Which is harder: English or Spanish?
I got this email, and I though you guys might appreciate it. I wasn´t sure what category to post it under though.
If you are struggling with learning Spanish or aren't impressed with people having trouble learning English, maybe this will help you re-think the situation. For you Spanish speakers trying to perfect your English, don't give up.
Can you read these right the first time?
- The bandage was wound around the wound.
- The farm was used to produce produce.
- The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
- We must polish the Polish furniture.
- He could lead if he would get the lead out.
- The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
- Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present ..
- A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
- When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
- I did not object to the object.
- The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
- There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
- They were too close to the door to close it.
- The buck does funny things when the does are present.
- A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
- To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
- The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
- Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.
- I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
- How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?
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. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat. We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.
And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth, beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices? Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?
If teachers taught, why don't preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell?
How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which, an alarm goes off by going on.
English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.
PS. - Why doesn't "Buick" rhyme with "quick"?
You lovers of the English language might enjoy this.
There is a two-letter word that perhaps has more meanings than any other two-letter word, and that is up.
It's easy to understand up, meaning toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning, why do we wake up? At a meeting, why does a topic come up? Why do we speak up and why are the officers up for election and why is it up to the secretary to write up a report?
We call up our friends. And we use it to brighten up a room, polish up the silver, we warm up the leftovers and clean up the kitchen. We lock up the house and some guys fix up the old car. At other times the little word has real special meaning. People stir up trouble, line up for tickets, work up an appetite, and think up excuses. To be dressed is one thing, but to be dressed up is special.
And this up is confusing: A drain must be opened up because it is stopped up. We open up a store in the morning but we close it up at night.
We seem to be pretty mixed up about up! To be knowledgeable about the proper uses of up, look the word up in the dictionary. In a desk-sized dictionary, it takes up almost 1/4th of the page and can add up to about thirty definitions. If you are up to it, you might try building up a list of the many ways up is used. It will take up a lot of your time, but if you don't give up, you may wind up with a hundred or more.
When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding up. When the sun comes out we say it is clearing up. When it rains, it wets the earth and often messes things up. When it doesn't rain for awhile, things dry up.
One could go on and on, but I'll wrap it up, for now my time is up, so.......... it is time to shut up .....!
Oh . . one more thing: What is the first thing you do in the morning & the last thing you do at night? u-p
18 Answers
I realize this is a really, really old post, but, while learning Spanish (I'm a native English-speaker) I've become so incredibly frustrated with the (dis)order of the words and, MOST OF ALL, the 1,000,000,000 verbs "tenses."
I have begun to wonder... is this a problem for anyone else learning any other language? I know that we don't have enough versions of A SINGLE VERB to fill a multi-page chart... not to mention the (seemingly non-sensical) "irregulars." Nope. Run. Runs. Ran. Running... ?? Anything else? Nope! That's pretty easy!! If it's the spelling of the words... big deal. Because you're probably hoping to be able to **SPEAK** the language while writing it isn't so much of a problem – thanks to spell-check.
Anyway, I appreciate your post very much. It makes me feel a little bit better to know that THEY TOO are struggling. (I did learn just today, however, that *zedonk* is an actual English word... meaning the offspring of a zebra and a donkey... and, yes, this is in the dictionary – so, take that English-learners!). I won't deny that it makes me feel much better... with all of the frustration over these %$ VERBS.
I have been studying forever, very intensively, and I haven't even had time to get into studying nouns yet because of these **VERBS!** I mean... Subjunctive? Who cares if there's emotion or doubt??? I suppose I could gather that from the context and I have done exactly that during my entire life and it hasn't been a problem. I don't need 75 special versions of one word to let me know you're not 100% sure. It's just plain ridiculous.
Anyway, I apologize for the rant. I am just so pleased to read your post and relish in the fact that we have plenty of words with which to terrorize English-learners after all of this frustration I've been experiencing. It's so extremely clever. I love it! Thank you so much.
In my (admittedly, rather ignorant) opinion, English simply must be significantly easier to learn. If a difficulty with pronunciation is your biggest problem then... Well, do you hear that squeaking sound? That's me playing the world's smallest violin for you while I try to learn all of your $%&@ing verbs.
All I can say is that I'm really down with this post! I was up for a laugh since I got up, because I have been feeling really down the last couple of days. I guess I'm just a fowl-up, because I have been put down for trying to read up in Spanish. Wow! I better shut up before someone beats me up or knocks me down. I'm just going to down a few beers and then things will be looking up!
I have always heard that English is the hardest language to learn, but English does have more words than Spanish. So sorry Gustav, but I have to say English is the hardest
It was really easy for me to learn anyway. :D
I'm a English Native, I speak it fluently, but time, and time again I may run into something that I don't know. So even though I can speak, and write English as easy as I can breathe, I still say that it is the harest. 
Many people got confused about this, and thought that the root of word is -burger, and created chess-burger and others. If the orignal hamburgers had come from Berlin instead, they would have been called berliners, and the final joke a chess-liner.
Hmmm, I'm going to have to check out that chess-burger with a mate.
Many people got confused about this, and thought that the root of word is -burger, and created chess-burger and others. If the orignal hamburgers had come from Berlin instead, they would have been called berliners, and the final joke a chess-liner.
Hmmm, I'm going to have to check out that chess-burger with a mate. 
I have always heard that English is the hardest language to learn, but English does have more words than Spanish. So sorry Gustav, but I have to say English is the hardest
It was really easy for me to learn anyway. :D
I have always heard that English is the hardest language to learn, but English does have more words than Spanish. So sorry Gustav, but I have to say English is the hardest
My first language is Swedish. I never had much problems learning English. I learned lots from video games, in fact I learnt the most from video games, and some from tv. I didn't learn most English in school. It was brought up, but I already knew it.
Spanish is harder than English for sure. On its own, it's quite different than any language I've learnt (Swedish/English) but I don't consider it hard, just harder than English.
Both.
It took me more than 20 years to learn English (basically all my life). And as for Spanish, I'm trying to learn as fast as I could. whew!
That is halarious. It really makes you think about how tough English is...
ok i liked this
Dont forget your helping verbs!!!
Imperfect:
Spanish: Miraba tele. English: I used to watch television. I was watching television (when...)
Preterite:
Spanish: Miré tele. English: I watched television.
Interrogative Imperfect:
Spanish: ¿Mirabas tele? English: Did you watch TV? (Notice that the English doesn't specify that it was a habitual action in the past - you'd need to specify it! )
But then, I agree with you. I'm in my third semester of Spanish, and now the workbooks make their best effort to throw every single conjugation into one paragraph. Sometimes, it makes my head spin!
Cuando era niño, esperaba que fuera un austronauta. Entonces, tomó un clase de calculo. Dijo el maestro, "¡Espero que no creas que puedas un austronauta!"
Ahora, estoy un estudiante de Penn State, estudiando el desarrollo de humano. ¿Quién seré en diez años? Me gustaría un abogado y un traductor!
Well, i tried to cram as many in there as I could! phew.
...nor ham in hamburger
That's because the word comes from the city Hamburg (hamburger being its adjective), which has nothing to do with ham. Many people got confused about this, and thought that the root of word is -burger, and created chess-burger and others. If the orignal hamburgers had come from Berlin instead, they would have been called berliners, and the final joke a chess-liner.
By the way, you forgot to mention the really absurd aspect of English: its random spelling!
So funny, swally!! 
I see your point.
I think english seems easier to learn, because of hearing english on TV and worldwide since childhood. But to me the grammar in languages from the Latin root are more logical. So I guess it depends on what is ones best learning-strategy....
This is awesome, I re-posted it on my blog.
