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Fri 11 Feb, 2005 07:06 am
Why ENGLISH is so Hard to Learn
1) The bandage was wound around the wound.
2) The farm was used to produce produce.
3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more
refuse.
4) We must polish the Polish furniture.
5) He could lead if he would get the lead out.
6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in
the desert.
7) Since there is no time like the present, he
thought it was time to present the present.
8) A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
10) I did not object to the object.
11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
12) There was a row among the oarsmen about
how to row.
13) They were too close to the door to close it.
14) The buck does funny things when the does are
present.
15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a
sewer line.
16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
18) After a number of injections my jaw got number.
19) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.
20) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
21) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?
Interesting, I had a hard time reading a few of those cuz it got me a little confused!!!
Where did you find these examples?
Ohh man, English is so silly!!
It was an e-mail sent to me some time ago. I was talking to someone yesterday and thought of it. Went back to find it and voila. I'm particularly sensitive to this as my ex-wife was from Finland. When she first arrived she always wondered why I and my friends were laughing.
A classic example was our first move when we bought our first house. I was worried as some pals and I loaded the truck. Whatever were we to do about the fish in the aquarium. As we reentered the house I saw there were no fish. I asked my wife where they were. She told us she put them in a bottle so they wouldn't be jarred. You should have seen the look on her face as we all broke up laughing.
I too, have two tickets to the theatre.
He began sealing the cracks in the ceiling.
The report that the accident made him an invalid was invalid.
If you sell phony stocks, you may end up living in a cell.
She started to purse her lips and whistled, when she saw the price of the purse.
Her speech before the committee was designed to project her rationale for the project.
Yeah, it's confusing, but I think that Chinese is much more difficult.
Yeah. That Chinese is all Greek to me.
Re: Why ENGLISH is so Hard to Learn
bobsmythhawk wrote:Why ENGLISH is so Hard to Learn
.....
2) The farm was used to produce produce.
3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more
refuse.
.....
6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in
the desert.
7) Since there is no time like the present, he
thought it was time to present the present.
.....
10) I did not object to the object.
.....
20) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
Because stress is part of the morphology. Two syllable words that are nouns and verbs tend to have the stress of the verb on the second syllable, and the stress of the noun on the first.
It's amazing all the things that must be implied when simply reading something. Learning a language via text is never a good strategy.
Those are amusing though.
I am not entirely lacking a sense of humor.
Hi Rufio:
You are correct. We've borrowed from so many other languages thta it's sometimes hard to make sense of it all. I remember how surprised I was when we were asked in English classes to learn and then 10 that number of exceptions. And if we are confused pity the poor immigrants.
I always thought English was one of the most perplexing language, until I started learning German seven yrs ago.
I truly believe that the reason why people think English is confusing is because people are exposed to bad English, or "ghetto English" and that's a barrier for certain individuals. For instance, many people say, "if I was you..." when it should be, "if I were you..." Also the use of "yo" is just horrific. Don't get me started with that.
Another misuse, I'm assuming most of you know it, would be the phrase, "It's me." Well, it turns out that the correct use is, "It is I."
My point is that English might be a bit weird or confusing with its usage, but nothing to fuss about. It is up to the person to speak correctly in order for others to learn.
I hear you Duke of Lancaster, German gave me a hard time when I was studying it...haha no I grew up with German so I was just being corny.
But to all others, English does really give me a hard time. I mean it's not that I wouldn't be able to express myself in conversations or anything like that.
It's just that since I'm currently constantly exposed to it, it just drives me crazy sometimes. I mean all those "correct" English words combined with what people sometimes just say...you're often left all too baffled as to how you could ever cope with all that.
Those are funny. I noticed a couple could be even better (or worse), though:
10) I did not object to the object's objective.
20) I had to subject the subject to a series of subjective tests.
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