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| Author |
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| 25 new of 346 responses total. |
whiplash
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response 175 of 346:
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Apr 14 01:27 UTC 1995 |
I don't know if this will make nyone feel better, but I do believe that
the English language is either the hardest or next to hardest language
to learn. Personally, I murder it!
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macha
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response 176 of 346:
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Apr 14 01:28 UTC 1995 |
Never fear...an English teacher is now here! :) This looks like a great
idea for an item. Thanks, nephi.
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aruba
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response 177 of 346:
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Apr 14 01:53 UTC 1995 |
Well, so, what's the deal with collective nouns?
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vsclyne
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response 178 of 346:
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Apr 14 12:28 UTC 1995 |
Collective nouns: The British give them plural verbs, the Americans singular.
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mdw
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response 179 of 346:
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Apr 16 18:42 UTC 1995 |
I've heard it claimed that english is actually a very easy language to
learn. The only hard part is the spelling. Many other languages have
complicated systems of endings, which have to be mastered in order to
make sense in the language. A few languages have complicated sets of
prefixes, which can make using a dictionary a real challenge. Quirky
spelling is not unique to english either; french is very nearly just as
arbitrary.
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rogue
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response 180 of 346:
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Apr 16 22:55 UTC 1995 |
From a non-linguistic expert's point of view, I think Chinese grammar and
structure is significantly simpler than English. Anyone have any input?
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whiplash
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response 181 of 346:
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Apr 17 02:30 UTC 1995 |
The hard part of our language is that many of our words have several
different meanings.
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mdw
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response 182 of 346:
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Apr 17 03:04 UTC 1995 |
From a linguistic point of view, english is closer to chinese than you
might think. Chinese is also kind of fond of the multiple meaning
trick, the more so because, unlike english, chinese doesn't have a good
way to coin new words. This results in some pretty bizarre word
constructs for railroads and other products of modern technology.
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kenb
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response 183 of 346:
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Apr 17 03:29 UTC 1995 |
How about a sidebar of examples, Marcus?
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omni
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response 184 of 346:
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Apr 17 03:40 UTC 1995 |
re 181- Yogi Berra lives ;)
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srw
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response 185 of 346:
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Apr 17 12:50 UTC 1995 |
Spelling is not the only thing Hard about English.
Few languages are so rich in sounds. English (among the Indo-European langs)
has many sounds that are absent from many of the others. I believe
th, dh, r (retroflex) , flat a, short i are among the many sounds that
are difficult for most foreigners. th is in Spanish and dh matches the
soft d in some, but the number of distinct vowel phonemes in English
is problematical for most.
Oriental languages are very phoneme-poor, in general.
It is hard for people to learn a laguage that distinguishes sounds which
one hears as identical. In this aspect learning English is harder than vice
versa.
Chinese has tones, and that will be a major stumbling block until mastered.
This is partly because they are all limited to a single syllable.
Even with tones, they are often paired to form "compound" words to resolve
these ambiguities. One must have a large vocabulary to make sense of all this.
This doesn't even touch the question of learning the written forms.
English has a good collection of irregular verbs. Chinese is not inflected,
and so does not have the concept of an irregular verb.
Which one is harder? We need an impartial observer.
Whichever one you don't know.
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rcurl
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response 186 of 346:
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Apr 17 17:46 UTC 1995 |
Before we get too far from "nouns of multitude: here is what _American-
English Usage_ (Nicholson, after Fowler) has to say:
"Such words as army, fleet, government, company, crowd, number, majority
may stand either for a single entity or for the individuals who compose
it, & are called nouns of multitude. They are treated as singular or
plural at discretion - & sometimes, naturally, without discretion. 'The
Cabinet is divided' is better, because in order of thought a whole must
precede division; & 'The Cabinet are agreed' is better, because it takes
two or more to agree. That is a delicate distinction, & few will be at the
pains to make it. Broader ones that few will fail to know are that between
'The army is on a voluntary basis' & 'The army are above the average
civilian height', & that between 'The party lost their hats' & 'The party
lost its way'. In general it may be said that while there is always a
better & a worse in the matter, there is seldom a right & a wrong, & any
attempt to elaborate rules would be waste labor. A single example will
illustrate sufficiently: 'More money will be wanted if the number of
teachers are to be adequate'. No one will misinterpret that; yet everyone
will admit that the singular would have been what the plural is not,
foolproof; the writer meant 'if there are to be enough teachers'; he did
not mean what his words ought to mean - 'if the numerous teachers are to
be skillful enough'.
"But if the decision whether a noun of multitude is to be treated as a
singular or as a plural is often a difficult business, & when ill made
results at worst in a venial blemish, failure to abide by the choice when
made, & plunging about between it & they, have & has, his & their, & the
like, can only be called insults to the reader. A waiter might as well
serve one on a dirty plate as a writer offer one such untidy stuff as
(WRONG): 'The University Press hopes to have ready the following additions
to their series of....'/'The latter Government has now attempted to link
up with the Czechs & have published a program'/'The village is at work now
& ready to do their bit'."
(Fowler is worth reading for the sheer delight of his prose and his
opinions. Here is a quote from Fowler on the latter:
"It is perhaps, then, rather a duty than a piece of presumption for
those who have had experience in word-judging to take any
opportunity....of helping things on by irresponsible expressions
of opinion.")
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macha
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response 187 of 346:
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Apr 17 21:41 UTC 1995 |
The hard thing about English is that none of the phonetical sounds soun alike
in every single word that they are in. For example...in though, "ough" is
pronounced "oh". In bough, it's pronounced "ow", etc, etc. That tends to
give foreigners most problems when they come over. I can't tell you how long
it was before I learned to pronounce process "prah-cess" instead of "pro-cess".
American vowels have a much flatter sound than in many countries of the world.
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birdlady
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response 188 of 346:
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Apr 17 22:01 UTC 1995 |
<set drift on>
Have you ever noticed that phonetic isn't spelled the way it sounds? Sorry...
had to... =)
<set drift off>
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janc
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response 189 of 346:
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Apr 18 00:22 UTC 1995 |
I've noticed that even my most fluent (in English) Chinese students have a
lot of problem knowing when to insert prepositions (a, the). I presume
there is no such thing as preposition in Chinese.
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birdlady
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response 190 of 346:
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Apr 18 00:33 UTC 1995 |
That's also true of Finnish. In the U.P, where quite a few Finns reside, you
often hear things like, "We go Shop-Ko, eh?" Or, "Let's go store." It's
been made fun of a lot, but it's their way of speaking. =)
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rogue
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response 191 of 346:
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Apr 18 02:10 UTC 1995 |
#185: I know both and speak both fluently. From my point of view, it seems
like Chinese is easier to learn.
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davel
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response 192 of 346:
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Apr 18 02:21 UTC 1995 |
I don't know whether Chinese has prepositions (& would be interested -
Jemmy? or anyone?), but even among languages which have them they're
vexing. Even languages as closely related as German & English use them
for somewhat different purposes, & trying to uniformly translate a
German preposition into one particular English one leads to bizarre
results.
The example which comes to mind, however, involves Russian. (And as I
don't know any Russian, this will be somewhat abstract.) A friend was
among a group of American undergrads visiting Russia as part of studying
Russian. While in Moscow, they went to see a Western with English
subtitles. At one point a character said, "Drinks are on me, boys!".
The Russian audience was baffled, the Americans in hysterics - that "on"
came through as indicating "atop", as if he'd pouured them on his head.
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mdw
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response 193 of 346:
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Apr 18 09:16 UTC 1995 |
A good example word is the chinese word for rail-road. Unfortunately,
while I remember that, if translated literally, it sounds ludicrous, I
don't remember exactly what it was.
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rcurl
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response 194 of 346:
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Apr 18 16:24 UTC 1995 |
Yes, that's a *great* example, Marcus.
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tsty
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response 195 of 346:
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Apr 20 13:06 UTC 1995 |
sounded good to me ........ <g> i'll ask around.
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otterwmn
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response 196 of 346:
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Apr 26 16:42 UTC 1995 |
Is "irregardless" a real word? I hear it often, but it makes no sense.
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birdlady
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response 197 of 346:
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Apr 26 16:52 UTC 1995 |
Nope..."irregardless" is considered a double negative. The correct usage is
"regarless".
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birdlady
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response 198 of 346:
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Apr 26 16:53 UTC 1995 |
How embarrasing...a spelling error in the grammar item. <birdlady blushes>
That should be "regardless". =)
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md
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response 199 of 346:
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Apr 26 17:00 UTC 1995 |
How about "any more," as in "Airports are so crowded any more."
What's that supposed to mean?
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