International Language

Postby Daniel » Fri Mar 21, 2008 6:07 am

I totally second that. 100%.

Postby K.C. » Sat Mar 22, 2008 7:14 am

I agree as well. However, when I talked to people who had to learn English as a second language, they found it difficult to learn because there are so many ways to say the same thing. This might be the reason why some people are loath to learn English.

Postby Nuclearo » Sun Mar 23, 2008 5:12 am

I agree that all languages have their rough spots. The main thing I don't like in English is that the same word can be read in many ways with different meanings. Sure, this exists in Hebrew too, but there are ways to 'dot' a word so it's clear how it's read. My first universal language candidate was Spanish, mainly for ease of reading, but it does still have the problem that most languages have - the same words can be written in many different ways, with only your memory, a dictionary and a gigantic set of vague grammatical rules as guides.

I know I have concentrated mainly on the writing, but this is what I truly believe to be the hardest part of learning a new language. Correct grammar and pronunciation will eventually come from experience. Odd grammar exceptions on things like pluralization and such are really hard to avoid when creating a language, and nearly impossible when a language evolves over thousands of years.
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Postby Fesselfan » Mon Mar 24, 2008 11:43 pm

English is truly hard for non native speakers- especially the right pronouncement is difficult to master, as there are more exceptions than rules.
I poked around a little in esperanto, too- interesting concepts, but sadly not very widespread. By the way... did you know there is even a wikipedia in esperanto? ;)

http://eo.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%88efpa%C4%9Do

I don't know much spanish, but from what I know, the pronounciation there is much simpler than in english.

Another point, I am not too sure if english is the language with the most speakers...don't forget there are an awefull lot of chinese and indian people around the world, too.

It speaks for itself though, that we all discuss this in english ;)


cheers


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