What do you find most difficult about English?

[SW VandeCarr]

For non native speakers here. For example, the spelling, the grammar (be specific please), the sentence structure, the vocabulary, etc.

One specific example that comes to mind: the way the word "over" is used. It can mean "above" contrasted with "below"; or as contrasted with "under". It can also be used in the sense of "over there", which is not contrasted with "below there" or "under there". Then there's "It ain't over 'tll it's over." Here it means something like "finished" or "completed" which are not prepositions, but past participles used as predicate adjectives. Then there are phrases like "Over and out." or "Over to you, Joe." Here "over" does not mean "above" or "completed" but may mean something like "Over there." except that Joe isn't over there, but here, sitting right next to you.

Anyway, I thought it would be interesting to hear what, if anything, bugs you about English. Also feel free to praise the language and say why you like it better than some other language(s).

EDIT: I just had to add that famous British quip from WWII about the Yanks being "Overpaid, oversexed and over here!" Here it means "excessively" in the first two uses.

 

[homevolend]

What I like about English is that most of the phrases are the same for both masculine and feminine cases. If you look at slavic languages there are different words for the masculine and feminine cases.

 

[micromass]

I don't find "over" to be very difficult. But some english things bother me.

For example:
- I'm talking with him
- I'm talking at him
- I'm talking to him
I have no idea which one would be the most correct form.

The difference between to and too bothers me as well. I can't ever remember that.

Things like advice vs. advise are also quite difficult.

 

[BloodyFrozen]

It's easier to learn than Chinese.

 

[rootX]

Most annoying thing I find is missing out on words and such .. They are very hard to spot out! Like writing "I am to school" when I am thinking "I am going to school".

 

[cristo]

English must be horrible to learn as a second language!

For example:
- I'm talking with him
- I'm talking at him
- I'm talking to him
I have no idea which one would be the most correct form.

It would be "I'm talking to him". To make the others more correct [sic] you could say "I'm having a conversation with him" or "I'm shouting at him".

The difference between to and too bothers me as well. I can't ever remember that.

'Too' generally means more than one, or as well, so you could remember it as having more than one letter o (I have no idea if that helps or hinders!).

 

[micromass]

It would be "I'm talking to him". To make the others more correct [sic] you could say "I'm having a conversation with him" or "I'm shouting at him".

Thanks! I really like people pointing out mistakes. It helps a lot!

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

English must be horrible to learn as a second language!

At least there are schools that teach it. My wife was never able to find a school that teaches English as a third language. The part she finds most difficult is "Yes, you're right."

 

[SW VandeCarr]

I don't find "over" to be very difficult. But some english things bother me.

For example:
- I'm talking with him
- I'm talking at him
- I'm talking to him
I have no idea which one would be the most correct form.

I think all three are acceptable, but in different contexts. "I'm talking with him." to me, conveys a kind of ongoing process more than "I'm talking to him." particularly if it's in the third, rather than the first person. "I'm talking at him." is used in a negative way, meaning it's a one sided conversation where the other person is not engaged.

The difference between to and too bothers me as well. I can't ever remember that.

Things like advice vs. advise are also quite difficult.

to - a proposition or when preceding a verb to make the infinitive."He came to the meeting just to irritate me."

too- an adverb meaning excessively or also. "I too sleep too much."

Advice- a noun. "Take my advice." Advise- a verb "I advise you not to take my advice."

 

[D H]

It would be "I'm talking to him".

Warning: This could be an across the pond issue. American and British English differ in subtle ways.

I would say that "talking at," "talking to," and "talking with" are subtly different.
"Talking at" means you are talking but no one is listening.
"Talking to" means you are talking and someone is listening, but it's one-way.
"Talking with" means a two-way conversation.

Scenario: You have a mess of equations on a piece of paper, and even more bouncing about in your head. (Or code one part written, one part diagramed, one part in your head.) You've been at this for a couple of hours. The pieces are about to come together when a small part of your brain senses a slight increase in the background noise. Ignore it! (Note well: At this stage in the mental juggling act a fire alarm would be a slight increase in the background noise.)

Easy to ignore -- until your SO gets right in your face and says "I was talking to you. Did you hear a word I said?"

Your response is to

• Get angry at the mental juggling work that just hit the floor and snap back "No, you were talking at me. Talking to me would mean that I was listening."
  
  While technically correct, this is a good way to get a much longer "talking to," followed by a night or two or three in the dog house.
• You think back to when you first noticed the slight increase in the background noise. Ouch. A good ten minutes ago. That, coupled with the throbbing vein you see calls for a diplomatic response. "Oh, I'm sorry. I was lost in thought. Please give me just a couple of minutes to jot my thoughts down and then I'll talk with you."
  
  Those couple of minutes will give you a chance to save some of your work and give her a chance to calm down just a bit.

 

[dlgoff]

'Too' generally means more than one, or as well, so you could remember it as having more than one letter o (I have no idea if that helps or hinders!).

Too="in addition; also; furthermore; moreover..."
Whereas Two="a cardinal number, 1 plus 1..."

http://dictionary.reference.com/

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

Too="in addition; also; furthermore; moreover..."
Whereas Two="a cardinal number, 1 plus 1..."

http://dictionary.reference.com/

We were on the train and I was talking to my wife, not about anything important, just talking to relieve the boredom. I started talking in Philadelphia and kept talking to Albequerque. That's when she gave me a good talking to.

 

[dlgoff]

We were on the train and I was talking to my wife, not about anything important, just talking to relieve the boredom. I started talking in Philadelphia and kept talking to Albequerque. That's when she gave me a good talking to.

Correction. To ≥ 1.

 

[fluidistic]

English, 3rd language I speak/read the best. I'd give it a 3 to 4/10 of mastering compared to my native tongue but it's a gross guess.
Pronounciation for me, a clue I've no idea many times. For instance take the word "pyramid". How on Earth is it pronounced?
Peerameed? Pie-rameed? Peeram"ide" like the "ide" in "hide"?
I don't know how to pronouce "sure". The u.
And many, many more words.

 

[lisab]

English, 3rd language I speak/read the best. I'd give it a 3 to 4/10 of mastering compared to my native tongue but it's a gross guess.
Pronounciation for me, a clue I've no idea many times. For instance take the word "pyramid". How on Earth is it pronounced?
Peerameed? Pie-rameed? Peeram"ide" like the "ide" in "hide"?
I don't know how to pronouce "sure". The u.
And many, many more words.

Pyramid:
PEER-a-mid
the 'mid' rhymes with kid, lid, did

Sure:
shir
rhymes with her
although some English dialects do weird things with this word, like "shoo-er", but that's clearly wrong

 

[SW VandeCarr]

Too="in addition; also; furthermore; moreover..."
Whereas Two="a cardinal number, 1 plus 1..."

http://dictionary.reference.com/

A toast to two too!

 

[SW VandeCarr]

At least there are schools that teach it. My wife was never able to find a school that teaches English as a third language. The part she finds most difficult is "Yes, you're right."

Sounds familiar. My other is Japanese, but I don't recall her ever saying that to me either, although she speaks perfect English. In fact, she's a linguist. She's qualified to teach English as a first, second, fourth or fifth language. However, for some reason there's no approved program for teaching English specifically as a third language. Of course you can enroll in a course for English as fourth or fifth language which is what she did. She did find a program for Albanian as a third language so she could then take English as a fourth language.

 

[chiro]

English is a really screwed up language and I've been speaking it my whole life.

It's almost like someone decided to get five or six languages and just put them in a blender and the result is the English language.

At least with a language like german, you know at least how to pronounce the word from the carets and the umlaut symbols and the hats. With english its always memorizing the exception to the rule.

I used to learn japanese in school and the only thing I didn't like about that language was the insane amount of symbols that you needed to learn if you wanted to master the language. Same thing with other asian languages like cantonese though.

 

[dlgoff]

At least with a language like german, you know at least how to pronounce the word from the carets and the umlaut symbols...

Really? It's all in the lips. Not the symbols.

http://www.german-grammar.de/grammar/chapter_3/3_2_3_umlaute.htm

 

[Adyssa]

Pyramid:
PEER-a-mid
the 'mid' rhymes with kid, lid, did

Sure:
shir
rhymes with her
although some English dialects do weird things with this word, like "shoo-er", but that's clearly wrong

I pronounce SURE (as in sure thing) the same way as SHORE (as in sea shore). :S

 

[yungman]

For me as a Chinese, "He" and "She", present and past tense. We don't have have distinction in pronunciation.

 

[chiro]

Really? It's all in the lips. Not the symbols.

http://www.german-grammar.de/grammar/chapter_3/3_2_3_umlaute.htm

As an example of what I mean let's look at the words "fear" and "bear". The pronunciation of those two highlights yet another "exception" to the rule.

At least other languages have a structure in place that avoids having to have all of these exceptions.

 

[cristo]

Warning: This could be an across the pond issue. American and British English differ in subtle ways.

I think you're right. I agree that "talking at" means that the other party is not listening. But I don't think I've ever heard the phrase "talking with" before; we would always say "talking to".

 

[BobG]

What I like about English is that most of the phrases are the same for both masculine and feminine cases. If you look at slavic languages there are different words for the masculine and feminine cases.

I find the neutral gender of English dissapointing.

The gender of nouns in some languages tells you more than just the word that group uses - it also gives some insight as to how that group views that object.

 

[D H]

It's almost like someone decided to get five or six languages and just put them in a blender and the result is the English language.

That's pretty close to what happened. Now add closing the lid and letting the mix ferment for several hundred years and you get a very good description of English.

Old English was mostly a fermented mix of the languages of the invading Angles, Saxons, and Jutes. A tiny, tiny bit of Briton survived this invasion. Then Vikings invaded parts of England, adding a bit of Norse to the mix. Roman was the lingua franca in the early Middle Ages. Some of this bled into Old English as well.

The lingua franca of England was French after 1066. The Normans (Vikings who learned to speak French, badly) drove out Old English, replacing it with what eventually became Middle English. Old English doesn't look like English at all. Middle English does to some extent, but try reading Chaucer. It's still a foreign language.

The change from Middle to Modern English didn't result from an invasion. That was your five or six languages tossed in a blender and allowed to ferment.

 

[Gokul43201]

We were on the train and I was talking to my wife, not about anything important, just talking to relieve the boredom. I started talking in Philadelphia and kept talking to Albequerque. That's when she gave me a good talking to.

Did you notice that your train had stopped in St. Louis from two to two to two two, and that the express on the neighboring platform was there from two to two to two two too?

 

[Gokul43201]

Things like advice vs. advise are also quite difficult.

When in doubt, remember to use the -ice word when you need a noun and the -ise word when you need a verb.

Example: An adviser's job is to advise.

This general rule of thumb works well for other such words (e.g., practise, practice) in British English, but Americans seem to have been moving in the direction of eliminating the possibility of error to by simply using the one spelling for both the noun and verb. 'Practise', for instance, is essentially obsolete in American English.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

Did you notice that your train had stopped in St. Louis from two to two to two two, and that the express on the neighboring platform was there from two to two to two two too?

No, I hadn't. When I got to Chicago I asked if the train goes to the loop, and the conductor said no, it goes whoo-a-whoo.

 

[D H]

This general rule of thumb works well for other such words (e.g., practise, practice) in British English

I didn't know that difference existed. So Brits practise what they preach? I suspect that even in England, the practice will eventually become to practice what one preaches thanks to the influence of Hollywood.

 

[Borek]

"The" vs "a" vs lack of them both, and a correct usage of tenses - these are beyond my comprehension. "With", "at", "to" (and others) thing that Micromass mentioned is sometimes also difficult, but the same happens also in French and Russian, which I was taught long ago.

I don't have problems with pronunciation, as I only type. I don't have problems with understanding of the spoken English - I don't understand it, so I don't have to worry about details.

 

[D H]

"The" vs "a" vs lack of them both

"The" is definite, "a" is indefinite.

While riding our bikes through the countryside we came across a dog sitting in a yard. When the dog saw us it started to give chase.​

The first use ("a dog") is indefinite because the writer don't know whose dog it is. It is just some random dog that apparently doesn't like bicyclists. The second use ("the dog") is definite because the writer has now identified some specific dog, the one that was calmly sitting in its yard until it saw a bunch of bicyclists.

and a correct usage of tenses

English isn't all that special here, is it? Learning the correct use of tenses is a problem in any language.

 

[chrisbaird]

Chinese grammar is actually quite easy compared to English. For Chinese, it's the alphabet and the pronunciation that are difficult.

English has a lot of rules, so it's not so hard if you learn the rules. There are many exceptions to the rules, but often these have their own rules and patterns. I teach English and what a lot of people think are exceptions are actually secondary rules over-riding the more common primary rules. One of the hardest parts to learn in English is the prepositions, because they don't follow rules as nicely. One preposition can mean many different things depending on context, and you just have to memorize them all.

 

[Borek]

"The" is definite, "a" is indefinite.

This is only a scratch on the surface, isn't it? See bottom of this post:

https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=3668243&postcount=12670

(it was answered by Zooby)

English isn't all that special here, is it? Learning the correct use of tenses is a problem in any language.

I guess my problems steam from the fact I am coming from Polish, where there are no perfect tenses (so I don't "feel" them) and we basically use just three tenses (past, present, future). Sometimes I try to understand what I am doing:

https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=2005263&postcount=6

but even then I am not convinced I got it right.

In both cases mentioned here (use of perfect tenses and "the" vs "a") I can regurgitate the definition, but it doesn't mean I always know how to apply it correctly.

 

[D H]

I teach English and what a lot of people think are exceptions are actually secondary rules over-riding the more common primary rules.

I hope you are a bit old fashioned in your teaching. Something bad happened with regard to how English is taught to native speakers starting about a decade or so. It appears to coincide with teachers switching from red pens for markups to purple ones. Or maybe with the advent of txtspeak. Or both.We see some poorly written posts at this forum on occasion. Some are just dumb mistakes (I'm not immune), but some are just bad through and through, and post after post. One class is people who don't know English at all. They write in their native language and let something like babelfish or google translate convert to English. The result is often babble.

Even worse are some of the posts written by those whose native language is English. These are mostly by kids and young adults, and mostly from the US. Something very bad happened along the way to their high school diploma.

 

[George Jones]

"The" vs "a" vs lack of them both

This also causes problems for my wife.

 

[Evo]

I think you're right. I agree that "talking at" means that the other party is not listening. But I don't think I've ever heard the phrase "talking with" before; we would always say "talking to".

I was taught it was more polite to say "speak with", "spoke with". Speak being formal, talk being informal.

Examples.

I'll be speaking with him this afternoon.

I need to speak with you.

Did you speak to him about the problem?

 

[fluidistic]

Pyramid:
PEER-a-mid
the 'mid' rhymes with kid, lid, did

Sure:
shir
rhymes with her
although some English dialects do weird things with this word, like "shoo-er", but that's clearly wrong

Thanks, doubts cleared.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

I had some friends in Japan ask me to repeat the words law and raw so they could learn to recognize the difference. I did my best to enunciate them differently but they ended up just shaking their heads. They could not differentiate the sounds.

 

[D H]

This is only a scratch on the surface, isn't it? See bottom of this post:

https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=3668243&postcount=12670

Note that several of the hits on your exact "please read forum rules" search that use this phrase without a hyphen or a colon are sports aficionado forums. Sports announcers, professional athletes, and sports aficionados are the premier source for learning how *not* to use the language properly.From that other thread,

It's "The moose and the squirrel are getting away". Saying "Moose and squirrel are getting away" identifies you as eastern European, probably Warsaw pact. If your name is Boris, that narrows it down to the old Soviet Union or perhaps Bulgaria.

Jimmy, do you perchance keep a running tally of the number of computer monitors destroyed by your humor?

 

[yungman]

Chinese grammar is actually quite easy compared to English. For Chinese, it's the alphabet and the pronunciation that are difficult.

English has a lot of rules, so it's not so hard if you learn the rules. There are many exceptions to the rules, but often these have their own rules and patterns. I teach English and what a lot of people think are exceptions are actually secondary rules over-riding the more common primary rules. One of the hardest parts to learn in English is the prepositions, because they don't follow rules as nicely. One preposition can mean many different things depending on context, and you just have to memorize them all.

Writing is not really an issue, you have time to think. It's when talking then the "he" and "she" get all mixed up because we pronounce the same in Chinese. And there is no present and past tense.

 

[dlgoff]

I agree that "talking at" means that the other party is not listening.

I was taught it was more polite to say "speak with", "spoke with". Speak being formal, talk being informal.

So if you hear "I'm talking to you", from a mentor, you better take heed?

 

[Fredrik]

It's sometimes impossible to figure out how to pronounce a word you've just read. "Homogeneous" is an example of a word that I couldn't figure out.

The same combination of letters is pronounced differently in different words. A famous example is the suggestion that "fish" can be spelled "ghoti", because of the words cough, women and nation. This is an example I came up with myself:

through
though
thought
tough
trough
drought

The "ou" combo is pronounced in six different ways in these six words, even though it's followed by "gh" in all of them.

 

[I like Serena]

Here's an old "plan" to eliminate those problems...

A Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling
by Mark Twain

For example, in Year 1 that useless letter "c" would be dropped to be replased either by "k" or "s", and likewise "x" would no longer be part of the alphabet. The only kase in which "c" would be retained would be the "ch" formation, which will be dealt with later. Year 2 might reform "w" spelling, so that "which" and "one" would take the same konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish "y" replasing it with "i" and Iear 4 might fiks the "g/j" anomali wonse and for all. Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear with Iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and Iears 6-12 or so modifaiing vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist konsonants. Bai Iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi ridandant letez "c", "y" and "x" -- bai now jast a memori in the maindz ov ould doderez -- tu riplais "ch", "sh", and "th" rispektivli. Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld.

 

[AlephZero]

It's sometimes impossible to figure out how to pronounce a word you've just read. "Homogeneous" is an example of a word that I couldn't figure out.

The same combination of letters is pronounced differently in different words. A famous example is the suggestion that "fish" can be spelled "ghoti", because of the words cough, women and nation. This is an example I came up with myself:

through
though
thought
tough
trough
drought

The "ou" combo is pronounced in six different ways in these six words, even though it's followed by "gh" in all of them.

The strange thing is why this happened. Anglo-Saxon spelling was basically phonetic, though it varied from place to place because of local differences in pronunciation. English spelling was phonetic up to the first printed books (i.e. Chaucer). But after the spelling had been standardised by printing, there was a huge shift in the English pronunciation for some reason, and the spelling has never caught up with that change.

Since written English from the past 400 years is stll regularly read, and hasn't changed much in that time period, I don't think this problem is going to be fixed "real soon now".

 

[chrisbaird]

The same combination of letters is pronounced differently in different words. A famous example is the suggestion that "fish" can be spelled "ghoti", because of the words cough, women and nation.

This is a fun one, but I hope you realize that it is wrong because it does not follow the rules. The rule is that the letters 'gh' only make the 'f' sound after the letters 'au' or or 'ou', so you can't use it in the word 'fish'. Also, pronouncing 'ti' as 'sh' is not a valid rule. The rule is that 'ti-' is pronounced as 'sh-', the dash indicating that it must be at the beginning of a syllable, which is not the case for the word 'fish'

 

[chrisbaird]

I hope you are a bit old fashioned in your teaching. Something bad happened with regard to how English is taught to native speakers starting about a decade or so. It appears to coincide with teachers switching from red pens for markups to purple ones. Or maybe with the advent of txtspeak. Or both.

A large part of the education world went through a disastrous "whole language" phase in the last few decades. (They are mostly elementary public schools. "What?" you ask, "Is there is education outside of public schools?" Yes, there are private schools, private tutors and homeschooling movements that are avoiding some of mistakes of the public schools.) "Whole language" seems to be code for not directly teaching children phonics and grammar rules because they are hard and boring. But it turns out that learning a language without the rules is even harder in the long run. Fortunately, a lot of schools are coming back to rules-based learning because it gets results. I wouldn't call myself "old-fashioned", rather "results-driven". If the old system gets the best results, I will go with it. If a better system comes along, I will try it.

 

[Galteeth]

Sounds familiar. My other is Japanese, but I don't recall her ever saying that to me either, although she speaks perfect English. In fact, she's a linguist. She's qualified to teach English as a first, second, fourth or fifth language. However, for some reason there's no approved program for teaching English specifically as a third language. Of course you can enroll in a course for English as fourth or fifth language which is what she did. She did find a program for Albanian as a third language so she could then take English as a fourth language.

What's the difference between learning English as a second language and as a third, fourth, fifth, nth?

 

[SW VandeCarr]

What's the difference between learning English as a second language and as a third, fourth, fifth, nth?

There isn't any for all practical purposes. Read Jimmy Snyder's post which I quoted. It's a joke, man. Loosen up.

 

[fuzzyfelt]

I pronounce SURE (as in sure thing) the same way as SHORE (as in sea shore). :S

Me too, but this works better knowing it is pronounced differently-


I pronounce "Pyramid" other than described, too, with the same "i" as in "kid" for both the "y" and "i".

 

[bm0p700f]

Spelling, for dyslexics English is one of the worst languages to read and write.