A Poll for everyone! How did you learn English and what's your relationship with languages?

[vickiespencer]

8 minutes ago, smashradio said:

What a fun discussion. 

[moikchap]

English is probably the worst language we could have ended up with for our "type 1 civilization" tongue.

But anyways, here's another way to describe the issue: Possibly the gig is not "christian + social media manager" but "christian social media + manager". Like, the seller could be atheist for all the buyer knows or cares, and just wants the tweets to be ISO 9001 compliant with the New King James Version Bible.

[smashradio]

2 hours ago, moikchap said:

English is probably the worst language we could have ended up with for our "type 1 civilization" tongue.

Let's all go for Esperanto instead. 

We might get there. A long way to go before we become a type 1 civilization. 

Antaŭeniru pli, frato.

[newsmike]

3 hours ago, moikchap said:

English is probably the worst language we could have ended up with for our "type 1 civilization" tongue.

English is not the problem. It's the way people mangle and misuse it that is cause for concern. As to ISO's somehow relating to the bible, I won't even try to unscramble what you were attempting there. And I believe the Geneva convention prohibits you from trying to explain it to me. 

Edited June 11, 2023 by newsmike

[moikchap]

1 hour ago, smashradio said:

Let's all go for Esperanto instead. 

Newspeak would be double plus good.

[visualstudios]

5 hours ago, moikchap said:

English is probably the worst language we could have ended up with for our "type 1 civilization" tongue.

Nah, plenty of languages would be far, far worse. Any language with an alphabet that does not consist of only 26 unique characters, for example, would be worse. Any language with accents would be worse. Any language with 20 different verbal tenses, and a different conjugation for each subject would be worse. Etc.

English is quite good for an universal language, actually, because it is so easy and regular.

As for esperanto... as a Romance language native speaker, I consider that an atrocity. It's like you're trying to speak latin but failing miserably.

Edited June 12, 2023 by visualstudios

[newsmike]

2 minutes ago, visualstudios said:

Any language with accents would be worse. Any language with 20 different verbal tenses, and a different conjugation for each subject would be worse.

And gendered words in Spanish & Italian. OMG, why does a chair need a gender that drives an entire set of verbs and pronouns?  Really?  "The" may be the simple best word of English, as opposed to Il, La, Le, etc...etc.... etc....

[visualstudios]

And French, and Romani, and Portuguese. All Romance languages are gendered. It's very intuitive... if you speak it lol

[maitasun]

6 minutes ago, visualstudios said:

Any language with accents would be worse. Any language with 20 different verbal tenses, and a different conjugation for each subject would be worse. Etc.

 

Just now, newsmike said:

And gendered words in Spanish & Italian. OMG, why does a chair need a gender that drives an entire set of verbs and pronouns?  Really?  "The" may be the simple best word of English, as opposed to Il, La, Le, etc...etc.... etc....

Ohhh, come on. It's so much fun!!! 😊

That's how I catch the "professional translators" that use Google Translate and the like. 😂

[newsmike]

1 minute ago, visualstudios said:

And French, and Romani, and Portuguese. All Romance languages are gendered. It's very intuitive... if you speak it lol

In my ongoing study of Italian, that is the hardest thing.  Not conjugation, because there are rules, but knowing if a teapot is masculine or feminine.  Then there are the hundreds of exceptions where a masculine word is still preceded with La.    

[visualstudios]

It's fun, but a worldwide language isn't supposed to be fun.. It's supposed to be easy. Just imagine a computer keyboard if computers had been developed by hindi or Japanese speakers. Insanity. Nah, A-Z is a must for the alphabet. And for ease of learning, the phonetics must be simple, and the grammar has to be simple as well. It has to be a language anyone can learn. Therefore, English - the most basic of languages xD

[visualstudios]

1 minute ago, newsmike said:

Not conjugation, because there are rules, but knowing if a teapot is masculine or feminine.  Then there are the hundreds of exceptions where a masculine word is still preceded with La.    

Hmm, that's weird. In portuguese no masculine word would be preceded by "a". 

The best part is that the latin languages aren't even coherent among themselves. "tree" is feminine in portuguese, and masculine in Spanish. And both make perfect sense, btw, it has to do with the way the word is written in both.

[newsmike]

2 minutes ago, visualstudios said:

Hmm, that's weird. In portuguese no masculine word would be preceded by "a". 

The best part is that the latin languages aren't even coherent among themselves. "tree" is feminine in portuguese, and masculine in Spanish. And both make perfect sense, btw, it has to do with the way the word is written in both.

The good news is that my Italian is sufficient to negotiate any bar, hotel or restaurant. So, it is not like I'm debating political issues in Italian.   

[moikchap]

5 minutes ago, visualstudios said:

It's supposed to be easy

Depends on the content/necessities. Like we're saying with the gendering of terms, there's a difference in burden to learn, but also a difference in precision. I would describe it as english being better for casual discussion, but other languages being better suited for formal discussion. English has a lot of ambiguity such as a single word having a diverse set of definitions.

Edited June 12, 2023 by moikchap

[newsmike]

Just now, moikchap said:

English has a lot of ambiguity such as using the same word having a diverse set of definitions.

Do most other languages have such words like "lead" and "lead"?  Which is a verb meaning to guide, and at the same time, with a different pronunciation, a toxic metal.

[visualstudios]

2 minutes ago, moikchap said:

English has a lot of ambiguity such as a single word having a diverse set of definitions.

Every language has that to an extent. I find English very precise, actually. The structure is simple, but the vocabulary is extensive, since it gets all the latin vocabulary plus all the anglosaxon. I can be exactly as precise as I want in English.

[visualstudios]

2 minutes ago, newsmike said:

Do most other languages have such words like "lead" and "lead"?  Which is a verb meaning to guide, and at the same time, with a different pronunciation, a toxic metal.

Yes, homophones. All romance languages also have them (and I assume pretty much every language). That's easy, they sound different. Homonyms are where it's at, where it's spelled the same and they sound the same as well. That's the real challenge. Nah, it's still easy - context is everything.

Edited June 12, 2023 by visualstudios

[newsmike]

Just now, visualstudios said:

I can be exactly as precise as I want in English.

I read recently that the average American uses less than 8% of the vocabulary available.  And usually with horrible grammar.  Pop culture is not helping there. 

[visualstudios]

Hmm, did I mean to say exactly as precise, or precisely as exact? See, you can do this kind of thing in English. So nice.

[newsmike]

Yet, we communicate. 

[visualstudios]

8 minutes ago, newsmike said:

read recently that the average American uses less than 8% of the vocabulary available.

Yeah, I find it advantageous in a way to learn English as a second language if you come from a latin based language, since you'll get a ton of vocabulary for free - half the words are the same, and often they are the "big words", the intelectual stuff. What sounds posh to Americans, will be just the normal word in your language. In portuguese there is no "watch", but there is "observe", for example - and this applies to a ton of words. English has a ton of these pairs, one with an anglosaxon root, and one with a latin root, and the latin word tends to be less used in every day conversation by native speakers, therefore sounds fancier. Of course you'll always be at a disadvantage in terms of accent and general fluidity for small talk, but it's not hard to beat most native speakers in terms of "number of words known".

Edited June 12, 2023 by visualstudios

[moikchap]

That's probably true... English seeming bad due to anti-intellectualism among native speakers... I grew up on D&D books which tend to have some pretty esoteric terms, and they entered my casual use. I was formally written up by two different employers for using words that were "too big" such that my co-workers were unable to follow up on my notes. I had to break all my habits for using the "more correct" word because no one else knew what those words meant, even simple seeming ones like "dearth".

[visualstudios]

4 minutes ago, moikchap said:

"dearth".

Yeah, dearth is pretty rare. Also, not latin based, so that's one I'd actually think is particularly difficult. The bigger ones are usually latin based, therefore easier. Give me "esoteric" (latin based) over "dearth" any day of the week lol.

Edited June 12, 2023 by visualstudios

[maitasun]

35 minutes ago, visualstudios said:

Hmm, that's weird. In portuguese no masculine word would be preceded by "a". 

The best part is that the latin languages aren't even coherent among themselves. "tree" is feminine in portuguese, and masculine in Spanish. And both make perfect sense, btw, it has to do with the way the word is written in both.

Ahhhhh, but we have an entire set of rules for the exception of when the article doesn't follow the gender of feminine nouns, and also for those nouns ending in "e".

You'll never get bored with Spanish! 😂

[visualstudios]

43 minutes ago, maitasun said:

also for those nouns ending in "e".

Yeah, words ending in e are half masculine and half feminine in portuguese. A árvore, o bosque. Rule? What rule? You just kinda... know lol

Edited June 12, 2023 by visualstudios