the easyness of english

Or maybe *for the pleasure of doing it* ?

Tochi

Your English seems very good, especially if you've never had the chance to speak it.

What about Spanish? I understand it has complex verb forms and the subjunctive is a bit of a nightmare, but still it is also considered to be a relatively 'easy' language. What do you think?

Sergio :

<ne...pas> = écrit en général — écrit soutenu — oral soutenu — oral affecté — oral registre décalé

<pas> = tout le reste

Thank you, it's not as good as I'd like but at this level it has worked good to me. Possibly Spanish is not so hard for non-Spanish speakers except maybe for some things that English has simplified, like you mention, verb forms. Although they are more or less "predictable" once you learn the endings that correspond to the root of the verb, there are exceptions that must be learned as in any language. It's very funny to hear the children when they are learning to speak how they make strange mixings.

The gender and plural of articles and adjectives is another thing that sometimes is hard to master since some nouns which look female are not and vice-versa. Once I thought that the Spanish subjunctive was not a big problem until I tried to understand how it works. :-)

<<why english language has the most vocabulary is because of the french, latin influences and other foreighn influences like burritos and others. >>

The French influence has relavence. That much I agree with. But "Burritos"????? That sounds a little silly. That would be like saying that that English has a lot of Chinese influence because we use the word "Wor Wonton" soup.

But I agree with you about Spanish grammar Tochi. I'm assuming all the posts from "Guest" were from you, Tochi?

It's annoying in Spanish when you have to constantly differentiate between feminine and masculine, and the various verb tenses, like Tengo, tiene, tienes, tenemos, etc.. And the formal grammar like usted vs. tu. But at the same time, in many cases, Spanish is the easier of the two. It's simplified.

In spoken form, one usually just says "necesito dormir". Whereas in English, you have to say, "I need to sleep." In Spanish, you just converted "I" + "need" into one word, and "to" + "sleep" into one word.

i always thought that vosotros was like vous in french formal but its reverse its unformal in spanish that i never knew

i agree that french and spanish are hard based on the genders and pass tenses

in spanish vosotros habeis comido or ustedes han comido (we have eaten)
has comido? or has tu comido? or es que tu has comido?( have you eaten?)

how is roman bucabulary inferior than english if english is basically latin
i dont know how english fits in that germanic category i dont see any correlations nor similarities

ENGLISH SHOULD BE IN A SEPERATE CATEGORY CALLED GEROMAN LANGUAGES

<<I'm assuming all the posts from "Guest" were from you, Tochi? >>

Only the one where I clarified it.

<<In spoken form, one usually just says "necesito dormir". Whereas in English, you have to say, "I need to sleep." In Spanish, you just converted "I" + "need" into one word, and "to" + "sleep" into one word. >>

I understand what you mean and could be interpreted that way but the
real reason is this, for "I need" you can use "necesito" alone because the verb "necesitar" (to need) is conjugated in first person so the pronoun can be omitted. So it's the same to say "necesito dormir" and "Yo necesito dormir". But in general the pronoun is dropped the most part of the times. In Japanese this works very similar.

With respect to "to sleep" the verb "dormir" is not conjugated at all. The verbs that end with "R" are not conjugated.

nadaR = to swim
comeR = to eat
dormiR = to sleep

English and Spanish share this feature, so if you will translate the form "to"+verb, you just use the Spanish form of the verb without conjugation, it is with the "R" ending.

I need "to sleep" = Necesito "dormiR"
How "to move" your pet = Como "trasladaR" tu mascota

There is another form of "to"+verb in English that could change the meaning and where the prior explanation won't work for the word "to" and it must be translated as "para".

(EN) How "to use" your iPod "to move" your music to a new computer.
(SP) Como "usaR" tu iPod "para moveR" tu musica a una nueva computadora.

(EN) Five Reasons "to eat" slowly.
(SP) Cinco razones "para comeR" lentamente.

(EN) Food "to go"
(SP) Comida "para llevaR" (Spanish uses the verb "llevar" (to carry) insted of the English version "ir" (to go) otherwise "comida para ir" doesn't have sense.

'Possibly Spanish is not so hard for non-Spanish speakers except maybe for some things that English has simplified, like you mention, verb forms'

It is funny how the grammatical complexities in the Romance languages seem to revolve more around the verbs, whereas in German they revolve more around the nouns (cases, many different adjective endings, no regular plural form). German verbs are still more complex than English, but from what I understand of Spanish, French and Italian (not that I actually speak much of any Romance languages), there are many more forms and tenses. Likewise the Romance languages still have gender and adjective agreement which English lacks, but still not the complexities of German in this area.