english

[Enforcer Talen]

31st-Century English: Let's get this straight, although I speak English, I'm not its biggest fan. What we have here is a language that began as a bad habit shared by Norman soldiers and Saxon barmaids who discovered that if they shared that habit they could share other things. Then the island empire they populated went all imperial and the bad habit was exported to at least four other continents. Then their colonies compounded the problem by revolting and splintering the language, and then insisting on the right to absorb other cultures ad hoc and ad nauseum (but not ad-free, unless you subscribe.)
Give me your tired, your poor
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
And I will give them a horrible new language to speak,
Which they will then mutate even more. (emphasis added*)
And then, as if that wasn't bad enough, one of the colonies began exporting soldiers and technology across the face of the planet so that this mutated, awkward tongue became the de facto standard for business.
Needless to say, when Earthmen went to space and joined Galactic civilization, the language of corruption, conquest, and compromise struck the rest of the galaxy like a plague. It was like influenza among the native americans, or that Apple virus uploaded by that one guy during the Independence Day movie. Our galactic neighbors never stood a chance.

The worst part... Earth never apologized, and the descendents of the ancient royal families of the former British Empire (now comprising less than a billionth of a percent of the galaxy's English-speakers) continued to insist that everyone else was talking funny.

http://www.schlockmercenary.com ^^

[XaLEv]

I love Schlock Mercenary.

[Master of Ossus]

The problems with English primarily stem from the Age of Reason (ironically). During that time, English words (a Germanic language) were wedded to a Latin grammatical structure. That caused all sorts of serious flaws, because the language did not and could not fit together. These problems have never been resolved, and to this day English remains one of the most challenging languages to learn because its sentence structure is so complicated and nearly every verb is irregular in at least one tense.

[Colonel Olrik]

These problems have never been resolved, and to this day English remains one of the most challenging languages to learn because its sentence structure is so complicated and nearly every verb is irregular in at least one tense.

You must be kidding kidding kidding. English is almost too easy. At least when compared with latin languages (don't know about the others)

Damn it, sometimes I think my english better than my portuguese.

We have far more verbal tenses, our phrases can get far more complex and we have more signals than english (` ç ~, for example)

eu sou I am
tu és you are
ele é he is
nós somos we are
vós sois
eles são they are


Did you get the difference?

And to be is an irregular verb. For a regular one:

I loved Eu amei
you loved tu amaste
he loved ele amou
we loved nós amámos
they loved vós amástes
they loved eles amaram

We don't have niceties as regular verbs..

[Master of Ossus]

No, I stand by my statement. English's grammatical structure is surprisingly complex. I don't know of a single "rule" for English grammar that does not have at least one categorical exception, and three other word-specific exceptions, and to speak English fluently requires nearly 15,000 words, while even the most complex Latin languages only require about 10,000 ones. Especially for people coming from Eastern Europe and Asia, English is a VERY challenging language to learn. It can even be very difficult for people speaking languages that are roughly based on the same grammar, like Spanish, Portuguese, and French. The lack of a subjunctive tense is balanced by the ridiculous number of exceptions for grammatical rules, and the irregularity of nearly EVERY verb in the English language, requiring rote memorization (which most native-speakers do unconsciously between the ages of 6 months and five years).

[Colonel Olrik]

It can even be very difficult for people speaking languages that are roughly based on the same grammar, like Spanish, Portuguese, and French. The lack of a subjunctive tense is balanced by the ridiculous number of exceptions for grammatical rules, and the irregularity of nearly EVERY verb in the English language, requiring rote memorization (which most native-speakers do unconsciously between the ages of 6 months and five years).

For languages other than latins, I cannot say.

But making oneself understandable doesn't require the perfect domination of the language. And while english certainly has LOTS of exceptions in the grammatical rules, those are simpler than portuguese. So, I will certainly make several mistakes with verbs, like meaned instead of meant, but I still be easily understood and understand native english. Portuguese, on the other hand, has more than ten past tenses for starters.
All verbs are irregular. Phrases are much longer and strongly ponctuated with comas and semicomas.
It has accents like ´,` and ~,^ which confound even native speakers.

So, in the end it's going to be harder to an english native speaker to be able to learn enough to make himself understood in portuguese [meaning latin languages] than otherwise

[Master of Ossus]

So, in the end it's going to be harder to an english native speaker to be able to learn enough to make himself understood in portuguese [meaning latin languages] than otherwise

I can buy that.