"Sorry for my bad english!"

[raedor 8]

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.

right. for someone from western europe it is very easy to learn english/french... for someone form eastern europe it is easy to learn russian/polish/czech.

that's because those languages are related...

[hardrock 1]

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.

Nah, no way

German is several times harder than English (as is French), just look at the basic language structure like cases. For comparison

Quote[/b] ]English German French

Singular

1 I see ich sehe je vois

2 you see du siehst tu vois

3 he sees er sieht il voit

Plural

1 we see wir sehen nous voyons

2 you see ihr seht vous voyez

3 they see sie sehen ils voient

See what I mean?

And since you said, the difference between bare and bear would be hard, things like that exist in every language.

[pajama 0]

English is easy to learn. I also learned it from watching Cartoon Network when I was 7, back when my only native language was Thai. But sadly even though I can still speak it fluently now I can't remember how to write in Thai any more, not even my name

Damn you english! Damn you!

[iNeo 0]

all the exceptions to rules and words that sound the same/have the same spelling/are spelled the same but pronounced differently:

We too have quite many words that are spelled the same but pronounced differently.

stegen (the steps + ladder)

tomten (the garden + the tomte)

banan (the (racing) track + banana)

biten (bitten + the piece)

modern (modern + the mother), viner (howling + wines)

etc etc

Not just different meanings but pronounciation too.

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

This was never a problem for me, their so simple. ...lol kidding.

I agree German is much harder than English, the grammatics anyway.

Edit oops a mistranslation

[vektorboson 8]

You can can a can.

That is a correct english sentence; the first can is an auxiliary, the second can is a verb and third one is a noun. And everyone sounds exactly the same.

Opposed to many others in here, I love the german language. I think it is really beautiful and very expressive.

To add to the difficult/easy to learn languages: I heard that languages based only on rules are harder to learn than languages with lots of exceptions; it was some kind of how the brain works.

I didn't like French in school, though  

[Nemesis6 0]

I don't really know what language I'm better at: My native language, being Danish, or the one I'm writing in right now, Which as you all probably know, is English. As far as speaking goes, I'm of course better in Danish. 97 % of the English I use is in written form. I almost never use it verbally. Other than that, I speak/understand a bit of German. Hey, when they forcefeed it to you in school, some of it is found to stick. Other than that, I'm in the process of learning Russian. I know the alphabet, so I need to get the grammar right, learn a lot of new words, ETC.

*sigh*

I'll share a little experience with you guys. One time when I was in the local pizzaria, there were some Americans also waiting for their order, I don't exactly remember how it started, but I seem to recall one of them offering a slice of their pizza after it was delivered, and it started off from there I think. Anyway, at one point, one of them asked me if there were any coffeeshops nearby. The way I interpretted this in my mind was like: "He must be talking about those American places like Starbucks or something...", so I said something to the extent of "No, that's more of an American thing." and he gave me a strange kind of look. On the way home I got to think of it, and I was like "Stupid, stupid, stupid!". Had I just thought "Café", as it's called in Danish and probably some other European or other Scandinavian languages, instead of "Starbucks", I could have pointed him to just one of the many around here.

*sigh*... Damn you Starbucks, for inadvertently affecting the the brains of us weak minded Europeans!

Edit: Two sighs in one post, new record for me I think.

[hellfish6 7]

In my experience (French, Latin, German, Indonesian - all are almost all entirely forgotten now due to lack of practice and entropy), 90% of a language is it's vocabulary. I never had much trouble learning sentence structure or grammar, as you kind of develop a rhythm for it (especially if you watch movies or listen ot music from the language), but I'm terrible at memorization. I'd have to memorize maybe 6 versions of 100 words for a test and a week later I'll have forgotten the vast majority of them.

So while I can still properly format a sentence in French today, I'd have to use a dictionary to find the translations for most of the words I'd use in that sentence.

[Bordoy 0]

I use English, tried to learn French at school but the teachers can teach.

I hope the French keep learning, the Germans keep learning German etc . Because i would hate for them languages to be wiped out.

[hardrock 1]

You can can a can.

Hey VB, cheers!! Didn't expect your philosophical additions here!

[walker 0]

Hi all

One of the key advantages of english has been said to be its vocabulary, which is the largest of any language.

Borrowings or stealing words is one of the commonest ways in which words enter the language.The English language is like a magpie, collecting and hoarding useful vocabulary to build up the biggest wordstock in the world. This process has gone on throughout history, but the media has made it so much easier in the 20th century.

English is defined by an anarchic free market of everyone who uses it. So that even some person for whom english is second language and who have never been to an english speaking nation defines what is correct English. In fact if they have a good, fast, more accurate way, of saying something in their own language; it will supplant the english word as the word for that concept or subject. That is why the Oxford English language dictionary is called the dictionary of common usage. If enough people who use English whether as first or second or even third language start using a word or phrase; that then becomes the word or phrase to use.

Unlike french there are no real guardians of the English language. Ever since French was codified and beurocrats put in charge of it French has declined from being the international language. The decision to do so sounded the death nell for French as a living language.

Why are more words an advantage

The question then becomes: in what possible way can having more words to say the same thing, be an advantage?

The answer is fine control much the same as the Eskimo have multiple words for snow and the scots for rain. This alows a better more accurate description of the thing.

The mass of words used to amalgamate concepts is also a great advantage; do a quick check of a sample of multi language instuction texts for you houshold goods. Most times the page in english is shorter than its equivalent in other languages. So the same thing on average can be said quicker and written more shortly in english.

Does that make English great?

Nah. it just means English a great universal tool for the job, some languages such as French, are great for romance as even a shoping list can sound sexy in french.

Kind Regards Walker

[iNeo 0]

He said that that 'that' that that man used was wrong.

[walker 0]

He said that that 'that' that that man used was wrong.

True

[der bastler 0]

Don't have a problem with German.

Seriously, if you think English is easy then try Chinese. Apart from the characters it is the easiest and most flexible language I encountered so far.

But the characters... ok, perhaps I'm a bit too lazy to learn continuously. If I review my years of French at school I wonder why the heck I can't do real conversations in French.

One thing is funny: older Hollywood movies about WW2. They spent millions of dollars for costumes, scenes, explosives but apparently they couldn't afford one German-speaking assistant who might be able to correct the few German shoutings. Schweinehund! Fritz! Alarm!

[mattxr 9]

I Was Born In The Uk And Grew Up Here And Got An E In My GCSE English LMAO

[Bordoy 0]

I Was Born In The Uk And Grew Up Here And Got An E In My GCSE English LMAO

Got a B here

[Ex-RoNiN 0]

I Was Born In The Uk And Grew Up Here And Got An E In My GCSE English LMAO

Yeah, English seems to be too complicated for you Geordies and other northerners

[soul_assassin 1750]

well ever wonder why english is thought of as an international language? its very simple to learn, and i think (im not sure) it has the smallest alphabet of all civelized countries. Its very easy to pick up on street level.

German and French are also considered "official" international languages (in UN and so on) but thats only because especially in those two countries the majority (IMPORTANT! B4 u call me ignorant, please observe I said majority and not ALL) people refuse to speak it, just like the majority of english-first-lang people (US and UK) refuse to speak other languages. Unlike here in Holland where 99.5% of the population speaks english and and above 50% are tri-lingual. In the words of a famous brittish stand-up comedian:

"When I come to a foreign country I like to lean how it is you say "Do you speak English" in their own langauge. So when I came to Amsterdam and went into a shop, asked the guy behind the counter "Spreekt u Engels?". Only then I realised that asking a dutch person if he speaks english is like asking them if they could count till 3.'

I know English, Dutch and my mother-tongue: Ruskii.

[da12thMonkey 1943]

I spent 5 years of school learning both French and German and I seemed to be the mutt's at it by their standards, I got an A grades for both but I was never able to learn it in a way where I could express something off the cuff in either language. I found remembering the vocabulary very difficult but I was fine on constructing sentences, so I passed simply by having a limited number of nouns in my head and a load of verbs and adjectives with their accompanying gender and tense paradigms which I found quite easy to remember. If someone spoke to me in either language, I suppose I'd be able to pick up what they were on about based on body language and the structure of what they said, but forming a personal response would be very difficult for me; especially since I've been out of practise for over a decade.

My English is starting to fail me nowadays too i think, I've got into a habbit of spelling things incorrectly since I've got used to spelling most things right, and stop checking.

[hellfish6 7]

the majority of english-first-lang people (US and UK) refuse to speak other languages.

I don't know about that. Most people in America know some Spanish at least, but there's absolutely no opportunity to leanr (and use) any other language besides English (unless you go to Quebec).

In Europe you only have to travel 100 miles (ok, that was a generalization) in any direction to find another language, giving you a lot of incentive to learn others and plenty of opportunity to use it.

[Harnu 0]

Here in my neck of the woods in the states, Spanish is becoming more and more integral in nearby grade school. My niece who's in kindergarten already has started learning some spanish (Just how to count from 1-10) but for later grades in the school, French classes have been replaced with Spanish classes. And it's about damn time they did this, you'll need to know Spanish around this area far before you need to learn French. And with an increasingly diverse population in some areas around me, I wouldn't be suprised to see more classes on learning how to speak some middle eastern languages.

For me, English is my native language and that's all I can really speak. I know some very basic spanish words, and a phrase here than there that I've had to use. But beyond that, there's not a lot of times you need to speak anything but English.

[shinRaiden 0]

True, chinese is much simpler than the rest of the Asian languages until you get into the vocalized tones, but that's just one part. You can get by without intonation in Japanese, but the additional polishing adds a little complexity, which helps getting started though. Korean's phonetic matrix is interesting, diagraming it at least is helpful even if you don't bother to go beyond that.

Anyway, Asian languages are far simpler and clearer than western slashed up languages. True, the logic totally beyond different from what you're used to in the west, but that cleans up a lot of the misconceptions and pitfalls. The vocab looks like crap until you understand how it works, then when it clicks it's absolutely beautiful. The flexibility that comes from a clean and simple system without complications of rules is wonderful.

Unfortunately many instructors in Asian languages persist in multiplying artificial rules rather than attempt to properly train people who sadly are less and less inclined to study logic and linguistics. It crapped up my Japanese until I was able to adequately flush out my brain and learn it over again in Japanese. What your instructors would claim to be 'rules' are in fact not, they are merely examples of general combinations, not conjugations. That's something you can't detect looking at Asian languages transcribed in western characters, or even in phonetic Asian characters. You have to stare at the ideograms to see the logic flows.

[iNeo 0]

I was in Helsinki last summer, I didn't know if I should ask in Swedish or English when I was to buy something etc. It was kind of awkward cause it felt rude to assume they spoke Swedish by walking up to them and ask them in Swedish if they did, and it felt weird to come up to them and speak English when I don't look very non-Finnish. I mean they'd assume I was Finnish and if (when) I spoke Finnish to them they must've at first thought I was mental.

[mr burns 132]

learned some english from playing c64 and pc games before i attended classes at school, gave me a little advantage..never had to work my ass off to get a B.

spoken english .. nah not for me as im not yet confident enough to start talking without knowing how the whole sentence will look like.

the biggest problem for me is trying to avoid using too many i´s & me´s, that makes it sometimes quite hard to not to sound selfish and build a correct sentence.

but im still learning, mainly from bi-forums.  

The answer is fine control much the same as the Eskimo have multiple words for snow and the scots for rain. This alows a better more accurate description of the thing.

unfortunately it depends on the peoples knowlegde if/how they make use of their fine tuned language.

lawyers for example do exactly know what they have to say to always be a pain in someones derriÄre.

[iNeo 0]

spoken english .. nah not for me as im not yet confident enough to start talking without knowing how the whole sentence will look like.

Once on a cruiser an American man started talking to me, it was nice but I got nervous when I had to show off my English skills for a native English speaker, so I forgot words and got kinda silent.

[mr burns 132]

spoken english .. nah not for me as im not yet confident enough to start talking without knowing how the whole sentence will look like.

Once on a cruiser an American man started talking to me, it was nice but I got nervous when I had to show off my English skills for a native English speaker, so I forgot words and got kinda silent.

that´s it, ever been to a london mc do´ and didn´t know how to order ?  

best experience i had yet was on CIA´s TS2 server, very good place to practice imho since all members are generally friendly .. or just speaking same crap english like yourself