Spelling "reforms" in English.

Chagen

INUH's right.

I actually have one argument for English left--its massive lexicon--but I'm too tired of fighting.

ClockworkUniverse

Okay, I'd say that one actually is a good feature of English (I'm not saying it doesn't have it's upsides), though it's another one that makes learning the language difficult.

But yeah, it's probably best to drop the issue.

Chagen

Well, I'm not arguing for English's superiority anymore.

To be honest, English is a boring language. It's horribly clinical due to using word order and preposititions to indicate case. It's lexicon lets it hold with other languages--such as in Russian, where due to case ending indicating grammatic function, sentences can be in any order ("I ran home" is as correct as "Ran I home", "Home I ran", "I home ran", etc.). Due to this, words can be placed at the front to emphasize that word in the sentence, something English can't do.

vandro

"Ir" is descendant of latin ire and vado. It is an irregular verb, genius. Would you mind explaining "go"?

Chagen

....What does a Germanic verb have to do with a Italic Irregular verb?

vandro

Deboss is making a counterargument of my proposition with "ir", which would be okay if "go" weren't the same shit.

Chagen

Very important verbs in languages are almost always irregular.

"To be" is extremely irregular in almost all languages. Such as in German. The infinitive is "sein", and the conjugated forms are....."bin", "bist", "ist", "seid", and "sind".

vandro

To be in spanish is 

ser

Soy, Eres, Es, Somos, Sois, Son

estar

Estoy, Estas, Está, Estamos, Estáis, Están.

MillerCross

"To be" is probably the make or break point for everyone who is learning the language.

Also, "ir" = "fue"

Go = Went.

...I never understood why people have such a big damn problem with that...

(Yes, I know I should mention other conjugations, but whatever, not in the mood)

Chagen

Juan:Dude, "to be" is easy to learn. I can get learn a language's form of it easily.

I learn Irregular verbs incredibly quickly. Maybe because I'm used to then in English.

MillerCross

Juan:Dude, "to be" is easy to learn. I can get learn a language's form of it easily.

From a English as a Foreign Language perspective, I meant

Chagen

Well...speaking of irregular verbs:

My German/English bilingual dictionary has a table of English irrgular verbs for German users, and a table of German irregular verbs for English users. I counted them up (these are rough and may be slightly off):

English: 152

German: 131

English isn't the only language with an irregular verb problem. It seems to be a problem in Germanic languages in general.

Katrika

Wow, I didn't know that about very important verbs. That's pretty fascinating.

I read somewhere that when babies cry, they tend to cry in more falling tones if the language spoken around them emphasizes them, and in more rising tones if the language spoken around them emphasizes that. So depending on what language is spoken around them, babies actually cry differently.

Chagen

Do note, however, that German's irregular verbs are much more "regular" than English's irregular verbs.

Look at a regular verb conjugation in German

"gehen (to go)"= Ich gehe,Du gehst, Er/Sie/Es) geht, Wir gehen, Ihr geht, sie gehen, Sie gehen"

Verbs in german almost always end in "-en". You take that off and then the appropiate stem for the verb's subject.

Here's two examples of irregular verbs:

"geben (to give)"= Ich gebe, Du gibst, Er/Sie/Es gibt, Wir geben, Ihr gebt, sie geben, Sie geben

"fallen (to fall)"= Ich falle, Du fällst, Er/Sie/Es fällt, Wir fallen, Ihr fallt, sie fallen, Sie fallen

As you can see, German irregular verbs are almost always only irregular in the "Du" and "Er/Sie/Es" forms--second-person singular and third person singular. Not only that, but the "irregularities" are very regular themselves--either the addition of an umlaut to the first letter in the verb than can take an umlaut (as in "fallen", or simply changing the first vowel to something else (as in :geben").

Also, many of these irregular verbs are put in the past tense normally (usually the addition of "ge-" to the front), unlike English where verbs can be different in the past tense ("think/thought", "shoot/shot", etc.).

...Whew....

Just wanted to inform you guys. This post probably is pointless, right?

Chagen

Well, this thread died.

And that post was a waste of ten minutes.

Komodin

Patience is a virtue, son. Most of us have other things to do besides complain.

Chagen

That post wasn't even complianing, it was a random factoid on German grammar.

CaptainFargle

Is the fact that I'm learning Dutch relevant? 

Ik kan en beetje Nederlandse spreken. 

nohaynicklibre

The only languages I hate are Latin and ancient Greek,because I'm forced to learn them at school, and it's hard to like a language you consistently fail. I'd love to learn German or Japanese (though I wouldn't learn Kanji, that's like the stupidest thing ever)

CaptainFargle

What school are you going to that forces you to learn Latin and Ancient Greek? I thought having those as part of a mandatory curriculum had died out?

nohaynicklibre

WELCOME TO SPAIN,ENJOY LEARNING USELESS LANGUAGES

>Greek
>4 hours per week
>Latin
>Another 4 hours per week
>English
>3 hours per week
>People is surprised when young Spaniards can't talk English

Though you only have to learn them depending of the kind of education you choose

Chagen

"Is the fact that I'm learning Dutch relevant? 

Ik kan en beetje Nederlandse spreken. "

Well, Dutch is a Germanic language, so yeah.

Also, wow, German and Dutch have quite a few similarities: Ich/Ik, kann/kan, sprache/spreken.....

nohaynicklibre

Hey Chagen random question what is your opinion in Esperanto?

CaptainFargle

Seriously, you have to spend more time studying Latin than English? Who in the fuck came up with that? Let's see on the one hand we have a dead language, albeit one that a lot of modern languages derive from, and on the other we have the standard language for international communication. Hmmmm, I wonder, which language could possibly be more useful for our students? 

Chagen

Haven't really heard much of it. Not one for conlangs.

But it seems have some similarities with the Italic languages.

CaptainFargle

@Chagen: Dutch is basically what happens when you cross German with English. 

nohaynicklibre

Like I said,it's depending which option of Bachillerato (Twelth grade) you choose. If you choose one oriented to social studies you have to, but if you choose Science you only study English. (French is optional in both)

Also Chagen another question, what do you think about Basque? I find it quite interesting.

CaptainFargle

Over here when you reach Year 8 you have to start learning French then in Year 9 (Or was it Year 10? Given that I'm only 21 you'd think I'd still remember which Year it was) you pick a second language to also study, either Spanish or German. 

GLORIOUSLeader

Wait why you learn Greek

nohaynicklibre

A lot of Spanish words come from Greek. Scratch that, a lot of words in any language come from Greek