"Sorry for my bad english!"

[chops 111]

After a couple of years mostly reading these forums and one and a bit teaching ESL (English as a Second Language), I thought it was time to reassure those here who aren't native english speakers that they do a great job communicating with us lazy english speakers, who, for the most part never bother to study another language.

I often read clearly written, susinct posts and then see "sorry for my bad english" at then end, not having noticed any mistakes.

Or perhaps you're fishing for compliments

[gandalf the white 0]

Yeah, I myself find my english better then some native english speaking folks, mostly kids that like to replace to with 2, etc.

Still, i have a list of words I just screw up everytime:

diffrent - different

allways - always

cense - sense

fafor - favor

It has been improving since I added them to my MSNplus word filter, heh. but if anybody notices a mistake I make everytime: tell me! pm me! scream it out in the topic itself! I dont care, aslong as I realise I am spelling it wrong!

EDIT: look below

[Colossus 2]

favor - favor

Is there any difference?

[dmakatra 1]

English is hard, but a zillion times easier then German. Thank God English is the international language and not German.

[gandalf the white 0]

favor - favor

Is there any difference?

see? knowing your mistakes is the fastest way to correct them!

[llauma 0]

One reason why english is quite easy for the majority is because english is basicly just a mix of many languages such as french, german, dutch, norse and latin. Not much of the original celtic remains.

So it really suites to be the no.1 international (western) language 'cause that's what it is.

[Nilz 0]

I learned most of English by watching Cartoon Network when I was like 4 years old.

No kidding

[kavoven 4]

Well, if you look at my german exams and then take a look at my english exams, you'll reconize:

I do less mistakes in english than in german

Mostly it's all about how you say something, becuase it's slightly diffrent from german, but I would say english is much easier then german, or french and perhaps even spanish, although I'M not sure, because this is my first year of spanish.

But reading english in english forums is quiet good if you want to practice normal spoken english.

[nx_illusion 0]

I learned english in school :P

[raedor 8]

One reason why english is quite easy for the majority is because english is basicly just a mix of many languages such as french, german, dutch, norse and latin. Not much of the original celtic remains.

So it really suites to be the no.1 international (western) language 'cause that's what it is.

yep. in addition to that it is pretty easy to build and so on (there's nearly nothing like "different cases" ).

i always mix this/that/these/those up, also my word order is a bit "buggy" and i mistake with the "times" sometimes...

[somebloke 0]

German is easier to learn than english y'know. Proven fact. English is one of world's trickiest languages to learn.

Mainly because it keeps changing.

[BlackScorpion 0]

Well, I learned most of my English in school too... I'm on 9th, started English on 3rd (yep, 5-6 years ago) and nowadays I sometimes, especially when reading, writing or speaking English, I think in English. And I can almost, if not, type faster in English than in Finnish.

To somebloke:

Is not! Proven! Atleast for a average person. Maybe it's because you hear/see English everywhere, but...

I'm studying German and it's way harder than German...

But, basically, as long as you understand (correctly!) what the writer/talker means, mistakes are acceptable.

[raedor 8]

German is easier to learn than english y'know. Proven fact. English is one of world's trickiest languages to learn.

Mainly because it keeps changing.

huh? that's a pretty new fact for me.

ok, it fits in my case, my german is way better than my english, but i doubt that you can generalise that.

[BlackScorpion 0]

The strangest thing in his words is that he's English...

[somebloke 0]

Indeed i am, but i'm sure i've heard it said english is a hard language to learn...must be the bloody teachers

[raedor 8]

it is a regular feature of a language that it is changing. languages which don't change are called "dead languages" (latin, ancient greek, ...). so this wasn't a very good argument...

[sanctuary 19]

Personnally i am always sorry for my bad english, because i never succeeded to translate in english exactly what i want to say when i want to express a more complex idea than the ones expressed in usual langage.

And of course when i tried to express such idea , the one reading is very often understand it wrong due to my uncapacity to express it in english, and that can be really frustrating.

[Victor_S. 0]

My first language is english and I bet that most of you know the language better than I do. I took spanish for 3 year but I didnt learn much. Though it seems to be a simpler language than english. I have also heard that english is one of the hardest languages to learn. I would suspect that it is hard due to works like bear and bare.

[CAPAIRMAN 0]

My old spanish teacher learned english as a second language. A kid asked her why it was hard and she said this sentence.

Mary was merry when she was married.

That pretty much sums up the english language.

[stevevcb 3]

English is no harder than any other Latin-based language (French, Spanish, Italian) until you factor in all the exceptions to rules and words that sound the same/have the same spelling/are spelled the same but pronounced differently:

Lead: either the act of leading, a type of soft metal, or a strap you attach to your dog's collar when you want to walk him.

Then there's the whole where/were/wear/we're and there/their/they're thing.

If I didn't speak English as a first language, I'd go barmy learning it

[Heatseeker 0]

English is quite easy to pronounce and learn and the fact we see it everywhere is also helpfull, french is harder to write/type but i understand it quite well, german is a nightmare, very very hard in all aspects, they use uge, hard to spell and pronounce words like zusamenfassung (i problably spelled it wrong again ). Spanish is alright has it is similar to Portuguese but not so refined .

[raedor 8]

double m, besides this it is correct

hm, i can't say that english is easy to pronounce. in german or french you have some (more or less) clear rules, when you know them, you can pronounce 95% of all words correctly.

in english you can never say how to pronounce something without asking a native speaker.

[Ex-RoNiN 0]

German is easier to learn than english y'know. Proven fact. English is one of world's trickiest languages to learn.

Mainly because it keeps changing.

Mate, English is piss-easy compared to German.

Now sit down young one and listen to this true story:

I was in Germany in 10th grade and we were working on a proof for the binomial theorem. I never quite understood it.

Then for 11th grade, I moved to Greece to attend the American school there, and I encountered the binomial theorem again - only this time, it took me half a lesson to understand it!

So I had the hypothesis that it could have been the language, or the fact that I had understood it already on a primitive level.

Well, fast forward to the end of 11th grade, we had just finished working on differentiation. I was quite good at it and when I went to Germany in the summer, I decided to look through my mates' maths books and read through the chapter on differentiation - I understood fuck all, it was a very bizarre feeling. Here I was, pretty good at differentiation, but reading through the German maths book, I could not understand wtf they were on about.

The problem stems from the fact that German is overcomplicated and bloated and IMO just bloody ugly. You can come up with ridiculous word and sentence constructs very very easily. When German is used in an official manner, it becomes almost as ridiculous as Greek. English, on the other hand, is nice and easy, esp. grammar wise.

[Gordy 0]

Agreed.

I was trying to learn German since I was three. A complete failure. I learned English within half a year, if you can ever learn completely since as any spoken language it lives and evolves.

Anyway learning any language must be perceived from the perspective of a native language of the student since it's own rules determines the progress.

[raedor 8]

i like the complexity of certain languages. you can express your feelings/thoughts in a much more sophisticated or differentiated way.