English language
- Thread starter Rebbeca
- Start date
Had to laugh at this one Laura, I was imagining you trying to understand a Geordie, an area in North East England which borders the River Tyne, this is my birth place, and we understand each other perfectly, but the rest of England struggles and usually subtitles any locals.
I was once told by a foreign student 'the trouble with the English language is it's full of exceptions'. I agree.
An English gentleman lived somewhere in the USA for a few months and he told me that he was chocked that people didn't understand English there :D He didn't understand people and they didn't understand him.
The funny thing otherwise when you start speaking with a group of Americans is that they use a lot of expressions (idioms) and at the beginning you just think "What are they talking about?" or "Why are they talking about baseball??". In a word, you feel you're a complete idiot :D
The funny thing otherwise when you start speaking with a group of Americans is that they use a lot of expressions (idioms) and at the beginning you just think "What are they talking about?" or "Why are they talking about baseball??". In a word, you feel you're a complete idiot :D
endescent
Jedi
Herakles, your homonyms got me thinking about some of the other great commentary I've read on the oddities in the English language. Richard Lederer wrote a book called Crazy English with some very funny, but logical questions posed. Here's a particularly ridiculous sample:
"If button and unbutton and tie and untie are opposites, why are loosen and unloosen and ravel and unravel the same? If bad is the opposite of good, hard the opposite of soft, and up the opposite of down, why are badly and goodly, hardly and softly, and upright and downright not opposing pairs? If harmless actions are the opposite of harmful actions, why are shameful and shameless behavior the same and pricey objects less expensive than priceless ones? If appropriate and inappropriate remarks and passable and impassable mountain trails are opposites, why are flammable and inflammable materials, heritable and inheritable property, and passive and impassive people the same? How can valuable objects be less valuable than invaluable ones? If uplift is the same as lift up, why are upset and set up opposite in meaning? Why are pertinent and impertinent, canny and uncanny, and famous and infamous neither opposites nor the same? How can raise and raze and reckless and wreckless be opposites when each pair contains the same sound?"
ARRRGH!
Non-native speakers, with absurdities like this, I really feel for you. Our language seems to defenestrate context and logic whenever it feels like it.
"If button and unbutton and tie and untie are opposites, why are loosen and unloosen and ravel and unravel the same? If bad is the opposite of good, hard the opposite of soft, and up the opposite of down, why are badly and goodly, hardly and softly, and upright and downright not opposing pairs? If harmless actions are the opposite of harmful actions, why are shameful and shameless behavior the same and pricey objects less expensive than priceless ones? If appropriate and inappropriate remarks and passable and impassable mountain trails are opposites, why are flammable and inflammable materials, heritable and inheritable property, and passive and impassive people the same? How can valuable objects be less valuable than invaluable ones? If uplift is the same as lift up, why are upset and set up opposite in meaning? Why are pertinent and impertinent, canny and uncanny, and famous and infamous neither opposites nor the same? How can raise and raze and reckless and wreckless be opposites when each pair contains the same sound?"
ARRRGH!
Non-native speakers, with absurdities like this, I really feel for you. Our language seems to defenestrate context and logic whenever it feels like it.
endescent said:ARRRGH!
There are actually many similar issues in other languages, though perhaps not as many. Anyway, I'll take them over endless verb conjugations and subject/verb, singular/plural, masculine/feminine coordination any day!
H
Hildegarda
Guest
Laura said:
I agree! :)
Nawd
Dagobah Resident
Or 'formal' vs. 'informal'. AKKK!
This is why I barely passed Spanish class, and that was four years of Spanish. I had a Spanish teacher (from Spain) for the first two years, then switched schools (into the city), and suddenly it was 'Mexican Spanish.' I didn't understand much of anything the teacher said for months!
This is why I barely passed Spanish class, and that was four years of Spanish. I had a Spanish teacher (from Spain) for the first two years, then switched schools (into the city), and suddenly it was 'Mexican Spanish.' I didn't understand much of anything the teacher said for months!
Laura said:endescent said:ARRRGH!
There are actually many similar issues in other languages, though perhaps not as many. Anyway, I'll take them over endless verb conjugations and subject/verb, singular/plural, masculine/feminine coordination any day!
Laura said:
Surprised you understand that much!
I have to say that as an Australian, Australians have a tendency to not articulate words properly, such as ignoring the fact that some words end in "t" or "d". We speak quickly to rush through what we're saying, and mumble just about everything. I remember a voice-over teacher who had to basically re-teach us English and how to speak it clearly.
The English word extraordinary always makes me smile. You're not just ordinary, you're extra-ordinary. ;)
That may of course be because I always break English words down to the basis word(s) from which the different form was derived from in my head, if I don't know what something means.
That may of course be because I always break English words down to the basis word(s) from which the different form was derived from in my head, if I don't know what something means.
As a native English speaker, I really despise the whole masculine/feminine thing. It makes it really hard to speak a language like French or Spanish fluently.
On the other hand, I have noticed that some non-English speakers have a heckuva time speaking English due to all the exceptions. When you think about it, English in any accent is a ridiculous language. Of course, native English speakers think it's the cat's pajamas because that's their native tongue!
What's REALLY interesting to me though is how different people understand/learn other languages.
Take two Americans: The first one can learn French fairly easily. The second can't learn French to save his life, and really struggles with it.
Then take two French chaps: The first can learn English quickly and speak it very well, while the second never seems to get it right.
It seems to me that most people CANNOT learn a second language easily.
Then there is the example of the woman who came from Spain, has lived in France for decades, and yet still speaks French with a fairly serious Spanish accent. Another person in the same situation will speak French like a true French woman after all those years.
I just wonder what it is about our brains that makes it so that learning a second language is so hard for some, and so easy for others. And then, why do some people never lose their foreign accent even if they speak their new language "fluently", and some do? I do not think it's simply a question of "how much work you put into it".
In the end, it seems to me that this whole language thing was custom designed to keep people divided, especially considering that the inhabitants of most countries believe their particular flavor of language to be "the best". It's not just language vs. language, but cultural baggage vs. cultural baggage. Makes me wonder if our brains weren't "modified" to make second-language-learning difficult for most people.
On the other hand, I have noticed that some non-English speakers have a heckuva time speaking English due to all the exceptions. When you think about it, English in any accent is a ridiculous language. Of course, native English speakers think it's the cat's pajamas because that's their native tongue!
What's REALLY interesting to me though is how different people understand/learn other languages.
Take two Americans: The first one can learn French fairly easily. The second can't learn French to save his life, and really struggles with it.
Then take two French chaps: The first can learn English quickly and speak it very well, while the second never seems to get it right.
It seems to me that most people CANNOT learn a second language easily.
Then there is the example of the woman who came from Spain, has lived in France for decades, and yet still speaks French with a fairly serious Spanish accent. Another person in the same situation will speak French like a true French woman after all those years.
I just wonder what it is about our brains that makes it so that learning a second language is so hard for some, and so easy for others. And then, why do some people never lose their foreign accent even if they speak their new language "fluently", and some do? I do not think it's simply a question of "how much work you put into it".
In the end, it seems to me that this whole language thing was custom designed to keep people divided, especially considering that the inhabitants of most countries believe their particular flavor of language to be "the best". It's not just language vs. language, but cultural baggage vs. cultural baggage. Makes me wonder if our brains weren't "modified" to make second-language-learning difficult for most people.
StrangeCaptain
Jedi Council Member
Mr. Scott said:
Yeah... I am in the situation of living in France and learning the French language. There was a guy I worked with in Toulouse who had very, very little French accent when he spoke English. It turns out he never lived abroad except for maybe short visits to England. As for me, I am one of the 2nd-language-challenged. I admit I cheat. I read the news in English and I watch movies in English. In this way, I deprive myself of total immersion, but I have met people who could speak French fluently having spent less time here than me. Don't get me wrong. My French has improved, but one of my friends told me that she thought I would still have an accent if I live here 10 years (it was said in a friendly way :) ).
Maybe some of it is due to how we are educated when we are young and other cultural influences. I do wonder if there is a "type" of person with a "type" of brain who are going to be able to integrate a 2nd language easier than others.
endescent
Jedi
Quite right Mr. Scott. Whether we all spoke the same language before the Tower of Babel or not, we may never know, but what better punishment for attempting "spiritual confluence of the masses"?
Neal Stephenson wrote a great novel called Snow Crash. It dips into Mesopotamian/Sumerian myth to explore the whole Babel mythos, the Nam-Shub of Enki, the confusing of the languages, but it's set in the near future where the US government has collapsed and the country has broken into City-States, or "Burb-Claves." The Internet has become the Metaverse, a 3D virtual reality. And along comes this stuff called Snow Crash into the story, both in the real world and in the Metaverse. A virtual denizen tries to hand the main character (Hiro) a hypercard and says, "Hey, you wanna try some Snow Crash?"
Brilliant.
And actually, I think this novel inspired the creation of Google Earth as well. It's not an easy read, there were times when I wanted to skip all the ancient mythology and get back to the Metaverse story, but it's worth trying to get through it.
Neal Stephenson wrote a great novel called Snow Crash. It dips into Mesopotamian/Sumerian myth to explore the whole Babel mythos, the Nam-Shub of Enki, the confusing of the languages, but it's set in the near future where the US government has collapsed and the country has broken into City-States, or "Burb-Claves." The Internet has become the Metaverse, a 3D virtual reality. And along comes this stuff called Snow Crash into the story, both in the real world and in the Metaverse. A virtual denizen tries to hand the main character (Hiro) a hypercard and says, "Hey, you wanna try some Snow Crash?"
Brilliant.
And actually, I think this novel inspired the creation of Google Earth as well. It's not an easy read, there were times when I wanted to skip all the ancient mythology and get back to the Metaverse story, but it's worth trying to get through it.
Mr. Scott said:
One thing I've noticed is that people who are able to speak a second language seem to be able to pick up a third language much more easily. I've had friends who are bilingual, (french/english) and they can learn a totally different third language very fast. It's like their brain is already trained to think in a language other than their native one, and somehow this ability enables them to absorb the new third language easily.
endescent
Jedi
manitoban said:
This also applies to language imprinting in children. If a child is raised in a bi-lingual home, they will have two sets of words to represent concepts, instead of the usual one. This gives them a clear advantage in many ways. It probably doubles the number of neurons involved in language processing. If a child is raised being trilingual, it probably triples them, and so on.
I believe it was in the Lillian Jackson Braun novel The Cat Who Saw Red, that I read about a character who was a translator. She spoke many languages, and the main character asked her, "What language do you think in?"