luciusfunk Posted June 16, 2014 Share Posted June 16, 2014 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghoti Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snake-Pit Posted June 16, 2014 Author Share Posted June 16, 2014 American English where they use a faucet instead of a tapYeah I always belly up to the bar and order Budweiser on faucet. BTW - English is one of the hardest to learn, what other language has words that are spelled the same but have two entirely different meanings depending on context.Those are called homophones.Homophone examples;Their/There/They're/Dare(might make a whole thread of them).Umm ... those aren't spelled the same. I meant words like "bark" which can mean either a) the sound a dog makes or b) the outside layer of a tree-Guess I was barking up the wrong tree. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SoulMonster Posted June 16, 2014 Share Posted June 16, 2014 About the hardest languages to learn:http://robertlindsay.wordpress.com/2009/03/13/whats-the-hardest-language-to-learn/http://robertlindsay.wordpress.com/2009/12/01/more-on-the-hardest-languages-to-learn/Pretty interesting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lithium Posted June 16, 2014 Share Posted June 16, 2014 An; An goes before a noun if that noun begins with a vowel, otherwise it's A."An uniform"? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnny Drama Posted June 16, 2014 Share Posted June 16, 2014 An; An goes before a noun if that noun begins with a vowel, otherwise it's A. "An uniform"?Yes. Good boy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
netcat Posted June 16, 2014 Share Posted June 16, 2014 I think English is a very hard language to learn even for Americans.So many local sayings all around the country and here in Texas most seniors got very low grades on their English finals.It's very sad because some of our words aren't spelled like they sound and people get confused.I know I suck at spelling, so I keep a dictionary near my pc now.I do admire people all over the world that learn English and know their own country's language. I think being on the computer has helped many people learn English.Anyway, I think most of the world knows English now. I love seeing news from Russia or China and hearing them speak English. I think that's a very good achievement for them.i admire people in the US who learn to use spell check on their pc, i think it's a very good achievement for them 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YOUCOULDBEMINE. Posted June 16, 2014 Share Posted June 16, 2014 What's funny to me is that it's easier to speak American English than British English.That's because it is easier!Or.. More likely you're surrounded more by American movies, TV, music, Internet content etc. than British.Also, I think for that very same reason and with English studies usually starting at a young age, English is considered "easy to learn". But I bet there are easier languages to learn out there if one's not being fed the language from every place.. Depends on one's native language too of course.What I find annoying to read beside's the misuse of your/you're or their/they're/there is when someone confuses lose/loose or write "whoose" instead of whose. "Whoose" is not a fucking word! I probably make a lot of errors myself too, so I don't mean to offend anyone. Beside's? That's a new one But you're right tho. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
magisme Posted June 16, 2014 Share Posted June 16, 2014 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Sandman Posted June 16, 2014 Share Posted June 16, 2014 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DR DOOM Posted June 16, 2014 Share Posted June 16, 2014 I think English is a very hard language to learn even for Americans.So many local sayings all around the country and here in Texas most seniors got very low grades on their English finals.It's very sad because some of our words aren't spelled like they sound and people get confused.I know I suck at spelling, so I keep a dictionary near my pc now.I do admire people all over the world that learn English and know their own country's language. I think being on the computer has helped many people learn English.Anyway, I think most of the world knows English now. I love seeing news from Russia or China and hearing them speak English. I think that's a very good achievement for them.i admire people in the US who learn to use spell check on their pc, i think it's a very good achievement for them Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lio Posted June 17, 2014 Share Posted June 17, 2014 American English where they use a faucet instead of a tapYeah I always belly up to the bar and order Budweiser on faucet. BTW - English is one of the hardest to learn, what other language has words that are spelled the same but have two entirely different meanings depending on context.Dutch, for instance. There are countless words with different meanings, some examples:stam: tribe or trunk (of a tree)haar: her or hairheet: hot or is callederg: awful or very 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Len B'stard Posted June 17, 2014 Share Posted June 17, 2014 This idea that English is the hardest, or even one of the hardest languages to learn is fuckin' bullshit...it's in fact one of the easiest. It just kinda joins together, you put the letters together, each letter has a sound, what results is the fuckin' word, that ain't fuckin' difficult. For example like take a language like arabic, you got your letters right, now each letter has a series of like 5 or 6 different punctuation mark type things, associated symbols either over or beside or beneath it that make the sound of it different, so in terms of the sounds you gotta make for each letter there's like 5 per fuckin' letter...and then you gotta interpret how the shits are kinda co-joined and tangled together when you write em. See that top word there? Thats my name in Urdu, Khan (surname that is), now you take the dot off the top of the first bit and put it underneath and it spells 'jaan' which is urdu for 'strength'. Hindi as well, come to that. Don't ask me what that other shit means though I can't figure out that first fuckin' word, i can sound it out almost but i can't get that last bit...the second word says 'urdu' though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aaron_H Posted June 17, 2014 Share Posted June 17, 2014 This idea that English is the hardest, or even one of the hardest languages to learn is fuckin' bullshit...it's in fact one of the easiest. It just kinda joins together, you put the letters together, each letter has a sound, what results is the fuckin' word, that ain't fuckin' difficult.I agree, but the problem with English is that there are so many exceptions to the rule. So many times you use the hard vs soft sound for example. I think that makes pronunciation more difficult compared with some other languages. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lio Posted June 17, 2014 Share Posted June 17, 2014 This idea that English is the hardest, or even one of the hardest languages to learn is fuckin' bullshit...it's in fact one of the easiest. It just kinda joins together, you put the letters together, each letter has a sound, what results is the fuckin' word, that ain't fuckin' difficult.I agree, but the problem with English is that there are so many exceptions to the rule. So many times you use the hard vs soft sound for example. I think that makes pronunciation more difficult compared with some other languages.I think that's the problem with many languages. Of the languages I know (or semi know), I think Italian is the most phonetic (if you don't know the language and read it out loud, it would come out more or less okay), and Danish the least. There is a LOT of difference between written and spoken Danish. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Len B'stard Posted June 17, 2014 Share Posted June 17, 2014 American English where they use a faucet instead of a tapYeah I always belly up to the bar and order Budweiser on faucet. BTW - English is one of the hardest to learn, what other language has words that are spelled the same but have two entirely different meanings depending on context.Dutch, for instance. There are countless words with different meanings, some examples:stam: tribe or trunk (of a tree)haar: her or hairheet: hot or is callederg: awful or veryso Jap Stams name meant Jap Trunk? I wonder what his nob looked like 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sturginho Posted June 17, 2014 Share Posted June 17, 2014 I actually find English, totally lacking in logic. In Japanese there is no confusion in the sounds as, every section of the script (be that, Kana; Kanji) is linked to a specific sound. By contrast, you have this 'their, theres' stupidity in English which confuses native speakers (and I have to confess, I still make the occasional mistake as a typo). Latin also has a greater logic. In English, there seems to be no reason why some 'g's are pronounced hard ('give') or soft (gem). It is a similar thing with 'c'. In Latin, all cs are hard and all gs are hard. English is bonkers.Okay how about the "C" in Italian ... it can be pronounced as a "K" (ie: casa) or as a "CH" (ie: ciao).Not a difficult concept at all, hard C when combined with A, O or U, soft C when combined with E or I, to get a hard C you add an H (e.g. Chiesa) This confuses the hell out of English speakers who expect the opposite to be the case Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SoulMonster Posted June 17, 2014 Share Posted June 17, 2014 So, if anyone read my links you'd see that Indo-Aryan languages are rated like this (based on how complex and irregular they are): Classic Greek: 5.5 Czech: 5.5 Slovak: 5.5 Polish: 5.0 Sanskrit: 5.0 Icelandic: 5.0 Faroese: 5.0 Lithuanian: 5.0 Old Irish: 5.0 Greek: 5.0 Albanian: 5.0 Latvian: 4.5 Nepali: 4.5 Punjabi: 4.5 Irish: 4.5 Scottish Gaelic: 4.5 Serbo-Croatian: 4.5 Manx: 4.5 Slovenian: 4.0 Russian: 4.0 Armenian: 4.0 Welsh: 4.0 Breton: 4.0 Sinhala: 4.0 Kurdish: 4.0 Ossetian: 4.0 Hindi: 4.0 Bulgarian: 3.5 Macedonian: 3.5 German: 3.5 Bengali: 3.5 Dutch: 3.0 Italian: 3.0 Danish: 3.0 Persian: 3.0 Portuguese: 3.0 Romanian: 3.0 French: 3.0 Swedish: 2.5 English: 2.5 Spanish: 2.5 Neapolitan: 2.5 Afrikaans: 2.0 Norwegian: 2.0 But all of these none-Indo-Aryan languages might be much harder: Navajo, Tsez, Kung (language family), Pirahã, Basque, Comanche, Archi, Etruscan, Northwest/Northeast Caucasian (language family) and Aboriginal Australian (language family). So no, English simply isn't among the hardest languages to learn. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lio Posted June 17, 2014 Share Posted June 17, 2014 So, if anyone read my links you'd see that Indo-Aryan languages are rated like this (based on how complex and irregular they are):Classic Greek: 5.5Czech: 5.5Slovak: 5.5Polish: 5.0Sanskrit: 5.0Icelandic: 5.0Faroese: 5.0Lithuanian: 5.0Old Irish: 5.0Greek: 5.0Albanian: 5.0Latvian: 4.5Nepali: 4.5Punjabi: 4.5Irish: 4.5Scottish Gaelic: 4.5Serbo-Croatian: 4.5Manx: 4.5Slovenian: 4.0Russian: 4.0Armenian: 4.0Welsh: 4.0Breton: 4.0Sinhala: 4.0Kurdish: 4.0Ossetian: 4.0Hindi: 4.0Bulgarian: 3.5Macedonian: 3.5German: 3.5Bengali: 3.5Dutch: 3.0Italian: 3.0Danish: 3.0Persian: 3.0Portuguese: 3.0Romanian: 3.0French: 3.0Swedish: 2.5English: 2.5Spanish: 2.5Neapolitan: 2.5Afrikaans: 2.0Norwegian: 2.0But all of these none-Indo-Aryan languages might be much harder: Navajo, Tsez, Kung (language family), Pirahã, Basque, Comanche, Archi, Etruscan, Northwest/Northeast Caucasian (language family) and Aboriginal Australian (language family).So no, English simply isn't among the hardest languages to learn.Czech was the hardest language I ever tried to learn. Glad that that has been proved Surprised to see that Norwegian and Afrikaans are equally 'simple', because Afrikaans is basically simplified Dutch. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
netcat Posted June 17, 2014 Share Posted June 17, 2014 (edited) Ukrainian and Russian are pretty difficult, even for native speakers the grammar is complicated, all verbs are conjugated according to person; nearly all verbs come in aspectual pairs ; nouns, adjectives, numbers are declined according to case. and the alphabet is cyrillic. most of the foreigners can't speak them decently no matter how long they study Edited June 17, 2014 by netcat Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YOUCOULDBEMINE. Posted June 17, 2014 Share Posted June 17, 2014 So, if anyone read my links you'd see that Indo-Aryan languages are rated like this (based on how complex and irregular they are):Classic Greek: 5.5Czech: 5.5Slovak: 5.5Polish: 5.0Sanskrit: 5.0Icelandic: 5.0Faroese: 5.0Lithuanian: 5.0Old Irish: 5.0Greek: 5.0Albanian: 5.0Latvian: 4.5Nepali: 4.5Punjabi: 4.5Irish: 4.5Scottish Gaelic: 4.5Serbo-Croatian: 4.5Manx: 4.5Slovenian: 4.0Russian: 4.0Armenian: 4.0Welsh: 4.0Breton: 4.0Sinhala: 4.0Kurdish: 4.0Ossetian: 4.0Hindi: 4.0Bulgarian: 3.5Macedonian: 3.5German: 3.5Bengali: 3.5Dutch: 3.0Italian: 3.0Danish: 3.0Persian: 3.0Portuguese: 3.0Romanian: 3.0French: 3.0Swedish: 2.5English: 2.5Spanish: 2.5Neapolitan: 2.5Afrikaans: 2.0Norwegian: 2.0But all of these none-Indo-Aryan languages might be much harder: Navajo, Tsez, Kung (language family), Pirahã, Basque, Comanche, Archi, Etruscan, Northwest/Northeast Caucasian (language family) and Aboriginal Australian (language family).So no, English simply isn't among the hardest languages to learn.Czech was the hardest language I ever tried to learn. Glad that that has been proved Surprised to see that Norwegian and Afrikaans are equally 'simple', because Afrikaans is basically simplified Dutch.Norwegian and Danish are pretty close to Dutch as well. I know a few Danish people who learned to speak Dutch in no-time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lio Posted June 17, 2014 Share Posted June 17, 2014 So, if anyone read my links you'd see that Indo-Aryan languages are rated like this (based on how complex and irregular they are):Classic Greek: 5.5Czech: 5.5Slovak: 5.5Polish: 5.0Sanskrit: 5.0Icelandic: 5.0Faroese: 5.0Lithuanian: 5.0Old Irish: 5.0Greek: 5.0Albanian: 5.0Latvian: 4.5Nepali: 4.5Punjabi: 4.5Irish: 4.5Scottish Gaelic: 4.5Serbo-Croatian: 4.5Manx: 4.5Slovenian: 4.0Russian: 4.0Armenian: 4.0Welsh: 4.0Breton: 4.0Sinhala: 4.0Kurdish: 4.0Ossetian: 4.0Hindi: 4.0Bulgarian: 3.5Macedonian: 3.5German: 3.5Bengali: 3.5Dutch: 3.0Italian: 3.0Danish: 3.0Persian: 3.0Portuguese: 3.0Romanian: 3.0French: 3.0Swedish: 2.5English: 2.5Spanish: 2.5Neapolitan: 2.5Afrikaans: 2.0Norwegian: 2.0But all of these none-Indo-Aryan languages might be much harder: Navajo, Tsez, Kung (language family), Pirahã, Basque, Comanche, Archi, Etruscan, Northwest/Northeast Caucasian (language family) and Aboriginal Australian (language family).So no, English simply isn't among the hardest languages to learn.Czech was the hardest language I ever tried to learn. Glad that that has been proved Surprised to see that Norwegian and Afrikaans are equally 'simple', because Afrikaans is basically simplified Dutch.Norwegian and Danish are pretty close to Dutch as well. I know a few Danish people who learned to speak Dutch in no-time.Kudos to your friends I hardly ever meet (foreign) people that speak Dutch 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SoulMonster Posted June 17, 2014 Share Posted June 17, 2014 Khoisan language:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c246fZ-7z1w Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lio Posted June 17, 2014 Share Posted June 17, 2014 Khoisan language:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c246fZ-7z1wCan't watch the video. My Afrikaans teacher knew how to speak Khoisan though Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SoulMonster Posted June 17, 2014 Share Posted June 17, 2014 Here's another you probably can't see: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lio Posted June 17, 2014 Share Posted June 17, 2014 Yes, I can see this one ^^^^ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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