English Language

[Eki]

Why does the English language sound so much different when it's spoken than when it's written?

Yesterday someone on TV said "pair of shoes" and I first heard it as "parachutes". They look totally different when written but at least to me they sound quite similar. That could cause dangerous misunderstandings. Imagine that one day someone doing a parachute jump may find out that in his backpack was a pair of shoes instead of a parachute.

[Mark]

Yes, English does have quite a large disconnect between the written words and the spoken. Whereas other languages such as Spanish (I believe), words are pretty much spelled as they are spoken.

Languges evolve and the way words are used and pronounced changes over time, but the written language is much more difficult to change, I believe in the likes of Spain they do change spellings of words to make them fit and it's also why Spanish children are much better at spelling! :D

[Mark]

Yes, English does have quite a large disconnect between the written words and the spoken. Whereas other languages such as Spanish (I believe), words are pretty much spelled as they are spoken.

Languges evolve and the way words are used and pronounced changes over time, but the written language is much more difficult to change, I believe in the likes of Spain they do change spellings of words to make them fit and it's also why Spanish children are much better at spelling! :D

[gadjo_dilo]

Yes, English does have quite a large disconnect between the written words and the spoken. Whereas other languages such as Spanish (I believe), words are pretty much spelled as they are spoken.

Languges evolve and the way words are used and pronounced changes over time, but the written language is much more difficult to change, I believe in the likes of Spain they do change spellings of words to make them fit and it's also why Spanish children are much better at spelling! :D

I don't know spanish. However I've noticed some strange pronunciation of X, B and V.

[Eki]

I don't know spanish. However I've noticed some strange pronunciation of X, B and V.
And J. For example Jose is pronounced as Hose.

[Cooper_S]

Is it not pronounced Ho-say,

[donKey jote]

I believe in the likes of Spain they do change spellings of words to make them fit
One of my favourite Spanishwords is "Güisqui" :p

b and v sound exactly the same so are prone to spelling mistakes...

y and ll sound almost the same so ditto...

c is pronounced as a k if it's before an a, o or u... or as an z or an s depending on where you`re from otherwise...

you have accents...

otherwise Spanish spelling is simple :)

[Cooper_S]

All languages evolves and English as spoken in the United Kingdom is pronounced a variety of ways depending upon where in the country you are.

American English seems to have simplified spelling and pronunciation...

http://wimp.com/haspoint/

[Cooper_S]

does spelling matter...?

http://wimp.com/spellingmatters/

[Mark]

Smtmes if u lve ltrs ot it cn b uderstd. But otherwise spelling is important otherwise how will people know what you're saying?!

[donKey jote]

One of my favourite Spanishwords is "Güisqui" :p

b and v sound exactly the same so are prone to spelling mistakes...

y and ll sound almost the same so ditto...

c is pronounced as a k if it's before an a, o or u... or as a z or an s depending on where you`re from otherwise...

you have accents...

otherwise Spanish spelling is simple :)

forgot the g: like a g before a, o or u but like a j before e or i...

jeje (hehe)

[Ghostwalker]

Smtmes if u lve ltrs ot it cn b uderstd. But otherwise spelling is important otherwise how will people know what you're saying?!

its the same if you swap the order of the letters in a word;

http://www.languagehat.com/archives/000840.php

[Eki]

Who remembers the Babelghoti?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghoti

http://babelfish.yahoo.com/

[gadjo_dilo]

y and ll sound almost the same so ditto...


How should I say:

For Sevilla: Sevilia or Seviia?
For Pancho Villa: Vilia or Viia?

I tend to use the " li" form.....

[schmenke]

Is it not pronounced Ho-say,

José ;)


French can be frustrating. The same word spelled and pronounced identically can have two completely different meanings, e.g.:

La tour : The tower
Le tour : The turn

"C'est notre tour de prendre la tournée de la tour." :s

[janneppi]

I vaguely remeber hearing that the english languege has some 2000 special cases where words don't follow normal rules, where as in the finnish language there are about 20.
I would think it makes computer voice control rather more difficult in the english speaking techology world.

[555-04Q2]

English is pretty straight forward to those that grew up learning it as their first language. I have a number of friends and business connections that find the English language rather difficult to learn/pronounce/spell/get used to.

[race aficionado]

wee shood rait as it saunds.


:s mokin:

[Mark in Oshawa]

I have been told over and over again that English is the most difficult language to learn if you didn't grow up with it. Since I grew up with it, I have no idea. I do know that there is many spellings that don't follow laws. When Spoken, idioms and local terms and accents can make people from Scotland unable to be understood by people in say, Louisana and then it is different again from the people in Newfoundland or Melbourne in Australia. The thing is, English is a language in a supercharged evolution all the time.....

For those of you like Eki, Ghostwalker, Gadjo, Rudy and many others, I salute your ability to converse online in English, it is something I envy in that I can ONLY speak English, and to me, the other languages are just too hard to grasp.

I speak minimal French, can read and understand a little more of THAT, but that is about it for me and language. Spanish when I went to Mexico made me feel like I was an idiot.....and Chinese? Oh lord.....I cant even hear words....just syllables all tied together.

No...I have no grasp for any language but my own..and it frustrates me but I just was never able to grasp anything else....

[donKey jote]

How should I say:

For Sevilla: Sevilia or Seviia?
For Pancho Villa: Vilia or Viia?

I tend to use the " li" form.....

"li" form is not quite correct, more like "lyi" I think, but to be honest, I use the "yy" form for both: Sebiya and Biya :p

And it's not Pancho Villa: it's http://www.glittergirl.co.uk/banana/51.gif DAVID VILLA VILLA VILLA, UNA MARAVILLA http://www.glittergirl.co.uk/banana/51.gif

oops sorry I still haven't got over the 5-0 Barcelona gave Real Moudrid :D

[donKey jote]

Is it not pronounced Ho-say,
No, that's how it's pronounced with an English accent, as in the joke about the two Spanish firemen: José and Hose-B :p

The o and e in josé are both short vowels: Spanish is so simple it only has 5 vowel sounds, a,e, i, o ,u.
Short and crisp, as in bat, bet , beat (oops that's long :s :p ), bott, boot (oops also too long) :)

[Mark]

Actually English is one of the easiest languages to learn the basics of. As it doesn't have genders or much conguation of verbs etc. However that's just the basics, what is difficult is to learn how to speak English well. Something natives often have trouble with!

[fandango]

....and it's also why Spanish children are much better at spelling! :D


On the contrary, Spanish people are in general terrible at spelling, because they have never had to train themselves to pay attention to how a word is spelled. When I'm teaching, sometimes people get very impatient because I make them repeat a new word before I write it on the board. They want to see it written first, and then they pronounce it going by what they see, rather than what they hear.

[Rollo]

Two books on the subject:

The Adventure of English - Melvyn Bragg:
This book looks at how the English language, survived invasions of Romans, Franks, Saxons, Jutes etc, and how it was able to absorb and evolve. It's written in a rather easy sort of conversational tone and shouldn't take more than a fortnight to read.

Mother Tongue - Bill Bryson:
Bryson's book is more concerned with how words arrived in English and travelled around the world. It touches on many topics that the other book does, but because it is now one of the "Popular Penguin" series, you can pick one up for less than a fiver.

[fandango]

The most difficult sound in English for people to learn is called the schwa. It's a neutral vowel, and that's why parachutes might sound like pair of shoes.

For native speakers who have no idea what I'm talking about, it's basically the sound of the second O in London.

[schmenke]

Two books on the subject:

The Adventure of English - Melvyn Bragg:
This book looks at how the English language, survived invasions of Romans, Franks, Saxons, Jutes etc, and how it was able to absorb and evolve. It's written in a rather easy sort of conversational tone and shouldn't take more than a fortnight to read.

Mother Tongue - Bill Bryson:
Bryson's book is more concerned with how words arrived in English and travelled around the world. It touches on many topics that the other book does, but because it is now one of the "Popular Penguin" series, you can pick one up for less than a fiver.

Then there's Eats, Shoots and Leaves published a few years ago by whatsherface. Although, if I recall it was more about punctuation than the English language.

[Alexamateo]

.....

Yesterday someone on TV said "pair of shoes" and I first heard it as "parachutes". They look totally different when written but at least to me they sound quite similar...

Of course you also tend to hear the words you know, especially in your non-native language. There is also a tendency to want to translate back to your first language.

My wife, (whose first language is Spanish), would hear this just as you do. One reason is that in Spanish you don't say "a pair of shoes", you just say "shoes".

[Eki]

Of course you also tend to hear the words you know, especially in your non-native language. There is also a tendency to want to translate back to your first language.

My wife, (whose first language is Spanish), would hear this just as you do. One reason is that in Spanish you don't say "a pair of shoes", you just say "shoes".
Could be. And I also wasn't paying attention to TV, I was reading a book in another room, so I didn't hear the beginning of the sentence.

[donKey jote]

One reason is that in Spanish you don't say "a pair of shoes", you just say "shoes".
sure you do: "un par de zapatos" is different to simply saying "zapatos"
just like "un par de coj..." is different to saying "coj...!" :p

one thing you wouldn't normally hear in Spanish (unless you're a cricket), however, is "quién es el que anda aquí ?", you just say "quién anda por aquí ?" :)

[Eki]

sure you do: "un par de zapatos" is different to simply saying "zapatos"
just like "un par de coj..." is different to saying "coj...!" :p

one thing you wouldn't normally hear in Spanish (unless you're a cricket), however, is "quién es el que anda aquí ?", you just say "quién anda por aquí ?" :)

Cuando se come aqui?

[Alexamateo]

sure you do: "un par de zapatos" is different to simply saying "zapatos"
just like "un par de coj..." is different to saying "coj...!" :p

one thing you wouldn't normally hear in Spanish (unless you're a cricket), however, is "quién es el que anda aquí ?", you just say "quién anda por aquí ?" :)

Well Spanish is my second language and I've never heard my wife in 10 years of marriage say "un par de zapatos" :p (and she has a lot of shoes!), but then I can't say we've spent a lot of time talking about linguistics either. :D By the way, did I mention we're expecting again.

[Rollo]

Shoes as a thing makes sense to have a pair of, but even as a native English speaker I marvel at the utter stupidity of "a pair of pants" or "a pair of scissors". I ask you, how many people are ever likely to buy one pant or one scissor?

[Eki]

Well Spanish is my second language and I've never heard my wife in 10 years of marriage say "un par de zapatos" :p (and she has a lot of shoes!), but then I can't say we've spent a lot of time talking about linguistics either. :D By the way, did I mention we're expecting again.
You're expecting the Spanish Inquisition?

gldlyTjXk9A

[Alexamateo]

You're expecting the Spanish Inquisition?

gldlyTjXk9A

Well with the morning sickness and nausea, she would say it feels like torture. :D

[Tazio]

I had an associate from Mexico that was was fairly competant in (American) English.
What used to drive him crazy was how many words there were that had more than one meaning.
Here is a short list:

ball
bank
bark
bat
bend
bowl
can
case
check
date
drop
face
fair
fan
file
fly
grave
hide
jam
kind
light
like
line
mean
mine
miss
order
pen
play
point
present
press
rare
ring
roll
rose
run
second
ship
sink
star
stick
story
tire
trip
vault
watch
well
yard :rolleyes: :)

[gadjo_dilo]

I think, but to be honest, I use the "yy" form for both: Sebiya and Biya :p



Now I'm really confused. So the V in Sevilla is correctly pronounced B......

[Donney]

Yes v and b are pronounced the same, as a /b/

[gadjo_dilo]

Yes v and b are pronounced the same, as a /b/

Always or on certain conditions?

[Eki]

Here's an interesting site that has sound sample's of different accents and dialects in Britain:

http://sounds.bl.uk/BrowseCategory.aspx?category=Accents-and-dialects

[Eki]

Accents vary much even in a small area. Here are two samples from Oxfordshire, I understand the second one much more easily than the first one:

http://sounds.bl.uk/View.aspx?item=021M-C0900X17577X-0300V0.xml
http://sounds.bl.uk/View.aspx?item=021M-C0900X17556X-0500V0.xml

[Donney]

Always or on certain conditions?

Always.

[Alexamateo]

I had an associate from Mexico that was was fairly competant in (American) English.
What used to drive him crazy was how many words there were that had more than one meaning.
...
)

Isn't that all languages though? How many meanings does Que have? And don't get me started on Mexican slang. I think it's just difficult to learn another language as an adult. You learn the main meaning first, but oftentimes there are many other uses and meanings for words, including and not including slang.

[Tazio]

Isn't that all languages though?

I don't know :confused: :)

[Dr. Krogshöj]

Why do native speakers confuse they're with their? Why do they write or say would of? Doesn't it indicate they lack the basic understanding of the logic of their language?

[donKey jote]

Accents vary much even in a small area.
The UK is extreme in this aspect. When I lived there it seemed to be a national passtime to try and locate your origin to within the nearest mile as soon as you opened your mouth. Needless to say I heard some pretty wild guesses, but at least they tried bless 'em... closest anyone got with me was "somewhere up north" (my dad's Irish and my mum's a Lancs lass :erm: :p ) :laugh:

[donKey jote]

Why do native speakers confuse they're with their? Why do they write or say would of? Doesn't it indicate they lack the basic understanding of the logic of their language?
have you ever found yourself driving somewhere and suddenly realised you were on autopilot?
I'd like to think a lot of the above typos on the forum are due to "autopilot typing" and not checking what was actually posted before the edit timeout.
...
On second thoughts, their (oops :p ) can't be any excuses for would of :eek:

[inimitablestoo]

I guess one of the main problems with English is it isn't really English. We've absorbed so many different bits of other languages over the centuries, there seems no logic to any of it. And I speak as an English language graduate...

Danny Baker did a good puzzle on his radio show a little while ago (before his current illness) when he mentioned that there are seven or eight different pronunciations of the ending -ough (which included the hiccough "hiccup" that was debunked on QI last week). It's a wonder anyone from abroad ever bothers learning English when presented with hurdles like that...

[BDunnell]

Why do native speakers confuse they're with their? Why do they write or say would of? Doesn't it indicate they lack the basic understanding of the logic of their language?

My view is that, if one is a native speaker and does not suffer from some sort of comprehension problem, getting English right is not difficult. I managed it and I'm nothing special; therefore, I would tend to feel that pretty much everyone else ought to be able to. The sort of confusions you describe above, as well as the misuse of apostrophes, are unacceptable, yet increasingly they are tolerated. Some may say this is merely the evolution of language; I just call them mistakes. Evolution ought not to occur through mistakes.

By the way, it would be entirely wrong to think that the errors I've mentioned are modern-day problems being perpetuated by the ill-educated youth of today. In researching historical documents from the last 80 or so years, many written by diplomats, military commanders and suchlike — i.e. well-educated men — it is clear that there has always been much confusion over the use of apostrophes, at least. This doesn't make it any more defensible, in my opinion. As I said, getting it right is not hard.

As for the issue of pronunciation, I am convinced that the way certain place names are pronounced is purely in order for locals to identify people from outside the area. Happisburgh in Norfolk is a great example. How is anyone not from the locality supposed to know that it's pronounced 'Hays-borough'?

One last point, for now at least — a favourite mistake of mine is when you hear someone complaining about poor 'pronounciation'...

[Brown, Jon Brow]

Why do native speakers confuse they're with their? Why do they write or say would of? Doesn't it indicate they lack the basic understanding of the logic of their language?

People confusing you're with your is something that grinds my gears.

[Mark]

Very strange that insurance companies demanding increased premiums after fitting winter tyres. When it should be the opposite. That and the transport ministers comments show how much ignorance there is about what they are and what they are for.

[Brown, Jon Brow]

Very strange that insurance companies demanding increased premiums after fitting winter tyres. When it should be the opposite. That and the transport ministers comments show how much ignorance there is about what they are and what they are for.

Wrong thread? :p

[donKey jote]

and the winner of today's donkey of the forums is... :laugh:

[janvanvurpa]

have you ever found yourself driving somewhere and suddenly realised you were on autopilot?
I'd like to think a lot of the above typos on the forum are due to "autopilot typing" and not checking what was actually posted before the edit timeout.
...
On second thoughts, their (oops :p ) can't be any excuses for would of :eek:

Oi! mi pequito Donquito!
I think particualarly you and Eki will like this character from a long time ago on the American program "Saturday Night Live" back when it was good.
I do because already back then I was losing hearing---not surprising working in heavy industry, welding etc and then doing 20 or more hours a week on racing motorcycles, and then always being in second or third language situation IN NOISY situation, so mishearing things was frequent for me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_Litella
Premise

Emily Litella was an elderly woman with a hearing problem who made regular appearances on SNL's Weekend Update op-ed segment in the late 1970s. Attired in a frumpy dress and sweater, Litella was introduced with professional dignity by the news anchors, who could sometimes be seen cringing slightly in anticipation of the verbal faux pas they knew would follow.

Gilda Radner (as Litella) peered through her reading glasses and, in the character's trademark high-pitched, warbly voice, read a prepared statement in opposition to an editorial that the TV station had supposedly broadcast. This sketch was, in part, a spoof of the Fairness Doctrine, which at the time required broadcasters in the United States to present opposing viewpoints on public issues. Litella became increasingly agitated as her statement progressed. Midway in her commentary, it became apparent that she had misheard and/or misunderstood the subject of the editorial to which she was responding. A typical example:
“ What is all this fuss I hear about the Supreme Court decision on a "deaf" penalty? It's terrible! Deaf people have enough problems as it is! ”

The news anchor interrupted Litella to point out her error, along the lines, "That's death, Ms. Litella, not deaf ... death." Litella would wrinkle her nose, say something like, "Oh, that's very different...." then meekly turn to the camera and say, "Never mind." When Litella played against news anchor Chevy Chase (whom she always called "Cheddar Cheese"), he was somewhat sympathetic to her. But when Jane Curtin took over the anchor role, she would scold Litella on the air, to which Litella would reply, "I'm sorry. It won't happen again....Bitch!" (This has been interpreted--or mis-interpreted--as meaning that though both were Not Ready For Prime Time actresses, Curtin and Radner actually hated each other in real life.)

Other misheard topics to which Litella responded were "saving Soviet jewelry [really Jewry]", "endangered feces [species]", "violins [violence] on television", "busting [busing] schoolchildren", "presidential erections [elections]", "flea [free] elections (and then "flea erections") in China", "pouring money into canker [cancer] research", the "Eagle [Equal] Rights Amendment", "conserving our natural racehorses [natural resources]", "youth in Asia [euthanasia], "sax [sex] on television, "firing [hiring] the handicapped", and "making Puerto Rico a steak [state]". About the last of these topics, she complained, "Next thing you know, they'll want a baked potato with sour cream!"

The message on Litella's answering machine was, "Hello, this is Emily Litella. I'm not home right now, but I will call you back as soon as possible. Just leave your name, number and what time you called after you hear the sound of the Jeep."

There are, of course, video clips on the net...

"What's all this I hear about violins in school?"

[markabilly]

english was a peasant language after the norman invasion in 1066.
Not spoken by "educated" people except as necessary to deal with the populace. As a result, there was no formal education system to keep it from being mangled over the years

Seems to have had its origins from northern germany. Henry the 8th, decided Englan decided it needed its own language after his break with the Catholics, hence it became official, even in its mangled form and degenerated grammer structure.

although before that, in the 1300's there were some publications in the english language, but for the three hundred years after 1066 english was almsot an entirely spoken and not written langauge.

[Eki]

Obama is currently on TV answering questions about tax cuts. He mentioned that "a typical family" will pay about $1000 less taxes in 2011. Or did he say "atypical family"? I'm not sure.

[Drew]

The English language doesn't have an authority that regulates its use like other languages do such as they have in Spanish,French,German, Croatian and I'm sure loads of others too. So "correct" usage depends on where you're from and no standard exists.