English As A Second Language.
To the non-native English speaker, learning English can be a nightmare. Especially when you don’t have a good tutor on standby. Not that my own language is unblemished. We have exceptions to every rule and even rules to those exceptions with their own exceptions.
But what boggles my mind the most about English is how to pronounce the words. Why is it that the ough in similar looking words like cough, plough, through, tough, and though are pronounced different in each case. How am I to know how to pronounce it without the help of a native English-speaking person, bearing in mind that half our English teachers, esp in primary school, could not speak proper English.
As if that is not enough they also invented an animal called phrasal verbs. Things like throw up, throw down, throw in, and throw out. My first reaction will be to believe that throw up and throw down must be opposite actions but vomit and drop are not even related actions.
Next, we have make up, make over, and make out. Make up is such an interesting verb with at least 11 different meanings ranging from resolving an argument to fabricating a BS story.
If make up describes the action of applying facial cosmetics then surely the process of removing it, must be make down and, by the same logic, if shut up is an instruction to keep quiet then shut down must be permission to talk again. Right?
Then I did not even mention talk over, talk into, talk down, talk up, and talk out. Oh, and then we still have take on, take off, take in, take out, take over, take up, and take down. If an airplane takes off from one location, does it take on at the destination? I think not.
The strangeness of it all is that most these phrasal verbs have perfectly acceptable equivalents. Why can’t we rather use them? It is so much less confusing. Oops, was that an oxymoron?
I think I should stop it right here because one thing will only lead to the next and we will be here all day. But all this makes me wonder exactly who invented English and what they were smoking at the time.
You have a good day too.
Comments (119)
English is not my 2nd but 3rd language. At school, the medium of instruction was Malay, for all the subjects. Only one pathetic English book, 45 mins daily, 5 times weekly. I speak Cantonese and other Chinese dialects at home.
I was lucky I guess coz I got hooked on reading Mills & Boon, and other romantic novels. I could read up to 5 M&B per day!
As for the pronunciation, used to get most of the difficult words wrong but I was never afraid, up till now, to ask for help. Watching English movies and listening to English news definitely helped a lot in that department.
You wonder who invented English?
You have a good day too Catfoot
My day has come to an end and we are having our dinner now.
You did not like algebra? I loved it! At school I preferred it to languages (no tenses or other BS) and way above the 'learning' subjects like science, geography and history. Mathematics require very little learning; just a good understanding of it.
Never been good at it. Failed my Maths paper most of the time. The only time I passed was when my Math teacher went for her maternity leave and we got a substitute teacher. She, a fresh graduate, was clueless as to what to set during for the exams. She ended up setting very very easy questions much to my delight!
It is because of calculators that our children cannot add and subtract any more. I have a calculator somewhere around here but I'm not too sure exactly where it is. I seldom use it and then it mostly is for division.
But back to algebra; what I like about it is the simple set of logic you need to apply to make it work.
So funny I saw your blog as I had decided to post the same
So funny I saw your blog as I had decided to post the same
Now I know why I never liked Algebra.....coz
1) I never think logically
2) I love to complicate even the simplest thing!
An Englishman? Are you sure? I would have gone for an American.
Hmm, I remember how we had to rake our heads with the gender of things in the German class. We had an old (German) man, brought back from pension, for our teacher. Old and deaf but what a teacher!
I have not had a chance to look at the blogs but will sure look at them a bit later.
You have just summarized Women in general. I'm glad you said it because if I said it, I would have been chastised.
Now, that's a good one Catfoot!
I hope all of your sisters see it the same!
I am still learning how to speak English....
Then perhaps once you have mastered it, you can teach me.
This topic reminds me how we learnt English from the first beginning at 10 years old at school. No tapes at that time, the book and the teacher was so bad.We had to wrote down Chinese single words to help us pronunciation, no one knew what we were talking in Chinese or in English...
But I was luck,an old lady,a retired teacher who was our next door neighbor, was very good at English. She was my first teacher in English I shoul say. My sister and I went to her home once a week at that period of time, we learnt from ABC again,using the books she ofered us which from aboard. We listened to her and wrote down ,The way of dictation helped me more, From her, I found the joy of learning English, how to write pretty, and what is the best way to learn a language...She passed in USA, if she was alived, more than 100 years old now.She was my good mentor.
Oh! Sure I will teach you. Of course! There will be a fee involved, my friend..
There are so many inconsistencies in languages, I think it is not possible to learn a language without a native speaker to guide and help you. Especially when it comes to idioms and expressions.
As long as you understand that the fee will be payable by the tutor.
I think Pepp has a one track mind....always thinking of ways to get money thru fees!
Math is one of things that I am very good at. I do most all of my calculations in my head! I trained myself to do it many years ago! It has been a real blessing for me. Algebra was very difficult for me. Maybe I didn't want to really learn it.
Although I took English as a subject (compulsory), I could not speak much of it when I finished school. I married an English speaking woman and only then I mastered the language.
The difficulties she had with English were expressed just as you described: the problems in pronunciation. etc.
Although I would like to help her, how would I teach her a complete language? It would be fine if she just wanted to ask me about certain words, but to teach her the language is a bit more of an undertaking.
Any suggestions? Thanks so much. - C
The question was easy enough but the answer was a bit more difficult.
I surely hope there was not a conductor in the lab.
Maybe you should do it the way my ex-wife taught me. We spoke only English to each other and from there I could ask and she would correct me when I went wrong.
I was judt going to tell you. Love is one of the most expensive commodities on the planet.
I do love languages and I always find English a fascinating language...
As they say, English maybe easy to learn, but difficult to master.
I was lucky to be brought up speaking two languages simultaneously - French, being my mother tongue, but also English as I was brought up with some American kids living in the neighbourhood.
A little joke for you: What do you call a person who speaks 2 languages?... bilingual, right?
What about one who speaks more than two languages?... "poliglote"?
Now, what about one who only speaks ONE language?...
American!
Do you need to practise your English? ... easy! Come to Spain and I´ll give you some free lessons and also a guided tour - all under the sun!
I don't really have a problem with English; it is the people I talk to that have problems to understand me.
Ok, just kidding, i wrote the blog very much tongue in the cheek but your invitation to free lessons and a guided tour sounds irresistible. I better not dwell on it.
The European Commission
The European Commission has announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the EU, rather than German, which was the other contender. Her Majesty's Government conceded that English spelling had room for improvement and has therefore accepted a five-year phasing in of "Euro-English".
In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make sivil servants jump for joy. The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of the "k", Which should klear up some konfusion and allow one key less on keyboards.
There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f", making words like "fotograf" 20% shorter.
In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of the silent "e" is disgrasful.
By the fourth yer, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v".
During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters. After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubls or difikultis and everivun vil find it ezi to understand ech ozer. ZE DREM VIL FINALI COM TRU!
Herr Schmidt
I took German as a 3rd language and when I left school my German was better than my English.
Not that I spoke German well, my English was just very poor. I found German less strange on the tongue.
So you speak Dutch. Then you will understand Afrikaans. Dutch & Flemish speaking people can understand me pretty well though I battle a bit to understand them.
Practise your English, learn some French and also Spanish, have a guided tour of this lovely area I live in, also meet a few Señoritas...
Look, more than 3 birds to kill in one go!
Sorry Girl, somehow I missed your comment. No malice intended but then I guess you know that.
Ze last one, in zi fif year I kan hardli understand
For a moment you had me stumped.
This is really funny. I love it.