EPTspelling reform in English speaking countries - Page 6
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cronican
Canada424 Posts
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Hunterai
Thailand842 Posts
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Myles
United States5162 Posts
On January 29 2011 04:49 Maenander wrote: So what is so hard about the grammar? Am I missing something? English actually uses a lot of great simplifications, I like it. I can't comment on how German works as I only learned it for a week in high school, but compared to Spanish our verb conjugations are plain stupid. Someone earlier posted a bit on it, but many times you have to add an extra word while other times you don't. We also have so many words that are said and spelled the same but mean very different things. And of course how everyone loves to say we break our own rules way more than other languages(though I've heard that its an exaggeration, so I can't say for sure). | ||
tofucake
Hyrule19180 Posts
After a bit of time, you'll also have no problem with Irish, Scottish, and English. Nobody will ever understand Bostonian. For example, when I first started playing Eve, I could barely understand Kwark, as I was not used to his accent at all. After a couple days of listening to him, I started to notice the differences between what I knew and what he said, and shortly after that I was able to completely understand him. But my main point is, people are discussing American vs British English. But if you ask either, they both speak English. And then there are dialects (really sub dialects) of both. I can tell the difference between a lot of different British variations (not anything about them, just that they are different). There are dozens of different dialects of English, and each of those has many sub-dialects. It's bound to happen, especially in the US, where we have several states larger than England itself. And regarding the phonetic spelling (or lack thereof) of English...well that's because English uses a simple Roman alphabet to express the sounds from at least a dozen different languages, many of them not Romantic. Add to that our 7 tenses, lack of gender, and odd contraction rules, and you've got yourself a huge mess. And that's before homonyms, homophones, synonyms, suffixes, prefixes, infixes, and extraneous bullshit (aka "irregardless," which actually just means "regardless"). Personally, I prefer Japanese. It's got 2 tenses, it's phonetic, and there are exactly 2 irregular verbs in the entire language. | ||
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nalgene
Canada2153 Posts
They use [ re ] for [ ri ] instead of [ reh ] [ it ] the [ i ] is an [ e ] [ e ] isn't an [ eh ] [ Can ] and [ Kan ] have noticeable differences... A [ ah ] me [meh] ri [ ri ] can [ ka/n ] ( English/Engrish ) Dwarves Dwarfs ( former actually works fine and it sounds slightly different ) Marcus Tullius Cicero ( he dies 110 years prior to the destruction of the holy city/sacking of the temple ) served as defense counsel for trial of flaccus | ||
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Scrimpton
United Kingdom465 Posts
Apparently the average British born English speaker has a vocabulary of 20,000 words, using roughly 2000 different words per week. Highly educated people tend to know between 25,000-50,00 words, but the total count sits at 100,000 official words. This excludes many forms of modern slang and scientific/medical terminology. The definition of a "word" or what is "english" can be played loose and fast and depending on your views of it there have been word counts of 171476 (oxford english dictionary) with 47,000 extra words classed as "obsolete". Some estimates suggest that there are roughly 2,000,000 english words, however in these estimates Words are counted by their possible meanings. This exampl ebeing taken directly from Oxford Dictionary Is dog one word, or two (a noun meaning 'a kind of animal', and a verb meaning 'to follow persistently')? Also browsing TL gets me learning words that I never really come across even as an avid reader of many genre's and classics. Most recently Pedagogical and Sententious have been cool words to use :D | ||
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hejakev
Sweden518 Posts
On January 29 2011 00:25 Perscienter wrote: English is the most important lingua franca in the world and it still lacks a coherent spelling and pronunciation. Especially the former needs to be reformed. Since English has been introduced as a second language in so many countries, it often deteriorates in this regions. Then again not even the U.S.-Americans speak Oxford British English. They had to invent their own style for whatever reasons in the first place. My suggestion is this: adopt the British spelling. U.S.-exclusive vocabulary should be included in the language. Only one English language should be taught in today's schools over the world. Is it really so difficult to write harbour with a 'u'? What do you think? I majored in English and I think it's a fantastic idea! When do we start? | ||
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tofucake
Hyrule19180 Posts
On January 29 2011 05:11 hejakev wrote: I majored in English and I think it's a fantastic idea! When do we start? We start when Finnish becomes the official standard of Scandinavia and all other Scandinavian languages are abolished and outlawed. | ||
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Noxie
United States2227 Posts
I don't see why there needs to be some set standard any how. Is it just for secondary learning purposes? | ||
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Belegorm
United States330 Posts
On the other hand, the way English is written in America tends to match what's said more closely and the written language is more colloquial. It's probably easier for people learning English as a second language (after all, "theater" makes more logical sense, and is more phonetically correct than "theatre"). In spite of all that (including the fact that I'm American) I still use British English in writing (along with some old school English sayings) due to the fact that G.K. Chesterton, Tolkien, Shakespeare and the like are awesome. Give the U.S. a few more hundred years to make American English cooler (like more James Fenimore Coopers). | ||
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Ownos
United States2147 Posts
Since English has been introduced as a second language in so many countries, it often deteriorates in this regions Hahahaha English deteriotes in THIS country alone. We have like 73% literacy rate. | ||
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matjlav
Germany2435 Posts
On January 29 2011 05:04 Myles wrote: I can't comment on how German works as I only learned it for a week in high school, but compared to Spanish our verb conjugations are plain stupid. Someone earlier posted a bit on it, but many times you have to add an extra word while other times you don't. We also have so many words that are said and spelled the same but mean very different things. And of course how everyone loves to say we break our own rules way more than other languages(though I've heard that its an exaggeration, so I can't say for sure). Every language has its drawbacks and inefficiencies. English may have stupid spelling, but unlike German we don't have to deal with pointless grammatical gender and adjective inflection rules, and unlike Spanish our verbs don't have 20+ conjugated forms. I am quite appreciative of English's lack of unnecessary inflection. On the other hand it is silly how often we have to throw the word "do" around (e.g. "I do not go" as opposed to "I go not"). Spelling is also stupid in English. But yeah, I don't really think it's as easy as some people say to call some languages "easy" and other ones "hard." Most languages have developed their own set of silly, pointless customs that impede learning without adding to comprehension. | ||
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elkram
United States221 Posts
On January 29 2011 05:31 Ownos wrote: Hahahaha English deteriotes in THIS country alone. We have like 73% literacy rate. ?? Where'd you get that ludicrous stat. It is actually like all other developed countries at 99% (not 100 b/c of dyslexia, learning disabilities, and rare educational oversights) As for this whole idea of deterioration when a language goes to another country, that is completely false and unfounded. Just because the language is not pronounced or spelled the way it is in your country/region, does not make it any less of a language than the one it originated from. Going with this logic, our language is god-awful and we should all be looking at some way to get back to the old Indo-European language that used to (supposedly) unite most of us in communication. If you think that English deteriorates b/c of a development of an accent then go no further than the South/Northeast/Washington DC/Baltimore/New York/Pennsylvania/Chicago/Texas/New Orleans/Louisiana/Canada/Montreal/Quebec/India/Sri Lanka/Taiwan/China/Vietnam/Japan/Britain/etc.... all of these regions/countries have different ways of speaking the English language and all of which are completely valid. Also, just because English may sound like a "second language" (for example Indian accents), doesn't necessarily mean it is. Many times that is just the natural accent of the speaker. Moral of the post: don't make up statistics and don't pin superficial judgments on people based on how they talk | ||
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Perscienter
957 Posts
theater or theatre specter or spectre honor or honour dialogue or dialog defence or defense in a team or on a team drugs or drug brackets or squared brackets JUST CHOSE ONE OF THEM! NO MORE FANCY MY PEOPLE ARE SO SPECIAL WE NEED A DIFFERENT SPELLING, PLEASE! Changing spectre into specter only happens, if you do not know how to spell an 'r'. Fall and autumn are allowed to co-exist. It is an issue for me, because I'm reading a lot on the Internet. Many sources even mix the two versions up. | ||
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SaYyId
Portugal277 Posts
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tofucake
Hyrule19180 Posts
On January 29 2011 05:46 elkram wrote: ?? Where'd you get that ludicrous stat. It is actually like all other developed countries at 99% (not 100 b/c of dyslexia, learning disabilities, and rare educational oversights) As for this whole idea of deterioration when a language goes to another country, that is completely false and unfounded. Just because the language is not pronounced or spelled the way it is in your country/region, does not make it any less of a language than the one it originated from. Going with this logic, our language is god-awful and we should all be looking at some way to get back to the old Indo-European language that used to (supposedly) unite most of us in communication. If you think that English deteriorates b/c of a development of an accent then go no further than the South/Northeast/Washington DC/Baltimore/New York/Pennsylvania/Chicago/Texas/New Orleans/Louisiana/Canada/Montreal/Quebec/India/Sri Lanka/Taiwan/China/Vietnam/Japan/Britain/etc.... all of these regions/countries have different ways of speaking the English language and all of which are completely valid. Also, just because English may sound like a "second language" (for example Indian accents), doesn't necessarily mean it is. Many times that is just the natural accent of the speaker. Moral of the post: don't make up statistics and don't pin superficial judgments on people based on how they talk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy_in_the_United_States Read a bit. | ||
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tofucake
Hyrule19180 Posts
On January 29 2011 05:50 Perscienter wrote: theater or theatre - contextual honor dialogue in a team or on a team - contextual drugs or drug - plural and singular? brackets or squared brackets - tmi JUST CHOSE ONE OF THEM! NO MORE FANCY MY PEOPLE ARE SO SPECIAL WE NEED A DIFFERENT SPELLING, PLEASE! Changing spectre into specter only happens, if you do not know how to spell an 'r'. Fall and autumn are allowed to co-exist. It is an issue for me, because I'm reading a lot on the Internet. Many sources even mix the two versions up. Your examples aren't very good. Specifically: drugs is plural, drug is singular "In a team" when talking about other individuals in the team, "on a team" when comparing as a group (IE: "he's in a team with Steve, John, and a one legged midget" vs "he's on a team with a bunch of great guys") Squared brackets is just being descriptive Theater vs theatre has already been discussed earlier. You go the theatre to see something fancy, or a theater to see whatever. | ||
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elkram
United States221 Posts
On January 29 2011 05:53 tofucake wrote: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy_in_the_United_States Read a bit. I did Literacy: definition: age 15 and over can read and write total population: 99% male: 99% female: 99% (2003 est.) source | ||
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Lmui
Canada6219 Posts
For example I write "I went to the community centre" but "The center of the circle". Really it makes no difference. If I swapped them around no one would think twice. However, if I wrote "I went to the gym for work out" instead of "I went to the gym to work out" I wouldn't do quite as well. Word choice/grammar makes a huge difference compared to the difference in spelling. | ||
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tofucake
Hyrule19180 Posts
You clearly didn't read, as This government study showed that 21% to 23% of adult Americans were not "able to locate information in text", could not "make low-level inferences using printed materials", and were unable to "integrate easily identifiable pieces of information." Source (pdf) | ||
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