Is English the most logical language?

danlightbulb said:
I see our language as like a set of base lego. Our smallest building block for example is the 1x1 lego piece. However other languages their smallest block might be the 2x4 piece, so they then have to have multiple versions of that word to convey the meaning or they cant disagregate the word further, whereas we can simply use our smaller building blocks to construct the right sentence.

Example in English - He is a man.
In Polish - On jest mężczyzna.

Now 'man' in English is mezczyzna in Polish. But Mezczyzna can also mean 'a man' or 'the man' they don't use the 'a' or 'the'.

How about this:

Mężczyzna je jabłko = A man eats an apple OR A man is eating an apple. Je = eating, eats, is eating.

There is not differentiation between past and present tense.

There is no logic there really.
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Or maybe the form of the verb coincides, just like the present tense of "read" and the past tense of it are the same.
read-read-read.

You learn a new language by actively participating in the discussion with native speakers. Watch Polish TV and listen to Polish radio, and actively use your girlfriend to speak with her in Polish.
 
danlightbulb said:
Not sure you're getting my point.

In English for example you learn I, you, need, want, like, have. That is six words and you can make 8 combinations right? Eg i want, you want. I need, you need. Yes?

In polish you would need to learn 8 separate words because you cannot learn a word for I and a word for 'you', and separate words for 'need, want, like, have' and combine them.

Eg in English:

I want, you want.

In Polish:

chcę, Chcesz


In English:

I like, you like.

In Polish:

podoba mi się, Lubisz
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You are talking to a Chinese speaker…learning an extra word is not exactly an obstacle lol. I don’t see it as anymore difficult, it’s just a different way to do things. Once you are fluent, you won’t even ask these questions, you just do it, it won’t be seen as complicated, just how it is.
 
danlightbulb said:
Maybe it does, except 'I went' (poszedłem) doesn't follow that rule either. So what is the rule?

This is the whole point! Is it not simpler just to learn the word 'I' and use it across all phrases?
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But English words change based on their tense or who they refer to.

I don’t know what the Polish rule is but I’d bet there is one.
 
Also, Polish maybe has something like further explanation of when exactly you eat.
Do you eat at the moment or you eat something regularly.
 
danlightbulb said:
Maybe it does, except 'I went' (poszedłem) doesn't follow that rule either. So what is the rule?

This is the whole point! Is it not simpler just to learn the word 'I' and use it across all phrases?
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I before E except after C? Why the exceptions?!

same thing.

just memorise it…sucks…but boohoo, try learning Chinese lol welcome to language learning. The sooner you realise there are rules and many exceptions and that’s just the way they are, the faster you will learn. Don’t fight it, just memorise it and move on.
 
By the way, this language discussion is pretty interesting.
All languages have one common origin and this is why so many languages have similarities and are close dialects to each other.

There are not so many sound combinations, in general...

So, the purpose of English is to unite us and to speak one universal language.
 
Raymond Lin said:
My advice is actually forget the rules, yes…don’t spend you initial time learning the rules but spend the beginning learning the most common 1000 words used day to day.

Then butcher it to construct a sentence and you will get simple conversation going that way, and then when immerse yourself in the language you will pick up it’s structure and grammar as you go along as those are rules.

Whilst saying “I go to shop yesterday” or even “go to shop, me yesterday” makes no sense, you still know what I mean. Someone will correct you eventually or you will find out eventually but to get going quickly, learn those 1000 words first.

You are not trying to pass an exam here, you are tying to engage in an conversation or convey your thinking. It’s more important getting the facts out than having the correct grammar.
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This is decent advice, anyone who's watched baldandbankrupt will have seen his similar advice about learning Russian.

At the end of the day, if you're lost and trying to find a taxi, you can have all the grammar in the world and it ain't gonna help if you don't know the word for taxi (or whatever else it is you need)
 
Lopéz said:
This is decent advice, anyone who's watched baldandbankrupt will have seen his similar advice about learning Russian.

At the end of the day, if you're lost and trying to find a taxi, you can have all the grammar in the world and it ain't gonna help if you don't know the word for taxi (or whatever else it is you need)
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I told you:

4K8KW10 said:
You learn a new language by actively participating in the discussion with native speakers. Watch Polish TV and listen to Polish radio, and actively use your girlfriend to speak with her in Polish.
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cheesefest said:
Then don't start me on the French on numbers. Why on earth is 99 said in English four twenty ten nine
(quatre-vingt-dix-neuf)? Another example is 70 which is said as sixty ten soixante dix. French for 7 is sept. Would a French person understand if someone said septante for 70 instead of soixante dix?
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Interestingly if you go the French-speaking part of Switzerland they say soixante, septante, octante and nonante.
 
4K8KW10 said:
I told you:
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You and Raymond are making different points. Just because I said his advice about learning common words was useful, does not therefore mean your advice about immersing yourself in native discussion is bad.

What an odd response to a post not aimed directly at you :confused:
You didn't tell "me" anything.
 
Lopéz said:
You and Raymond are making different points. Just because I said his advice about learning common words was useful, does not therefore mean your advice about immersing yourself in native discussion is bad.

What an odd response to a post not aimed directly at you :confused:
You didn't tell "me" anything.
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Well, I think Raymond is actually saying the same thing as me but with more difficult execution in practice.
What I am saying is to try to learn the language without too much "artificial" "dry" efforts on a given content, but participate in live discussions/watch real conversations as is in life, on TV/radio.

And also, you are one of the people who read it.
In English, "you" can mean an individual or many people.
 
English is easy to make yourself understood in. For foreigners, some basic phrases will go a long way and work in nearly every country in the world. English however has unbelievable levels of subtlety and nuance. Explain the difference between will and shall. Explain why there is a small white house not a white small house.

But our pronunciation is pretty flexible and unless really mangled will be understood (it's funny that in a documentary about the Liverpool football team's tour of North America the only player in the team that had subtitles - English ones - was Jamie Carragher). Mispronounce a word in a tonal language like Cantonese and you could have said any one of 13 meanings. In Thai the length of the word changes the meaning e.g. the word for near and far sounds the same to most non-Thai speakers but far is said for slightly longer than the word for near. Mispronounce "Would you like rice" and it can mean "do you want my knee in your mouth"; sounds the same to a non-Thai.

English is supremely flexible but it certainly is not logical. At best you can argue that having a non-gendered definite and indefinite articles, putting all the (non-gendered) adjectives in front of the (non-gendered) noun, most verbs following relatively simple rules (except for all the most commonly used ones like "to be", "to go", "to have", "to eat").

But did you know that there are 127 different meanings for the word "set"?
 
Shall or will:

The traditional rule is that shall is used with first person pronouns (i.e. I and we) to form the future tense, while will is used with second and third person forms (i.e. you, he, she, it, they). For example: I shall be late. They will not have enough food.

shall or will - Google Search

127 different meanings of one verb means that the language is oversimplified.

It is better than to have 127 different words for "rain", for example, depending on its physical characteristics lol
 
English is a mess, so many times I fail to explain the reasons to many ‘why?’ questions about the English language. Russian is hard to learn but 100% follows rules, people learn structure and understand verbs adjectives case etc. Us English just tend to practice as a child until we can speak and fail to actually understand the real language.

‘I’m reading a book in Reading’
 
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