For non-native speakers of english

[Slant]

What was the hardest part in learning english for you?

I always struggled with things like hour because I pronounced the h not realizing it should be silent, three vs free, pronouncing the as de, a/an their/they're/there and "you" since english seemingly lack the means to distuingish one person from a general "you".

The hardest part was not going grammar nazi on all those "they're their there" or "your you're" and similar native speaker problems.

Indefinately is another one that keeps making my eyes twitch. I'm trying to improve my language skills here, don't feed me wrong grammer, ffs. :P

[Mormolyce]

"I" before "E" except after "C". That's the "rule". There are a few words which break that rule, but if you remember that you'll get it right most of the time.

A few he says! :P

Except... both German and Romance languages do have this feature (as I have explained in a previous post).

I missed that one!

I get etre, that looks like a combination of two words, but sein is also? Do you know what the components used to be? Any idea when the fusion occurred?

[dvaz]

Ser or Estar

[ComputerNerd]

As a native speaker of english I never managed to learn another language.
I admire anyone who managed to, whatever their native language is.
And I often see better use of the english language from non-native speakers who aren't as lazy as we are.

It seems growing up with your native language makes us take it for granted.

[Klingers]

Native English speaker here... Just curious, is what I've heard anecdotally about English being a bastard to learn compared to other languages true not so much because it's "more advanced" or "more nuanced" but just because it's such a self-contradictory mess that doesn't follow its own internal rules (lack of apostrophe on "its" in this context being a prime example) on and isn't nearly as well structured or consistent as other languages?

[Themius]

Understanding "th". Understanding that you write it with a T, but you're not supposed to pronounce it like a T. Being able to correctly pronounce "Three", instead of "Tree" or "Free". Then later realizing that there are multiple ways to pronounce "th" (this/thick/thames/...).

Understanding vowels. Double-vowel sounds being written with a single vowel (cAke), while single-vowel sounds are written with double vowels (shEEp).

Understanding "gh". Don't even get me started on this one.

Could go on...

it's not really gh it's "ough"

[Z-Man]

(lack of apostrophe on "its" in this context being a prime example)?

This is still a consistent rule, just everyone has forgotten why. The older English possessive form used to be "es", and the apostrophe represents the missing "e". The possessive "its" never had the "e", thus no apostrophe. Clear as mud, right?

English is hard because every rule has seemingly random exceptions that practically have to be memorized.

[Ghostpanther]

As a native speaker of english I never managed to learn another language.
I admire anyone who managed to, whatever their native language is.
And I often see better use of the english language from non-native speakers who aren't as lazy as we are.

It seems growing up with your native language makes us take it for granted.

Because communicating around those you see every day and respond with is what matters. If it is not proper English according to some, matters not, if a person is able to communicate to those he deals with everyday.

[Mormolyce]

it's not really gh it's "ough"

What about "sleigh" vs "laugh"?

[yetgdhfgh]

Iam from Birmingham, England and you wont believe how difficult it is for people to understand me IN MY OWN FUCKING COUNTRY!!!!

[Mormolyce]

Yeah. I never had issues with "who" and "whom" mostly because my language makes a big deal of subject and object differentiation.

If we'd kept "who" vs "whom", it would actually make it easier for English speakers to learn other languages :P

All those French words, seriously, English is the bastard child of the French language.

It's a Germanic language that got fucked so hard by Romance languages it looks more French than German now.

[ComputerNerd]

Because communicating around those you see every day and respond with is what matters. If it is not proper English according to some, matters not, if a person is able to communicate to those he deals with everyday.

I think it matters that we try to maintain some decent standard, so that we are not excluding non-native speakers.
Though I do agree some seem intent on picking fault with absolutely anything.

[Slant]

Now there he would have had a good example..
OU vs O..
Colour, Honour, Favourite, etc etc.. vs color, honor, favorite...
Spelling varies in English too. Which one is correct of the above examples?
My spell checker flags the British spelling. I'm pretty sure the Brit will see the American spelling flagged.

Yes, well.. when in doubt, I'll follow the British. Simply based one the principle that the nation spelling "aluminum" can't be right. :P

[Xandrigity]

I asked my husband (native Italian) he said in English there are many words that sound exactly alike but have different meanings.

[Tackhisis]

English ... doesn't follow its own internal rules (lack of apostrophe on "its" in this context being a prime example)

"Its" cannot have an apostrophe, it's neither a contraction nor a possessive case. It is the genitive form of "it".

- - - Updated - - -

Yes, it is one of those rules that only make sense if you know the writing style the people used when the rule was created.
In this case I it might have been because in some old cursive scripts "cie" looks like "ue".

No. It's because English words cannot have C and spell the long I in a common way, "ïe". Foreign words always have C, but don't have the long I, so they are generally spelled with "ei".

[skitzin]

Funny you mention that because i (native english speaker) struggled with the whole du/dig/ni/er/man thing when i started learning Swedish.

Yeah I had them same issues when I started learning Swedish. Well that and getting the "j" sound right.

[Deleted]

Anything that goes against my native language structure.

One very stupid thing I sometimes still struggle with is the plural "s". For example if we're talking about multiple WMD, in Dutch we would type "WMD's" to indicate the plural form. In English you can get away with WMD since the plural is in Weapons, but I don't think "WMDs" is wrong. That's where i struggle sometimes, if something has a plural s attached to the noun, where it's separated with an apostrophe in Dutch.

[zealo]

Nothing really, especially when I woke up and stopped trying to speak in an English or American accent. The words and the language generally aren't hard, faking your accent is.

As you are a Swede, you probably speak like other Swedes; so here is a question for you: why do you pronounce English words with an English/American accent when you are speaking Swedish? If you say an English word in the middle of Swedish and use an entirely different accent for that word it sounds absolutely idiotic. Swedes always do this. o_O

Because spoken English with a native Swedish accent can sound pretty terrible with how much pitch matters in Swedish and distinct Swedish accents, a lot of people just train themselves to phase that out to speak more cleanly when using it.