here’s some I’ve noticed:
- Why do we have articles? They’re mostly useless.
- Why do capital letters exist? (this is mainly an issue with the Greek and Latin alphabet though)
- Why is “I” used plural for verbs?
- Why are there so many inconsistent prefixes for tenses?
- 's is used for possessives. However, “its” is the possessive and “it’s” is not.
- Why do we have another set of pronouns for possessive pronouns?
- Why do adjectives go before the noun compared to basically every other language?
My biggest gripe as a non native speaker is phrasal verbs.
Unless you know exactly what they mean, you are screwed. You can’t decypher them, there’s no link between the meaning of the component parts and the phrasal verb.
As my English teacher used to tell us jokingly: you should never say: “I get on with my brother, but I get off with my sister”.
Do other languages not have these? (Or fewer of them?)
What’s your native language if you don’t mind me asking?
Fascinating concept.
Interestingly I’ve heard from other people that Chinese languages are made difficult to learn for similar reasons. I wonder if this is actually a similarity between those languages and English
I’m French. I’m not aware of any other language that radically modifies the meaning of verbs with propositions in such a way.
As a foreigner, you might expect that break up and break down have opposite meanings because up and down do, but nope.
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We might have some silent letters, vestigial remnant of ancient forms, but English has basically no rule for pronunciation. It’s so funny watching English speakers debate among themselves how a name should be pronounced.
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Similar with saying place names - The Map Men (men men men) tried to explain the ‘rules’, and concluded that there was no alternative but to learn the pronunciation of each place individually
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYNzqgU7na4