World's most spoken languages

[paco]

This came up in a thread a little while ago, so I thought I'd share.
Here is a breakdown of the most spoken languages in the world.

The world's most spoken languages (http://www2.ignatius.edu/faculty/turner/languages.htm)

I'd just like to point out that Portuguese is in the top 10, no matter how you look at it! (I love the Portuguese language).

[uniextreme]

Does sign language count as a language?

[James_Potter]

Did you know that English is the hardest language to learn? Wait, I think Arabic is, actually.... English is second. There was some sort of poll done, or something. Yep.
And did you know that if the entire population of China was to walk past you, single file, then the line would never end due to the rate of population growth?

[Eublapharis13]

The reason English is hard to learn is because of it's Words spelled the same way but are totally different words... like He wound the bandage around the wound. Stuff like that.

[joona]

Originally posted by Eublapharis13
The reason English is hard to learn is because of it's Words spelled the same way but are totally different words... like He wound the bandage around the wound. Stuff like that.

Well there are things like that in most languages. Well, atleast in Finnish and Swedish. And Swedish is pretty much related to English. I guess there's more problems with the pronouncing of the words. In Finnish there is only one way to pronounce a letter. Well, for most of them. The only one I can think of that can be pronounced in two ways is 'n'. In words that have 'nk' or 'ng' in them, and there is a vowel after that, the 'n' is pronounced like 'ng' in 'bring', otherwise it's pronounced like 'n' in 'can'. The 'k' and 'g' are said just like in any other finnish word.

[Logan_A.]

937,132,000 is the number of people who speak chinese in the worlds most spoken language post.

Clue #7 the final Clue super dooper tough.

don't cheat with this one!

I say hello
YOu say good bye
devo
it's not time, why, why, why

[paco]

One of the reasons English is so hard to speak is because spoken English was not solidified when the printing press was invented. The printing press formalized the spelling before the pronunciation was done changing. There was also a great influx of French into English, even though it's a Germanic language.

But English isn't that hard to learn. Not like the oriental languages. Japanese has three different alphabets!

By the way, Brazilians think that Portuguese is the hardest language to learn, and Americans think it's English. Until I see some proof, I'm calling it national pride on both accounts.

[jimmy]

If you think that English is easy try reading this out loud.

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.


Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.


Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.


Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.


Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.


Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.


Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.


Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.


Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.


Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.


Pronunciation -- think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.


Finally, which rhymes with enough --
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!


Enjoy

James

[treepotato]

appently its impossible to learn all the chinese alphabet... don't know if its true though anyone chinese here?

[Fool]

One of the benifits of having a language like english is that we can make puns and other plays on words. Cryptic crosswords are also possible in a way apparently not viable in french say.

Fool

[wobbling bear]

Originally posted by Fool
One of the benifits of having a language like english is that we can make puns and other plays on words. Cryptic crosswords are also possible in a way apparently not viable in french say.

each language has his ways of doing that:
french are fond of switcheroos , songs with aliterations,
transmogrification of words .....
in a ways that use the language's nature and rythm,
it's use by poets, songwriters, and ordinary people is as old as the language
itself (though a recent article in the "economist" pretended that french had
no sense of humour!)

each language has it's way to play with words.

this said the real benefit of english is it's ambiguity: it's good for business! :p

[Fool]

Rabdom Language Trivia; apparently the Discworld books by Terry Prattchet translate well into Polish.

[joona]

More about Discworld-books. They don't translate too well in Finnish. Translators are having a hard time trying to figure out something funny to replace of those wordplays. You can't translate them just from english or they just sound stupid.

[GizmoDuck]

Originally posted by treepotato
appently its impossible to learn all the chinese alphabet... don't know if its true though anyone chinese here?

English doesn't even come close to Chinese in terms of learning difficulty. You have to learn a different character for each and every word.

I stopped learning when I was 9yrs old- I can't write anything except the most basic sentences. Most of my friends couldn't write a decent letter until they were in their teens.

[paco]

Originally posted by Fool
One of the benifits of having a language like english is that we can make puns and other plays on words.
Did you know that American Sign Language has their own system of puns? It's something along the lines of using signs which look similar, but with very different meanings.

[joe]

Originally posted by paco

Did you know that American Sign Language has their own system of puns? It's something along the lines of using signs which look similar, but with very different meanings.

My mum is learning English Sign.

Before christmas my dad asked her what 'Happy Christmas' was in sign, as there is a deaf guy at my dads gym. 'Happy Christmas' is said the same as 'I like Christmas'.

Anyways, my mum showed my dad how to say it, and when my dad did it back to my mum, he did the sign for Christmas wrong. The sign he did ment man!

We just told him to stop! We didnt want him going into the gym and telling the deaf guy 'I like man!' :rolleyes:


Joe,

[sparkspill]

Mandarin is still number one!

The Bridge Language Guide (http://bridgelanguagecenter.com/languageguide.html)

[forrestunifreak]

If you think that English is easy try reading this out loud.

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.


Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.


Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.


It's not that hard. I just read all of that out loud with only one slip up. (besides a couple words that I'm not sure of how to pronounce anyway, regardless)

[Naomi]

If you think that English is easy try reading this out loud.

.
.
.
.
Finally, which rhymes with enough --
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!


Enjoy

James

I certainly did enjoy that: thank you.

I just had to look up the title and author:

The Chaos
by G. Nolst Trenite' a.k.a. "Charivarius" 1870 - 1946

A second reference had a different title, and also pointed out that the author was Dutch!

The author of the poem “English is Tough Stuff” is Charivarius. Charivarius was a Dutchman and an English schoolteacher, who wrote funny poems (in Dutch, except this one) for newspapers between 1910–1920.

I don't know which is the original title: both used the sort of words he appears fond of. Makes me wish I could read Dutch and so sample a few more of his works.

[kington99]

It's not that hard. I just read all of that out loud with only one slip up. (besides a couple words that I'm not sure of how to pronounce anyway, regardless)


yes but imagine trying to explain the rules to a non-english speaker that govern the vastly different pronounciation of seemingly similar words in that poem, for instance why doesn't horse rhyme with worse?

[johnfoss]

Annoying trivia:

1. American Sign Language and English/British Sign Language are different and have very little in common with each other. American Sign Language is based on French Sign Language.

2. "Chinese" is a language like "Chevy" is a specific model of car. Which form of Chinese?

[kington99]

American Sign Language and English/British Sign Language are different and have very little in common with each other.


Obviouly mirroring the spoken language :)

and yes, when people say Chinese you can assume Mandarin as it is the most prevalent, but it's still rather ambiguous.

[AlanChambers]

yes but imagine trying to explain the rules to a non-english speaker that govern the vastly different pronounciation of seemingly similar words in that poem, for instance why doesn't horse rhyme with worse?

I like this example of something difficult in English grammar: compound verbs. Why do we 'wake someone up', but 'climb up a ladder'? Why do we 'push something off' (if we want it to fall), but 'push off something' (if we want to move away from it), and 'fall off something' (if someone pushes us off)? There are simply no good rules for whether the verb is split or not, and sometimes it can go either way.

People who think English spelling is hard should spend some time trying learn the multiple readings of Japanese kanji. Which reading do you use in which context? How do you pronounce an unfamiliar compound? And that's for the kanji you know. At least with unfamiliar English words you can have a go at the pronunciation, and a native speaker will probably know what you mean. In Japanese you have to point: sono kanji wa wakarimasen...

In Arabic, what are the short vowels? Depends where you are in the Arabic-speaking world...

French? Don't even go there...


Al