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LollipopLolita
May 7, 2003, 06:46 AM
english is like my 4th or 5th language and sometimes, it bugs the hell out of me.


observe:

lime
sublime

lime in sublime is pronounced like lime.

mime
ime sounds like lime. it's all good.

ion
zion

pronounced the same way.

lion

slightly different

ion in minion, union, basically whatever-nion

completely different.

let's not start with words like organization or information


i wish pronounciation is standard, i wish sometimes english would stick to one thing. then we esl people won't have difficulty making words out sometimes. but oh well, not gonna happen!

Stricker
May 7, 2003, 06:52 AM
All languages are like that. Spanish have a lot of different pronunciations too. I know what you mean.

Which other languages you know?

Saladwood
May 7, 2003, 06:54 AM
Not all languages. See, her native language has a straight arrow pronounciation.


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: PSOSaladWood on 2003-05-07 04:54 ]</font>

Stricker
May 7, 2003, 06:59 AM
Really! Well I wanna speak that language, cause what she means it's true. But english is not damned. We should respect it.

Droxitr
May 7, 2003, 09:24 AM
I feel lucky that English is my first language. It is the (technically) hardest language to learn, although your mileage may vary.

It's hard because it has all of these rules like "i before e except after c and whenever that rule goes to hell."

English is the bastard hypocrite language. Everything is borrowed from somewhere else, and it makes a ton of rules that it never follows.

Japanese, on the other hand, makes sense to me. I just couldn't deal with the written characters.

KodiaX987
May 7, 2003, 09:32 AM
You think Engligh is hard? Try learning French. Even though we have French classes every year at school, you have 18-year old people who still make 20+ mistakes on a 700-words spiel.

RagMasterRappy
May 7, 2003, 09:35 AM
On 2003-05-07 04:46, LollipopLolita wrote:
ion
zion

pronounced the same way.

These are pronounced differently.
ion = "eye on"
zion = "zhi on"

Stricker
May 7, 2003, 09:51 AM
On 2003-05-07 07:32, KodiaX987 wrote:
You think Engligh is hard? Try learning French. Even though we have French classes every year at school, you have 18-year old people who still make 20+ mistakes on a 700-words spiel.



That's nothing compared to us the puertoricans. We study spanish and is our first language and we can't write propertly.

We spend 12 years of our lifes studying english and some of us can't even read in english.

neko-chan
May 7, 2003, 11:03 AM
Italian is pretty nice when it comes to pronunciation, since any letters (we have 21) has always the same sound. "A" is always "A", no matter in which way you have to use that letter.

This is why with a lot of practice we can speak with a good English accent, while English mother tongue people will (almost) never be able to speak with a good Italian accent.

Anyway Lolita, this reminds me when I was talking to a colleague of mine, who was from Ireland but he used to live in London. I was saying "funny" but, apparently, with the wrong accent, according to him. That guy told me that the way my "funny" sounded meant something like "homosexual". Oh, well... English is a mess for me x_x

LollipopLolita
May 7, 2003, 11:48 AM
you think french is hard? try learning chinese, writing the characters in the right direction and way and then learning all those individual words. thousands and thousands of symbols to learn in a non alphabet language system.

i didn't mean that the english language is damned, it's a fine language, the pronounciation is what gets to a lot of esl people. i'm fine with it, i learned to speak english the british way. where i went to school, if you fail english, you get held back. but that just made things more confusing, i was used to british pronounciation and speech, then i came here. ever notice how differently a brit and an american would pronounce aluminium?

almost all the languages i know have a basic consistent pronounciation system. my native language has a very consistent system, then again we have no plural forms of words and no past tense. but it also has to do with the original root of the language.

though i have to say, i've seen american native speakers make more grammatical errors. probably because you guys learned it through speech.

i think neko knows what i am talking about.



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: LollipopLolita on 2003-05-07 09:49 ]</font>

neko-chan
May 7, 2003, 02:21 PM
On 2003-05-07 09:48, LollipopLolita wrote:
probably because you guys learned it through speech.

This reminds me of a guy here who wrote "Suddam", instead of "Saddam".

But... hey, since my English grammar SUCKS, I guess I have no rights to keep posting in this thread. >_>;;;

*runs away*



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: neko-chan on 2003-05-07 12:22 ]</font>

Stricker
May 7, 2003, 02:43 PM
On 2003-05-07 12:21, neko-chan wrote:

But... hey, since my English grammar SUCKS, I guess I have no rights to keep posting in this thread. >_>;;;

*runs away*


lol Hey you don't have to go. As lolita said, many of us learned english by speech. All the english I learned came from the cable tv and the video games. I bet that I have more than 3 errors in this single post for example.

Orange_Coconut
May 7, 2003, 02:52 PM
Eh, I would have rather started out with another language instead of being brought up with English. Truthfully I can't personally say "I know how hard it can be." But I can imagine.

The English language does not have any real... How would I say this?... Pattern? I guess. It has many slangs also.

Too many words are sound alikes, such as:

There, their, they're.

You're, your.

And many others. I can see why English isn't really the preffered when it isn't your native tongue.

I don't really know if I'm making sense anymore because I got around 30 minutes of sleep last night... Yeah... I think I am starting to ramble, sorry. :/

Rotis
May 7, 2003, 03:38 PM
I don't think I would've have a chance of fully grasping English if I hadn't grown up speaking it.
Not only does the language itself not make sense, Americans are overall pretty harsh about people who attempt to speak English and mess up a bit. (Just look at all the websites devoted to Engrish.)

I highly respect those who grew up speaking a different language than the most common one spoken in their current country/society of residence; I don't know if I could ever adapt to that. Kudos to you.

And, as mentioned, I think that learning by speech is a big factor for poor grammar/spelling amongst native speakers of a language... add in public school systems, and it's even worse... I had no clue what a lot of grammar-related things were until I started learning Spanish, because in English, it's just "what you do" and I didn't really know why.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Rotis on 2003-05-07 13:40 ]</font>

LamerPanda
May 7, 2003, 05:47 PM
English is an absolute pain.

It seems to me that in many other languages, letters are pretty much the same no matter what word they're in. If "a" is pronounced "ah", it's almost always "ah".

I'm glad it's my native language, at least...

pixelate
May 7, 2003, 06:07 PM
The bastard language; it has too many fathers.

LostHero
May 9, 2003, 04:27 AM
English is my first language and I still suck at it.

polishedweasel
May 9, 2003, 09:15 AM
I'm pretty proficient <-----see? at English. I've been speaking it all my life. It's only because I've lived in the United States for my whole life. I'm also Puertorican, like Reinaldo. Only thing is, my spanish sounds like a Blanco and I don't use it too often. I'm more embarrassed than anything else. My girlfriend knows almost as much spanish as me. And she's from Georgia! Most of my family speaks fluent Spanish. I feel like such a loser when I have all the old people around.

I feel that it's very important to know another language. I think that I'm going to take some more spanish classes. Yeah, that's not a bad idea.

JESUS Lolita! 5 languages??? I don't know how you do it!

LollipopLolita
May 9, 2003, 12:11 PM
I don't know I just do. Every member of the family speaks more than one language. It's funny when we starts talking and switching languages.

KodiaX987
May 9, 2003, 12:32 PM
The ultimate challenge: attempting to correctly write French verbs. Nearly all mistakes in my class are because of that.

Vanango
May 9, 2003, 01:37 PM
Language is definately interesting topic.

It remind me of the following joke:

What do you call someone that can speak 2 languages fluently?

bilingual

What do you call someone that can speak 3 languages fluently?

trilingual

What do you call someone that can speak only one language?

American.

Before you yell at me... Look at President Bush, he makes up words and mispronounces everything!! Honestly, of all people, the person we are techincally supposed to look up to and should be a model citizen. Well, he's pratically the epitome of the American lifestyle.

English is in my opinion the hardest language to learn, it's in so inconsistant. We should all start learning esperanto. Even the writing style (phonetics) is difficult, 1) b/c you have to piece letters together to make a word as opposed to Japanese or Chinese characters which actually might be viewed as being not as advanced but since it's pictorial, ultimately faster to read (once you know the 3,000-5,000 commonly used characters)

Lolita... I feel your pain, especially w/ the different Americaness and Britishness of English. I prefer Britishness but I get made fun of when I pronouce "AL LU MIN-e UM" opposed to "A LU Mi NIM" there are tons of other little things... bah, nevermind the bollocks.

Do you notice your speech behavoir changing w/ different people you talk to? If I'm w/ all my Brit friends I pick up certain words, or even if I'm talking to foreigners in English (i.e. Korean) I start pronouning and even structuring my words their way. I don't mean it in a mean way! I'm always afraid someone thinks I'm mocking them.

Oh well. Enough of that.

LollipopLolita
May 9, 2003, 02:02 PM
oh it definitely changes depending on the person i am talking to. when i am talking to friends whose english aren't as good, i speak in simple broken up in english for example. the worst case is when i meet one of my singaporean friends or someone from singapore or malaysia. out comes out the singlish, and if you haven't heard what that's like, it's... interesting to say the least

Kasera
May 9, 2003, 03:32 PM
Example please?

I'll give you a dollar. And a cookie.

For cookies and dollars are all I have.

$-.-/o

Saladwood
May 9, 2003, 03:42 PM
Singlish doesn't even sound like english anymore.

"How can I get to the train station?" would be "How I can I go to the trainstation-ah?"... but you wouldn't really understand it. TRUST ME.

LostHero
May 9, 2003, 04:10 PM
You forgot the lah.

Aurra
May 9, 2003, 05:29 PM
On 2003-05-07 07:35, RagMasterRappy wrote:

ion
zion

These are pronounced differently.
ion = "eye on"
zion = "zhi on"


No they aren't. She didn't mean the words themselves, she meant the syllable "ion" within the word "zion" is still said "ion." Say them right in a row, you don't say "ion" differently from one word to the next.

And I have no idea how people learn to speak 5, 6, or even more languages fluently. http://www.pso-world.com/psoworld/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_eek.gif I flunked my Spanish final freshmen year in high school http://www.pso-world.com/psoworld/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_lol.gif

Vanango
May 9, 2003, 06:27 PM
On 2003-05-09 12:02, LollipopLolita wrote:
oh it definitely changes depending on the person i am talking to. when i am talking to friends whose english aren't as good, i speak in simple broken up in english for example. the worst case is when i meet one of my singaporean friends or someone from singapore or malaysia. out comes out the singlish, and if you haven't heard what that's like, it's... interesting to say the least



I do it when I'm chatting to people on the JP server. My typing becomes a lot more broken, I guess subconsciously hoping they'll understand better? I spent 2 months with all Koreans and I started to pronounce my name as Paness or Baness instead of Vanessa...

LollipopLolita
May 9, 2003, 08:19 PM
Heh Aurra gets it!

One of my best friend is Korean, so I speak differently around her. Another is from my home country, so then we speak differently also. It just gets funny when we're mixing more than 3 languages in one sentence.

Scriptor
May 14, 2003, 07:58 PM
"INFLECTION
English has comparatively few inflections compared to other European languages, and those that exist are remarkably regular. An -s is added to most nouns to make a plural; -ed is added to most verbs to make a past tense or past participle, and -ing is added to make a present participle."

Concise Oxford ENGLISH Dictionary.

...that would lead you to believe (maybe) the pronunciation is also relatively 'regular', when compared to other languages...

Nawms
May 14, 2003, 09:41 PM
I hate all languages. We should speak with body languages.
Ya know, slap your knee, whistle, shake your neck. Much better than using your foresaken vocal chords.

BrokenHope
May 16, 2003, 05:21 PM
I just hate being made fun off when I spell colour with a "u" and when I use words that don't have the same meaning in American english =/

Why on earth is American english so different anyway? O_o

Droxitr
May 16, 2003, 08:42 PM
Because we're total assholes who fight wars for the right to spell 'color' instead of 'colour', just to piss you off. http://www.pso-world.com/psoworld/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif

CakeMan
May 16, 2003, 09:37 PM
luckily .....

LollipopLolita
May 16, 2003, 10:24 PM
On 2003-05-16 15:21, Broken Hope wrote:
I just hate being made fun off when I spell colour with a "u" and when I use words that don't have the same meaning in American english =/

Why on earth is American english so different anyway? O_o



that's what annoyed me. i grew up learning british english. and then i came here

geewj
May 18, 2003, 04:59 PM
psoloqueous sounds out to be circus (sur'kes), if we borrow some rules from other words.

s - psychology

ur - colonel

k - torque

es - barbarous







<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Prof_Frink on 2003-05-18 14:59 ]</font>

WrJuicyFruit
May 20, 2003, 07:24 PM
Ok, English is just a bunch of memorizing imo.
You dont realize it until you take a foriegn language

Droxitr
May 21, 2003, 12:16 AM
On 2003-05-18 14:59, Prof_Frink wrote:
psoloqueous sounds out to be circus (sur'kes), if we borrow some rules from other words.

s - psychology

ur - colonel

k - torque

es - barbarous


uh... what?

Orange_Coconut
May 21, 2003, 12:22 AM
On 2003-05-20 22:16, Droxitr wrote:


On 2003-05-18 14:59, Prof_Frink wrote:
psoloqueous sounds out to be circus (sur'kes), if we borrow some rules from other words.

s - psychology

ur - colonel

k - torque

es - barbarous


uh... what?



I think Fink was trying to show you some obscurities in the english language, such as:

Ps (in psychology), is pronounced like an "s"

ol (in colonel), is pronounced as "ur"

que (in torque), is pronounced as "k"

ous (in barbarous), is pronounced as "es"

Which can be confusing to those who are new to the English language.



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Orange_Coconut on 2003-05-20 22:23 ]</font>

BlackRose
May 21, 2003, 08:34 AM
Decieve: To dupe or lie
Deception: The act of decieving (noun form)
Decit: Same as deception (noun)

Now...

Conceive: to found, or to give birth
Conception: The act of conceiving (noun form
Conceit: ...NOT the same as conception at all. An unduly high opinion of one's own abilities or worth.

Malkavian
May 21, 2003, 11:42 AM
I speak 4 languages, hopefully 5 or 6 in the future.

Im perfect at catalan and spanish, the 2 official languages of my region.

Then I can make conversations, speaked or written but with many errors in french and english. But I hope to perfectionate my english since I use it more than spanish now.

And I know few words of german and japanese. I hope to learn one of those or both. But I would need professional lessons because they are very different from the ones I know and very hard to learn by myself.