What do you assign to Mordor?

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by Galadriel

FRENCH spellings? English spellings are worse. You can never tell if the 'h' is silent, if the 'c' is a 'c', an 's', or a 'k', if 'ch' is actually 'ch' or just 'k', if the 'x' is actually an 'x' or a 'z'...

No, that's English pronounciation.


I guess I see the languages differently because I learn new English from storybooks and new French from the teacher. And when the teacher says, for example, "spell sais", I'm more likely to write c'est or s'est or just plainly ce or se.

In English, though, I'm ok with spelling the words but sometimes have the wrong pronounciation. I still pronounce "treachery" as treechery, not trechery, and "bury" as bury, not bary. Just because I read those words before I heard them.


Or let's put it simpler. I know English, I don't know French.

[Andsigil]

I love the English language, ever since I began studying Latin, Spanish, and Japanese.

This attempt by the Normans to smash the square peg of French into the round hole of Anglo Saxon which began a thousand years ago has become what multilingual, non-English speakers have assured is the hardest language to learn in the world.

I've collected a few quotes about English over the years:

“The word ‘good’ has many meanings. For example, if a man were to shoot his grandmother at a range of five hundred yards, I should call him a good shot, but not necessarily a good man.”
-G. K. Chesterton

“English grammar is so complex and confusing for the one very simple reason that its rules and terminology are based on Latin, a language with which it has precious little in common.”
-Bill Bryson

To write or even speak English is not a science but an art. Whoever writes English is involved in a struggle that never lets up even for a sentence. He is struggling against vagueness, against obscurity, against the lure of the decorative adjective, against the encroachment of Latin and Greek, and, above all, against the worn-out phrases and dead metaphors with which the language is cluttered up.
—George Orwell

[Galadriel]

Originally Posted by Andsigil

I love the English language, ever since I began studying Latin, Spanish, and Japanese.

I hate getting envious

[Galadriel]

[QUOTE]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

No, that's English pronounciation.

Oops! Yeah, sorry And it's 'pronunciation' I'm usually not bothered by English spellings, but the pronunciation is just...confusing

Or let's put it simpler. I know English, I don't know French.

I wish I knew French.

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by Galadriel

And it's 'pronunciation'

Ooops. Yeah. Well. Umm. Yeah.

That's why it all belongs in Mordor - spelling and pronunciation together!

Originally Posted by Galadriel

I wish I knew French.

Ditto. If I knew it I woudn't have to learn it.

/stupid silly mood