Do you think english is easy?

[Malphas]

English is easy. That's why even most of the morons in America know it.

Your confusing English with American

excuse me, in which one of those "you're" and "your" is the same thing?

Let's just replace both of them with "ur" pls.

[baldgye]

You mean u're?

[iri]

English is one of the easiest languages in the world to learn, along with the other Germanic languages.

-Malphas, native speaker.

But it genuinely is. Germanic languages are simple as **** compared to basically everything else.

Russian is one of the easiest languages in the world to learn, along with the other Slavic languages.

Agreed, but English is still easier. The good thing about Slavic languages though, is that once you know one you basically know 90% of all of them

also they lack this --

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.

Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhymes with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.

Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.

Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.

Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

Pronunciation -- think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.

Finally, which rhymes with enough?
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is give it up!

[paicrai]

English is easy. That's why even most of the morons in America know it.

They don't, and they don't even know their equivalent.

[tp4tissue]

You mean u're?

goin'wt mphas on's 1.. ur 4 all cases

[jabar]

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

[Findecanor]

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

It's pronounced "buy-sen". 

[rowdy]

English is easy. That's why even most of the morons in America know it.

Your confusing English with American

Your confusing [of] English with American [is very humourous].

Makes sense to me!

[Coreda]

Let's face it - English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France

'Hamburger' actually makes sense, as it originates from Hamburg, Germany. Parts of the English language aren't consistent though, which is easy to see even as a native speaker.

[C5Allroad]

This is why English is hell on Foreign language speakers.
Go over there to get their phones.
Wut?

[baldgye]

English is easy. That's why even most of the morons in America know it.

Your confusing English with American

Your confusing [of] English with American [is very humourous].

Makes sense to me!

Wut?

[rowdy]

This is why English is hell on Foreign language speakers.
Go over there to get their phones.
Wut?

Much of English is derived, sometimes very directly, from foreign words.

[rowdy]

Ok, double post, yes, but a separated related question that people might respond to.

To wish someone a peasant eating experience, we'd say something like "bon appetite", which is literally French for "good appetite".

Is there any alternative?  Something literally English (or at least part of the English language derived from something older than the French expression)?

[MissMurd3r84]

I am currently working with some youth who are from either non-English speaking households or are new to Australia and fairly new to English.. One of the things I am trying to help them with is language support, as well as a billion other tasks. Sometimes I find it frustrating trying to work out the easiest way for me to explain to them what something means, due to the fact that I just "know" what it means without having to know the reasoning behind it, if that makes sense.

[rowdy]

I am currently working with some youth who are from either non-English speaking households or are new to Australia and fairly new to English.. One of the things I am trying to help them with is language support, as well as a billion other tasks. Sometimes I find it frustrating trying to work out the easiest way for me to explain to them what something means, due to the fact that I just "know" what it means without having to know the reasoning behind it, if that makes sense.

Yep, exactly.  I was asked to proof-read some documentation by one of our non-native-English-speaking guys, and the expressions he used in it were all over the place.

Re-reading it, you could work out what he meant, but some of the wording was completely backwards to what you'd usually write.

He asked me to explain a bit better some of the rules and how did I know one version was right and the other wasn't, and I couldn't really explain.

[leesofi]

Korean learn english skill in school. But just for TOEIC and getting the job.
For enjoying the keyboarding, almost geekhacker`s english is not hard to me, but someone`s one still make me google or dictionary.
Also abbreviation word and their own code`s one make me headache. ex) CC`s long term code.
For foreign language speakers, some word need easier.
But in korean forum, nobody request correct korean(hangul) to foreigner. They write english, we reply by EASY english.
Someone(korean) want to join Geekhack GB, they give up cuz hard english to understanding in thread.(+ long-trem waiting,paypal and strange gb system)

[tinlong117]

I started to learn English when I was 2 y/o or something. Sadly, I still found it hard sometimes even I learnt it for more than a decade.

[mauri]

English is one of the easiest languages in the world to learn, along with the other Germanic languages.

-Malphas, native speaker.

The math checks out boys

[yasuo]

bahasa is easier than english, no difference gender but affixes make confused )

[paicrai]

i think it's a pretty easy language to learn and understand

[Grim Fandango]

At least it is easier than Dutch. I think I make more spelling and grammar mistakes in Dutch than I do in English. Even though I am a native speaker.

[JackMills]

At least it is easier than Dutch. I think I make more spelling and grammar mistakes in Dutch than I do in English. Even though I am a native speaker.

My Dutch is still much better than my English. But I hear a lot of non-native speakers complain about how difficult it is to learn.

[Oobly]

Every language has its difficulties and weird properties. Here's finnish for you:

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Being a native English speaker who has moved to Finland I believe I have at least some relevant perspective on this. English is harder than Finnish overall. Sure, Finnish is totally different from any other language except Estonian (and distantly related to Hungarian) so it's pretty hard for an English speaker to learn and get used to (also, the 14 cases which modify the ending of all the words is tough), but English has so many exceptions to the rules and different words (or parts of words) which are spelt the same yet pronounced differently, sayings and words borrowed / imported from so MANY other languages and rules that often don't make sense... English is hella hard. Finnish is just hard.

[noisyturtle]

Easy to learn. Difficult to master.

[iri]

English is harder than Finnish overall. Sure, Finnish is totally different from any other language except Estonian (and distantly related to Hungarian) so it's pretty hard for an English speaker to learn and get used to (also, the 14 cases which modify the ending of all the words is tough), but English has so many exceptions to the rules and different words (or parts of words) which are spelt the same yet pronounced differently, sayings and words borrowed / imported from so MANY other languages and rules that often don't make sense...

i can forgive finnish all its non-indoeuropeness just for the fact that it is always clear how to pronounce a written finnish word, including the stress. also for not having 5783490752 native accents in the country of origin. also, for the word for a dragon (which is "salmonsnake").

[sunshine]

English is hard

I do not agree with you .I think all language have something in common.

[tp4tissue]

English is hard

I do not agree with you .I think all language have something in common.

LOLOL... no really?  ALL languages have something in common ?


That's almost like saying ... all colors have something in common because we see with our eyes.

[Lord of Narwhals]

English is okay when compared to many other languages because the grammar is pretty easy (unlike Russian which I took for one year). The fact that the word "you" is both singular and plural is a little annoying though.
I'm pretty sure almost all languages have words which mean completely different things.
In Sweden "gift" means married and poison, "sex" means sex and six, "ren" means reindeer and clean.

[iri]

English is okay when compared to many other languages because the grammar is pretty easy (unlike Russian which I took for one year).

come on, we only have six cases!

I'm pretty sure almost all languages have words which mean completely different things.
In Sweden "gift" means married and poison, "sex" means sex and six, "ren" means reindeer and clean.

in russian,
эфир = the ether and live broadcast;
коса = plait, scythe and spit;
мир = peace and the world;
финка = a finnish knife, a finnish woman and also a slang word for finland;
брак = marriage and defect (lulz);
there's loooots of those.

[yasuo]

by oxford
Arabic is the most difficult
followed by Russia and China third; D

[tp4tissue]

by oxford
Arabic is the most difficult
followed by Russia and China third; D

is the oxford evaluation with respect to Westerners only?

for example if you went from Chinese > Jpn,  that is obviously not going to be as hard as Eng > Jpn or Eng > Chn...

[yasuo]

by oxford
Arabic is the most difficult
followed by Russia and China third; D

is the oxford evaluation with respect to Westerners only?

for example if you went from Chinese > Jpn,  that is obviously not going to be as hard as Eng > Jpn or Eng > Chn...

i think the structure of languange if like you mean it's depends where you come from )