What is the easiest language for an English speaker?

Baldewin   Wed Feb 03, 2010 9:47 pm GMT
Some people (mostly high class) use the subjunctive nonetheless whenever they can, because they like the nuances it carries along over the modal 'zullen' (used in the past form 'zouden'). You can make grammar rules official (and ignore that subjunctive), but that never denotes the sociological reality of some backgrounds of course.
Also happens in more 'synthetic' language, some people speak it so primitively they ignore the official subtleties. Dutch erodes its own subtleties despite people who keep using them nonetheless, especially after they learned German they do that.
Baldewin   Wed Feb 03, 2010 9:48 pm GMT
German and French are officially more 'complete'. Dutch and English are officially more 'eroded'.
Baldewin   Wed Feb 03, 2010 9:58 pm GMT
<<English and Dutch both use the subjunctive here, but the Dutch one differs morphologically, as the indicative mood would have made it 'heeft'.
English only seems to have it with the verb 'to be', but subconsciously it still exists in those forms that don't show it morphologically. >>

Correction: English shows it in third person in the singular for all verb except for 'to be'. Anyway, subjunctive is a tense to be proud of. I hope the past subjunctive will survive a long time in French.
pemphigean   Wed Feb 03, 2010 10:02 pm GMT
<<German and French are officially more 'complete'. Dutch and English are officially more 'eroded'. >>

Aent Modern French and German pretty 'incomplete' when compared to something like Sanskrit, or even classical Latin?
* * *   Wed Feb 03, 2010 10:21 pm GMT
"Aent Modern French and German pretty 'incomplete' when compared to something like Sanskrit, or even classical Latin?"

Even compared to Italian or Spanish (they still use past subjunctive whilst it has died out in French)
Leasnam   Wed Feb 03, 2010 10:30 pm GMT
Well, English, German, Dutch, etc have not forlet the subjunctive, only morphological indicators have been dropped as pertaining to inflection.

Take English for instance, we still have the subjunctive mood, but it is expressed in a newer, less ambiguous way, by note of modals:

-Older English-
If the whole body were an eye, then where were the hearing?

-Modern English-
If the whole body were and eye, then where *would* the hearing *be*?



-Older English-
Though it rain tomorrow, I will still go.

-Modern English-
Although it *might rain* tomorrow, I will still go.
Baldewin   Thu Feb 04, 2010 4:31 pm GMT
French is incomplete, because they have ruled out the pluralis majestatis.
Example: "j'espérons" should be used by our king, but alas he says "j'espère". And why have they ruled out the 'oblique case'? What was that good for? Was it to feel 'different' from Italians?

Now seriously, what I meant was, the standard language is more or less an artificial language steered from above, granted it doesn't differ too much from the local dialect. The subjunctive still exists in Dutch, but they have abolished it officially according to the grammars as taught to children, even when they very well could teach it.
If the Germans decide tomorrow to abolish the genitive and use a construction with the dative instead ("der Dativ ist dem Genitiv sein Tod") and use the conditional where they previously used the subjunctive mood, then that's how German would develop if the masses weren't to protest against this (which they nowadays of course would). It wouldn't mean for that genitive to don't exist anymore, it just wouldn't be registered enough to be generally taught.

I'm of course talking about 'existing rules' in a 'same language', not about more analytic languages compared to synthetic ones and/or to obscure ancestral variants of a very language.
The cases are, for instance, very dead in Dutch (more than the subjunctive), but also they still exist in fossils. Still, it would be weirder using them actively than it would using the subjunctive. I think getting rid of cases and the subjunctive mood was a political decision in 'being different' from German.
encore   Thu Feb 04, 2010 5:25 pm GMT
<<Example: "j'espérons" should be used by our king, but alas he says "j'espère".>>
How does he say it in Dutch?
Baldewin   Thu Feb 04, 2010 8:52 pm GMT
He says "ik hoop" or does he say "wij hopen"? Frankly, I don't care about some monarchy they've installed in the XIXth century...
The French language is interesting here because they also use the singular pronoun and combine it with the plural tense (unlike other languages I know of).

Apparently he doesn't, by the way: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jk51gBQeWoM
He's says "ik zweer" and not "wij zweren", but you hear the conjunctive being used (by the announcer) and also the genitive (by the king).

By the way, check out this "vive la République" shout by Julien Lahaut. Back in the day it was still possible to have 'unwanted elements' to be 'liquidated' and that's what happened with him back in the day.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7DqxAQrtbs

Also,
<<Even compared to Italian or Spanish (they still use past subjunctive whilst it has died out in French>>

Francophones still pretend this past subjunctive is part of everyday-speech and erudite people keep using it nonetheless. It hasn't died out, it has only become so rare most native speakers don't bother with it.

Encore eût-il fallu que vous le sussiez!

And that's what I mean with 'completeness'. You ought to still make mention of archaic rules as used by certain circles, if you're proud of your language and see it as more than just a mere medium of communication that is.
Juan   Fri Feb 05, 2010 4:07 am GMT
Yo creo que hispanyol es muy façil pora los estadounydos. Françese es muy difiçil en la pronunciaçion, ma hispanyol no es. Todos los americanos deben aprender fablar hispanyol. Yo aprender el hispanyol por 3 semanas.
Usero   Fri Feb 05, 2010 4:31 am GMT
Juan, are you Portuguese or Brazilian?
Juan   Fri Feb 05, 2010 4:47 am GMT
No sé quién soi, soy el fruto de un burdel internaçional con putas de todos los páises. Así que puede que sea Brasileño, pero tamvién podría ser albanés o tailandés.
Juan   Fri Feb 05, 2010 5:19 am GMT
^ El no es me.
Leasnam   Fri Feb 05, 2010 1:13 pm GMT
<<The French language is interesting here because they also use the singular pronoun and combine it with the plural tense (unlike other languages I know of>>

Doesn't Normaund also do this? "j'avouns" for "nous avons", etc?
To Leasnam   Fri Feb 05, 2010 3:32 pm GMT
Yes, that language does that.