[Grammar] Silly English grammar

[Marzipan]

English is not my native lenguage, wich is spanish, but I must say that I love English, and that is because dosen't have accents ( that is a pain in the ass for me in spanish) and have more feeling in the word or in a sentences I think that is positive, because with less word you can describe more feelings, for example in a dialog you can make the characters be more a live because they shows more feeling than in Spanish ( from spanish it take to much to show the same feeling). But the thing that I hate of English, is that the pronunciation is so different from the spelling!!!.

 

I think that you can't compare them, because every language is unic in his way, and that is what make language fun.

 

 

English has accents in my hearing! Try listening a Texan, New Yorker, Irish and Englishman speak the same sentence... LOL

[Zolia Lily]

man, you've listed all the things i LOVE about english!!!

Seriously, it's like history that we speak! Part of the reason for this, as i'm lead to beleive it, is that english has never been standardised. Other languages, at various points in history, have had a person or an organisation re-write the way the language 'should' be written / spoken, and forced the adoption of the new spelling / word changes, to keep everyone in line with a new, modern form of a language. English, as far as i know, has never had this. (alright, so Webster had a hand in something like this in the US, but still didn't manage to make it sane!)

 

From germanic roots, spreading to england, mixing with the local british languages at the time and becoming established, to the Saxon and Norman invasions and then the Scandinavian invasions...... English does this thing where it adopts and absorbs other languages and parts of other languages, rather than dying out or staying stubbornly static. So the Australians not only inherited English from england, but also from Ireland, and then a lot of it cockney slang (criminals, remember? lol), and then the chinese and more immigrants came for the gold rushes, and settled in different areas, and then we got the italians and the greeks, and the Americans got the dutch and the irish and italians after the english and i can't think who else, and each subsequent wave of immigration changes things! It's amazing! I don't know of any other language that has english's capacity for adopting words from other languages and making them its own. From Latin, Italian, French, German, old Norse, from other dialects, from Spanish, from ancient Greek, from local languages that it mixes with... English is like some weird sponge! Like the word 'heaven' was originally the word for both 'sky' and 'heaven', until the Norse brought the word 'sky' across and we adopted it. So we have multiple words where other languages have one, which in my opinion makes English incredibly rich! I'd hate to be a writer in any another language!!! English is my playground

 

Another of my favourite things about english is it's flexibility with nouns and verbs. Got a new noun? Great! Use it like a verb and it's a verb! Like in the past, at the invention of the telephone, there wasn't a noun 'to phone' someone, but now it's common currency. It just happens! And we do it now, all the time, with computers and new things. And everyone knows what you're talking about even if it's not so-called "correct", even if it hasn't made it into a dictionary yet. English is brilliant like that! You just do whatever the hell you like and you're understood! It's brilliant! And messy anc chaotic and wonderfully wonderfully amazing!

 

that said, i am rather glad english is my first language...

Edited February 19, 2011 by Zolia Lily

[Sara Alva]

English has accents in my hearing! Try listening a Texan, New Yorker, Irish and Englishman speak the same sentence... LOL

 

I think he means written accents

[Canuk]

Interesting that people say the english language is hard to learn. It is not,. It is VERY hard to master and very few non-native speakers ever do. The interesting thing is how people only need to pick up the basics and they become more-or-less intelligible. And what's more, IMHO, us native english speakers tend to understand what is being asked for or comented on.

 

 

Try this in French or Japanese (the only two languages I have experience of). If the native speaker catches enough of your meaning, the first thing they'll do is correct you. If they don't catch your meaning they'll stare blankly.

 

A second and unrelated thought is about North American's and accents. It always amazes me that the vast majority of North Americans cannot tell the difference between a Brit, a New Zealander, a South African and an Australian. My partner (a born-and-bred Canadian) still has trouble distinguishing the Irish from that same group.

 

 

Oh! and in Australia the past tense of "dive" is "dived" - "dove" is a noun - a small white bird.

[MikeL]

Oh! and in Australia the past tense of "dive" is "dived" - "dove" is a noun - a small white bird.

 

Actually, the preferred past tense and past participle for standard American speakers is "dived". "Dove" is listed in dictionaries as an acceptable alternative.

[Dannsar]

Actually, the preferred past tense and past participle for standard American speakers is "dived". "Dove" is listed in dictionaries as an acceptable alternative.

 

Which is, of course, utterly ridiculous, because the natural conclusion to come to is that dove is the proper past tense when compared to many other examples of narrow vowel + ve terminals.

 

Drive - drove

strive - strove

heave - hove

weave - wove

cleave - clove

 

Actually, this probably has a lot to do with the mouth position of the teeth and tongue and how difficult it is to make the appropriate sound.

[MikeL]

Which is, of course, utterly ridiculous, because the natural conclusion to come to is that dove is the proper past tense when compared to many other examples of narrow vowel + ve terminals.

 

Drive - drove

strive - strove

heave - hove

weave - wove

cleave - clove

 

Actually, this probably has a lot to do with the mouth position of the teeth and tongue and how difficult it is to make the appropriate sound.

 

Yeah, it's one of those exceptions that makes English difficult, even for native speakers at times. "Dove" isn't incorrect it's just not the preferred form. It's not likely that anyone will correct you, but a foreigner might understand "dived" more readily. All the words you listed are irregular past tense verbs, not formed by simply adding "d" or "ed" to the present tense form. It's one of the complications we have to deal with in English. It's why "snuck" is now found in some dictionaries despite "sneaked" being the correct word.