Yep, English is difficult!
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I believe not as many other languages are âŚ
You should really try Slovene one day ⌠
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English is a delight as a second language. No genders. No flective forms. No cases of nouns/adjectives. No perfective/imperfective forms that make students of Russian cry. Beautiful, logical tenses, lovely inversions:) I canât but agree with Jerome K. Jerome: âWere English pronunciation less arbitrary, there is not the slightest doubt but that in the course of a very few years, comparatively speaking, it would become the language of the world. All foreigners agree that, grammatically, it is the easiest language of any to learn. A German, comparing it with his own language, where every word in every sentence is governed by at least four distinct and separate rules, tells you that English has no grammar. (âŚ) English pronunciation is the stumbling-block to our progress. English spelling would seem to have been designed chiefly as a disguise to pronunciation. It is a clever idea, calculated to check presumption on the part of the foreigner; but for that he would learn it in a year.â
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Not 100% true . (he him she her they them who whom + 3rd person singular verb inflects.
And quite a few irregular verbs.
It even still has a subjunctive mood but most people arenât aware of it.
But almost true.
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It does inflect in the third person singular, but foreigners so frequently forget about this little âsâ, that itâs as though it werenât present at all, and, as Professor Michael Swan gracefully put it âwe should just accept it as their way of speaking Englishâ.
We are aware of it! But itâs not quite so difficult as the Italian subjunctive, is it?
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Yup! In that matter English is delight. To add to all what @stella has written, you can hapily learn Slovene or Polish duality, many forms of saying one thing wuth just mixing the words around the sentences, one word meaning many things in TOTALLY DIFFERENT context and meaning ⌠yah, this is delight of Slovene but here it goes oposite way - reading and writing is really very simple. Cymraeg ⌠for the beginners is everything difficult - writing, talking, reading ⌠but as usage of words is quite similar to English, this becomes all (quite) simple as the time passes by.
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Itâs good that people are aware of it still - the subjunctive is a beautiful part of the English language. Not only in Italian but also in Spanish it remains important,
Justin
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accept it graciously and then encourage our new-found friends to speak English well (correctly that is) - always with a warm and encouraging smile of course - giving them all the help they need,
Justin
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I think maybe this reveals more about your positive attitude than about the language itself! - my time doing EFL/ESL made it pretty clear that English is by no means short of nightmares for learnersâŚ
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Oh, really? I canât think of a student of mine who would have managed not to fall deeply in love with English after a while: grammar and pronunciation and everything. Maybe theyâre just afraid to tell me:)
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Danish and Norwegian (& probably Swedish) have an even simpler verb system than English.
However,they have noun genders so itâs not a completely free lunch.
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Oooo, ja ⌠we have noun genders too ⌠and then it all depends of time of the sentence, number of things etc.
Just to let you know - if you didnât noticed yet - Duolingo Cymraeg course is available on Android devices now too, so happy learning.
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Diolch yn fawr, @tatjana - I checked for an iPhone/iPad app a few weeks ago and it didnât support the Welsh course then - but thanks to your post I looked again today, and now it does!
Well, I asked them a few days ago on their FB page if theyâd enable it because if you by a chance forgot to switch to the other language then Cymraeg on your PC or if you learnt only Cymraeg, you had enourmous problems on your other devices accessing your other languages youâre learning unless choosing another language to learn.
They didnât reply anything, but obviously took a note about the problem and made Cymraeg available on devices aswell what pleases me in deed.
Iâm happy you manage to use the course on iDevices aswell.
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I had assumed it didnât work in the app before because the course is in Beta - I donât actually know if that was the reason, though. Iâm very happy to be able to use it on my phone when I am out and about and have a few minutes, instead of always having to sit at my PC.
You assumed it right. It wasnât available bacause itâs BETA but BETA gets to the app sooner or later eventually so they assumed it is finally the time to make it available there aswell. If youâd do Russian youâd see that itâs also in BETA but was already available on the apps so Iâd say with Cymraeg they only now came to the point when the course is so much developed to be available on devices aswell. Iâm extreamly happy I now can use it on the tablet also because I do the most of those short courses and âstreighteningâ things on the bus when driving home. So, yes, itâs just fine to have it as it is. Sitting behind the PC I do other things which I canât do on tablet rather then âwastingâ my time with such things.
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So, today, I completed the new Welsh Duolingo course!
This course has been fantastic for practising what Welsh I already knew, as well as introducing me to words and dialectal variations I either didnât know or was unsure of.
There are still a few issues with the course, which can still be reported to the team, and if they agree with your corrections they send you an email to let you know that they have included your corrections into the course.
All in all, the course is not so complete that you will be speaking fluent Welsh on completion - in fact, it really doesnât help much with your conversational Welsh at all really. But those who are looking to read and write Welsh, I would recommend using this course alongside SSiW and Memrise (if youâre using that too).
As far as Iâm aware, it is still in BETA mode, and Iâm not sure if the course will be expanded in the future. But it is available on the Duolingo mobile app now and I will be âpracticing weak skillsâ every day, so if any new topics appear, I will let you all know!
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Wow!
Llongyfarchiadau!
I didnât get to the half yet, but OK, my excuse is that Iâm primarly re-doing the SSiW lessons regarding Cymraeg and only then all the rest while I use DuoLingo for other languages which are not offered here yet and I mostly am reviving my knowledge.
And ⌠youâve reported issues to DuoLingo havenât you?
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Itâs an on-going thing. There are a few phrases that you answer and just know itâs correct, one was a âpick the wordsâ exercise where a word was missing, mainly audio issues I experience though. But all in all its a great resource to further practice your Welsh.
Iâm using it to learn Irish Gaelic as well, but itâs a slow process, and the audio isnât always provided either, so I think that course too is a work in progress. But this is my point - if youâre looking to do a full language course that enables you to use a language comprehensively, then Duolingo isnât going to do this for you. It will teach you useful phrases you could use every day in ways that will stick in your brain, so long as you keep practising them. But if youâre doing a proper course, or a more comprehensive speaking course like SSi, it can prove to be a valuable resource to your learning.