And you think English is hard ????

Wait till you try and learn French ! My native language has 3 main
conjugation groups, zillions of irregular verbs (most of them but not all
belonging to the third group), thousands of grammatical rules, thousands of
exceptions to those rules, thousands of exceptions to the exceptions, and
so on.

About pronunciation, some goups of letters are pronounced differently if
they appear within a word or at the end of a word? Some letters are usually
left mute, but not always. And of course there are exceptions.

Then, there are the regional variants of French. Ever discussed the subject
of Cajun or Quebec language ? Or regional tonal accents, like in the South
of France ?

Believe me, English is very, very easy to learn, at least compared to
French. It has a few irregular verbs (I remember being able to mention 208
of them a few years back), it has grammatical rules with very few, if any,
exceptions, and pronunciations are, well, predictable if not always
identical.

Besides, English has a neutral gender which makes it relatively easy to use
nouns and apply them to people, things and situation you don't know of in
advance. French has no neutral, and that makes it terribly difficult (and a
potential embarrassment at times) to address some situations.

Oh well, it merely took me 5 years to get to a decent level in English. As
a comparison, it took me longer to decently speak my own native language !

Of course, I'm only speaking for myself, no offense is meant, and, while
I'm not specifically a French fundamentalist, I love this language. And
English, too.

Christian "who takes his notes in English, for clarity" Lheureux
Responsable du Departement Systemes et Reseaux
Head of Systems and Networks Department
APPIC R.H.
HPConnect Systems Integrator / HP3000 Expert / HP e-Partner
Tel : +33-1-69-80-97-22   /   Fax : +33-1-69-80-97-14 / e-mail
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> -----Message d'origine-----
> De:   Wirt Atmar [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> Date: vendredi 12 mai 2000 23:15
> A:    [log in to unmask]
> Objet:        Re: OT: Why The English Language Is So Hard To Learn
>
> Jim writes:
>
> >  2) The farm was used to produce produce.
> >  3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
>
> Most of Jim's notes are actually nothing much more than the method by
which
> English "transitizes" a noun into a verb. To distinquish between the noun
and
> the verb form, the pronunciation is changed, as it is in all of these
nouns:
>
>      produce
>      refuse
>      compress
>      record
>     etc.
>
> These are all active verbs that represent the act of doing something, but
> were derived from their noun form counterparts. But this pronunciation
shift
> isn't as readily possible with the monosyllabic nouns that get changed
into
> active verbs, such as nail, tape, etc., so they are pronounced the same.
>
> In that, these sorts of transitive verbs follow more or less a regular
> pattern. What really makes English hard are the words that look very much
> alike but are pronounced significantly differently, such as:
>
>      power mower
> or
>      four hour tour
>
> Wirt Atmar