New
#11
Ive always heard English is the hardest language to learn.
When you really start to think about and look at things like this, it's no wonder why.
Wonderful English from Around the World
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New #12
It really depends on what the learner's native language is. When I studied Korean in a class where there were people from all over the world,I found almost everyone from Europe could speak English,well or not,it's not a surprise to me though. As we were all exchange students,western people struggled to learn Korean while people from Japan or especially China made rapid stride. Like about 70% of Korean words originate from Chinese,western languages have got many similarities too,right? Maybe because they all came from Latin?
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New #13
For us foreigners it's not just how you write English. Quite often a word is pronounced in a way it's not possible to us foreigners to guess. Like many place names, for instance. Greenwich and Leicester are good examples; if I pronounce them according to the rules I learned in school, it's wrong.
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New #14
I learned most of my English from TV actually, at least the vocabulary, grammar at school. We (me and my girlfriend(she is from the States)) are always arguing what's more important, grammar or vocabulary. I'm going with vocabulary, 'couse you don't have to know every tense possible to speak, but if someone have poor vocabulary, trying to speak can be BIG problem. Sometimes and I have problems expressing my self, and it sucks.
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New #16
To be able to speak basic English is actually pretty easy. There is very little grammar - unlike e.g. in German, Greek or any Slavic language. The only difficulty is the pronunciation of some words because there seem to be no rules.
For advanced English, that is a different story. The language is very rich in words and idiomatic expressions. To retain all those is not easy.
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New #17
Learning English first also handicaps a person trying to learn nearly any other language, simply because the grammar is backwards from most other languages.
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New #18
One of my favourites - how many different pronunciations of words with the string of letters "ough" in them can you find and assemble into a single coherent sentence?
No Googling.
Just a couple to get you started:
cough = pronounced "coff"
rough = pronounced "ruff"
fought = pronounced "fort"
"After we had fought, my cough was rougher".
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New #20
Through a tough thorough thought we slapped down the dough and bought the iPad.
Then noticing our mistake, promptly returned it.
*note the last ones dough matches thorough and bought matches thought so This has only 4 different pronunciations of oughLast edited by Thorsen; 30 Jun 2010 at 09:54. Reason: thought of something to add though
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