illogicality and languages

i'm going to give some examples of illogic in english because it's not my native language .
1) First you chop a tree down. After that, you chop them up
2) Is something 'flammable' the same as 'inflammable'
3) you can dust the table with flour and then you can remove it if you dust it.
4) You pronounce different 'polish' and 'Polish' .
5) What is the meaning of: This is the book that I don't want to be read to out of up for.
6) etc.

Please can you give examples of illogical sentences in other non-native language .

I don't really remark on any, as I don't see logic having to do much with language. language is communication. It doesn't have to be logical, Mr Spock.

In German:

- a "Flugzeug" (="aircraft") is a tool (Zeug) that flies.
- is a "Flughafen" (="airport") a flying harbour?...

--> And compare "Olivenöl" with "Babyöl": is the latter produced by crushing babies or centrifugating toddlers?...

Actually it doesn't matter: "language is communication. It doesn't have to be logical" — right. As long as everybody gets the concept it's all fine.

5) What is the meaning of: This is the book that I don't want to be read to out of up for.

That looks like nonsense to me.

Spanish is very logical, it does not have those things.

"language is communication. It doesn't have to be logical"
I agree but it makes more difficult the learning (and sometimes funny). For instance(taken from the web):
When the stars are out,
they are visible,
but when the lights are out,
they are invisible.
It says too : English was invented by people across the ages,and it reflects the creativity of the human race (which, of course,isn't a race at all). But that is also valid for other languages .

<<That looks like nonsense to me. >>
Sorry the correct sentence is:
The boy says, 'What did you bring the book that I don't want to be read to out of up for?'"

okay okay

then how about this one:

I stand with my brother
I fight with my brother (on the same side as my brother)
I fight with my brother (against my brother)

More:
Your house burns up as it burns down.
Because she was impregnable, she was impregnable
How is it that 'not pertinent' and 'impertinent' don't mean the same?

<<5) What is the meaning of: This is the book that I don't want to be read to out of up for.>>

lol I like this one. But the last two prepositions... I have no idea what they're referring to... Can you clarify?

<<Can you clarify?>>

'What did you bring the book that I don't want to be read to out of up for?'"

up: bring up

for: what for

刮目相看 - 4-character idiom; "stretch + eye + with one another + see"; being surprised to see something pleasant/nice/good, etc; I used to understand that as using a knife to stretch your eye...

天馬行空 - 4-character idiom; "sky + horse + ride/run/walk + sky (hollow)"; something being very imaginative/ like a myth, often used to appreciate a good imaginative story; that is to say, we think by imaginative you mean you have a lot of horses flying like the

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Claus%27s_reindeer

Reindeer of Santa Claus.

吸引眼球的 + noun - phrase; "attract + eye-ball(s)"; eye-catching; a stunning hot girl/guy should be almost like sucking your eyeballs lol.

Just to name a few. We have a lot more logical things that unfortunately don't exist in English. We have graphical particles, graphical phrases, graphical idioms, graphical nouns, graphical adverbs.... and our speak is like kindergarten speak. That's nice, because you would have a breeze when you get down to it after loads of "hard" work with the funny stuff that made the French call it c'est du chinois.

Even computer languages can have apparent illogicalities. Example:

void (* signal(int, void (*)(int)))(int);

from <signal.h>

oh Gawd
that's not C++ or Java is it?
Ugh!

...anything in C++ is illogical.

I once read an article interview of the creator of C++, that before his death, admitted that he made the language so complicated on purpose to protect the salaries being paid to computer programmers.

Apparently at the time, programmers were being treated as clerical workers, and their salaries were plummeting, so he had to initiate a bunch of [stupid--(my opinion)]rules to make C++ so hard, that no one could use it and companies would have to pay more for people who could code it.

Apparently it worked.
(sigh), true, I benefit from "The Lie", but in my heart I know it ain't right : |

That code is (originally) C, the creator of C++ is still alive, the article about C++ being intentionally hard was a joke, and one of the creators of C wrote an article about why he chose that syntax (among many other things).

http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/chist.html