else...