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From: hatunen@netcom.com (DaveHatunen)
Subject: Re: Languages: Hard, Harder, Hardest
Message-ID: <hatunenDv7w3n.HnK@netcom.com>
Organization: Next week we've just got to get organized
References: <4s9otl$1pt@dfw-ixnews6.ix.netcom.com> <31f09c4b.25641454@news.airmail.net> <4sr6ll$r0a@homer.alpha.net> <4tcbj8$tb8@sonnet1.sonnet.com>
Date: Sat, 27 Jul 1996 19:42:59 GMT
Lines: 35
Sender: hatunen@netcom23.netcom.com
Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu sci.skeptic:192747 sci.lang:58460

In article <4tcbj8$tb8@sonnet1.sonnet.com>,
Dans La Maison <michelem@s2.sonnet.com> wrote:

[...]

>English isn't really all that difficult.  First of all, it doesn't
>have masculine/femine nouns, pronouns and adjectives. It doesn't make
>adjectives plural .   Conjugating verbs--except for a very few--is
>extremely easy, since the only change is made in the third person
>singular form.

Even more to the point: if you do screw up the conjugation or
declension, you may get a funny look, but you will be perfectly well
understood. English is a language which can be spoken fairly badly and
still be understood; this makes for a pretty good lingua franca.

  In fact, the ease of conjugating verbs in English
>makes it very difficult for many native speakers of English to learn
>how to conjugate in other languages.  The very concept of conjugation
>is new to them.  English doesn't make a lot of case distinctions in
>its pronouns, and adds no affixes to words when they change case.
>Yes, we do have a  irregular words and verbs.  If you think English
>has a lot, study a few other languages.  

Finn, for one.

[...]



-- 


    ********** DAVE HATUNEN (hatunen@netcom.com) **********
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