Witty, but the truth.

I found this in my random internet searches.


If you've learned to speak fluent English, you must be a genius!
Pursue at your leisure, English lovers. Reasons why the English language is so hard to learn:

1. The bandage was wound around the wound.
2. The farm was used to produce produce.
3. The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
4. We must polish the Polish furniture.
5. He could lead if he would get the lead out.
6. The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
7. Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.
8. A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
9. When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
10. I did not object to the object.
11. The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
12. There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
13. They were too close to the door to close it.
14. The buck does funny things when the does are present.
15. A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
16. To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
17. The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
18. After a number of injections my jaw got number.
19. Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.
20. I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
21. How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France (surprise!).

Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat. Quicksand works slowly, boxing rings are square, and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

And why is it that writers write, but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham?

If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth beeth? One goose two geese, so one moose, two meese? Doesn't it seem crazy, that you can make amends but not one amend. If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it? Is it an odd, or an end?

If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship?
Have noses that run and feet that smell? How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out, and in which, an alarm goes off by going on.

English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all. That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.

P.S. Why doesn't "Buick" rhyme with "quick"?

Interesting....

I must be a genius!

English is one of the hardest language to master. =P

Thats a sweet search.. He he ... English is supposed to be the easiest language one can learn really .. the other ones are just a pain ..trust me on that.

Bleh, my english teacher would be like omfg

This would have stumped my english teachers probably...

But I was under the impression english was so hard because it consisted of so many words from foreign languages.

Well, for the most part you're right about English being the hardest to learn. That is...if you're talking about proper English and not that slang bullshit out there on the streets today.

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Originally Posted by Nuklear

English is one of the hardest language to master. =P

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Try Swedish.

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Originally Posted by Iron Maiden

Well, for the most part you're right about English being the hardest to learn. That is...if you're talking about proper English and not that slang bullshit out there on the streets today.

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But how many people do you meet a day that speaks english correctly without slang......

Correct english is a dieing language lol.

I thought I'd put in my 2 cents.


English is only difficult to learn if it is not your first language. Some people get it right away whilst others have a harder time. When English is your first language the European languages are easiest to learn while Latin and the Asian languages can give you a hard time. Trust me with Latin......oy vey!

Why is that? Well because English is just screwed up(how many grammatical rules are there? like 6000? or maybe it's 60,000; did I need to make those numbers into number numbers to numb the mind into more complacency as in sixty-thousand rather than 60,000....the words makes the number seem so numb). Bleh! I hated that numbers and number one.



It's hard for Europeans/Asians to learn English because English is just...English. Hard for us to learn Latin because Latin can have a verb in front of a direct object with the indirect object behind the noun which is in front of the verb in front of the indirect object....you get the point. Annoying just is Latin so=Latin is just so annoying. :O

I type too much....

Wow...

Thats a little more then 2 cents o.o

more like 200 dollars :P glad to see you posting again, saden.
the first part of your post Jare, those words are called "homonyms". That's a word that is spelled the same, but with a different pronunciation (like the opposite of homophone).

Hm, I don't really caring about the way to speak 100% correct English, I just want people are able to understand me. =]

About the 'poem', it's rather nerdish but also a bit cool. xD

A guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.
Lol, makes me think about Spiderpig.

Waves'
Nillus

the hardest word to say if your not from an english speaking country is 'squirrel'. some americans and australians have problems because of their accent but anyone from any other country cant say it at all. it even got me 2 hours of detention from my french teacher beacuse i forced her to say it.

Lol interesting

if you want to struggle over your tongue :P

Great, hehe. In the Swedish language there are problems like this one aswell, for example:

Vart tog v

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Originally Posted by omerta

the hardest word to say if your not from an english speaking country is 'squirrel'. anyone from any other country cant say it at all.

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Not rly :) I can say it.

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Originally Posted by omerta

it even got me 2 hours of detention from my french teacher beacuse i forced her to say it.

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Haha nice one there :D Totally worth it.

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Originally Posted by omerta

the hardest word to say if your not from an english speaking country is 'squirrel'. some americans and australians have problems because of their accent but anyone from any other country cant say it at all. it even got me 2 hours of detention from my french teacher beacuse i forced her to say it.

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I'm going to try that on the next French person I see :tongue:

Its just getting the correct words in the right context, its easy. and plus im from england so =P

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Originally Posted by Iron Maiden

Well, for the most part you're right about English being the hardest to learn. That is...if you're talking about proper English and not that slang bullshit out there on the streets today.

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Aye, I agree with this for sure.

LoL, my English teacher has brought something similar to this to the lesson once.

Yea things like this definitely make English an insane language to learn. I can't really tell tho since even though English is my second language i learned it at the age of 5 so it may as well be my first language. It isn't the hardest language to learn tho, trust me. I'm taking freakin Chinese. Now thats an insane language. Speaking is hard due to tones, Writing is hard well for obvious reason and the grammar is hell.

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Originally Posted by linklink88

Try Swedish.

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Try Danish ^^

One of the hardest languages to lean, cus we got some other letters than all or u other contries...


But i think the hardest ang, is a special african language, where u use different sounds instead of words (A little like beatbox if u understand)

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Originally Posted by Jare

French fries in France (surprise!).

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We say chips not french fries thats american =P

Cba looking at the whole post but german was more annoying imo... 27 different words for "the" O.o

Crash

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Originally Posted by nightcor3

Try Danish ^^

One of the hardest languages to lean, cus we got some other letters than all or u other contries...


But i think the hardest ang, is a special african language, where u use different sounds instead of words (A little like beatbox if u understand)

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We do too you know?

Language doesn't have to be written down. It is a form of communication that used to be only spoken.

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Originally Posted by Konrow

Language doesn't have to be written down. It is a form of communication that used to be only spoken.

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There is no "rule" about what's a language and what's not. I said what was a language in MY opinion.

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Originally Posted by The_Gatekeeper_

more like 200 dollars :P glad to see you posting again, saden.
the first part of your post Jare, those words are called "homonyms". That's a word that is spelled the same, but with a different pronunciation (like the opposite of homophone).

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They sure are! (lol)

They are referring to the fact that with all the homonyms and exceptions, it's confusing.

GK, homonyms are like Read/Read, etc. I don't think most of the words he listed are homonyms.

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Originally Posted by linklink88

There is no "rule" about what's a language and what's not. I said what was a language in MY opinion.

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there is a rule. Theres the definition of language. otherwise i could call a cat: "language" -_- A language is a form of communication using speech, signals, written words, pictographs, etc.

English is sexy .. we can throw around abunch of crap and make a sentence that has some in depth meaning if ihad an example it wouldent be as magicl lol

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Originally Posted by Konrow

there is a rule. Theres the definition of language. otherwise i could call a cat: "language" -_- A language is a form of communication using speech, signals, written words, pictographs, etc.

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Then I guess I'm looking for a different word then language :P I know this because we did this in a course last year, but in swedish =/

American Sign Language doesn't have a written form. But, it's still a language.

Desin is definately the hardest if you do not have time to master it
Eto gyaet Tak enapynoa Kepenko!!! Bepetebite emy!!!
It's so damn hard! Believe it

actually it's quite simple really, English is taken from latin, the root which has no V which is silent, and a couple other silent vowels. for instance, tear and tear (T-ee-r) are both taken from the same latin root, which is why we get those words

I actually think Mandrin is the hardest language to learn if not, english in itself? Why is english considered so much harder than other languages if people catch it so fast? Think back to the years 1300's, about the time when we actually started becoming sophisticated in our language, then jump to WWI and WWII, most of us (who are the descendants) have techincally already learned these words as soon as we were born. and because the U.S. was so successful in taking over other countries and becoming so powerful english spread through genetic growth (if that be the case via accents) and of course, classes which were forced upon other countries like, relating that to religion per say. In any case this is just my theory

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Originally Posted by cloakedmapl

and because the U.S. was so successful in taking over other countries and becoming so powerful english spread through genetic growth (if that be the case via accents) and of course, classes which were forced upon other countries like, relating that to religion per say. In any case this is just my theory

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You do know it was the Brittish who were so succesfull and took over America from the indians (native americans, whatever) as well as had Australie as a place to send their prisoners? :wink: Not to mention Hong Kong as a trading post and the falklands for some weird reason nobody really understands? :icon6:

That being said, English isn't a difficult language at all. These oddities occur in every language and though the English spelling can be challenging at times it is definately no worse than most. German for instance is a lot more difficult and French isn't exactly easy either. Dutch pronounciation on the other hand is hell for those that didn't learn it from birth, though its grammer is easier than german (and only slightly harder than English) - I know an American professor who has lived in the Netherlands for the past 20 years and still has an overwhelmingly american accent, whereas after a few weeks in the USA people could only guess I was from Europe when I wasn't paying attention to my pronounciation. Swedish and Danish admittedly have some weird characters but they're both easily understandable for someone with a germanic language background - I can read either to a certain extend, though of course speaking is quite another story.

The most difficult language I've tried to learn so far is Finnish, suomi, which together with apparently Hungarian and Japanese has one of the most unique gramatical structures found in a life language.

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Originally Posted by FragFrog

You do know it was the Brittish who were so succesfull and took over America from the indians (native americans, whatever) as well as had Australie as a place to send their prisoners? :wink: Not to mention Hong Kong as a trading post and the falklands for some weird reason nobody really understands? :icon6:

That being said, English isn't a difficult language at all. These oddities occur in every language and though the English spelling can be challenging at times it is definately no worse than most. German for instance is a lot more difficult and French isn't exactly easy either. Dutch pronounciation on the other hand is hell for those that didn't learn it from birth, though its grammer is easier than german (and only slightly harder than English) - I know an American professor who has lived in the Netherlands for the past 20 years and still has an overwhelmingly american accent, whereas after a few weeks in the USA people could only guess I was from Europe when I wasn't paying attention to my pronounciation. Swedish and Danish admittedly have some weird characters but they're both easily understandable for someone with a germanic language background - I can read either to a certain extend, though of course speaking is quite another story.

The most difficult language I've tried to learn so far is Finnish, suomi, which together with apparently Hungarian and Japanese has one of the most unique gramatical structures found in a life language.

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Not to mention Japanese is quite possibly the prettiest( couldn't think of another word xD) language to look at.

I sturggled reading that and im from england :O

Did you know more japanese ppl speak english than american :P ?

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Originally Posted by cizo

Did you know more japanese ppl speak english than american :P ?

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That's because they need to learn English to work in barber shops. -.-

how does "squirrel" sound in french O.o

man english is weird as hell xD

Gotta (<-- Note the spelling lol) love how the English language and be anything. A noun can be used as an adjective as long as you add 'ly or something to then end lol. I always try my best to spell my words correctly and use correct grammar. Of course, I don't always write out some phrases XD omg.
I might try to hard though lol, it seems like no one but me when I talk to them one on one uses correct grammar.

I think grammar is the hardest part of the English language.
To answer the question about English speakers learning a new language: Japanese is hard for me since it's symbols and not letters lol. I can at least 'say' (sound-out) other languages and 'write them by ear' (I forget the fancy term for it).
I have the Japanese fluency of a 1 or 2 year old... Spanish was much easier.

i reckon Latin is the hardest language to learn or arabic coz there letters look like scribbles :/

Basic English is pretty easy to learn, but once you get into further advanced English, that's when it gets tough. All in all, English is the toughest language to learn.

~Mickey

dunno what the fuk most of u guys are on, saying english grammar is dificult...lol

omg and saying english comes from latin oO rofl

and in the first post saying latin languages backwards and correct phrases are the same xD

english ain't hard at all....compared to other languages!? latin derived languages like french portuguese etc...just go and check how verbs work in these languages and be amazed in english theres like 4 or something like that "times" in verbs...

for portuguese for example you can conjugate verbs to up to 9 or something diferent "times"

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Originally Posted by Nuklear

GK, homonyms are like Read/Read, etc. I don't think most of the words he listed are homonyms.

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look at the 20 sentences again, then tell me they aren't homonyms buddy.

I'll even quote myself so you don't have to use any extraneous movement in your fingers.

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Originally Posted by The_Gatekeeper_

more like 200 dollars :P glad to see you posting again, saden.
the first part of your post Jare, those words are called "homonyms". That's a word that is spelled the same, but with a different pronunciation (like the opposite of homophone).

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History of the English language - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Quiet an interesting page :D
I read about 1/2 of it before I got bored but.

Seems on topic :)

Cheers, Exploit.

That was quite interesting, got them all also.

Ahh my favorite wasn't listed:

Well, today I am feeling quite well I shall go down to the well to draw some water.

I say this word "well" a lot. If I am thinking and say "well..." some friends of mine pipe up and say "a deep hole in the ground."


Anyway Someone mentioned Japanese is the most beautiful to look at, I think that depends on which style of writing used-there is more than one (3 or 4 if I remember right) from what my friend explained to me. (she lived there teaching english for two years)

I think that it is true many lanugages have a lot of ways to conjugate their verbs which seems really difficult. The reason why many people say English is so difficult is because there are so many exceptions to the rules. If you read the second part of Jare's post it is about rule exceptions in English that make it seem crazy. Those are just really simple examples too.

Interesting read. :)

hmm that's interesting nt easy to figure out the pronunciation of some words @_@