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[Il Palazzo]

Tell me, though, all you English-As-A-Foreign-Language people...  Do you see the problem with the phrase "I could of done something"?  A lot of native English speakers don't.  Drives me mad.

Yeah, it do see it as an obvious error, but only because I have actually learned the language instead of having acquired it. It's normal for foreign language speakers(of any language) to first learn the proper spelling and usage of grammatical structures, while for the native speakers it's the communicative aspect that comes first.
When you look at the common errors in English language, you'll see that quite a lot of them stem from the speaker's attempt at transcribing the well-known(from hearing) phrase or word that happens to sound the same as something else. The non-native speaker most likely will have learnt these nuances before actually being able to pronounce them, so they never register as similar enough to be the source of a mistake.
The "would/could/should of" is just one of many such cases.

To answer the OP's question, I like the language a lot. It's lots of fun to find the history of the language reflected in the words and structures you learn, and English has a rich history.
Also, it doesn't require that much of speech organs gymnastics as some other languages(e.g.I'm Polish and still haven't learned the rolling 'r').

[Skyrunner]

Got one:Shoguns brainwashed Shaolins.  All loan words. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_of_Chinese_origin

Hard part is actually finding a verb, most loan-words appear to be nouns.

Actually, if you stick to the simple structure of subject + verb, you can make short sentences with loanwords, I think. I'm sure there is at least two loanword subjects and one loanword verb.

It was hard to find one that didn't make sense without using articles.

Try this: Cousins marry husbands.

Yes, it's incest, but it makes sense.

[Sir Finkus]

Yes, it's incest, but it makes sense.

Prime siggy material right here.

[Trapezohedron]

English is flexible, and even if you mangle it somewhat, the point can still get through and you'd still be able to understand what that person said, which is why I like it.

Also, it's a lingua franca, so it gets bonus points there, too.

[Mr. Palau]

Also, it doesn't require that much of speech organs gymnastics as some other languages(e.g.I'm Polish and still haven't learned the rolling 'r').

If I knew the vocal gynastics that Chinese requires for proper pronounciation (whihc is important because tones distinguish between words) I might not have taken it.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Tell me, though, all you English-As-A-Foreign-Language people...  Do you see the problem with the phrase "I could of done something"?  A lot of native English speakers don't.  Drives me mad.

I'm a native English speaker, and I take objection to that sentence. It is not grammatically correct. The correct phase would be "I could have done something."

This is an attempt to render "have" as "of", because it sounds similar to that in some English-speaking accents.

[Hubris Incalculable]

Yeah, if i'm speaking at normal speed, both <of> and <have> reduce to a /v̩/ (which means "syllabic v", by the way)

English is basically a collection of exceptions. That's really all it is. A beautiful, hideous slurry of exceptions.

Srsly, think of any rule in English, be it syntactic, phonological, or orthographical, and I guarantee there's an exception.

[Ancre]

I speak french and english fluently (with my french being much, much better than my english). For me, english is the crazy girl in the house : it's fun, full of exceptions and surprising rules, and overall quite frustrating and difficult to grasp. It's easy to speak it poorly, hard to speak it well, and I am never quite certain I understand clearly what people say to me. It doesn't help that being a lingua franca, lots of non-native speakers mangle it in their own way, while natives accumulate a huge variety of dialects and accents (I swear, sometimes it's like the georgian lady living here speaks a different language altogether). It's not precise enough for me. I can probably mumble my way anywhere in the world with it, but I can't do poetry with it the way I want to.

But I can have fun with it. It's especially cool to be able to switch from a language to another with my family and my bilingual friends (or just blatantly insert a word or a grammatical construction from the other language here and there). I need to learn more languages to do even more ugly mash-ups like that.

[Il Palazzo]

Yeah, if i'm speaking at normal speed, both <of> and <have> reduce to a /v̩/ (which means "syllabic v", by the way)

Hmmm, shouldn't these be reduced to /əv/? That's the weak form of 'have' I think.

Srsly, think of any rule in English, be it syntactic, phonological, or orthographical, and I guarantee there's an exception.

I'll bite.
1."Indirect object always precedes direct object when both are noun phrases."
2."In non-rhotic dialects(e.g.RP) the /r/ sound does not occur in a phrase or word unless followed by a vowel."
3."The /θ/ sound is always rendered as 'th'."

I suppose with English the saying that 'exception proves the rule' still holds, and it's only a matter of getting down to the more specific cases. For example, "Indirect object always precedes direct object" would have an exception(the case of prepositional phrases), but narrowing it down to noun phrases gives you a solid rule.

[Hanslanda]

As a monoglot American English speaker, I enjoy my language. I agree that Latin is simply the most awesome language ever, despite being unable to actually speak it. I would like to say that English English and American English might as well be two different languages.

[Hubris Incalculable]

Hmmm, shouldn't these be reduced to /əv/? That's the weak form of 'have' I think.

well, technically, maybe, but i tend to realize it as just [v̩]

1."Indirect object always precedes direct object when both are noun phrases."
2."In non-rhotic dialects(e.g.RP) the /r/ sound does not occur in a phrase or word unless followed by a vowel."
3."The /θ/ sound is always rendered as 'th'."

Well, I don't know about 1 or 3 (yet), but with two:

Speakers of RP dialects tend to pronounce /r/ (which is really realized as [ɹ] or [ɻ]) intervocalically. For example, while "here" realizes as [hiǝ] the words "here and" together are realized as [hiǝ˞ and] woops. Misread the rule. But i have heard [ɹ] in a final position from my Welsh friend.

[Glowcat]

It needs better gender neutral pronouns.

[Skyrunner]

What languages have gender neutral pronouns? The few i know all default to masculine as gender-neutral, which many people don't seem to like. :/

English would be he, Spanish él, I think French is le, Korean 그.
My very small reference range probably doesn't help. One loosely Germanic, two Romance and one Altaic.

It needs better gender neutral pronouns.

[Blizzlord]

No matter how much it is refined English is still just a mash of different languages. Also, who would complain over the English grammar? It is simple enough most of the time. Compared to French and German it is a breeze.

[Twiggie]

You can use they as a gender neutral pronoun.

I do on occasion, anyway.