A lot of people that I've talked to who speaks more than one language tells me that currently english is the worst. When I ask "why", they tell me that it's horribly structured, inconsistent, and there's too many meanings for one word...and I kinda agree with them. Today's english is a bastardized version of the queens english, or so I've been told by a friend. I've also heard that German is the best structured language there is. I want to name some good things about my language but the only thing I could think of english being good at is word play and double entendres. I'm sure there's some good aspects to english...if there are, I would love to here them.
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Is English the Worst Language Ever?
- Thread starter weepy
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TemplaerDude
Member
no, because i understand it, therefore, it is the best.
emomoonbase
I'm free 2night after my LARPing guild meets.
Good aspects? It's a fvcking language. What are shopping around for good deals on languages? Lets see here, Germans got good reviews from consumer reports but spanish is on sale and has no payments for 90 days! Spanish ftw!
You speak what you need so people know wtf you are saying.
You speak what you need so people know wtf you are saying.
paranoidandroid
Member
You said it already, but here's a good article on why the english language is so good for telling jokes, especially compared to german.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/germany/article/0,,1781004,00.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/germany/article/0,,1781004,00.html
RevenantKioku
PEINS PEINS PEINS PEINS PEINS PEINS PEINS PEINS PEINS PEINS PEINS PEINS oh god i am drowning in them
Right, but there could always be better ways of communicating, and while most of that changes socially, studying it and understanding why can be helpful.
And German jokes are hilarious.
And German jokes are hilarious.
english is a shitty language true, but WTF is the queen's english? that's bullshit. it's probably as ****ed up as american or canadian english. just because they spell certain words differently does not make them any less shittier.
funnily enough, as crappy as english is, it is pretty much the international language of choice. I was at the Narita airport in Japan and I saw a chinese guy (as in from china, not america) talking to a Japanese ticket counter guy. They were using broken english to communicate.
funnily enough, as crappy as english is, it is pretty much the international language of choice. I was at the Narita airport in Japan and I saw a chinese guy (as in from china, not america) talking to a Japanese ticket counter guy. They were using broken english to communicate.
PhlegmMaster
Banned
I don't know about structure, but as someone whose first language is French, English was remarkably easy to learn. I'm much more likely to make a grammatical mistake in written French than in English.
thesoapster
Member
One plus about English is that large amount of words we have. We have so many different ways of describing/saying one thing. (At the same time this is kind of a weakness.)
Our grammatical/phonetical exceptions also tend to get people.
Our grammatical/phonetical exceptions also tend to get people.
soul creator
Member
silent letters. why put them there in the first place?? wtf?
soul creator said:
why say ella like eya? it's a language, these things mutate, take in other languages, change over centuries, and evolve. it is what it is, it's not inherently better than the next. (not saying that you're arguing that by your statement, soul creator, but some people seem to be.)
Widfara said:
No, silent letters are actually there for a reason. This linguistics professor wrote a book about the evolution of the English language.
There wasn't a universal standard for the language with all the regional dialects. With the conflicting influences from Latin and French things got kind of warped.
Or something like that. I would have to look at the book again. It was pretty interesting.
AlphaSnake
...and that, kids, was the first time I sucked a dick for crack
I actually think Hebrew is the easiest language, for whatever reason. It isn't even my native language, but when I went to Israel for three weeks, I began to pick it up. It was so weird.
OxtheMidget
Member
tnw said:
I was born in Brazil and lived there till June of 2000. I've learned English, Spanish, and German (although I've forgotten it due to not practicing it). English was by far the easiest language out of the three, and German the hardest. So no, English is not hard at all to learn as a second language. (This isn't just my opinion, a lot of people I've spoken to about this agree with me)
Edit: Eu tambem sei!
The main issue with english for someone learning it would be reading it.
It's very easy to mispronounce an unknown word.
The grammar is actually quite simple as languages go.
Grammatical gender, verbal inflection and grammatically cases have all been pared down over time. Old English, which most modern english speakers wouldn't even recognize, had all those things as important grammatical elements.
It's funny that most older languages are 'hairer' than their modern equivalents. All the romance languages, for example, have a simpler verb and noun systems than latin had.
It's very easy to mispronounce an unknown word.
The grammar is actually quite simple as languages go.
Grammatical gender, verbal inflection and grammatically cases have all been pared down over time. Old English, which most modern english speakers wouldn't even recognize, had all those things as important grammatical elements.
It's funny that most older languages are 'hairer' than their modern equivalents. All the romance languages, for example, have a simpler verb and noun systems than latin had.
AlphaSnake
...and that, kids, was the first time I sucked a dick for crack
VicAlpha said:
Complex no...but I was able to communicate with my cousins decently. Had I been there for another 4-5 months, I'd have been doing just fine.
tnw said:
I was just arguing that there is no right way for anything in language, it just is as it is. silent letters are there in english because they are, just like ella is pronounced as it is because that's how it is. if that makes sense.
basically, arguing that one language is better than another is goddamn stupid.
bigmakstudios
Banned
I actually really dislike Spanish. >_>
Kuroyume said:
Japanese is wayyyy easier than English. It's probably one of the simplest languages out there gramatically. It has no articles, let alone genders for articles, no plurals, most of the time you don't even need a subject. You can simply spit out a verb, and you're done. People get scared of the different writing system. Chinese is almost easier than Japanese.
No. English can be very difficult as it has a lot of inconsistencies but as I understand from people learning it, it is far from the worst. Hungarian is a bit frightening apparently (coming from my mother who is Hungarian). And the upside of English compared to some languages is that you can be very descriptive - it has a lot of freedom like that.
So it's not the best but it's not the worst (so I've been told).
So it's not the best but it's not the worst (so I've been told).
Actually, english, compared to spanish, is really, really easy. I mean, Spanish has around 17 possible verbal times while English has... 6? Also, the nouns don't even have gender.
...
Which isn't me saying spanish is better although it's my first language, just that english is a really easy language which, in my opinion actually makes it cool because I don't have 4 different ways of speaking to people AND somehow, I like my books in english >_>
...
Which isn't me saying spanish is better although it's my first language, just that english is a really easy language which, in my opinion actually makes it cool because I don't have 4 different ways of speaking to people AND somehow, I like my books in english >_>
tnw said:
Yeah, I'm going to have to disagree with you on that one. For some of the examples you pointed out, sure, Japanese is easier than English, but you also aren't pointing out the points in which Japanese is far harder.
As well, I know somebody who speaks 15 different languages, when I told him I was still working on my first second language, Japanese, he told me he considered it easily one of the hardest languages to learn. Considering the guy is far smarter than myself or most people I know, while I'm not saying his opinion is fact, I'm going to believe him on this one.
Chinese was a biznatch to learn compared to English, but learning Chinese gave me good ground in studying Japanese (kanji's pretty much Chinese pronounced differently)
That said, I like English as it is and that's mostly because I understand it. Exceptions make it harder, I'd admit.
That said, I like English as it is and that's mostly because I understand it. Exceptions make it harder, I'd admit.
IMO english is closer to german in terms of word compounding than most peopel realize.
It's just that in english most compunds tend to be written with spaces or hyphens between the words. 'World Health Organization' is a compound noun though Worldhealthorganization would appear more formidable to the uninitiated.
It's just that in english most compunds tend to be written with spaces or hyphens between the words. 'World Health Organization' is a compound noun though Worldhealthorganization would appear more formidable to the uninitiated.
the year 20XX
Member
Value judgments about the quality of languages? I missed too much of this thread to even try to get in on it now. If anyone needs me, I'll be vomiting.
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