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Message board > 21 reasons English is hard to learn.
21 reasons English is hard to learn.
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yanogator
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21 reasons English is hard to learn.
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29 Dec 2012
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jannabanna
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Great! I put it on a POWERPOINT some time ago! Good for pronunciation with advanced students, they love it! |
29 Dec 2012
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mohamedthabet
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English is
hard to learn because it�s crazy : 12 (= twoteen reasons = onety two) reasons
1. There is no egg in eggplant nor ham
in hamburger 2. Sweetmeats are
candies while sweetbreads, which aren �t sweet, are meat.
3. Boxing rings are square.
4. Guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.
5. Writers write but fingers don �t fing, grocers don �t
groce and hammers don �t ham.
6. If the plural
of tooth is teeth, why isn �t the plural of booth beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So
one moose, 2 meese?
7. You can make amends but not one amend, that you comb
thru annals of history but not a single annal.?
8. If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of
all but one of them, what do you call it?
9. If teachers taught, why didn �t preacher praught? If a
vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?
10. People recite at
a play and play at a recital.
11. People ship by
truck and send cargo by ship.
12. People have
noses that run and feet that smell.
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29 Dec 2012
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cunliffe
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I love these fun posts! English is a mish-mash of a language! I �ve just read a lovely little book, �The Excellency of the English Tongue � by Halliday. It �s a short, light read for the amateur. It traces the development of English and makes a few points I will share with you. English has developed and become enriched because we �ve been invaded so often! The Vikings added to it, the Normans, of course, and not forgetting the Romans! Here are a few examples: When a Norman word was adopted, on many occasions the Old English was retained. book - volume: room - chamber: sorrow - grief: smell/stink/hum - scent/perfume: tale - story.work - labour: far - distant: holy - sacred: small/little - petty/petite: ask - question: begin/start/initiate (from Latin) - commence: end - finish: teach - instruct: understand - comprehend etc.. Many of these synonyms have slightly different meanings, adding to the richness of the language. Another interesting example: French/Latin endings (terminations!) mingle with English endings: free-dom/ liber-ty/ duke-dom kind-ness/ benevol-ence/ easi-ness hope-less / desper-ate/ spirit-less wonder-ful/ admir-able/ peace-ful man-hood/ cour-age/ stopp-age ful-some/ excess-ive/ talk-ative wash-ing/ laund-ry/ wash-able hard-ship/ priv-ation/ better-ment In the first column, both root and suffix are English; in the second, both are from French. In the third column, the first four have a French root and an English suffix and with the last four, it �s the reverse. I mustn �t go on too much! Thrilling stuff though, isn �t it?
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30 Dec 2012
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jannabanna
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A few years ago I read a book entitled: Honni soit qui mal y pense by Henriette Walter! All about the English and French languages. Unfortunately it doesn �t exist in English, but some of my French friends here might like it. Janet |
30 Dec 2012
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Messdjef
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Well, with a little will, we will dig a well in the desert in an hour and get water to wash our dessert. 
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30 Dec 2012
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cunliffe
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I take it you already know
Of tough and bough and cough and dough?
Others may stumble, but not you
On hiccough, thorough, slough, and through?Well done! And now you wish, perhaps,
To learn of less familiar traps?
Beware of heard, a dreadful word
That looks like beard and sounds like bird, And dead: it �s said like bed, not bead--
For goodness � sake, don �t call it deed!
Watch out for meat and great and threat,
(They rhyme with suite and straight and debt.) A moth is not a moth in mother
Nor both in bother, broth in brother,
And here is not a match for there,
And dear and fear for bear and pear, And then there �s dose and rose and lose--
Just look them up--and goose and choose,
And cork and work and card and ward,
And font and front and word and sword, And do and go, and thwart and cart--
Come, come I �ve hardly made a start!
A dreadful language? Why man alive!
I �d learned to talk it when I was five, And yet to write it, the more I tried,
I hadn �t learned at fifty-five! Author Unknown
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I thought this poem apposite! Taken from this website. http://www.english-zone.com/language/m-wordplay.htmlLynne
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30 Dec 2012
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Sonn
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When I was a first year student, I learned this poem by heart.
When the English tongue we speak
Why is break not rhymed with weak?
Won �t you tell me why it �s true
We say sew, but also few?
And the maker of a verse
Cannot rhyme his horse with worse?
Beard is not the same as heard,
Cord is different from word,
Cow is cow, low is low,
Shoe is never rhymed with foe.
Think of hose and dose and lose,
And think of goose and yet of choose,
Think of comb and tomb and bomb,
Doll and roll and home and some.
And since pay is rhymed with say,
Why not paid with said I pray?
Think of blood and food and good;
Mould is not pronounced like could.
Why is done, but gone and lone -
Is there any reason known?
To sum it up, it seems to me
Sounds and letters disagree.
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30 Dec 2012
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jannabanna
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This thread could
go on for ages! Here �s another one which I �m sure you all know:
1. Paul brought his daughter to class.
2. I don�t have enough dough.
3. His daughter is
fraught with distraught thoughts.
4. We bought bikes to ride through the park.
5. I�m not distraught, even though I cough.
6. I sought the tough task for naught.
7. She coughs throughout the lesson.
8. I thought you bought a doughnut, Paul!
9. We caught a boar and bought a trough.
10. I ought not have thought such naughty thoughts.
Thanks Bruce for starting this
interesting subject. Janet
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30 Dec 2012
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