What do you find most difficult about English?

[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.

 

[Evo]

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

Please post the study that you got this from, thanks.

 

[Evo]

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.

Years of e-mailing and posting online has ruined my grammar. I now post mostly in blurbs and misuse punctuation in order to express the emotion and inflection one would pick up on if they were listening to me. If my voice would have emphasized a word or phrase, I will make up something to let the reader know.

 

[Borek]

Please post the study that you got this from, thanks.

I may have problems posting a link to a study, especially one in English, but as far as I know it is true. Problem is, English is not transparent - that is, there is no easy and simple dependence between spelling and pronunciation. In general, the more transparent the language is, the easier it is for dyslexics - that's why dyslexia is a serious problem in English speaking countries (and Poland!), but is much less of a problem in places like Italy and Spain.

 

[D H]

I found quite a few, but given the huge (583!) number of citations, this appears to be the seminal paper on the subject.

Seymour PH, Aro M, Erskine JM., Foundation literacy acquisition in European orthographies, Br J Psychol. 2003 May;94(Pt 2):143-74.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12803812
Here's the abstract, emphasis mine:

Several previous studies have suggested that basic decoding skills may develop less effectively in English than in some other European orthographies. The origins of this effect in the early (foundation) phase of reading acquisition are investigated through assessments of letter knowledge, familiar word reading, and simple nonword reading in English and 12 other orthographies. The results confirm that children from a majority of European countries become accurate and fluent in foundation level reading before the end of the first school year. There are some exceptions, notably in French, Portuguese, Danish, and, particularly, in English. The effects appear not to be attributable to differences in age of starting or letter knowledge. It is argued that fundamental linguistic differences in syllabic complexity and orthographic depth are responsible. Syllabic complexity selectively affects decoding, whereas orthographic depth affects both word reading and nonword reading. The rate of development in English is more than twice as slow as in the shallow orthographies. It is hypothesized that the deeper orthographies induce the implementation of a dual (logographic + alphabetic) foundation which takes more than twice as long to establish as the single foundation required for the learning of a shallow orthography.​

 

[Evo]

I may have problems posting a link to a study, especially one in English, but as far as I know it is true. Problem is, English is not transparent - that is, there is no easy and simple dependence between spelling and pronunciation. In general, the more transparent the language is, the easier it is for dyslexics - that's why dyslexia is a serious problem in English speaking countries (and Poland!), but is much less of a problem in places like Italy and Spain.

It seems dyslexics have problems with their native language. I think the US misdiagnoses dyslexia more than any other country. A big scam here is getting your doctor to give you a note saying you are dyslexic in order to have more hours to complete the SAT, there was a thread here about it.

Dyslexic students have difficulty with their native language

http://www.bdadyslexia.org.uk/about-dyslexia/schools-colleges-and-universities/modern-foreign-languages-and-dyslexia.html

And they have trouble with spoken language.]

http://articles.boston.com/2011-07-29/news/29830301_1_dyslexia-glenn-rosen-brain-processes-language

 

[turbo]

My wife is somewhat dyslexic. The crazy part is that she is very good at Scrabble, perhaps because you get to shift the tiles around to make the words look "right". Give her a rack of those wooden tiles and some colored squares for bonus points, and her spelling improves. It's pretty odd.

 

[turbo]

BTW, a fellow in my dorm was from Cambodia. He spoke English quite well. He seemed to have problems with differentiating "these", "those" and other words that denoted spatial or temporal separation (or lack of) though. I don't know why - he was pretty good with "a", "the", etc.

 

[qspeechc]

'Pyramid' is pronounced 'PI-rә-mid', and not 'peer-a-mid', in standard pronounciation at least. Why don't you just look in a dictionary?

My Concise Oxford Dictionary gives both 'talk to' and 'talk with' as correct, meaning 'have a conversation with'. It also has 'talk at' but with a meaning different from the ones suggested in this thread.

 

[D H]

Talking at, exemplified. "I am not a robot. I am a unicorn."

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

Talking at, exemplified. "I am not a robot. I am a unicorn."

This should be moved to the philosophy forum.