Why Is English So Hard For Thais?

[baht&sold]

Let’s face it - English is a crazy language. Courtesy of Dennis, our man in Nan:

Reasons The English Language is so hard for Thai people to learn:

1) The bandage was wound around the wound.

2) The farm was used to produce produce.

3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.

4) Polish the Polish furniture.

5) He could lead if he would get the lead out.

6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.

7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.

8) A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.

9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.

10) I did not object to the object.

11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.

12) There was a row among the row of oarsmen about how to row.

13) They were too close to the door to close it.

14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.

15) A seamstress and a sewer fell into a sewer.

16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.

17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail.

18) After a number of injections my jaw got number.

19) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.

20) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.

21) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

Let’s face it - English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren’t invented in England or French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren’t sweet, are meat.

We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square, and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig. And why is it that writers write but fingers don’t fing, grocers don’t groce, and hammers don’t ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn’t the plural of booth beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices? Doesn’t it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend. If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it? If teachers taught, why didn’t preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?

Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell? How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in form by filling it out, and in which an alarm goes off by going on.

English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race (which, of course, isn’t a race at all).

That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.

Yours truly.

[DJ Pat]

No wonder they don't bother. Would you?

[steveromagnino]

The wind is too strong to wind the sail???!

Who would ever say that?!

How do you even wind a sail?

I guess I must need to either learn how to sail properlee, or learn how to speak engrit properlee

[sadman]

It reminds me of the very famous story of a man who wished to buy two mongooses (yes, that is the correct plural). Unsure whether to request 2 mongeese or 2 mongooses, he wrote:

"Dear Sir.Please send me a mongoose. While you are at it, please send me a second mongoose. Yrs etc".

English is indeed a fascinating and often bizarre language, having its roots in many different sources. For instance, why is the animal an ox but the meat beef? Or why does pork come from swine? Because following 1066, the Saxons raised the animals (hence the Saxon words ox and swine) while the Normans ate the meat (hence the French words porc and boeuf).

Language evolves, and possibly two of the greatest influences on spelling were William Caxton inventing the printing press and making the written word available to the masses, and the phonetics used by the early American settlers.

Rules of grammar also change - it is now fairly common to see the word 'and' immediately following a comma, whereas my grandparents' generation would be horrified to see this. And, as Winston Churchill said: "Misplacing prepositions is something up with which I am not prepared to put".