Simplicity of English

[Douglas G. Wilson]

> > >Whoever it was commenting on how easy English is to learn
> > hasn't had to do
> > >it as a second language, or taught ESL. Compared to most
> > languages, it is
> > >one of the most complicated, inconsistent, exception-ridden
> > linguistic
> > >systems on earth.
> >
> > As I understand it, you are absolutely right on the
> > inconsistencies and difficulties--if one wants to speak and write the
> > language fluently. But isn't it true that a basic knowledge of English
> > goes a long, long way? Further, than, say, a basic knowledge of
> > Chinese? One need not even congugate "to go" and "to be" correctly
> > to be understood.
>
>In my subjective and unscientific opinion, a basic knowledge of spoken
>Chinese goes further than a basic knowledge of spoken English. Or put
>another way, it's easier to acquire a basic knowledge of spoken Chinese than
>of spoken English ...

>Having studied both Chinese and Japanese in an American school (Harvard),
>I can
>testify that after a semester of Chinese, American students can say a lot
>more in that language than in Japanese.

>... acquiring a very good knowledge of spoken and
>written Chinese is impossible for all but the most linguistically gifted of
>English speakers ...

Impossible for most Chinese speakers too, I think ....

 From my doubtless naive viewpoint, Paul Frank's comments are right on the
money.

Chinese grammar at the basic level is simple for English-speakers. Anybody
can verify this by looking at a basic Chinese text at the library or
bookstore. Look at a line of Chinese with a word-by-word gloss (followed
usually by a polished English sentence) ... Speak the crude gloss in
English ... Usually it's perfectly understandable 'pidgin' English.

I studied French and Chinese and Japanese (inter alia) at a rudimentary
level. Japanese is the difficult one grammatically AND orthographically
(IMHO) -- and it's not a close contest.

The Chinese/Sino-Japanese/Sino-Korean orthography is by no means "a good
way" to write anything. The Chinese characters are virtually obsolete in
(South) Korea; Korean is written just fine without them. (Look at any
Korean-language web-site.) Gradually the kanji ('Chinese characters') have
been partially replaced with hiragana in conventional Japanese in recent
decades (though kanji remain essential). Modern Japanese using
word-processors are -- I believe -- gradually losing the ability to write
(though not necessarily to read) kanji since the computer supplies the
kanji, given a phonetic input or other hint (so that one need only
recognize the right one from a list, at worst) ... something like the
effect of the spell-checker on one's ability to spell, but more pronounced.
And what of Sino-Vietnamese? Gone to the ashtray of history. I 'learned'
2000 kanji 25 years ago; where are they now?

-- Doug Wilson