IronFist
03-16-2002, 01:26 PM
The hardest languages include:
Finnish: 14 noun cases in the singular and 16 in the plural (and you thought the 4 cases in high school German were tough).
Russian: "1. ...the Russian noun is burdened with locative and instrumental case-forms which some other Aryan languages had already discarded a thousand years B.C.
"2. Russian shares with German and Icelandic the three genders, masculine, feninine, neuter. Like German, Icelandic, and Lithuanian, it possesses two adjectival declensions, one for use when the adjective is attributive, the other when it is predicative (dom nov 'the house is new' --novij dom, the new house"). The irregularities of adjectival behavior make those of Latin fade into insignificance.
"3. The numbers 2, 3, 4, with fully devloped case and gender flexions form a declensional class of their own. From 5 to 30 numbers are declined like certain feminine nouse. From 50 to 80 both parts of the number are declined. From 5 upward the things counted must be put into the genitive plural. The numbers 2-10 carry a subsidiary set of forms called collectives for use where we would say, e.g., we were five of us, or she has six sons.
"4. The essential Russian vocabulary, like that of German, in inflated by a wasteful luxuriance of verb forms. Thus there are couplets distinguised by presence or absence of an infix which denotes repetition, or by one of several prefixes which signify completion. For instance, djelat and djelicat signify to do once and to do repeatedly, ya pisál means I was writing, and ya napisál means I have written. If you say write to him (at once) you have to use the perfective form napishi yemu. If you say write better (in future), you use its imperfective cotwin, pishi lushje"
(Bodmer, "The Loom of Language" pp419-420)
Korean: In my personal experience, while easy to read and write, is next to impossible to understand, especially when spoken fast. Korean has like 16 vowels or something, many of which sound almost exactly the same to my caucasion ear (especially the w+vowel ones), which native Korean speakers tend to slur together worse than Spanish does. And then, Korean does that double consonant thing just like some Indian langauges, where for example you have "ba" "bba" and "b'a" which all sound identical to me (note that this is not the same as a Japanese double consonant, like "gakko", which is easy to distinguish from "gako.") The difference between a korean "da", "dda" and "d'a" is the amount of aspiration each cluster is given. Most of my difficulty with this langauge is probably just because my ear was trained to understand English :) Studies have actually done proving that speakers of langauges where double consontants are not used (English) have a very difficult time telling the difference between them in langauges where they are used. Finally, Korean has all the different formality levels of words, titles, and verb endings and forms of deference that Japanese has, if not more.
English: Man, the next person who whines about English being difficult gets their ass kicked. Sure, English might have some tricky spellings that don't seem phonetically correct (ohhh cough, though, thought, or women, or even phlegm), and the English "r" is pronounced differently from any other langauge's "r", but English is easy for the following langauges (some of which as anton said):
1. No gender of nouns
1.5 No gender of articles preceding nouns
2. No noun cases (declensions)
3. Adjectives don't have to match noun number or gender or case
4. Verbs really only conjugate in the third person singular present(I go, You go, he/she goes, We go, you all go, they go).
5. No accents or umlauts added to vowels
6. No rediculously complex rules for making something plural
7. No "formal speech" (ie. you call your Boss "you" the same way you call your child "you" and in both cases the verb is second person singular)
8. Future tense is expressed by a word like "tomorrow" and not by a verb conjugation.
All that being said, the easiest langauge to learn remains Indonesian (from what I'm told). No verb conjugations, to make something plural you say it twice, and when writing it you put a "2" next to it. ...and a bunch of other easy stuff that I can't remember at the moment cuz I just wrote all that stuff about Russian and my fingers hurt.
IronFist
Galadriel
03-20-2002, 07:57 AM
Its a bit of a long read, but quite good !!
Galadriel
Dearest creature in creation
Studying English pronunciation
I shall teach you in my verse
Sounds like corps, corpse, horse, and worse.
I shall keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy,
Tear in eye your hair you'll tear,
Queer fair seer, hear my prayer!
Pray, console your loving poet,
Make my coat look new, dear, sew it!
Just compare heart, beard and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain
(Mind the latter, how it's written).
Made has not the sound of bade;
Say, said, pay, paid, laid but plaid.
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as vague and ague.
But be careful how you speak,
Say gush, bush, steak, streak, break, bleak;
Previous, precious, fuchsia, via,
Recipe, pipe, studding sail, choir;
Woven, oven, how and low;
Script, receipt, shoe, poem, toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery:
Daughter, laughter and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, ailes,
Exiles, similes, reviles,
Wholly, holly, signal, signing,
Same, examining, but mining;
Scholar, vicar and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far.
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label,
Petal, penal and canal
Waint, surmise, plait, promise, pal.
Suit, suite, ruin, circuit, conduit,
Rhyme with "shirk it" and "beyond it".
But is it not hard to tell
Why it's pal, mall, but Pall Mall.
Muscle, muscular, goal, iron,
Timber, climber, bullion, lion;
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Ivy, privy, famous. Clamour
Has the "a" of drachma and hammer.
Fussy, hussy, and possess,
Desert, dessert, address
From desire - desirable, admirable from admire;
Lumber, plumber, bier but brier/briar;
Chatham, brougham, renown but known,
Knowledge, gone, but done and tone!
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel.
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Tortoise, turquoise, chamois-leather,
Reading, Reading (the town), heathen,
Heather. This phonetic labyrinth
Gives moss, gross, brook, brooch, mirth, plinth!
Billet does not end like ballet,
Wallet, mallet, bouquet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like good,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Bouquet is not nearly parquet,
Which most often rhymes with khaki.
Discount, viscount, load and broad;
Forward, toward, but reward.
Ricochet, croqueting, croquet. Right!
Your pronunciation's okay.
Sounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Don't forget: It's heave but heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven
We say, hallow, but allow,
People, leopard, tow and vow.
Mark the difference, moreover,
Between, mover, plover,
Dover! Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice.
Shoes, goes, does; now first say "finger";
Then say "singer, ginger, linger".
Real, seal; mauve, gauze and gauge.
Marriage, foliage, mirage, age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Cost, lost, post, and doth, cloth, loth/loath;
Job, Job, blossom, bosom, oath.
Say "oppugnant" but "oppugns";
Sowing, bowing. Banjo tunes
Sound in yachts or in canoes. Puisne, truism, use, to use. Though the difference seems little, Do say "actual" but "victual". Seat, sweat, earn; Leigh, light and height, Put, pus, granite and unite. Refer does not rhyme with deafer, Feoffor, Kaffir, zephyr, heifer. Dull, bull; Geoffrey, late and eight, Hint but pint, senate, sedate. Scenic, Arabic, Pacific, Science, conscience, scientific. Gas, alas, and Arkansas (the state), Balsam, almond. You want more? Golf, wolf; countenance; lieutenants Host in lieu of flags left pennants. Courier, courtier; tomb, bomb, comb; Cow but Cowper, some and home. Stranger does not rhyme with anger, Neither devour with clangour. Soul but foul, and gaunt but aunt; Font, front, wont, want, grand and grant. Arsenic, specific, scenic, Relic, rhetoric, hygienic. Gooseberry, goose, and close but close, Paradise, rise, rose and dose. Say inveigh, neigh, and inveigle make the latter rhyme with eagle. Mind! Meandering but mean, Serpentine and magazine. And I bet you, dear, a penny, You say manifold like many, Which is wrong. Say rapier, pier, Tier (one who ties), but tier. Arch, archangel! Pray, does erring Rhyme with herring or with stirring? Prison, bison, treasure-trove, Treason, hover, cover, cove. Perseverance, severance. Ribald Rhymes (but piebald doesn't) with nibbled. Phaeton, paean, gnat, ghat, gnaw Lien, phthisis, shone, bone, pshaw. Don't be down, my own, but rough it, And distinguish buffet - buffet! Brook, stood, rook, school, wool and stool, Worcester, Boleyn, foul and ghoul. With an accent pure and sterling You say year, but some say yearling. Evil, devil, mezzotint - Mind the "z"! (a gentle hint.) Now you need not pay attention To such words as I don't mention: Words like pores, pause, pours and paws Rhyming with the pronoun "yours". Proper names are not included, Though I often heard, as you did, Funny names like Glamis and Vaughan, Ingestre, Tintagel, Strachan. Nor, my maiden fair and comely, Do I want to speak of Cholmondeley Or of Froude (compared with proud It's no better than Macleod). Sea, idea, Guinea, area, Psalm, Maria but malaria. Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean, Doctrine, turpentine, marine. Compare alien with Italian, Dandelion with battalion, Sally with ally. Yea, ye, Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, hey, quay. Say aver but ever, fever, Neither, leisure, skein, receiver. Never guess, it is not safe; We say calves, valves, half, but Ralph. Heron, granary, canary, Crevice, but device and eyrie, Face, but preface and grimace, Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass, Bass (the fish); gin, give and verging, Ought, oust, joust, scour and scourging. Ear but earn. Mind! Wear and tear Do not rhyme with "here" but "ear". Row, row, sow, sow, bow, bow, bough; Crow but brow. Please, tell me now: What's a slough and what's a slough? (Make these rhyme with "cuff" and "cow"). Seven is right, but so is even, Hyphen, roughen, nephew, Stephen. Monkey, donkey, clerk but jerk; Asp, grasp, wasp, demesne, cork, work. Say serene but sirene. Psyche must be made to rhyme with "spiky". It's a dark abyss or tunnel, Strewn with stones like whoop and gunwale, Islington, but Isle of Wight, Houswife, verdict but indict - Don't you think so, reader, rather, Saying gather, bather, lather? Tell me, which rhymes with enough, Though, Through, plough, cough, lough or tough? Hiccough has the sound of "cup" - My advice is - give it up. George de Trenite
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