Our English Language Can Be Weird (1 Viewer)

[SteveSBrickNJ]

I am often hesitant to spell the word "label" in an email or an online post because it rhymes with "table"...and "table" ends with "le" but "label" ends with "el". I usually google the spelling for confirmation. Looking back in life, I took Spanish in High School because I perceived French would be too confusing. Yet maybe Native French speakers would claim English is often confusing?

 

[superchuck500]

It's totally weird.

 

[where yat brah]

Wierd
i before e

 

[Optimus Prime]

Weird World of the English Language

No wonder so many say English is one the hardest languages======================================================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...

saintsreport.com

 

[Sailorsaint]

label.....lapel

 

[nolaswede]

Nothing to see here, the English language makes so much sense!

 

[antipop]

Didn’t the watermelon smashing guy have a bit about this?

 

[tenordas]

Wierd
i before e

i before e except after c...and whenever else we felt like it.

English is a mess because it's a mash-up of several languages. Starting with a mix of Gaelic and whatever the Britons spoke before the Romans showed up and forced them to speak Latin, then mixed with German, Latin again, German again, then French. Then just a mess of adopted words from various languages including Spanish, Hindi, various African dialects, Yiddish, and Italian (at least).
Supposedly, Mandarin is the only language harder to learn than English.

As a voice teacher, I have to teach students proper diction for singing in Latin, Italian, French, and German (occasionally I have to teach someone Russian, Portuguese, Korean, or something Slavic for a particular song, but mostly the main four) as well as English, of course. Students consistently hate learning to sing French the most for two reasons (I think):
1. Much like English, the French can't decide on one way to spell a vowel sound.
2. All the extra letters one doesn't pronounce in French. This is even worse singing French than speaking because when set to music, most French composers put notes on syllables that normally aren't pronounced when speaking. It becomes very confusing to the students.

 

[Optimus Prime]

Didn’t the watermelon smashing guy have a bit about this?

 

[GeauxWhoDats]

Did someone say Candyman?

 

[DCSaints_Fan]

Its because the Britons kept getting invaded and getting their butts kicked

So modern English is a weird mixture of Latin, Celtic, Danish, German and French

Until they figured out they lived on an island and could just build a navy. But this was after they got kicked out of France.

Then they started kicking everyone elses butts and actually ruled the world for a time (except Continental Europe, which they got kicked out of)

There was also the Great Vowel Shift. At one point the e maybe have pronounced, like it would be in German and French. "Table" is itself a french loan word, from "tableau"

Great Vowel Shift - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[guidomerkinsrules]

Its because the Britons kept getting invaded and getting their butts kicked

So modern English is a weird mixture of Latin, Celtic, Danish, German and French

Until they figured out they lived on an island and could just build a navy. But this was after they got kicked out of France.

Then they started kicking everyone elses butts and actually ruled the world for a time (except Continental Europe, which they got kicked out of)

There was also the Great Vowel Shift. At one point the e maybe have pronounced, like it would be in German and French. "Table" is itself a french loan word, from "tableau"

Great Vowel Shift - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

One of my favorite poems even though it rhymes eye with symmetry
(And im not sure which way it should sound)

Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

 

[sonicboom]

Try being dyslexic and having to learn grammar, spelling, and punctuation. Not to mention reading comprehension. School is a place of torture......lol "English can be weird?!?!" Ha! More like English is the jigsaw puzzle of languages.

I remember in elementary school, the teacher cut out words in a sentence, and we had to make a complete sentence out of the words. Well, how am I suppose to know what someone wrote down, not a mind reader or anything. After that lesson, I was put in the slower reading class, which was fine by me. It's not like I cared what the sentence was in the first place.

Apparantly, Basque is the most straight forward language.

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