English is HARD

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Hard consonant pronouncing. Like, you kinda have to hold down the sound, but only for a little while.

e.g. Fernand (furn ~ anduh) I guess. I'm horrible at speaking anything. Don't take my word for it.

Yes it is hard, even English Native speakers have a hard time with it. Look at all the poor grammar they use and spelling.

Also we have words that sound the same or have different spellings.

its
it's

there
their
they're

red
read

buy
by
bye

sense
since

wetting
wedding

who's
whose

Mary
marry

knot
not

sale
sail

muscle
mussel


And there are also words that are spelled the same but pronounced differently depending on the context.

read (reed or red)
bow (bo or bow as in bow wow like a dog)

Also we have words that are silent, a six year old boy once asked me if it's hard for me to know when c is pronounced like a k and I said no and he asked me how I could tell and I said it was memorization, as he gets older he will memorize each word and how it's spelled and pronounced it will stick in his brain and he won't have a hard time with it anymore. But these things come naturally to us Native English speakers but other people this might never come natural to them whose English language isn't their first. How do we explain when c becomes an s sound like in ocean. We can't explain it to them. I just say it's memorization. You just memorize how a word is spelled and pronounced.

"Cut in half" means "cut in two".

https://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/English_hard_2learn.html

Why do ''read'' and ''read'' have to be spelt the same? It should be ''I have red this book''.

Also ''minute'' (as in time) and ''minute'' (as in very small).

Humor that's considered low-class, lowbrow or low culture is considered dumb; low key humor, on the other hand, is considered more intelligent.

To cleave can mean to cut in two.Or it can mean cling together.

In foreign policy "Sanction" means the opposite of itself ( "punish", or "allow").

An ox is like a child. The plural of both is indicated by suffix "en". Oxen, and children.

Brother can be pluralized into EITHER "brothers", OR "brethren".

But "sisters" is NEVER "sisteren".

In both the UK, and in the USA you study mathematics. But in the US they shorten it to "math", but in the UK they shorten it to "maths".

You still have to write that "e" at the end of all of those words that end with "silent e" even though you dont pronounce the "e".

But a thousand years ago they DID pronounce that silent e in all of those words.

Including the word "name". The modern Japanese word for "name" is also pronounced "nahm-me". Pure coincidence.

BUT...English does have at least one upside!

Its the only European language in which you dont have to worry about the "gender" of inanimate objects!

I've read the entire thread, and even though I can't remember a previous post after I've read the next one (LOL), I don't think anyone has mentioned words that when you put the accent on a different syllable, makes it a different word, like: conTENT and CONtent.

Also, someone said that there were no such words as "a pant" and "a scissor"----but, I've heard those used, my whole life, because of my study of Fashion Design, and was even taught to say "a scissor"; I have heard that they are "old English".

Also, years ago, I read that the U.S. is the only country in the world, that doesn't pronounce the "H", at the beginning of the word "herb"----except for Martha Stewart and other people from / in New England (who also pronounce "aunt" in a way that rhymes with "font", and not "ant").

Is "a pant" in fashionspeak a "pair of pants"? Or just a pant leg?

And is "a scissor" the whole "pair of scissors", or does it mean just one disengaged half ( one blade, and one finger handle) of the thing?

"Pants" must be related to the word "pant" as in "a dog panting". Both must trace back to some Anglo Saxon or Old English word that means a flat thing like a tongue that hangs down.

so only the smart people speak it.

Slow down and slow up mean the same thing.
A wise man and a wise guy are two totally different things.
A strike is a good thing in bowling, but a bad thing in baseball.
Inflammable means really flammable, but infamous does not mean really famous, although many people think it does. I used to be very confused when I was younger because I thought it meant not famous. Now I know it means famous, but for basically negative reasons, like Hitler or Jack the Ripper.

And there's that old rule "i before e except after c", which I used to believe in when I was younger until I realized "weird" and about 30 other words are an exception.

People will say "needless to say" before saying something that's obvious, but if it really is needless to say and then you say it anyway, then it's like you *did* need to say it.

And then there's all the accents, dialects and slang words that vary in every English-speaking community that can be very confusing to an outsider.

If you're an American you often have to explain to immigrants you work with that you can tell a coworker (even a superviser) to "get off my case", OR you can tell a coworker or even a supervisor to "get out of my face".

But you cant tell a coworker to "get off my face".

Another odd thing is the expression "here here".

In a gathering when some one says something that is spot on and you want others to hear what that person said- on both sides of the Atlantic you will say "here here".

Whats annoying is that in print it's spelled "here here". When the expression first appeared folks were probably saying "HEAR here" ( hear what this bloke is saying who is standing over here). So it should be spelled "hear here", and not "here here".

Last edited by naturalplastic on 20 Nov 2015, 2:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Don't forget the different dialects, just to complicate things further.

You say hood I say bonnet
You say trunk I say boot
You say gas I say petrol
You say cookie I say biscuit
You say comforter I say doona

You say pry and I say prise....

One thing that can confuse people learning English is how to respond to questions asked in a negative form.
For example:

Are you not going to the party tonight?

In English, if you are going you say "yes, I'm going"; but if you aren't going you say "no, I'm not going". The "yes/no" part matches the positive/negative form of the verb.

But in a few other languages that I've learned it's the other way around. They'd say "no, I am going" (as in "no, that's not right, I am going") or "yes, I'm not going" (as in "yes that's right"). The "yes/no" response directly answers the question.

I wonder how other languages handle this situation.

I work in shipping and export a lot of Spirits (whisky etc). Our agent in Macedonia asked,in all seriousness,if we
were shipping ghosts as he'd never heard of another meaning for spirits.