For all you English speakers who think English is easy to learn
Why do good and wood rhyme, but food doesn't? On the other hand, would, could and should do. Mould doesn't. Why don't wind and wind rhyme? Quick, tell me the definition of the first and the second.
The most famous one is, if you took the spelling of laugh, women and nation, you can spell fish ghoti.
English is a nightmare. I can't imagine trying to learn it.
15 Answers
Let's Face It. English Is a Stupid Language.
There is no egg in the eggplant,
No ham in the hamburger
And neither pine nor apple in the pineapple.
English muffins were not invented in England,
French fries were not invented in France.
We sometimes take English for granted, but if we examine its paradoxes we find that:
Quicksand takes you down slowly,
Boxing rings are square,
And a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.
If writers write, how come fingers don't fing?
If the plural of tooth is teeth,
Shouldn't the plural of phone booth be phone beeth?
If the teacher taught,
Why hasn't the preacher praught?
If a vegetarian eats vegetables,
What the heck does a humanitarian eat?
Why do people recite at a play,
Yet play at a recital?
Park on driveways and
Drive on parkways?
How can the weather be as hot as hell on one day
And as cold as hell on another?
You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language where a house can burn up as it burns down,
And in which you fill in a form by filling it out
And a bell is only heard once it goes!
English was invented by people, not computers,
And it reflects the creativity of the human race (which of course isn't a race at all.)
That is why:
When the stars are out they are visible,
But when the lights are out they are invisible.
And when I wind up my watch
It starts,
But when I wind up this poem
It ends.
I agree that English spelling doesn't make much sense. This is because words borrowed from many different languages keep some patterns, and English is not phonetic. Spanish is much more phonetic than English, though there are still some ambiguities (c can sound like th or s or k, and the s sound can be spelled 3 ways) but it's still much simpler than English in that way.
But look on the bright side! There are only a max of about six verb forms to learn including compound tenses -- way simpler than Spanish! There are no genders to worry about except with pronouns. There are no cases to worry about except with pronouns. And word order is much more fixed in English than Spanish, which can be a plus or a minus -- I grant you that.
The down side is you need much more in the way of context to translate it fully. But it does make it easier to learn some things!
The English language is composed of several different root languages, which include: Latin, Greek, Old English, French, German, Italian, and many more. Due to this combination of languages, English isn't very phoenetic because there are many conflicting rules and pronunciations within those languages. I have studied Greek and Latin, and I am now learning Spanish. Many pronunciations in Spanish conflict with those in Latin and Greek simply because of the way those languages were written and developed. Remember the next time you see an odd pronunciation of an English word that it probably has a different origin than some of the other words on the page.
The most famous one is, if you took the spelling of laugh, women and nation, you can spell fish ghoti.
Actually you can't, and the explanation is the most important part of this example.
The part of Spanish most similar to English pronunciation is gender assignment, which is largely arbitrary and even the rules that exist have exceptions for words borrowed from Greek. Most of the odd pronunciations and spellings have etymological explanations and English has borrowed words from many languages.
And while many people like to point out that many languages have gender, the attempted explanations of why they are often different in French and German are not particularly logical and underscore the absurdity of the whole thing.
The part of English most similar to Spanish pronunciation is verb conjugation, which is extremely simple and highly regular. English pronouns are also quite simple.
Here is one for you:
Eye halve a spelling chequer
I have a spelling checker.
It came with my pea sea.
It plane lee marks four my revue
Miss steaks aye can knot sea.
Eye ran this poem threw it,
Your sure reel glad two no.
Its vary polished in it's weigh.
My checker tolled me sew.
A checker is a bless sing,
It freeze yew lodes of thyme.
It helps me right awl stiles two reed,
And aides me when I rime.
Each frays come posed up on my screen
eye trussed too bee a joule.
The checker pours o'er every word
To cheque sum spelling rule.
Bee fore a veiling checker's Hour
spelling mite decline,
And if we're lacks oar have a laps,
We wood bee maid too wine.
Butt now bee cause my spelling
Is checked with such grate flair,
Their are no fault's with in my cite,
Of nun eye am a ware.
Now spelling does knot phase me,
It does knot bring a tier.
My pay purrs awl due glad den
With wrapped word's fare as hear.
To rite with care is quite a feet
Of witch won should be proud,
And wee mussed dew the best wee can,
Sew flaw's are knot aloud.
Sow ewe can sea why aye dew prays,
Such soft wear four pea seas,
And why eye brake in two averse
Buy righting too pleas.
Kevin, I couldn't agree more. I'm getting frustrated.
But let's see it from another point of view:
For all of us, Spanish speakers, who think English is difficult to learn.
Para todos los hispanohablantes que creemos que el inglés es difícil de aprender.
Dla nas wszystkich, j?zyka hiszpa?skiego, którzy uwa?aj?, angielski jest trudne do nauczenia.
????????????????????????
??????? ??? ????? ? ???????? ?????????? ? ????? ??????? ?? ????? ?????????? ?? ????? ??
Just in case anyone doubt it: No, I can't speak Polish.
Quite often I've been told by English speakers who were learning Spanish that they find it quite strange that we do not pronounce the H. My answer is:
- So how do you pronounce hour and heir?
- Why don't you pronounce the B in debt or subtle?
- Why do you pronounce CH as chick, but then church and an choir?
- Why do you not pronounce the L in would or half?
- Why do you not pronounce the S in debris or chassis?
- Why do you not pronounce the T in depot?
- Why does the W sound different in swear, sword, answer, jewel and awe, but no sound in write?
- Why do you not pronounce the P in psalm or psycho?
- Why llama and Lama sound the same if one has one L and the other one two?
- How can "u", "ewe" and yew" sound the same? Or "rite", "write", "right" and "Wright"?
- How can "so", "sow", "sew" and "soh" have the same sound, but "tear" and "tear", or "read" and "read" different ones?
And so on and so forth.
People always talk about all the different roots of the English lexicon, but that is only one of the many reasons for the silly spelling:
- English has 17 vowel sounds to be represented with just 5 letters. Ideally it should have been written in an alphabet designed for its phonetics. The Roman alphabet was designed for 5 short vowels and another 5 identical ones but longer (which they could not tell just by reading them). Spanish simplified that system so there are only 5 vowels of medium length.
- At some point, it was fashionable in English to change the spelling of the word for fun. Some famous writers used to purposefully spell the same word differently even within the same book. Shakespeare changed the spelling of his surname about 20 times, if I recall correctly.
- There was a vowel shift, and words began to be pronounced differently, but the spelling was kept constant, so the way a lot of words are written now does not make sense.
- In order to maintain the text justified in the old prints, it was common practice to suppress letters when the words didn't fit in a line, or more common even, to add or duplicate pointless letters so that the words fill the whole line and look nice.
- English has never had anyone regulating the spelling, unlike countries like France or Spain. Webster attempted a more logical spelling, but it was inconsistent, and all he really achieve was to split the unity of the spelling across the ocean. In Spain the first attempts at maintaining a logical spelling by the authorities happened in the 13th century.
- And, of course, instead of adapting foreign words to the English spelling logic, the words are kept with the original spelling, but instead of reading them as they are written, they are pronounced supposedly like in the original language, but with such a strong English accent, that the result sometimes doesn't even resemble the original. So, the word does not sound like it should in the original language, it keeps the spelling, but there is no way to match spelling and sound even if you know how to read the word in the original language. For your information, I do not know how to read Spanish words "the English way" (because when you say "armada" or "vigilante" it does not sound like in Spanish).
Summing up: a mess. At least the genders in Spanish is not the result of a long list of bad decisions, but the result of the natural development of a language due to the way people used to talk. I'm sure that if genders had been created by grammarians, they would make perfect sense.
Here is one classic and popular example for how English readers can ignore bad spellings.
English students: see if you can read this:
Mipellssed Wdors
Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a total mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.
English...Oh, boy!! What a complete mess. I have the utmost admiration for those who can teach English.
Let's talk about prepositions that mean the same thing, i.e., I am inside something, but are not interchangeable:
I'm in my car
I'm on the bus
I'm at the library
And how about the fact that we add words that mean absolutely nothing, e.g., "up."
Call up
Beat up
Hang up
Warm up
English is not a "mess" or "silly". It is just another means of communication that has evolved over time like all other languages.In any language there are plenty of times you have to stop and say, "Why ask why?". What would happen if someone who spoke Chinese compared their language to any other that was of Indo-European origin?The same judgements could be made which do not necessarily make them valid.
Personally I am grateful for the quirky individuality of any language as that is what makes it interesting and challenging.This can make things difficult for a non-native learner of any language for sure but difficulty is not a negative judgement.
Mmm..... I don't think that I agree with you guys for me English has been the easiest language to learn, and it's also the easiest one to pronounce!!
How?!! let me explain it for you.
Actually in my language ( Arabic ) each letter has three to pronounce it ,for example:-
We have the letter :
Alef ( the first letter in Arabic ) = A
It can be pronounced like
1- Aaa
2- eee
3-Auoo
And it also has 4 ways to write it.
Now try to imagine that you have to pronounce each letter on it's own pronunciation accent in one word !!!!
Also English is the easiest language (I my opinion) for another reason:
Usually in English a word has only 1 meaning ( or maybe 2 ) but in Arabic one word Can have 10 meanings !!!
I usually spend 3 hours a day studying Arabic grammar but I only spend 30 minutes a day to learn English grammar, but after all Arabic is the hardest language in the world and I have to face it!!
P.S: that's only my opinion and many people won't agree with me.
e as in been
i as in bin
o as in women
u as in busy
So true, tell me about it, kevin! 
And let's not talk about my students...
What about read read read?? Omg, now try "explain" the the second and third are pronunced differently.
En fin, tarea imposible
wind is viento, and wind is dar cuerda, or enrollar
You make your point... most of the spelling in English needs to be memorized to be able to read or write...
