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[Kagus]

Even if there wasn't all the media permitting you to immerse yourself in the language, english would still be easy af; I really don't know what fuckedupness you're referring to. No gender, barely a handful of conjugations... every language has stuff that just sounds off... If you want a challenge try declinating every article such as in german or simply an arbitrary shitfest such as french.

And how do compound words not make any sense? they're pure vocabulary; much simpler than navigating around those toughts with specific figures of speech.

"I before E, except after C" is a legitimate language standard that at least was taught in schools in the US. And it's a rule that's wrong just as often as it's correct.

We could also talk about things like whether or not that 'that that' was appropriate or that that 'that that' was not appropriate, the proper pronunciation of "ghoti", if it's correct or incorrect to label something that is flammable as inflammable, or we could just ask why we're learning French in order to speak English.


EDIT: As for compound words, it's not that they don't make sense, it's just that people unaccustomed to seeing them can be a bit taken aback by how many letters get shoved together into a single "word".

Heh... Also, Norwegians apparently have a really hard time remembering when you should use compound words and when you shouldn't. The acid test is to just ask someone to write down that category of grammatical error. "Word partitioning errors", in Norwegian, is one word. Orddelingsfeil.

[scourge728]

Islandislanders

Did they seriously actually name a place island island?

Also: English is kinda weird, the basics aren't hard, but then you start getting to the arbitrary exceptions in the rules, and the words that don't follow the rules (An example being weird, which funnily enough is a weird word, because of the I before E rule)

[Rowanas]

Islandislanders

Did they seriously actually name a place island island?

Also: English is kinda weird, the basics aren't hard, but then you start getting to the arbitrary exceptions in the rules, and the words that don't follow the rules (An example being weird, which funnily enough is a weird word, because of the I before E rule)

Well said. English is tremendously easy to learn in principal, just very hard to get to grips with in practice!

[dragdeler]

-snip-

[Kagus]

Should introduce you to the Danish number system.

Even the French number system is vaguely grounded in reality by comparison.

[dragdeler]

-snip-

[scriver]

Yes. All of the places, actually. Stockholm for being twats. Skåne for being Danish. The Northlands for being mute and emotionally crippled. Islandislanders for being inbred, and also Stockholmarjävlar. Northlanders for being inbred. Gothenburgians for being Gothenburgians. Jönköpingare for being free-religious zealots.

Skåne

Stockholmarjävlar

Jönköpingare

I am legit, intrigued, about how the fuck do you pronouce these words.

Sk-ay-n

Stockholm-mar-yav-lar

… Holy shit what the fuck...
Jyoin-ko-pin-gar-eh?

Anyway, these are an American's wild guesses.

The most surprising thing would probably be that the K in Jönköping is a SH-like sound, sort of like in Shower. We have tons ways to spell SH/CH/SCH sounds in Swedish.

Islandislanders

Did they seriously actually name a place island island?

No, unfortunately, that was supposed to be Islandland. Which isn't all that much better but still. They're very inbred, it's about what you can expect from them. For example, they don't say "we're going to X-place", they say "we're going on X-place".

Although now that I think of it I realise the place my family has our summer house is literally called "[word for island]+[other word for island]". So yeah. They did do that.

Quatre-vingt douze? Who are you kidding (four-twenty twelve = 92)

I bet it's just like in german were you say sixandseventy

Oh my sweet summer child...

[Il Palazzo]

I bet it's just like in german were you say sixandseventy.

I bet all numbers are read as fractions of 8, apart from Wednesdays and when it's over 40 degrees Celcius, when it's always a series of ones.

[dragdeler]

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[Kagus]

Quatre-vingt douze? Who are you kidding (four-twenty twelve = 92)

Again, vaguely grounded in reality. 4x20+12=92.

Now, a quick glimpse into Danish:

Everything goes reasonably smoothly, and much alike other germanic number systems, with your seven-and-twenty and your thirty-two, right up through 49. Then, from niogfyrre (nine and for[t]y), we advance to... Halvtreds. Half-threes, which is of course 50. Six-and-half-threes is 56. Going onwards up until nine-and-half-threes, we eventually stumble over the precipice and hit sixty. Sorry, I mean Threes.

Following the standard, we make our way through the other numbers, meeting six-and-fours (86) along the way, until we get up to the entirely reasonable nine-and-half-fives (99). One last step, and we exit the half-fives and reach a complete and full Hundre, or Hundred.

As one would expect.

[ChairmanPoo]

Yeah, Portuguese is generally ranked as more difficult to learn than the Scandinavian languages, but for someone coming from a latin root language and trying to understand a germanic root language, lots of things are just not going to make sense... Like the ever-popular hilarity of compound words, such as kommunesammenslåing.

Another thing that makes English easier for a lot of people is that pretty much regardless of where you are in the world, there will be English-language media available to you, if not even something you're exposed to on a daily basis. By comparison, you're most likely never going to tune into a Scandinavian movie or series on TV unless you are specifically living in a Scandinavian country.  All in all though, I'd rank Norwegian and English as being pretty equal as far as linguistic fucked-ness is concerned.


But be it English, Norwegian or Portuguese, at least we can all be thankful that it's not fucking Finnish.

If you're coming from a latin root language all other latin root languages are going to be easier. With Spanish/Portuguese/Italian/Catalonian you can even hack it between any two speakers provided all involved parties speak slowly and have goodwill regarding this hypothetical conversation. French and Romanian are a bit different but  I'm fairly sure I could learn either faster than languages outside the family

[scriver]

What about Basque though

[Mech#4]

You want a real abherration? Something as simple as "what is that thing" (qu'est-ce que c'est que cette chose) literraly translates as "what is it that it is (than) that thing". And it's not like "qu'est cette chose" doesn't exist, nah it's just too litterary of an expression for vulgar people to be using on a daily basis  .

I now realise something that I thought was just an oddity in writing. I used to watch a cartoon called "Victor and Hugo", about two bungling french thieves, and Hugo would often say "what is it that it is". Now I know it was actually a direct translation of a french wording quirk. Thanks for that.

[dragdeler]

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[scriver]

Chairman is a basqueardo, hence the question