Good job. English is a very hard language that barely uses logic.
Comment on We all took foreign languages in school and none of us can actually speak those languages
TabbsTheBat@pawb.social 19 hours ago
I took english in school, and I speak it all the time :3
frog@feddit.uk 19 hours ago
lugal@lemmy.dbzer0.com 19 hours ago
All languages have their difficulties. English pronunciation and spelling is a mess but grammar is easy for example. My native language has 3 genders and 4 cases for example and there are languages with more.
TabbsTheBat@pawb.social 18 hours ago
7 cases in the standard version of my language, 8 in the dialect I speak :3
lugal@lemmy.dbzer0.com 18 hours ago
You didn’t mention genders so I guess you have none which leads me to Uralic or Turkic languages maybe?
Wizard_Pope@lemmy.world 18 hours ago
Yeah same. 6 cases, 3 genders and also dual form because why not.
bbboi@feddit.uk 16 hours ago
I wish for spelling reform, but that’ll never happen.
Hapankaali@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
English is one of the easiest languages in the world to learn.
TabbsTheBat@pawb.social 19 hours ago
It really is illogical lol :3 I tried teaching my parents before and trying to explain why all 3 Es in mercedes or all 3 Cs in pacific ocean make different sounds like “they just do”
Though my native language is quite hard for non-native speakers as well
Alcoholicorn@mander.xyz 13 hours ago
Chinese and Arabic speakers laugh at me when I say this.
Dojan@pawb.social 12 hours ago
Why? There’s plenty of strange things in English, inconsistent grammar rules, weird pronunciations, and pointless words for simple ideas.
Like there’s umpteen words to describe different kinds of meat, pork, beef, veal, mutton. In Chinese you can get away with saying just the animal + meat, 猪肉, 牛肉, 小牛肉, 羊肉 (pig meat, cow meat, young cow meat, goat meat).
English has stupid rules around pluralisation. There’s been arguments that the origin of the word should dictate how it’s pluralised, and other arguments that a “true English” pluralisation rule should apply, but then incorrect usage slips into common vernacular and suddenly it’s perfectly okay to pluralise a Greek word with a Latin plural suffix. Then you end up with the plural of octopus being octopodes, octopuses, and octopi!
The long and the short of it is that all languages have weird-ass quirks in them that don’t necessarily make any sense but feel natural to their native speakers. It’s a prime example of how intuitiveness isn’t actually real a thing.
Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 hours ago
You can get away with lots of things in English too! Just curious, do you speak another (than english) second language ?
aeronmelon@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
Me, an English teacher: nods somberly
Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 hours ago
Have you tried French?
Mickey7@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
doesn’t count
Obnomus@lemmy.ml 2 hours ago
Would you believe if I told you that there’s someone who speaks 20+ languages