ZGD: Livin by a thread.

[GreyFox86]

English is said to be the toughest language in the world. It's also the one language that everyone has to know.

 

[Sonic The Hedgedawg]

English speakers say that it's the hardest language to learn. Most exchange students I've talkeed to said that English was quite easy to learn.

 

[GreyFox86]

Hey I'm only saying what I've heard. I'm too lazy to look into detail for something like that.

 

[GodAtHand]

Speaking English well enough to get around is typically easy for exchange students when compared to other languages, but if they want to write even remotely proper it's one of the toughest languages.

 

[Shuli]

If this is the social thread of Zelda, I'd like to say hi. I'm new here and I main Zelda

 

[GreyFox86]

If this is the social thread of Zelda, I'd like to say hi. I'm new here and I main Zelda

Hey new guy. What makes you turn to Zelda for your main? Where do you live? Why haven't you said hi sooner?

 

[ぱみゅ]

Spanish is even harder than english because of a near-infinite vocabulary....
Good thing most spanish-speakers understand what you're trying to say even if you don't not spoke it properly.

 

[KayLo!]

Hi Shuli. Welcome & stuff. <3

 

[zeldspazz]

Hi Shuli :D

 

[GreyFox86]

Hey new guy. What makes you turn to Zelda for your main? Where do you live? Why haven't you said hi sooner?

Spanish is even harder than english because of a near-infinite vocabulary....
Good thing most spanish-speakers understand what you're trying to say even if you don't not spoke it properly.

Hi Shuli. Welcome & stuff. <3

Hi Shuli :D

Shoot, having color is so much nicer than just plain white text.

 

[Sonic The Hedgedawg]

Speaking English well enough to get around is typically easy for exchange students when compared to other languages, but if they want to write even remotely proper it's one of the toughest languages.

English and French are the only languages that I can think of where the spelling system is not phonetic. Spanish, Italian and the other romance languages, for example, have their spelling rules, which are only broken by exceptions which have very specific rules for them. Basically, unlike English, if the rules say it must be spelled/pronounced one way, then it'll always be pronounced/spelled that way.
It's because english is a hodgepodge of every language it's come into contact with. That's what not only makes it so easy to learn, but so difficult to master (most americans don't even really dominate the language)

Spanish is even harder than english because of a near-infinite vocabulary....
Good thing most spanish-speakers understand what you're trying to say even if you don't not spoke it properly.

I think spanish is harder to speak because I was born speaking English.... but as for bredth of vocabulary, English has more words than any other language, by a long shot. Spanish is no exception, english has way more words, just pick up a span-eng dict. and you'll see the trend is that one spanish word can be translated to multiple english words more often than the alternative. English is kinda a ******* language: we pick up whatever words suit us regardless of origin; it's kinda what makes our orthography so bass-ackwards.




(Linguistics, especially English orthography and etiology, is a sorta a hobby of mine)


If you don't believe me, here's a rather succinct quotation:

it seems quite probable that English has more words than most comparable world languages.

The reason for this is historical. English was originally a Germanic language, related to Dutch and German, and it shares much of its grammar and basic vocabulary with those languages. However, after the Norman Conquest in 1066 it was hugely influenced by Norman French, which became the language of the ruling class for a considerable period, and by Latin, which was the language of scholarship and of the Church. Very large numbers of French and Latin words entered the language. Consequently, English has a much larger vocabulary than either the Germanic languages or the members of the Romance language family to which French belongs.

English is also very ready to accommodate foreign words, and as it has become an international language, it has absorbed vocabulary from a large number of other sources. This does, of course, assume that you ignore 'agglutinative' languages such as Finnish, in which words can be stuck together in long strings of indefinite length, and which therefore have an almost infinite number of 'words'.

 

[ぱみゅ]

If you pick up a dictionary to compare spa-eng number of words, you won't find the countless synonyms spanish has.
Plus, the many translations for one word =/= more words on the language.

Spanish proper ortography is also a pain in the butt.

 

[KayLo!]

As long as someone can understand what the hell I'm saying, I'm good lol.

 

[Sonic The Hedgedawg]

If you pick up a dictionary to compare spa-eng number of words, you won't find the countless synonyms spanish has.
Plus, the many translations for one word =/= more words on the language.

Spanish proper ortography is also a pain in the butt.

trust me on this one. It'd be best not to argue on this one: I know my stuff when it comes to the English language.
There's a sprawling expanse of english synonems not included in those dictionaries either. It does give a general picture of the ratios, however.


As for orthography. English is the most tangled-up, confounded mess of any language. Look at the "i before e" rule. For example.
it looks simple:
when "I" and "E" are next to each other in a word, you should put "I" before "E"

. . . unless they follow the letter "C" in which case, "I" should come after "E" . . .

. . . then again, there are times when the letters are supposed to make a "AY" sound, in which "E" should also come before "I" (such as in the words "Neighbor"and "Weigh" . . .

. . . Oh, and sometimes, if the "I" and "E" are following a "C" it's because it's the plural form of a word which ended in "CY" in which case the "I" should still come before the "E" even though we just said that it shouldn't . . .

. . . and there are sometimes where the word is originally foreign, so we spell it with the "E" before the "I" even though none of our rules say that we should . . .

. . .HOLY CRAP! did you see what just happened there? I spelled the word FOREIGN with the "E" first even though NONE of the other rules say it should be spelled that way. That's so WEIRD!

OMG again !?!?!

I guess our massive list of catch-all exceptions can't catch all of our exceptions to the rules.

 

[Sonic The Hedgedawg]

Laugh if you want, but these are two of my most recent additions to my personal library (for personal enjoyment, not for any sort of classwork)

 

[ぱみゅ]

Learn vocabulary. it's easier than following rules.

 

[RoyalBlood]

Learn vocabulary. it's easier than following rules.

This is actually true to some extent : D

Similar words sometimes share spelling ^^

 

[Sonic The Hedgedawg]

Learn vocabulary. it's easier than following rules.

Unrelated but true. I don't think that I often stumble on the i before e rule (though, while typing quickly, I often transpose them, hence "Teir Lists." As terrific an abomination as that looks)

Still, it's nice, when spelling in other languages, to know "I can just sound this out and it'll most certainly be spelled the way it sounds like it should" (though diacritical accent marks can OCCASIONALLY, muck that pristine simplicity up).


Imagine forgetting how to spell "Gauge," and then attempting to spell it phonetically.

Especially as one attempts to expand their vocabulary, forgetting the spelling of words can just happen, and english is worse than any other language when it comes to having a unified set of rules to help you with that.

This is actually true to some extent : D

Similar words sometimes share spelling ^^

This helps IF you know the words are related:

i.e. SCHOOL has a freaking messed up spelling, but it helps to see certain relationships:

SCHOOLS are places where SCHOLARS accomplish SCHOLASTIC achievements.




Ultimately, in English, however, there are some things you may just have to memorize.



Homonyms..... what kind of stupid crap is that? Especially when the word is already somewhat esoteric.





How many of you knew that Discreet and Discrete were two separate words? (Or which is which for that matter)

 

[KayLo!]

I'm currently reading:

Sue me, I'm a biopsych major. It's actually pretty interesting! Next on my list is this:

........I like reading about psychology, especially emo stuff. =X

 

[Sonic The Hedgedawg]

I really like that second book cover.

I also picked up

in an attempt to broaden my geographical history horizons as well.

 

[ぱみゅ]

Well, many spanish speakers fail on writing anyways, and rules are so complex that even most correctors (Microsoft Office) fail on correct it properly.

Conjugate verbs is the thing most foreign people just can't do well.

 

[The Phazon Assassin]

That dot on the second cover is legit. It looks like he's out doing his own thing.

 

[Sonic The Hedgedawg]

Well, many spanish speakers fail on writing anyways, and rules are so complex that even most correctors (Microsoft Office) fail on correct it properly.

Conjugate verbs is the thing most foreign people just can't do well.

Conjugation is something we, as English speakers, rarely deal with. (the verb "To Be" is about as rough as we get there)

However, as a result, there are SOOOOO many english speakers who fail hard at conjugating simple english verbs because they don't expect any abnormalities, even though they DO exist in the english language.
e.g.
Present: I run
Past: I ran
Past Perfect: I have run

so many people butcher that and it makes me weep.


And you might as well forget that we even HAVE a subjunctive mood.

Spoiler

If I were

Yeah, that's something additional you have to learn to do in spanish as opposed to English. Quite often you can mess that up without greatly altering the meaning of the sentence, but if you screw up with tenses or subjects when telling a story (especially one where a confusion of subjects could happen easily with poor conjgation) and it can be a gian headache. It's was so hard for my clasmates to comprehend that "Fue" isn't a "catch-all" for anything that may have happened in the past.

 

[Darkmusician]

 

[Meru.]

trust me on this one. It'd be best not to argue on this one: I know my stuff when it comes to the English language.
There's a sprawling expanse of english synonems not included in those dictionaries either. It does give a general picture of the ratios, however.


As for orthography. English is the most tangled-up, confounded mess of any language. Look at the "i before e" rule. For example.
it looks simple:
when "I" and "E" are next to each other in a word, you should put "I" before "E"

. . . unless they follow the letter "C" in which case, "I" should come after "E" . . .

. . . then again, there are times when the letters are supposed to make a "AY" sound, in which "E" should also come before "I" (such as in the words "Neighbor"and "Weigh" . . .

. . . Oh, and sometimes, if the "I" and "E" are following a "C" it's because it's the plural form of a word which ended in "CY" in which case the "I" should still come before the "E" even though we just said that it shouldn't . . .

. . . and there are sometimes where the word is originally foreign, so we spell it with the "E" before the "I" even though none of our rules say that we should . . .

. . .HOLY CRAP! did you see what just happened there? I spelled the word FOREIGN with the "E" first even though NONE of the other rules say it should be spelled that way. That's so WEIRD!

OMG again !?!?!

I guess our massive list of catch-all exceptions can't catch all of our exceptions to the rules.

Foreign actually has an ay-ish sound.

Oh, and English has also lent a lot of words of Farsi. Bad and mother come to mind.

 

[Shuli]

Hey new guy. What makes you turn to Zelda for your main? Where do you live? Why haven't you said hi sooner?

Hi GreyFox. I've used Zelda ever since melee and it's because I beat my friend who had way more experience in playing melee at the time I first tried it while randoming characters. It was a very nice feeling but that was when I was around 10-11 years old. So that's why I use Zelda in Brawl as well. I'm actually from New York but as of now I'm somewhere in Asia taking up my college studies. I enjoy playing with Zelda all the more in doubles

I haven't said hi sooner cuz I just registered around 1-2 weeks ago and that's it xD I have lurked around the forums for a while and have been able to pick lots of neat tips like the farore cancelling so thank you for the ones who contributed to that. I haven't gone on the net to look up anything about Super Smash until last month. I just play offline and have only tried going wifi just once and it was laggy so I didn't like it and so I don't play online.

What I hate here where I am is that there aren't any tournaments It's kind of boring here when it comes to competitive play.

Hi also to Kaylo and Zeldspazz

 

[AzNfinesse]

i say we all start speaking klingon

 

[zeldspazz]

Hey Shuli what part of NY you around I live in NY as well Im in Central NY, around Syracuse and that area.

 

[Sonic The Hedgedawg]

Foreign actually has an ay-ish sound.

Perhaps in british english.

Here in america it's either pronounced:

FORE - in
or
FORE - un

 

[Half-Split Soul]

Actually, I'm hoping to once I get a degree, spend a year in china teaching people English (if they don't have a smash scene over there, I'm gonna start one). China and Thailand are pretty close on the coolness factor, right?

China is a pretty cool place to visit, but I wouldn't like to live there...

Of course, I'm basing my opinions on pre-olympics China, and I hear it's like a completely different country now.

If this is the social thread of Zelda, I'd like to say hi. I'm new here and I main Zelda

Hi hi and welcome!

English is also very ready to accommodate foreign words, and as it has become an international language, it has absorbed vocabulary from a large number of other sources. This does, of course, assume that you ignore 'agglutinative' languages such as Finnish, in which words can be stuck together in long strings of indefinite length, and which therefore have an almost infinite number of 'words'.

And this is why I love my native language.

 

[GreyFox86]

i say we all start speaking klingon

THE HELL HAPPENED AZN!?!?!?!

I thought you were gonna beat ven?

 

[Sonic The Hedgedawg]

 

[zeldspazz]

^ LMAO thats great xD

 

[GreyFox86]

^ LMAO thats fail xD

Yeah I have to agree with you on this mayne.

 

[zeldspazz]

Oh come on lighten up ^_^ Its funny

 

[JigglyZelda003]

wow there was some activity here? and i just learned alot about English rules so thanks Shedgy, i feel smarter than i did 5 minutes ago. :3

If this is the social thread of Zelda, I'd like to say hi. I'm new here and I main Zelda

hi hi

lol

 

[ぱみゅ]

So you dare bring Mr. Sparkle to my lair?

 

[Sonic The Hedgedawg]

wow there was some activity here? and i just learned alot about English rules so thanks Shedgy, i feel smarter than i did 5 minutes ago. :3

lol you know that's how it is with me jiggz

 

[Shuli]

Hey Shuli what part of NY you around I live in NY as well Im in Central NY, around Syracuse and that area.

New York City, New York. I used to reside in Queens.

Hi to JigglyZelda003 and Half-Split Soul.

Nice Cooking Gaga picture

Ahhh double post xD. I got a bad gateway error.

 

[Shuli]

Hey Shuli what part of NY you around I live in NY as well Im in Central NY, around Syracuse and that area.

New York City, New York. I used to reside in Queens.

Hi to JigglyZelda003 and Half-Split Soul.

Nice Cooking Gaga picture