My Deustsch, that's German in English, course, started last week. The trainer comes from Max Muller and is quite good. The training is evenly spaced and involves lot of practicals and revisions.
With any language, you have to unlearn part of the rules of the earlier language. English is closer in terms of script and the basic words, however, pronunciation varies hugely, Sometimes you are not able to deduce the meaning, only if you pronounce the word correctly. eg. ankreuzen (to cross) or tricken (to drink). And sometimes, the pronunciation misleads you. eg. Alphabet 'J' is 'ya' in German (and in other European languages as well). Hence it's Yapan.
However, a few things I like - alphabets are pronounced in the same manner always, unlike English where 'U' can create different sounds in put, but and mute.
Generally, it's great fun going to a class and learning the alphabet song and simple rhymes (in Deutsch of course) all over again.
Thursday, June 29, 2006
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2 comments:
The most criticizable point about English langauage is that it has not maintained its rules on usage of vowels i.e. aeiou. As you pointed out that 'put' is pronounced differently from 'but'. Contrastingly I find our very own Hindi and sister langauages well-scriptes as far as usage rules are concerned. A 'matra after 'kuh' is 'kaa' and the same olds for 'guh'. It makes Hindi more logical and hence easier to learn and involves less stress to the brain and memory. I used to advocate this when I was in UK and I used to see people accepting it :-).
Secondly it has added a lot of words in its dictionary from other langauges and this makes it an ever increasing dictionary of words. This makes even a scholar of the langauge, incomplete. But laudable is its usage of grammar.
Inspite of all this it is the most followed language in the world. Now that is laudable!
Agree with everything that you say.
English have thrived, just coz the English had the power to enforce it wherever they went. They conquered nations and imposed their way of living.
I think in someways, English being so unruly (without rules :-) makes it easier to use. It has assimilated so much from other languages over so many years. But that's a hallmark of a great language. To embrace other languages and extensively borrow from them
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