here’s some I’ve noticed:
- Why do we have articles? They’re mostly useless.
- Why do capital letters exist? (this is mainly an issue with the Greek and Latin alphabet though)
- Why is “I” used plural for verbs?
- Why are there so many inconsistent prefixes for tenses?
- 's is used for possessives. However, “its” is the possessive and “it’s” is not.
- Why do we have another set of pronouns for possessive pronouns?
- Why do adjectives go before the noun compared to basically every other language?
My biggest gripe as a non native speaker is phrasal verbs.
Unless you know exactly what they mean, you are screwed. You can’t decypher them, there’s no link between the meaning of the component parts and the phrasal verb.
As my English teacher used to tell us jokingly: you should never say: “I get on with my brother, but I get off with my sister”.
Similar with saying place names - The Map Men (men men men) tried to explain the ‘rules’, and concluded that there was no alternative but to learn the pronunciation of each place individually
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Do other languages not have these? (Or fewer of them?)
What’s your native language if you don’t mind me asking?
Fascinating concept.
Interestingly I’ve heard from other people that Chinese languages are made difficult to learn for similar reasons. I wonder if this is actually a similarity between those languages and English
I’m French. I’m not aware of any other language that radically modifies the meaning of verbs with propositions in such a way.
As a foreigner, you might expect that break up and break down have opposite meanings because up and down do, but nope.
I don’t get why the French get to complain. Like every noun you have has a letter at the end you aren’t using. Just get rid of it. You don’t need to spell it Merlot. I don’t get it, is it like a free letter with any purchase of a word? Are you worried the other letters will fail and you want a backup plan?
We might have some silent letters, vestigial remnant of ancient forms, but English has basically no rule for pronunciation. It’s so funny watching English speakers debate among themselves how a name should be pronounced.
English is just weird. This thieving awful tongue that takes the leftovers of other languages and says it wrong forever.
We are the English+Borg. Your nouns will be assimilated. La resistance is now ours and futile.