curmudge
100159
2146
38
English is fun.
May 17, 2020 4:45 PM
curmudge
100159
2146
38
English is fun.
Bearely
“English is tricky. It can be taught through tough, thorough thought, though.”
cavedoge
Cut like a buffalo
kukbert
Y'all act like not all languages have these weird quirks and what not. They all do.
furezasan
cutted
Sailorchief
Buffalo is one of my favorite sentences
tavinjer
Buffalo police police Buffalo buffalo police.
Holdmyhamster
At least it doesn't have that masculine and feminine garbage.
88wut
Then try switching to other countries that speak English.
WildWildo
Before was was was, was was is.
angryannotations
It can be understood through tough thorough thought, though.
xmaneds
@OP: had cut, did cut, was cutting. had been cutting.
Jubetsu
Usually when I see people writing terrible english they're native speakers. It's fairly easy to learn & a lot of TV and games have taught us
NotTinyPancakes
Can confirm every non English speaker I've met except (a russian and italian) have had the best grammar more so than native speakers.
HamaraCS
Well there's just a bunch of irregular verbs to learn... Might be harder as an adult but not impossible.
solosysygy
The thing about English is that verbs are either SUPER irregular, or very easy. And most are easy!
solosysygy
Also, there are no genders for most nouns, so declension is something you don’t really need to worry about
kc2syk
My seven year old argues with me about irregular past tenses.
Ialwayspick69whenipickajerseynumber
Learning english requires tough, thorough, thought.
Eiriktrollet
English really isn't hard guys.
feawen
I don't want to know anything about your hard guys
ScreamGravy
I can't honestly think of an easier language to learn
NotTinyPancakes
Of course it isn't hard guys it could be soft guys though.
rebuilthk47
English is easy. Stupid but easy. I enunciate the parts that make words different from each other differently so they sound different
rebuilthk47
little bit. It makes them sound different and helps me keep my spelling and accurate use from degrading any. I also take small details
rebuilthk47
seriously. The small details that matter. The small details mean the difference between raping and rapping. Between a hole and a whole.
nukemall
I can speak an entire coherent sentence using just versions of the word "fuck" (thanks to the Navy)
NotTinyPancakes
Ay swearing like a sailor
jm151
It's tough to get through, though.
TheMysticalWarrior
It is for thou.
CripPick
I'm so glad I was born knowing English. It would def be a pain in the ass to learn at a later age.
xmaneds
it's a minute to learn and a lifetime to master. to speak english poorly- just enough to get by -- is SUPER easy. to master it -- difficult
Funiske
Man you must have been the smartest baby in the world if you where born knowing english
RydWolf
Dearest creature in creation, Studying English pronunciation, I will teach you in my verse, Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse.
RydWolf
I will keep you, Susy, busy, Make your head with heat grow dizzy; Tear in eye, your dress you'll tear; Queer, fair seer, hear my prayer.
RydWolf
Pray, console your loving poet, Make my coat look new, dear, sew it! Just compare heart, hear and heard, Dies and diet, lord and word.
RydWolf
Sword and sward, retain and Britain (Mind the latter how it's written). Made has not the sound of bade, Say-said, pay-paid, laid but plaid.
MinorityOpinion
Hang on, "made has not the sound of bade"?
RydWolf
Now I surely will not plague you With such words as vague and ague But be careful how you speak, Say gush, bush, steak, streak, break, bleak
RydWolf
Previous, precious, fuchsia, via Recipe, pipe, studding-sail, choir; Woven, oven, how and low, Script, receipt, shoe, poem, toe.
RUBIX3D
omgwtfbbqXD
idk, I'm reordering those adjectives in that example and most combinations sounds fine?
PirateRubberDuck
Of course a green great dragon can exist. An adult green great dragon is big. No idea how big this one is though. Might be a baby one.
PirateRubberDuck
I wonder what other colours great dragons come in. A lot can be said by seeming to break a rule in language.
adeptblack
I never struggled with English as I did with German and Italian... You should see Croatian grammar lol
inflammableCollector
German. It’s beautiful, yet terrifying.
VanniCarlisle
I am German and can say I am glad I didn't have to learn it as a foreign language. It would be a pain in the ass to learn it.
inflammableCollector
It’s so terrifying, but I’m a big mythology nerd, so I’m excited to be able to read German books on your country’s weird lore!
VanniCarlisle
That's dedication! There are books in english with german translation on the next side. I read some Sherlock Holmes and some Shakespeare-*
VanniCarlisle
*pieces like Romeo and Juliet that way. Look up if There is Maybe the same with German mythology- like the Roland-Song!
commentsivehadafew
It’s easy. 1. Be born into an English-speaking family. 2. Become fluent without even trying. 3. Profit.
irreverentcommentguy
HonestCommentFarmer
"trying" Right.
Ifekinlovesauerkraut
Nope. Reading does the trick.
LordSintax79
No, step 3 is assume non-English speakers can understand you if you speak English loudly and slowly enough.
PedestrianElectrobastard
I just played Pokémon, then moved on to Baldur's Gate, and was fluent before I finished the damn game...
gloriousmustard
Or swedish
CambreathdTheSecound
read books. And listen to audiobooks.. I am a better English speaker then President of the United States of America. So I works guaranteed
ironsonic
1. Move to english speaking country at young age. 2.Be ridiculed by your countrymen for forever having the vocabulary of a child.
LocoNando
My mech is a Sinhala speaker, after 2 mins of trying to communicate with me, he gave up and switched to English :,(
shankelstoff
Or just play a shitload of video games and become fluent without trying. Also having a native language that's related to English helps.
Armady
If your native language is related chanxes are your ancestors beat up the former inhabitants of the isles and lefz their mark
shankelstoff
I guess :) there are quite a lot of Germanic languages though :)
datguyjay
Dutch?
shankelstoff
Could have been! But I'm swedish :)
UncomfortableAnswers
Motherfucker I tried DAMN hard to become fluent. 75% of my first 10 years on this earth was spent reading.
shankelstoff
Try'd*
TheBulletKnight
shankelstoff
Tryed'd
Shpadoinkleman
... Have you spent much time on the internet? The number of native English speakers who can barely write it is fucking staggering.
applesforjuice
Not to mention most non native english speakers these days are taught it when they're young
BearsDontCare
English suffers the issue of speaking and writing mot being the same most of the time phonetically
IIIdkbruh
Buddy I don't know what that stag word means but here in murica we got the gotdang freedom to reed and right at whatever level we want
Driftkingpanda
This comment is gold. America fuck yeah! Freedom is the only way now!
freezingpilot
I no, are language should be taught better, its frankly embarrassing how their our people who shoud no better but simply don't trie.
TheThirdDay
Fuk u budy u don no mee
ThicclikePaulBunyan
Hon hon hon! *Laugh in french*.
Cyrakhis
Right? My wife's first language is Polish but her English is immaculate, and she's always trying to apologise for her english. Like.. sh.
IusedToSmellRebeccasFarts
Most of the time I translate from my language to English. So some sentences are “wrong” cause they make sense in my language,not in English
ChurlishSunshine
This. My best friend is in Argentina and his grammar is wonderful , especially compared to the dumpster fires I see around the internet.
CulturallyEmbiggened
I hear it's very difficult to learn.
FourLegsGood
Only because it's so insanely irregular. Esperanto should become the official global language.
ImAFoxButNotReally
As a Spanish speaker who also learned other languages, English is easy because verb conjugations are simple.
DrMephistopheles
If it was difficult to learn it wasn’t the internation trading language. Its as simple as it gets.
sunyudai
Here here.
OliverClothesoff70
My three year old can speak English pretty well, so it cannot be that hard.
Joltbox
English is arguably simple to learn, but it's hellish to master. Try explaining the difference between 'bloke', 'chap', 'gov', and 'dude'.
stitchpls
Sure but that's dialect, literally every language has that
ButYouCanCallMeBeelz
Considered second hardest in the world next to mandarin.
Neiwin
Source?
LilPotatocat
What a perfectly cromulent username
left4chicken
Easy to learn, hard to master
jm151
tbf I think learning a second language is tough for most people, at least if they start later in life. when you're a kid your brain is in/1
jm151
prime learning mode and it's much easier to grow up learning more than 1
Promethianfire
It's one of the hardest non-tonal languages. My understanding is that Turkish is also super hard.
inflammableCollector
The hardest tonal language has to be Hmong.
alanrails
While difficult to master, English is easy to communicate with; the amount of broken English that still gets a message through is amazing
rbtmchl
This. Have you ever tried speaking broken Mandarin/Cantonese/Japanese/Korean/Arabic? People just stare at you like you’re having a stroke.
BennyLarva
English is the easiest language to be spoken badly. Mark Twain I think.
ThePiedPiperofRuination
"Why waste time say lot word when few word do trick?" -Kevin Malone
DefinitelyNotMadeOfBees
I've learned it's very difficult to hear.
JokerVonDoloh
It is, it has wa-a-a-a-y to0 many different vowels. Arabic, for example, has only 3: A, I and O (A and E count as the same, just as O and U)
DefinitelyNotMadeOfBees
Though English is tough, thorough study will see you through.
ImAFoxButNotReally
French has 5 different sounds for "e"
andseven
Hmm, my English teacher said that it's one of the easiest languages to learn.
ProgeriaProstitutes
Yeah but English isn't easy for it's grammar or pronunciation. English is easy because it's everywhere.
aloharamada
As someone who speaks some related languages, I tend to agree. English simplifies a lot more things than other languages.
aloharamada
But I do also agree with points like media and trade being in English just making it overall more accessible, I guess it's a mix of both.
charcharbinks732
Yeah, it's a tough language in a lot of ways but by no means the hardest. I've taught it for a while now (in and outside the US) and...
charcharbinks732
My students have really shown improvement. However, so much of American and British flavors of English is idioms so it is pretty challenging
Spiritsue
We do love our Idioms
glitchead
But that's the best part about English! The idiom doesn't even have to exist as long as it makes sense and we'll roll with it!
ZombieZooZombieZoo
Idiom you say?
kruug
Easiest to learn, hardest to master, maybe? Even native speakers can't speak it good.
yeahiheardaboutpluto
JKubuz
English has a lot of latent rules that come from the way if thinking of native speakers, so it's easy for a learner to make sentences 1/2
JKubuz
that are technically correct but wouldn't be uttered by a native speaker. 2/2
glitchead
See i can't even tell if its intentional or if you're doing it as a false flag, but... *speak it well.
kruug
Wut u mean? I spoked most perfectest. Y r u lik dis?
kruug
Oh, /s
CapeCodCaity
I love the videos of “how English sounds to non-English speakers”. Kinda makes me feel like I’m having a stroke but whatever.
Splittmark
https://youtu.be/-VsmF9m_Nt8
hatbeard
What Nicholas Cage film is this from?
Taxicat
I have auditory processing disorder and use those to explain to people why I struggle with using phones. Sometimes I can understand >
DysgraphicProgrammer
Same here. I leave the subtitles on on games and TV. It helps a lot to read while listening.
andwings2go
I prefer games that just load text onscreen. Waiting for the character to say it reminds me of teachers making kids read aloud.
Taxicat
Subtitles are such a lifesaver! Especially since changing the volume never helps me, because my ears aren’t the problem. >
Taxicat
>My brain just keeps missing or switching sounds around, or getting the tone of voice but not the meaning of the words.
DysgraphicProgrammer
It's not switching sounds for me but mushy parsing, where similar vowels are all sort of the same. I hear a lot of Mondegreens and puns
Taxicat
>what’s being said just fine, but other times it’ll sound like those videos.
NotTinyPancakes
That's a thing? I have been using subtitles and telling people i've lost my hearing but that might be it :o
Taxicat
I didn’t know it was a thing until I was in my 20s with a lifetime of anxiety about the whole deal. If you go to an audiologist with >
Taxicat
>concerns about it, they’ll first want to check your actual hearing anyway just to rule out hearing loss as the cause.
andwings2go
The popularity of texting made me realize I hate phone calls, and now masks are making me realize I read lips much more than I thought
sourcandy
Same. Never realized how much I read lips till masks were every where
fafnir77
Hey, sometimes I have these moments where spoken words become incomprehensible. It's rare and usually only happens in high stress
andwings2go
Yea my first job was in a busy little restaurant washing dishes. Requests and directions from all the coworkers just meshed with the noise
Turbolibros
LoverdeLestat
This. Is. Amazing.
Granac
tomatoboy
.
Popspoppingit
As a native English speaker, this sounds like English to me. and indeed, sounds like an accent much like those I'm familiar with.
CapeCodCaity
That’s my favorite!!
tangent
It sounds like I should be able to understand this but I can't. So very well done.
BeerCir
Written in 1972, the song is intended to sound to its Italian audience as if it is sung in English spoken with an American accent.
PolarbearsToenails
That's amazing. It sounds very American to me. My brain just keeps bending over backwards to figure out what he's saying.
BeerCir
Written in 1972, the song is intended to sound to its Italian audience as if it is sung in English spoken with an American accent.
ComicPi
Adriano Celantano. Italian comedian and musician he made "american" music during the 50s & 60s Rock & Roll boom. Even if people could under/
ComicPi
stand English, who cares anyway because his stuff bops?
darthstormer
"There, their, they're" she whispers, patting his back.
[deleted]
[deleted]
imshibagel
Their our know rules hear
GoodMoaning
Surprisingly, these are easy for non native speaker who learned in normal classes. The issue comes in when you first speak and then read.
whatpassesforclever
savemebabyjebus
Here hare hair hier
referNoodleSmuggler
Theyre're - Aristotle 2020
dduncan55330
"Tharr!" —Pirate indicating where she blows
grngr
Got a good belly laugh out of that.
l009
English, It can be understood through tough thorough thought, though.
ealkrjj
Theiy're. Just one and one; theiy're you have it.
Sturdycrotch
I don't understand how those get confused. They all sound different to me phonetically
jinxmcg
I agree. Out of curiosity is your native language English?
Sturdycrotch
It is
MinisterKai
Same. Also applies to are and our, your and you're.
OphelianAshe
Right? There - emphasis on the R, Their, emphasis on the EI, and They're sorta wibbles where the apostrophe is
Noughmad
Non-native speakers don't have a problem with these, because we learn by writing first. We have problems with weird pronunciations.
DoesSheGotDaBooty
Also true with ”should of” instead of “should have”. That one is my pet peave, also not a native speaker.
ImAFoxButNotReally
That's true. I don't have any trouble with that at all and I was surprised when I learned that's an issue for Americans.
kindwolf
Well, not THAT surprised…
Kiriande
Untrue, my students keep doing this wrong. Native Dutch
ReasonablySorryButNotTooMuch
Then your students are dense and/or lazy. Also native Dutch.
BeatYaToIt
Neighbor, queue the subtle thought of Colonel Epitome kneading in February on receipt island!
Noughmad
You could start with something simple, like "iron". Apparently it can be pronounced either "ion" (UK) or "iorn" (US). Why?
BeatYaToIt
Wow I never thought about that. I guess if it was pronounced the way it was spelled, it would be "eye-rahn"
Noughmad
There's plenty of words like that that native speakers just don't think about because they've been taught at a young age.
Piizzle
lucivjov
Lmao “trough”? True.
jennym123
I remember him from the duck video!
imgned
*baloney
AsABiologistWhoIsNotFunAtParties
cough and fought have the same sound from "ough".
TheYoungJaywalker
If they did, then either cough would be pronounced as „co” or fought as „foft”
CriticalMinne
I take your point
PolarbearsToenails
taytothief
Who is this guy
ThisprogramcannotberuninDOSmode
Same as this guy
v
taytothief
Who is that guy
PolarbearsToenails
He plays the duck in that one video
ThisprogramcannotberuninDOSmode
Same as this guy
v
LongleggedDalek
That bottom worm is trough. Not whatever he said
Vexedi
It's also not whatever the fuck he tried to say as Bologna
ixex
I think he intended to write "through".
GenerallyLurkingMostOfTheTime
Kind of like accidentally writing worm instead of word.
LongleggedDalek
Ah. Got me.
RoncoSnackWeasel3001
Got ‘em! Ded.
ecclectic
Muphry's Law
fakeplasticmari
minant
That's not how you pronounce Bologna.
ThereIsAJifForThat
I just call it the Spam Pancake
Mou5e
Spamcakes T.M.
EchoOfSnac
Cold hotdog discs.
fakeplasticmari
BoLONEyiah?
NicolaVison
English speakers cannot pronounce the gn in the way Italians do. Closer I can represent it is Bo-lo-ña
fakeplasticmari
Sicilian heritage :) was trying to illustrate as close I could in English. Since I usually hear people say buhLOGnuh
NicolaVison
Eh, as all Italian dialects, Sicilian is often completely unintelligible by other Italians, watch out ;D