For the Grammer Nazi's

[dennishoddy]

In my time in the military and years overseas, I've heard more than once that the English language is the most difficult in the world to learn. We have many words that mean the same thing.
In WWII they used english slang for secret communications.

I'm thinking two, too, to

What say you?

 

[BluRaySS]

Actually know a few people that are related to the Navajo folks that did communications. 1 that says he did it, but he is a little nutty. I grew up in Az.

 

[JackT]

I'm thinking two, too, to

What say you?

Thats pretty funny

 

[donner]

i think that is just spelling. Yes, they sound the same, which is why it's hard to learn as a second language, but if you can learn to read and write a language, you can learn the difference between to, two and too.

Also, i'm paraphrasing here, but it was Twain who said the difference between the right word and the almost-right word is the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.

 

[VitruvianDoc]

What is killer in english is homophones, two words that sound alike but mean to different things.

However, chinese is very difficult because of similar means; chinese uses a lot of tones and pitches which require sensitive ears and speech abilities.... one wrong tone and eek.

 

[ripnbst]

Did you write GRAMMER as an intended joke? Or did you really mis-spell the title of your thread?

 

[leardriver]

I once asked a Russian girl about the difficulty of learning English. Her opinion was that an American would have a harder time learning Russian than a Russian learning English.

The Cyrillic alphabet has many more symbols than the English alphabet. It's somewhat phonetic, but not nearly so much as English. Like English, it has upper and lower case plus cursive.

I've heard it said that French is difficult to speak, but comparatively easy to read. Spanish, of course, is pretty easy for everyone.

Don't know much about the Asian languages. Like Hebrew, some of the Asian written languages read from right to left.

All IMHO.

Cap'n Bill

 

[dennishoddy]

What is killer in english is homophones, two words that sound alike but mean to different things.

However, chinese is very difficult because of similar means; chinese uses a lot of tones and pitches which require sensitive ears and speech abilities.... one wrong tone and eek.

Spending years in SE Asia, Japan and Korea, I can say your absoultley correct. Sometimes it sounds like they are arguing, but yet they are carrying on a conversation.
In the US we have dialects like they do(cajun vs yankee), but its the difference in age groups that is so different.
Asians worship the older people in their family. When they talk to them they do so with respect.
An adult talking to a younger person is different.
We have some Asian folks on this board, and I hope they will help with this thread and add to this discussion

 

[Old Fart]

Well considering most of us here don't actually speak English........

 

[1shot(bob)]

Like cough, rough, bough, and though?

My wife complains about the english language all the time. And she was born here.