By contrast, the American spelling is considered is more logical.

You is right, MILKYWAY!

How can spelling be grammatically anything? Who are these scholars, who seem to be somewhat confused about the whole issue of spelling variance? I agree with them and you that American spelling is easier to learn, though, because it's phonetic.

Countless studies have shown the American style of spelling is much less confusing to those who use English as a second language

..... Give 'em a week with Snoop Dogg that should frizzle 'em ...



ROCKMAN

I still aint got no Satisfaction

shibby to the hibby shazzizzle

Gotta bend, guys...

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Rockman
Countless studies have shown the American style of spelling is much less confusing to those who use English as a second language

..... Give 'em a week with Snoop Dogg that should frizzle 'em ...

speakin' of Snoop, purchased his Dog For Dog canine charity dog snacks & the the pets approved, found out about the products when he was on Chelsea Lately.

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Aquamarine
I don't think it has anything to do with it being easier, I think it's more because of the extent of the British Empire, in which so many people were forced to learn English, combined with the fact that North America was also a British colony at one point and thus had English imposed upon it. Thus, from the 18th century (at least) onwards, the dominant global economic, political, and cultural forces were English-speaking, again forcing others to learn it in order to communicate with us. (Even when the USSR and China, and to a lesser extent Japan, became so powerful, English still remained the main common language.)

That's true of course, but imagine it weren't the British but the Chinese or Arabs who 'conquered' the world, would we, all people not having Chinese or Arabic as their mother tongue, all speak, read and write as good Chinese/Arabic as we do English? So it's not illogical to state that English is a rather easy language to learn. For almost all of us Dutch it's even much easier than German, even though many think Dutch and German are more akin.

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latebloomer

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treaclefingers

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latebloomer
The english language is actually very flexible, new words are constantly being added. It is very much a mongrel language, with influences from Celtic, Latin, Danish, German and French. English probably has the most words of any language, I know it passed the 1 million mark a few years ago, although I think only about 300,000 are in common use. French only has about half that number in common use, I don't know of the full number. I would say French is a more rigid language, it even has an academy that determines what words are allowed in the language. Of course, the French would probably say they are just more discerning.

French is sexier though, so they make up in quality what we have in quantity.

1 million words to choose from...and we still can't communicate!

HAH! True enough treacle, on both counts. Happy New Year...enjoying the cold?

Thanks latebloomer, you too!

PS, I'm in Vancouver, sunny and mild...doesn't really get cold here, weather is like Seattle.

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kleermaker
but imagine it weren't the British but the Chinese or Arabs who 'conquered' the world, would we, all people not having Chinese or Arabic as their mother tongue, all speak, read and write as good Chinese/Arabic as we do English?

Impossible to know, but as we wouldn't have had a choice (any more than all those British colonies had a choice) it's kind of a moot point, really!

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Aquamarine

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kleermaker
but imagine it weren't the British but the Chinese or Arabs who 'conquered' the world, would we, all people not having Chinese or Arabic as their mother tongue, all speak, read and write as good Chinese/Arabic as we do English?

Impossible to know, but as we wouldn't have had a choice (any more than all those British colonies had a choice) it's kind of a moot point, really!

Well let me put it this way then: we, non English speaking people, learn English at school and from tv, movies etc, just like some of us learn French and German. Most of us here in Holland are much, much better in English than in German or French. But well, imagine you English-native-tongue-people would have Chinese or Arabic as a regular lesson at school. How do you think your command of (one of) those languages would be? I guess you'll have any idea about the answer. At least I do!

You're probably right--I'm just saying it's impossible to know. If the world's dominant popular culture was Chinese, and I was always hearing people singing in Mandarin and watching Chinese TV shows, etc., I might find it easier to learn, who knows.

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bv
Are there petrol stations in USA? And how much beer is there in a pint?

Yes and if it's a pint of Guiness none because I drank it all!

The American spelling is usually just simpler - if I were nasty, I'd say:

Conforming to their IQ ...

For us Germans the US spelling is actually easier to learn - more similarity to the original "Germanic" that was the ancestor of Dutch, English, German ...

Since I grew up in the French Occupied Zone, I learned French before English and at first wondered why the English spelling was sometimes similar to the French:

theater - theatre, center - centre

I once read a very interesting book about the development of the English language and the different influences on it, based on a BBC tv series:
[topdocumentaryfilms.com]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2014-01-05 16:49 by wolfi.

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kleermaker

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Aquamarine

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kleermaker
but imagine it weren't the British but the Chinese or Arabs who 'conquered' the world, would we, all people not having Chinese or Arabic as their mother tongue, all speak, read and write as good Chinese/Arabic as we do English?

Impossible to know, but as we wouldn't have had a choice (any more than all those British colonies had a choice) it's kind of a moot point, really!

Well let me put it this way then: we, non English speaking people, learn English at school and from tv, movies etc, just like some of us learn French and German. Most of us here in Holland are much, much better in English than in German or French. But well, imagine you English-native-tongue-people would have Chinese or Arabic as a regular lesson at school. How do you think your command of (one of) those languages would be? I guess you'll have any idea about the answer. At least I do!

It's always said that the English are lousy at learning other people's languages - because our recent history has meant that most people have had to learn ours, so we don't have to bother. So we don't know how easy it might have been to learn Chinese or Arabic, because we haven't had to try.

But our earlier history was different. The Celts had to learn Latin as part of the Roman Empire, then we were invaded by Angles and Saxons (Germanic), then Vikings (Norse), then Normans (French). Then the intelligentsia learnt Latin and Greek again. Then we had waves of French, Irish and Jewish refugees and immigrants, and now we have Jamaican, Indian, Polish...

The point about English is that it's a mongrel language, with all its history showing in its vocabulary. Our legal system still speaks Norman-French, our scientific vocabulary is Latin/Greek. We are not purists like the French - if a word's useful, we adopt it, just like our favourite band listens to everything and puts it all into the music they make.

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wolfi
The American spelling is usually just simpler - if I were nasty, I'd say:

Conforming to their IQ ...

Very droll.

You know what they say about German humour...

It's no laughing matter.

<<imagine you English-native-tongue-people would have Chinese or Arabic as a regular lesson at school. How do you think your command of (one of) those languages would be?>>

Here in the U.S., it makes sense to have only one main language, what with 300 million people spread out over thousands of miles of geography. Unlike in Europe, you can travel 3,000 miles and still be in the same culture and shop in the same stores using the same currency. In Europe, a multitude of cultures and languages are virtual neighbors, so if you want to cross borders and visit, it would make sense to learn another language or two or maybe even three.

But in the U.S., people still flock in from around the globe to live here permanently, so it makes sense that people who come here from other cultures learn the language to adapt to life here, because there would not be time in the education system to learn the dozens of languages of the cultures from where people who come here originate.

As for learning another language like Chinese, well, they read from the right to left rather from the left to right, so right there you are talking about something that is the opposite from your system of learning, and there is no need to learn another language unless you intend to travel to a place where the language would be used. I imagine a language of the European cultures, where English has its roots, would be easier, but it's all Dutch to me.

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stonehearted
<<imagine you English-native-tongue-people would have Chinese or Arabic as a regular lesson at school. How do you think your command of (one of) those languages would be?>>

Here in the U.S., it makes sense to have only one main language, what with 300 million people spread out over thousands of miles of geography. Unlike in Europe, you can travel 3,000 miles and still be in the same culture and shop in the same stores using the same currency. In Europe, a multitude of cultures and languages are virtual neighbors, so if you want to cross borders and visit, it would make sense to learn another language or two or maybe even three.

But in the U.S., people still flock in from around the globe to live here permanently, so it makes sense that people who come here from other cultures learn the language to adapt to life here, because there would not be time in the education system to learn the dozens of languages of the cultures from where people who come here originate.

As for learning another language like Chinese, well, they read from the right to left rather from the left to right, so right there you are talking about something that is the opposite from your system of learning, and there is no need to learn another language unless you intend to travel to a place where the language would be used. I imagine a language of the European cultures, where English has its roots, would be easier, but it's all Dutch to me.

My daughter actually got an A in japanese before Christmas. She's 16, and chose to have japanese as her third language in high school.

She says one of the alphabets consists of chinese "signs". I don't think the "right to left-thing" is the most problematic one here. It's more the extremely small variations between how the signs are formed. You make a small mistake, and the meaning will be completely different

Nothing but a French accent.

Classic

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stonehearted
<<imagine you English-native-tongue-people would have Chinese or Arabic as a regular lesson at school. How do you think your command of (one of) those languages would be?>>

Here in the U.S., it makes sense to have only one main language, what with 300 million people spread out over thousands of miles of geography. Unlike in Europe, you can travel 3,000 miles and still be in the same culture and shop in the same stores using the same currency. In Europe, a multitude of cultures and languages are virtual neighbors, so if you want to cross borders and visit, it would make sense to learn another language or two or maybe even three.

But in the U.S., people still flock in from around the globe to live here permanently, so it makes sense that people who come here from other cultures learn the language to adapt to life here, because there would not be time in the education system to learn the dozens of languages of the cultures from where people who come here originate.

As for learning another language like Chinese, well, they read from the right to left rather from the left to right, so right there you are talking about something that is the opposite from your system of learning, and there is no need to learn another language unless you intend to travel to a place where the language would be used. I imagine a language of the European cultures, where English has its roots, would be easier, but it's all Dutch to me.

Yes, makes sense to learn the language of where you move...that's why we aren't happy about what's going on in Southern California! Schools been sending home flyers with English on one side & Spanish on the other for years!

English will very soon not be the language of the majority in the US--that's just how things evolve--so look on it as an opportunity to brush up on your Spanish.

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Aquamarine
English will very soon not be the language of the majority in the US--that's just how things evolve--so look on it as an opportunity to brush up on your Spanish.

So we hear... My friends still all agree they need to learn Engliase, tho...

I am not an english speaker and I do not understand why "You should a heard him just around midnight" is understood by natives as "You should HAVE heard him just around midnight". Do you have some kind of chip in your ear in order to reduce the speed of words?

And it is impossible for me saying as quick as Mick ""Dear lord, hear my plea
Don't ever let another take her love from me Or I will surely die" . Impossible.

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emotionalbarbecue
I am not an english speaker and I do not understand why "You should a heard him just around midnight" is understood by natives as "You should HAVE heard him just around midnight". Do you have some kind of chip in your ear in order to reduce the speed of words?

And it's often spelled by natives as "you should OF heard him . . ." Drives me nuts.

I think people everywhere tend to speak their native language in a sort of shorthand way that sometimes makes it difficult for non-natives. This is the trouble I have trying to learn Portuguese--words and sentences seem to be blurred into each other.

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Aquamarine

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emotionalbarbecue
I am not an english speaker and I do not understand why "You should a heard him just around midnight" is understood by natives as "You should HAVE heard him just around midnight". Do you have some kind of chip in your ear in order to reduce the speed of words?

And it's often spelled by natives as "you should OF heard him . . ." Drives me nuts.

I think people everywhere tend to speak their native language in a sort of shorthand way that sometimes makes it difficult for non-natives. This is the trouble I have trying to learn Portuguese--words and sentences seem to be blurred into each other.

"Should have" is correctly contracted to "should've" which PHONETICLY in much of the USA is not far from "should of" which then got shortend (in slang) to "shoulda". I can't tell you how many times I've heard my grandfather and father use the phrase "Woulda, coulda, shoulda" when I gave them an excuse for not having done something. Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure that I've now used it a few times with my kids as well.

No computer chips necessary. Us locals just have a better grasp of the vernacular than non-locals. A whole lot more practice too!

Peace,
Mr DJA

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Aquamarine
This is the trouble I have trying to learn Portuguese--words and sentences seem to be blurred into each other.

Dear Aquamarine, this goes for every foreign language: when we read it the words and sentences are neatly divided from each other, which makes it more easy for us. But when those same sentences are spoken by people (even when they speak formally, thus without any dialect), then they don't put pauses between their words, which makes it more difficult to identify them. Learning to speak a foreign language is only possible when you live in an environment of people who speak it. Except when it's English of course. It's one of the very few languages that don't make it hard to discern the different words in a sentence and the the sentences from each other.

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Aquamarine
And it's often spelled by natives as "you should OF heard him . . ." Drives me nuts.

No need to let it drive you nuts. But it is neither American nor English spelling. It is just wrong spelling.

-------------------
Keep On Rolling

Yes, I know, but as a teacher I used to have to spend hours and hours correcting it!

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kleermaker

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Aquamarine
This is the trouble I have trying to learn Portuguese--words and sentences seem to be blurred into each other.

Dear Aquamarine, this goes for every foreign language:

That's what I said.

And the fact that it DOES apply to English too is what the whole "should a heard him" point was about.