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this post was submitted on 15 Jun 2024
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Learning a second language AND professionally teaching English to speakers of said language. English is not broken. English is actually much better than many alternatives. We don’t need to worry about noun gender. We don’t have to worry about tones. We have precise ways to indicate number and time. Formality levels are not baked into word construction. The pronunciation of words can generally be inferred from the spelling, despite learning this skill being a little complicated— but that complicated nature even has its usefulness.
We rag on English, but it is by far not the worse out there, not even close. It’s just contempt for the familiar.
Definitely NOT. English is among the worst languages in that regard.
This definitely.
Exceptions on exceptions on exceptions, on top of grammar rules that vary based on what language the word you're using was originally from, except even then you can't know because it can be a word came to English from French even though it's originally Latin and then the way the French pronounced it carries over to the English.
As someone who's native language is Finnish and you literally know how a word is pronounced when you see it. If you know how to use the phonetic alphabet, then you basically know how to pronounce Finnish. Compare English words and their IPA to Finnish words and their IPA:
hevonen = [ˈheʋonen], hernekeitto = [ˈherneˌkːei̯tːo]
VS English
'geography' = ʤɔ́grəfɪj, explanation = ek.spləˈneɪ.ʃən/
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA/Finnish
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chaos
Dearest creature in Creation, Studying English pronunciation,
I will teach you in my verse Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse. It will keep you, Susy, busy, Make your head with heat grow dizzy;
Tear in eye your dress you'll tear. So shall I! Oh, hear my prayer,
You know the fun thing about "The Chaos"? It was written by someone who had English as a second language. Most native speakers simply don't get how chaotic their language is.
This I can fully believe.
Here's Lindybeige, a native speaker, talking about the extra R-sounds (between a word which ends in a vowel and another which begins with one) and why Brits don't hear them
And here's Dr Geoff Lindsey's channel, excellent videos about the English language. (And in regards to being deaf to features of one's own language, it took a native speaking English professor for me to realise just how much vocal fry there is in my native language, Finnish.)
As a native German speaker, I really dislike the formality levels and hope someday everyone uses the informal level. In a big company it's really annoying to start with the formal level and then awkwardly switching to informal level when contacting someone for the first time.
It seems to me that you’re making a strange argument throwing bugs and features into the same pot. The fact that other languages have different complexities does not make one language more or less broken.