Re: British GP

Geoff <geoff@geoffwood.org> wrote:

On 10/07/2024 8:17 pm, Yazoo wrote:

On Tue, 9 Jul 2024 13:52:19 -0000 (UTC), Mark <mpconmy@gmail.com>
wrote:
 
...

>
I'm not generally a nitpicker when it comes to spelling or grammar
(though I try to be correct myself). For me, you sum it up: language is
for conveying ideas, so understanding is key.

...
 
I agree with all you wrote.
As someone who still learns English (after 50+ years of learning), I'm
happy to understand nuances of the language and be able to recognize
the fine lines in between words and phrases.
English can be confusing for us aliens, at times. :)

 
Must be, especially with exposure to US spelling, pronunciation, and
misuse of words !
 
Not to mention UK range of (extreme) accents.

[ Well off-topic... ]

As someone who has spent some years studying Spanish (with some
reasonable French from my schooldays) I'll offer a /small/ crumb of
comfort in defence of English...

Spanish is a wonderful language. It has a much more regular design (very
few irregular verbs in comparison to English or even French), and its
vowels stand out as a gold standard for aiding communication. What I
mean by that is that while English can pronounce vowels in a hundred
different ways[1], Spanish is simply:

A = ah
e = eh
i = ee
o = oh
u = oo

BUT that should make things easy, right? Well, not quite. I have found
the Spanish is much more complicated in other ways. I spend a lot of
time in the south of Spain (Andalucía) where they have some
peculiarities. Like they drop "s" from ends of words that should have
them, and they run words together (almost like compound words), which
takes some time to dial into.

Also a challenge for the English is the fact that every Spanish word (as
far as I know) must be "stressed" once.  They make this easy because
most words have the stress on the penultimate syllable, and the
exceptions are shown by the accent[2]. Hence, México is "MEH hico"
(stress on the beginning) whereas Mexico would be "meh HI co" (stress on
the penultimate syllable). Get this wrong and you will *not* be
understood.

At first, I wondered if they were being rude to the foreigner as I was
sure I was using the right words and right consonent vowel
pronunciation...but the stress being wrong is just massively confusing
to Spanish speakers in my experience. They can often work it out with
time and patience, but getting this aspect right is critical.

English - while it's better spoken with the right stresses and cadence -
is completely intelligible to English speakers so long as the words are
right. Hell, most English speakers will understand what's meant even if
whole words are omitted or put into the wrong places. That's not the
case with Spanish.

So, English is hard, irregular and messy...but it's also really flexible
and (kind of) works even when you don't get it right. That quite
possibly why it's been so successful. (I still don't envy those learning
English as a second language!)

1. Consider the "-ough" situation - and I realise this isn't helpful in
a defence of English - where (at least with my pronunciation):

through - ough = oo
        thorough - ough = uh
bough - ough = ow
dough - ough = oh
cough - ough = off
rough - ough = uff
ought - ough = or

2. The main one is the one used for stress (the acute): á, é, í, ó, ú.
There is also the tilde (ñ) which turns the "en" sound into an "enya"
and the diaresis (only used for ü) which ensures the "u" is pronounced.