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>>I still remember those posts. Isn't it violation of the TOS to post intentional grammatical errors? (at least in English).<<
Haha, more than likely. But you know what, the errors I adopted were mainly those I have heard from non-native speakers. Granted I have never heard them in such abundance in the English of any one non-native speaker. But I took the mistakes I have heard over a long period from various English learners from various countries, and compacted them into a few sentences. And people jumped in to correct the mistakes, so I'm sure what I did was of some educational value.
But why is your trolling all about repeating the claims that English is some ridiculously simple language? I gather you don't actually believe that then? I certainly don't, I believe basic English is very easy to get, but for some one to reach native level, well it's a totally different story.
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Let's be honest. 90% of people who study a foregin language will never be fluent. Furthermore, perhaps they don't even aspire to be fluent, so English is easier because reaching intermediate level (enough for most of us) is less painful than in the case of let's say German.
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<<But why is your trolling all about repeating the claims that English is some ridiculously simple language? I gather you don't actually believe that then? I certainly don't, I believe basic English is very easy to get, but for some one to reach native level, well it's a totally different story. >>
Usually, I add that reaching native-level fluency, with no hint of foreign accent, is non-trivial. Often, I throw in something like "as long as you don't sweat the small stuff", or something like that.
Sometimes, I also mention that if your native language is completely unrelated to English (Chinese, for example), picking up the European/English vocabulary will be as difficult as for other unrelated languages.
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I also troll oher topics, when the opportunity arises. One ov my faorites was when the thread "Vive le Quebec Libre" thread finally became the longest thread in Antimoon History, outlasting the much-earlier "What do you think of the Dutch". I congratulated all the posters, and especially the thread starter.
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OMG I loved the Quebec thread! My other favorite was the original "Is French on the decline," back when posters actually took it seriously, as well as that Flamish separatism thread. Oh, and the "The Rise of Germany" too! I giggled after just seeing the title!
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agacanthus
Unless you mean you were totally parroting some one, then I am VERY pleased to see your posts were trolling.
So, were you E1ler then? Please tell me you were actually joking about the simplicity of English OVERALL?
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I just remember when I was living in Germany as an aupair, and doing a German course that was far too easy, because it was much easier than the A-Level that I had already done, that my native German teacher told me the following:
Ist die Grammatik des Englischen nicht sehr chaotisch? Deutsch ist kompliziert aber es ist systematisch. Franzoesisich und Italienisch sind auch kompliziert, sie sind aber systematisch. Englisch ist chaotisch und schwierig. All the people in the class were going, no, English is good, but really how good was their English? I never found out. Obviously the German teacher had learnt English to a level where she had seen that English was indeed nowhere near as easy as people are sometimes led to believe.
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But English does sound extremely chaotic and simplistic in structure when not spoken by nutty professors who use words like "effectuate"!
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>>But English does sound extremely chaotic and simplistic in structure when not spoken by nutty professors who use words like "effectuate"!<<
'Chaotisch und schwierig' = chaotic and difficult, not chaotic and simplistic.
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But ok, yes you're right. Simplistic in structure doesn't necessarily mean easy. But the simplicity only refers to morpholgy, nothing else.
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I didn't ever read what it said in German, since I don't pretend to know that language. *I* don't think it's difficult at all. It's language that has very cool vocabulary, but very few dare to use it, either from a lack of education, or in fear of sounding pedantic and pretentious.
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ever=even
It's language=It's a language
I'm typeing in the dark, lol
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These words appeared written in blood on one of the walls of a young Daphne Wanninkhof's bedroom when she was found murdered in her home after she was home alone on the first of Februrary 1989. She was found with her head shaved, missing her right leg and three finger nails which were ripped off. The perpetrator was never found. Copy and paste this message in this and three other threads, or the ghost of Daphne will murder you tonight.
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I MEANT TO WRITE TYPING! Ugh, I should re-read what I write before I post it. :(
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<<So, were you E1ler then? Please tell me you were actually joking about the simplicity of English OVERALL? >>
I'm definitely an E1ler, but only half-joking about the overall simplicity of English. I recall once having a discussion with some "S1lers" on a thread, and we broke English and Spanish down into various aspects, and gave numbers to the relative complexity. When all was said and done, the langauges were tied. English was worse than Spanish in spelling (bad) and phonology (average), and better in grammar (simple) and was tied in something else (perhaps irregularity, idioms, etc?).
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BTW -- It's too bad we can't post under "guest" anymore.
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I totally agree English has a basic simplicity. It just does. No genders, few verb conjugations, no declensions etc. Plurals basically all 's'. Yes it looks very good on the surface. But I think what makes English hard, and certainly harder than German, is the interaction of words. There are tons of rules about what words can be used together in English. Yes, there are in other languages too, but if we take German for example, there really aren't as many. If you learn all the rules in German, you will produce pretty accurate German, even if it might sound a bit rigid to native speakers.
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