complexity of languages

''to put'' can be translated as ''stellen'', but, depending on the context, as ''setzen'' or ''legen'' as well. If you learn English, you'll taught:

to put = setzen, stellen, legen

''nebeneinanderstellen'' is not ''put on''.

>>To the untrained eye, it sure looks like once again German is a lot more complex than English in this regard. Comparing "nebeneinanderstellen" with something like "put on", sure seems to illustrate the relative simplicity of English. (I have no idea if these two mean the same -- the odds are they don't.)<<

You mean because the German is longer? The meaning of that word is much easier to work out, as you can discern the meaning from breaking it down 'neben-einander-stellen' 'to put next to each other'. You can hardly guess all the meanings of 'to put on' from the individual words.

Still I agree some of these type of words in German can be difficult to remember, things like 'angeben' and 'vorgeben'.

Al <nebeneinanderstellen> = Fr <juxtaposer> <rapprocher>

Al <nebeneinanderbauen> <nebeneinanderbinden> = Fr <accoler>

<<So, if you ask to a Japanese if is more difficult Spanish or Arabic, the answer will be probably Arabic. That is because they know, at least, a basic English (more related to Spanish than to Arabic).

Another example. If you ask to a Moroccan if is more difficult English or Chinese, the answer will be Chinese. Almost all of them speak, at least, a basic French, a language more similar to English than Chinese.>>

Albeit it's very likely to get these answers, this kind of argumentation doesn't proof anything.

Anyway, the difficulty of English is due to his crazy pronuntiation. It is more logic the phonetics of German (and almost any other language).

For instance "a" has several pronuntiations depending on the word (I think 6 different sounds):

It can be /e/ in "many", /o/ in "was", /æ/ in "cat", /a:/ in "car", /ë/ in "about", /ei/ in "table", etc.

Spanish for instance has only one for "a": /a/ in "gato". The standard sound of "a" doesn't exist in English, for instance. (German has only two sounds).

So, it is incredible that the most standard and easy sound for "a" doesn't exist in English. And there are 6 different sounds of "a" instead of one, without any standard rule.


In short, English is not an easy language. It is a compulsory language in my country, and almost no one has a good command of this language (written a little better, but not speaking).

<<So, it is incredible that the most standard and easy sound for "a" doesn't exist in English. And there are 6 different sounds of "a" instead of one, without any standard rule.
>>

Not to conflict with your opinion: I totally agree that English spelling is archaic and atrocious, and needs reform; but there are some simple loose rules which govern how we pronounce certain sounds under certain circumstances. It's not *totally* without some logic.

For instance: 'a' sandwiched between a 'w-sound' and an 'r' will be pronounced as an 'o'. cf. "war" "dwarf" "quarter" "warmth" etc

,and 'a' following a 'w-sound' otherwise will be pronounced as a long 'a'. cf. "water" "wash" "swat" etc; or unstressed as in "what [hwat]" "was" etc. "whack" and "wham" are the only two exceptions I know of to this rule. (this is similar to the situation regarding 'o'. Between 'w-sound' and 'r' it's modified to 'u' cf. "word" (wurd), "worship" "work", where otherwise it's a short 'u-sound' as in "wonder" or an open sound as in "wop" "wok" etc)

'a' before 'l' and 'r' are almost universally pronounced as 'a' in 'gato', maybe a little longer, but nearly the same value ("shall" is an exception). When the 'l' & 'r' are doubled in words like "marry", "hallow", the value is shortened to 'a' in 'that'.

otherwise, in stressed syllables, 'a' is either 'a' in 'bath' (US) or 'a' in 'bath' (UK). This is dialectal variation.
on the other hand, I do see a dilema in "father" and "lather".

now, I know I have shown A LOT of exceptions...and that's because they exist, but you *can* see that there is some semblance of a pattern to all this craziness.

>>For instance: 'a' sandwiched between a 'w-sound' and an 'r' will be pronounced as an 'o'. cf. "war" "dwarf" "quarter" "warmth" etc <<

Unless there is an 'e' on the end, in which case we have 'ware'.

too many *$#*%^# rules

Some aspects of English which are, in my opinion, more complex than German:

Tense and aspect system

In spoken German mainly simple present, past perfect and one future used (although future can also be expressed with the present)

In English you have to choose between simple and progressive, simple past or present perfect, whether to use 'will' or 'going to'. You also have to decide whether to add the modal verb 'do' for emphasis.

Word order

At first sight German, with its rules about the verb going to the end in subordinate clauses, seems more complex. However word order is consistent, unlike English, which although mainly SVO, sometimes inverts word order so that the verb comes before the subject i.e. 'Only then did he realise' There is no real rule to this. Note also the auxilliary verb 'do' also needs to be added here. But it doesn't always. 'In the town lived a young girl'. Or 'Among those involved in the crime were two teenagers' Now the subject is right at the otehr end of the sentence. Also position of adverbs is inconsistent.

Expressing the concept of 'to become' In German it's almost always 'werden'. In English it can be variously 'become', 'get', 'go', 'turn', 'go', 'come'

Passive constructions

Following on from the last one, passive constructions are always formed with 'werden' in German. In English it sometimes sounds right to use 'to be', at other times 'to get'

Indirect object

Again at first sight german is more complicated because of the dative case. However once you understand this the construction is almost always consistent. Compare to the mixture of word order and preposition usage in English 'I gave her the book' and 'I gave the book to her' are both correct, but only 'I suggested the idea to her' is correct, while 'I suggested her the idea' isn't. I suspect most learners of English don't pay to much attention to this though, since it's a common error.

Babel : « Anyway, the difficulty of English is due to his crazy pronuntiation. It is more logic the phonetics of German (and almost any other language). »

Désolé de te contredire mais la prononciation de l'anglais n'a rien d'une folie : la phonologie de l'allemand est certainement plus riche. En revanche l'anglais écrit est une très mauvaise représentation de l'anglais oral.

<<<En revanche l'anglais écrit est une très mauvaise représentation de l'anglais oral. >>>

same for French, greg - can i orat il ün réform?

<<<<<En revanche l'anglais écrit est une très mauvaise représentation de l'anglais oral. >>>

same for French, greg - can i orat il ün réform? >>

Yes, French spelling could use some modernizing; HOWEVER (and I cannot believe I'm doing this) but I have to agree with greg that English is very bad, even worse in my opinion.

French orthography, even when it indicates dropped letters/sounds (acute accent & circumflex) and when it is formed to hint at the origin/evolution of a word (inserted letters like the 'g' in vingt<vint), is still fairly regular ('ou' is invariably pronounced as long 'u' isn't it?). You just have to accustom yourself to the spelling vs the pronunciation. Once that's fixed, one has little difficulty correctly pronouncing new words. It's almost instinctual...

Not the case with English unfortunately...

<<Once that's fixed, one has little difficulty correctly pronouncing new words. It's almost instinctual... >>

It's not so clear that you can accurately guess the (French) spelling of a new word you just heard, though.

If we talk of complex or simple languages, we should try not to consider oversophisticated speak of modern people in towns but the language spoken by normal people in rural areas speaking about basic things like weather or about what happened to the neighbour last day or telling tales. The orthography of a language is arbitrary and is not connected with its complexity.

<<If we talk of complex or simple languages, we should try not to consider oversophisticated speak of modern people in towns but the language spoken by normal people in rural areas speaking about basic things like weather or about what happened to the neighbour last day or telling tales.>>

Why shouldn't we consider the speech of people in cities, and why do you think that people in cities have more complex speech than those who live in rural areas?