English is relatively easy to learn, but not to master (2018) • Hacker News Board

Re: English is relatively easy to learn, but not to master (2018)

#211

Post by ghaff » Sun, Mar 28, 2021, 1:08 PM UTC

IgorPartola wrote: post #41

gruppe_sechs wrote: post #2

Something I've heard fairly consistently from people who've learned English as a second language is that it's relatively easy to learn English to a basic or intermediate level, since English grammar is relatively simple (no genders, no cases, simple verbs, etc), but taking your English from intermediate to advanced is much harder because of all the weird quirks, irregularities, idioms, phrasal verbs, inconsistent spe…

My first language is Russian. I learned English from 12 to 14 to a basic level and from then came to the US and learned the rest of what I know here. Some thoughts: 1. English has a very simple, pre-defined sentence structure. Run-on sentence are discouraged. The language has almost logical decisions regarding the use of the verb “be”. Words are rarely skipped because they are implied. By contrast Russian is much mor…

>Run-on sentence are discouraged.

Sort of. This is a somewhat modern thing. There is various punctuation--parentheses, em dashes, and semicolons in particular--that let you construct fairly long and complex sentences. But the modern style, certainly for basic communication, is to mostly break things up with periods. (To the point where it's sometimes OK if the segments are sentence fragments.)

Re: English is relatively easy to learn, but not to master (2018)

#212

Post by leephillips » Sun, Mar 28, 2021, 1:14 PM UTC

ezequiel-garzon wrote: post #186

leephillips wrote: post #12

I am, at the moment, learning Spanish and also teaching English to native Spanish speakers. The languages present almost opposite sets of challenges. English is chaos: the connection between spelling and pronunciation is so random that one practically has to memorize how to say every word, as if they are ideograms; there are few conjugations to learn, but in place of that many rules for modal and auxiliary verbs; wor…

Thank you for your educated empathy! I spent ten years in the US, have the highest proficiency level in the CEFR standard, and yet I dread phrasal verbs. Sure, I get the feeling the set of idioms I know is getting smaller as time goes on, and spelling is, well, not foreign friendly, to put it mildly. But phrasal verbs... how can I really process that make out is somehow, intuitively, connected to kissing? What about…

There is no intuitive way to know that make out has anything to do with kissing, and that was my point: each (idiomatic) phrasal verb is another unique word that must be memorized. They just happen to consist of two (or more!) other words.

Re: English is relatively easy to learn, but not to master (2018)

#213

Post by jvvw » Sun, Mar 28, 2021, 1:15 PM UTC

jiggawatts wrote: post #192

As a point of reference, I just watched a video of a non-native speaker speaking Hungarian: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S44KrRp7QgA He's trying really hard , but it's like nails on a chalkboard listening to him. It's worse than a bad computer text-to-speech converter. Hungarian is one of those languages where it is shockingly difficult to learn to a level where you're intelligible at all, and learning to be fluen…

My sister became fluent in less than a year I'd say (living in Hungary, Hungarian boyfriend, worked hard at it and super-good at languages generally). I don't know what her accent is like but she definitely has no problem being understood by Hungarians - she has since lived in Budapest for a decade and came top of her year in her Masters degree in translation there which involved lots of translation into Hungarian (including things like poetry!). So possible if difficult!

Re: English is relatively easy to learn, but not to master (2018)

#214

Post by Jiocus » Sun, Mar 28, 2021, 1:17 PM UTC

williamdclt wrote: post #198

e12e wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In English why do you need to say “exacerbate” when you can say “make worse”? Or “defenestrate” when you mean “toss out the window”? The usual answer I hear is that it’s because it makes the language more beautiful and precise. That's... Not how vocabulary develops. English is a rich language in large part due to the conquest by the French - much like Norwegian is a rich language due to conquest by the Danish. Alth…

> Although "defenestrate" is probably more like "tweet" than "computer" Not sure I understand your point, but "defenestrate" -> "de-fenestrate" which literally translates (via old French) as "un-window"!

Window is also from Old Norse (meaning "wind-eye") which has replaced fenester in English.

Meanwhile in Swedish, the French origin "Fönster" is preferred.

Re: English is relatively easy to learn, but not to master (2018)

#215

Post by the_gipsy » Sun, Mar 28, 2021, 1:17 PM UTC

ternaryoperator wrote: post #48

leephillips wrote: post #12

I am, at the moment, learning Spanish and also teaching English to native Spanish speakers. The languages present almost opposite sets of challenges. English is chaos: the connection between spelling and pronunciation is so random that one practically has to memorize how to say every word, as if they are ideograms; there are few conjugations to learn, but in place of that many rules for modal and auxiliary verbs; wor…

While I agree with many of your points comparing Spanish and English, I disagree with several points: In Spanish, word order is more fluid than in English--greatly facilitated by the fact that the person (1st, 2nd, 3rd...) of a verb is an ending rather than a separate pronoun. You can quite acceptably start sentences with subject, verb, direct object, even indirect object. And while there are more rules than in Engli…

It's either Mexico and Texas, or Méjico and Tejas. Someone might mix across languages, but that does not mean that there is actually a formal exception to the rule.

Re: English is relatively easy to learn, but not to master (2018)

#216

Post by auganov » Sun, Mar 28, 2021, 1:21 PM UTC

Everything about English is very different just because of its standing in the world. People aren't even that interested in "mastering" other languages. Not just a native vs non-native thing either [0]. You'll see fewer books about style, copywriting and so forth targeting the native population too. People just don't do it as much in these languages and it's not as good of an investment. An American may be as interested in better writing skills as any ESL speaker. Fewer Frenchmen will think French skills are a good investment.

[0] Though this is interesting too. "Natives" of English may be more invested in this distinction than those of other languages. Native vs non-native dynamics are very different in English too.

Re: English is relatively easy to learn, but not to master (2018)

#217

Post by ghaff » Sun, Mar 28, 2021, 1:27 PM UTC

gerdesj wrote: post #155

smitty1e wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that English has an "eye doctor" and an "ophthamologist" is a direct result of the Norman invasion of 1066.

Ophthalmologist is derived from old Greek. I have never visited an eye doctor but I get my specs from an optician. Eye doctor makes sense as a concept and I have said it myself but is not routinely used. The Normans brought Old French with them and that became the court language. Old English was more Saxon based. The classic examples of the effect of that invasion are meat vs animal names eg beef (French) and cow (Sa…

>I have never visited an eye doctor but I get my specs from an optician.

You sure? At least where I live, you get an exam from an "eye doctor" (typically an optometrist) when you get a prescription. An optician fits and sells glasses. Ophthalmologists are M.D.s who have broader latitude in prescribing medications, etc.

Re: English is relatively easy to learn, but not to master (2018)

#218

Post by presentation » Sun, Mar 28, 2021, 1:34 PM UTC

tasogare wrote: post #181

cehrlich wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kanji (at least the first 3-4000), counters, word-level pitch accent, etc are all totally learnable and I wouldn't consider them "advanced" topics. That's not to say it doesn't take a couple thousand hours to get there, just that with enough time spent studying and consuming native content learning these things is inevitable. Likewise understanding something like は vs が to the level of a fairly advanced non-native sp…

Japanese is hard for different reasons but some of them are self-inflicted. Bothering with pitch accent is one: no second of effort towards it will be ever relevant in comparison to learning new vocabulary or collocation. An other big issue is indeed in manuals, which teach sentences construction with the English logic instead of the Japanese one (eg starting with 私は学生です already poses 3-4 pedagogical problems). I’m w…

Disagree re pitch accent being unimportant - it depends what your goals are and what your experience level is. If you’re competent enough with grammar but screw accent up constantly Japanese people get tired of listening to you, when you nail it people are more at ease talking to you in my experience. Like someone messing up stress in English all the time.

If your goal is to get over that then it’s absolutely worth studying, and arguably it’s worth studying early before you pick up bad habits in the first place.

As the parent mentioned, it’s all dependent on your goals.

Re: English is relatively easy to learn, but not to master (2018)

#219

Post by laurieg » Sun, Mar 28, 2021, 1:34 PM UTC

andi999 wrote: post #162

presentation wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Im learning Japanese too and both agree and disagree. There are way fewer idiosyncrasies in the language IMO, the rules tend to hold and depending on how you’re explained concepts they make more sense (は described as the “topic” particle, が described as the “identifier” particle, which most resources don’t explain properly but makes the choice much easier to understand). Sounding things out is super straightforward d…

Well the English 'counter words' for animals are also tough aren't they? Ok, a flock of birds everybody knows as well as a murder of crows. But what about an exaltation of larks? And is it a school of dolphins or rather a pod?

A much closer analogue would be the words used in English together uncountable nouns:

A loaf of bread, a grain of rice, a slice of cheese.

These tend to be common everyday words but if you get them wrong things sound quite off.

Re: English is relatively easy to learn, but not to master (2018)

#220

Post by ghaff » Sun, Mar 28, 2021, 1:35 PM UTC

wccrawford wrote: post #168

andi999 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well the English 'counter words' for animals are also tough aren't they? Ok, a flock of birds everybody knows as well as a murder of crows. But what about an exaltation of larks? And is it a school of dolphins or rather a pod?

There's a few well known ones that everyone uses. And then there's ridiculous ones, like "a murder of crows", that many people know because they're ridiculous, but people still don't use them. And then there's a ton that almost nobody knows, and nobody uses. In the end, it's not a big deal. Unlikely Japanese, where they really do use counters for those kinds of object. Flat things like paper, cylindrical things like…

English uses those also to some degree: a case of beer, a carton of eggs.

But, yeah, if you told me to pick up some eggs and a a carton/box of beer, I'd know what you probably wanted. (In the latter case, I might ask if you wanted a 6-pack, 12-pack, or 24.)