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.