• 🇳🇿 🇲🇲 🇯🇵 🇨🇳 🇦🇺 🇦🇶 🇮🇳
    Australian & Asian
    Drug Discussion

    Welcome Guest!
    Posting Rules Bluelight Rules
  • AADD Moderators: andyturbo

English is a funny language

P

porn*

Bluelighter
Joined
Sep 14, 2001
Messages
806
Location
Sydney, Australia
Remember back in school when we couldn't spell, our grammar was hopeless and we had to learn dumb little rhymes. (my god, where the fuck am i going with this thread??? :\ )
Anyway, as a bit of primary school reminiscing, post one of those silly little rhymes.
"i before e except after c!" :D
Thanks to that little rule, i could never get my head around spelling 'height.'
Did anyone else play that awful hand clapping game with friends 'san maccadora'... eiyo mario mario, eiyo eiyo, *clap clap clap*
[ 23 November 2002: Message edited by: porn* ]
 
i'm studying to be a primary teacher and the english language is stupid, no wonder its like one of the hardest languages to learn cause we have rules and each rule has a ton of exceptions.
 
i beg to differ... i am asian and mandarin is my mother tongue, but i absolutely love and adore the english language.
it is ambiguous, idiosyncratic; it is the worst language on earth to use to describe something, and that, makes it the best for perceptions, connotatons.
i love playing around with words and language, dissecting and reinventing it. the concorde of english is only a set of rules made to be broken, if u dare to.
[ 24 November 2002: Message edited by: vurtomatic ]
 
I have to say that, as a native english speaker (with fluent french as a second,) that english is a lot more subtle than most people believe it to be. I love the way one can play around with words and describe something to the finest point - there are so many words in english that just don't exist in french at all (like procrastinate for example!)
I think that understanding the grammar of a language really helps one to understand the complexity of it, and appreciate the beauty of it as an effective communication medium.
...and something that was extremely fun when i was living in Quebec was to go up to someone who claimed to be fluent in english with seven different words ending in "ough" and ask them to pronounce them.
- Bough
- Cough
- Hiccough
- Through
- Thorough
- ought
I always forget the last one though... :)
 
I absolutely adore the english language, if only because it boosted my TER to a score I could be mildly proud of.
I love it because it's ambiguous and versatile and confusing and enormous and there's always some other word I can learn.
Glad, though, that it's my native tongue - mostly because it's just so vast that I'd never be able to use it to its full, wonderful potential.
In other news, I struggled terribly with Mandarin Chinese, Italian and French, so I'm awfully lucky that the most spoken language in the world happens to be the one I speak. whew.
 
Cosmic:
What about
Beer
Bear
-ear
heart
hearth
--arthur
-------
everything should start with beer, not e.
it'd be spelled 'beervrything'
-------
Or
Lead (in front)
and
Lead (the metal)
----------------------
Did you know that there's a direct correlation between the decline of Spirograph and the rise in gang activity?
Think about it.
[ 24 November 2002: Message edited by: SupaDiscoBreaka ]
 
Man, English was fucken piss easy to learn, it's so rough and it sounds like you're trying to talk with a potato in your mouth...
Going from Czech to English was such a breeze, picked it up nearly perfectly in 3 months (Not trying to brag or anything, just found it easy as killing a dodo bird with a small nuclear arsenal hahaha)
...
 
I speak Standard Australian English, BBC English (RPC), "Valley" US English, English, Scots-English, Kiwi-English, SA (Suid Afriikaans)English, Canadian and Ocker-aussie-pom. Thats phonologically, you know.
Semantically, "set" and "case" are tricky words.
"Get set, ready go".
"Is the jelly set, yet"?
" I like your TV set"
"Sushi set:$5"
"jetset"
"The sun has set"
"Is this your case, sir"?
"I'm gonna case the joint"
"Just in case"
"You have no case to answer, sir william"
"In the case of fire...pull this string"
"in case you were wondering..."
 
Like many others I absolutely adore the English language, the only thing I dislike about it is the fact that it’s not lyrical at all; it’s one of the few languages that lacks rhythm. Listen to somebody speak in Spanish, Italian, French even Japanese and the words have a singsong quality to them; English is quite brutal on the ears compared to most other languages.
I’m a language nut, I can passably speak German, French, Spanish, Italian and Japanese but none of them enthral me enough to inspire me to take the time to learn them fluently. I could spend hours studying English though.
I think the biggest pain in the ass about the English Language is that the Americans have taken upon themselves to drop letters out of words. It's Neighbour and Colour not neighbor and color. Not to mention that the pronunciation of words varies greatly from place to place.
The complete I before e rhyme that I learnt in school is:
I before e,
except after c,
or when sounded as I as in Einstein,
or A as in weigh,
Neither, weird, foreign, leisure
Seize, forfeit, and height
Are the common exceptions spelled right
But don't let the C-I-E-N words get you uptight!
The rhyme only has value when the vowel sound is pronounced as in the long ‘e’ sound such as in feed. So words like believe, relieve, belief, relief, field, yield, shield, priest and receive, receipt, conceited, conceive are spelt correctly when following the rule. Any words where the vowel sound is different such as height etc are not affected by the rule.
 
I've always found it easy to pick up new languages and communicate with people. I picked up Japanese real easily and would often top the class in tests. But with all languages, where I fail is in comprehension. Despite being damn gifted in a number of ways, comprehension and grammar have always been my archillies heel. It used to be frustrating being able to give advice in chemistry and mathematics, but not be able translate into writing effectively.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top