Weird English language

Diuretic

Diuretic

New member
I feel for non-native English speakers trying to learn our mangled language (as much as I love it I can see how hard it is).

I just wrote a sentence which featured, "tough though". They were the two final words in the sentence. Now, if you didn't know how they were pronounced I reckoned you'd be pretty confused.
 
it's odd how they have almost all of the same letters and sound almost nothing alike. A great deal of the problem with learning our language is that we don't indicate tense in our letters, and we try to compress the multitude of syllables and sounds we use into just 26 letter. Most of it just really has to be done by memorizing and getting used to the language, which is why it can take over 7 years to learn properly, much longer than almost any other language.

The do actually have full languages that you can learn in 7 weeks based on English though.
 
I think people who learn English as a second language are made of stern stuff.

Yes, our language rules are from such diverse sources it must be merry hell for learners.
 
A certain level of difficulty weeds out the lily-livered slackers and simpletons alike. Dedication and a judicial use of the memory box is called for, i say.

After all, without hapless foreign sorts mispronouncing English words in a comical manner where would the traditional 1970's British sit-com have found a decade of material?
 
charver said:
A certain level of difficulty weeds out the lily-livered slackers and simpletons alike. Dedication and a judicial use of the memory box is called for, i say.

After all, without hapless foreign sorts mispronouncing English words in a comical manner where would the traditional 1970's British sit-com have found a decade of material?
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I don't know if you've ever seen a sitcom set in France in WWII called Ello, Ello but it had the funniest one-liner I've ever heard in a tv sitcom - but sadly it doesn't transfer well to text.

Anyway, about difficult languages and laziness:

traduisez en anglais s'il vous plait -

je suis quel je suis, mais je ne suis pas quel je suis

merci beaucoup
 
Diuretic said:
I don't know if you've ever seen a sitcom set in France in WWII called Ello, Ello but it had the funniest one-liner I've ever heard in a tv sitcom - but sadly it doesn't transfer well to text.

Anyway, about difficult languages and laziness:

traduisez en anglais s'il vous plait -

je suis quel je suis, mais je ne suis pas quel je suis

merci beaucoup
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Wow that's terriffic. If I hadn't slept through French II I might understand it.

May I get a translation? Pretty please?
 
It says, "Translate into English, Please! I am what I am, but I am not what I am. Thank you very much."
 
charver said:
Oh yes, i remember 'Allo Allo' http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/alloallo/

It is still being shown, probably as i type, on one satellite station or another.
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The episode where the RAF pilot pretending to be a French gendarme who speaks terrible French, which comes out as mangled Franglais (because we're supposed to be listening to an Englishman speaking French badly) and he's walking past the pissoir that's been demolished by a car prang...."no piss[peace/paix] for the wicked". I did say it didn't transfer well to text but it still cracks me up.
 
Damocles said:
It says, "Translate into English, Please! I am what I am, but I am not what I am. Thank you very much."
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It does doesn't it? But (I learned this one years ago from my music teacher, not my French teacher), it was expressed by a French philosopher who was walking up a small terraced hill in a village and he was walking behind a donkey being led by its owner.

Conjugate suivre - to follow :D
 
Damocles said:
je suis
tu suis
il; elle suit
ns suivons
vs suivez
ils; elles suivent
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That's it!

Je suis (am) quel je suis (am) mais je ne suis pas (but I'm not) quel je suis (what I follow - suis here being the present singular tense of suivre, to follow).

It's the only thing my music teacher taught me that I remember, I failed trombone :D
 
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