Why English is hard to learn

[AC]

01. We must polish the Polish furniture.

02. He could lead if he would get the lead out.

03. The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.

04. Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.

05. A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.

06. When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.

07. I did not object to the object.

08. The bandage was wound around the wound.

09. The farm was used to produce produce.

10. The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.

11. The insurance was invalid for the invalid.

12. There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.

13. They were too close to the door to close it.

14. The buck does funny things when the does are present.

15. A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.

16. To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.

17. The wind was too strong to wind the sail.

18. After a number of injections my jaw got number.

19. Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.

20. I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.

21. How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

[FlamesAllTheWay]

Haha that's funny. I've always thought about how tricky our language is... classic example I can think of is...

Who
Do
You
Zoo
Shoe
Sue
Flew
Coup
Queue


...as all the words rhyme but all are spelt differently. Anyways, good post. A tricky language indeed that i'm pretty sure none of us know how to use properly too heheh...

[HelloHockeyFans]

Agreed, which is why I am always amazed at the immigrants who come to Canada with zero knowledge of our language, and graduate from universities! Absolutely amazing to me.

Here's another one:

Why do we drive on a parkway, but park on a driveway?

[Eddie Bronze]

Originally posted by AnthonyCook@May 29 2005, 06:37 PM
03. The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.

What a moron!

[West Karma]

Which witch is which????

[Hack&Lube]

Originally posted by FlamesAllTheWay@May 29 2005, 07:43 PM
Haha that's funny. I've always thought about how tricky our language is... classic example I can think of is...

Who
Do
You
Zoo
Shoe
Sue
Flew
Coup
Queue


...as all the words rhyme but all are spelt differently. Anyways, good post. A tricky language indeed that i'm pretty sure none of us know how to use properly too heheh...

You think that's bad, those words rhyme but at least they are phonetically different.

Chinese on the otherhand, often called the #2 hardest language after English would have tons of words that all sound the same according to romanized phoenetics but could only be distinguished by tonal pitch emphasis and usage.

[Hack&Lube]

Originally posted by HelloHockeyFans@May 29 2005, 08:33 PM
Why do we drive on a parkway, but park on a driveway?

Because people usually drive up their driveway into a garage and you're usually on the road when you're driving beside a park

[Rubber Ducky]

Try teaching English! That's what I do in Japan, and it's a hoot sometimes!

I should print out that list and drop the hammer on my students.

[Agamemnon]

I think once you bring localized slang into the picture, it becomes _really_ hard to learn the language.

I think a lot of us use way more slang than we even realize.

Has anyone else often found that immigrants, properly educated in English, speak it way better than 'we' do? They're a little slower to bring the words out, but they sound real pretty when you're taught the proper way from the start, rather than just picking it up as you age.

[flamingchina]

Originally posted by Hack&Lube@May 30 2005, 07:10 AM

You think that's bad, those words rhyme but at least they are phonetically different.

Chinese on the otherhand, often called the #2 hardest language after English would have tons of words that all sound the same according to romanized phoenetics but could only be distinguished by tonal pitch emphasis and usage.

I gets worse, as the same syllabic word and tone can have 2-3 meanings as well.
(he and she are the same, just the character is different, but same tone, way to say everything..)
And about the slang, every language has tons of slang, and it can also be very localized.
For example, in Hong Kong, a chicken is a prostitute, in Taiwan, it's slang for a penis.
Stuff like that.

[Bill Bumface]

Note to self... don't order chicken when in China.