3 ms·

Not to mention, English is way easier to learn and use than almost every other language. Simple English is competitive with Esperanto in terms of ease of learni

by lqdc13 9y ago

Not to mention, English is way easier to learn and use than almost every other language. Simple English is competitive with Esperanto in terms of ease of learning. To prove some of these: In Russia, they teach the correct spelling up until grade 11. In fact, when graduating from high school, you are commonly required to take a test where you write down correctly a story that a speaker dictates to you. This is unheard of in English-speaking countries because it would be incredibly easy to do. I started learning French and English at the same time in school and was not otherwise exposed to them. By the end of 6 years, I could speak English but not French. Spanish/Portuguese for me is somewhere between English and French in terms of ease of learning.

peatmoss 9y ago
Being a native English speaker, having taken a few years of Russian back in college, and having just recently been mutually trolled by some coworkers into completing the Duolingo course on Esperanto, this notion of simple English being easy strikes me as implausible. First, I'd argue that simple English compares unfavorably to the expressiveness of Esperanto given a similar investment of effort. Due to the way that Esperanto uses prefixes and suffixes to form more complex ideas, it takes a ludicrously short amount of time to start playing with and bending the language in what I can only assume are entirely legit ways. Second, Russian spelling is pretty darned regular / phonetic. I'll believe you that spelling is taught up until grade 11, but for the life of me I have no idea why. Given my extreme reliance on a spell checker to save me from embarrassment English, I'd posit that it's by no means because English is easier to spell—and my undergraduate major was journalism. Maybe in we in English speaking countries just give up on doing English sans spell checker earlier? My comprehension is pretty mediocre in Russian, but I can certainly sound out unfamiliar words and spell spoken words reliably... Also, a plug for the Duolingo Esperanto course: It's great fun, and is a very short path to getting a basic grasp on another language. Plus it has a baked in idealism that I love for the same reason I love Star Trek (see: https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/03/the-regrettable-decline-of-space-utopias https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/03/the-regrettable-decli...)
- lqdc13 9y ago
  Well, it's taught up until grade 11, because the vast majority of students cannot learn to write without major mistakes up until grade 11 of 3-4 days a week of 40 min Russian classes. This is purely Russian spelling - not Russian literature. Russian literature is a separate class. To put it in perspective, that is the same amount of time you spend learning math and 2x more than you spend learning history, geography, physics, etc. In fact, in the school where I went to where English is taught as a second language, after 7 years, English becomes English Literature. So I learned to write English without mistakes before learning to write Russian without mistakes being a native Russian speaker, regularly writing in Russian and never interacting with native English speakers. Sounding out words is not the issue. The issue is writing correctly in ambiguous cases. Here is a good example: http://videotutor-rusyaz.ru/uchenikam/teoriya/144-pravopisaniennnvchastyahrechi.html http://videotutor-rusyaz.ru/uchenikam/teoriya/144-pravopisan... This deals with whether you put one letter н or two in adjectives suffixes. Basically it depends on a lot of factors and there are many exceptions. There are also other suffixes each of which has specific rules based on a number of factors such as what the root of the word is, how it is formed, and the meaning of the word. This one single issue is already more complex than anything in English. There are a ton of other suffix and word conjugation issues you have to worry about. The only rule in English that I can think of where you have to interpret a sentence in your head before saying it is "I" vs "me". Example: He told Tom and me to get ready. vs If John and I get married, we’ll have two kids.
  - vorg 9y ago
    > "I" vs "me". Example: "He told Tom and me to get ready." vs "If John and I get married, we’ll have two kids." For both those sentences, "me" and "I" are interchangeable. In the second, "me" is more common in speech. The "I" in the subject and "me" in the object rule is only hard-and-fast when it's the only word in the subject or object.

by lqdc13 9y ago

peatmoss 9y ago

Being a native English speaker, having taken a few years of Russian back in college, and having just recently been mutually trolled by some coworkers into completing the Duolingo course on Esperanto, this notion of simple English being easy strikes me as implausible. First, I'd argue that simple English compares unfavorably to the expressiveness of Esperanto given a similar investment of effort. Due to the way that Esperanto uses prefixes and suffixes to form more complex ideas, it takes a ludicrously short amount of time to start playing with and bending the language in what I can only assume are entirely legit ways. Second, Russian spelling is pretty darned regular / phonetic. I'll believe you that spelling is taught up until grade 11, but for the life of me I have no idea why. Given my extreme reliance on a spell checker to save me from embarrassment English, I'd posit that it's by no means because English is easier to spell—and my undergraduate major was journalism. Maybe in we in English speaking countries just give up on doing English sans spell checker earlier? My comprehension is pretty mediocre in Russian, but I can certainly sound out unfamiliar words and spell spoken words reliably... Also, a plug for the Duolingo Esperanto course: It's great fun, and is a very short path to getting a basic grasp on another language. Plus it has a baked in idealism that I love for the same reason I love Star Trek (see: https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/03/the-regrettable-decline-of-space-utopias https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/03/the-regrettable-decli...)

lqdc13 9y ago
Well, it's taught up until grade 11, because the vast majority of students cannot learn to write without major mistakes up until grade 11 of 3-4 days a week of 40 min Russian classes. This is purely Russian spelling - not Russian literature. Russian literature is a separate class. To put it in perspective, that is the same amount of time you spend learning math and 2x more than you spend learning history, geography, physics, etc. In fact, in the school where I went to where English is taught as a second language, after 7 years, English becomes English Literature. So I learned to write English without mistakes before learning to write Russian without mistakes being a native Russian speaker, regularly writing in Russian and never interacting with native English speakers. Sounding out words is not the issue. The issue is writing correctly in ambiguous cases. Here is a good example: http://videotutor-rusyaz.ru/uchenikam/teoriya/144-pravopisaniennnvchastyahrechi.html http://videotutor-rusyaz.ru/uchenikam/teoriya/144-pravopisan... This deals with whether you put one letter н or two in adjectives suffixes. Basically it depends on a lot of factors and there are many exceptions. There are also other suffixes each of which has specific rules based on a number of factors such as what the root of the word is, how it is formed, and the meaning of the word. This one single issue is already more complex than anything in English. There are a ton of other suffix and word conjugation issues you have to worry about. The only rule in English that I can think of where you have to interpret a sentence in your head before saying it is "I" vs "me". Example: He told Tom and me to get ready. vs If John and I get married, we’ll have two kids.
- vorg 9y ago
  > "I" vs "me". Example: "He told Tom and me to get ready." vs "If John and I get married, we’ll have two kids." For both those sentences, "me" and "I" are interchangeable. In the second, "me" is more common in speech. The "I" in the subject and "me" in the object rule is only hard-and-fast when it's the only word in the subject or object.