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I speak/write ~english, ~italian and spanish, and if I have to arrange them by 'coherence' it would be english-spanish-italian. >> Italian is phonetically one

by scoutt 7y ago

I speak/write ~english, ~italian and spanish, and if I have to arrange them by 'coherence' it would be english-spanish-italian. >> Italian is phonetically one of the simplest languages on the earth The fundamental importance of the double-consonant and its pronunciation is very difficult for non-italians. Same goes for V and B sound differences. I agree that English for an Italian is a nightmare. Did you know that Italians can't pronounce the english 'H'? Like in 'hate' they will pronounce 'ate'? That's for starters. You can guess some text was written by an italian if you find something like "that task is an hassle". Spanish is as difficult as Italian, but it has more rules that are useful when reading/writing (Italians: if I don't know how Modena and Milano are pronounced, where do I put the accent?), but spanish has also a lot of exceptions that are difficult to learn and remember. English is perfect for tech stuff. Short, concise and clear.

darkwater 7y ago
Well Italian has some exceptions in pronunciation too, for example "gli" and "agli" sounds the same but "glicine" does not. About putting the accent, italian is just as bad as english..I still struggle with "vegetables" after so many years!
- throwaway744678 7y ago
  You'll always find exceptions, but it does not disprove the fact that the general rule covers 90-something percent of the cases. I don't speak Italian (except the usual hello/goodbye/thank you), but I can read a sentence to a native (say from a travel guide) so that they'll understand it. Try doing that with English.
  - darkwater 7y ago
    Oh yeah, absolutely! I'm on Salvatore's side here: English pronunciation is just plain random
nerdponx 7y ago
Interesting take. I'm a native English speaker and I found Spanish refreshingly structured and consistent.
sheepdestroyer 7y ago
As a French, I am almost sure by now that the existence of H is just a lie, even if some say that haricot and hérisson suffice to prove that it's not.
gpderetta 7y ago
You are completely right about accents of course. In theory written words should have accent marks, but it is common accepted practice (outside of dictionaries) to omit them.
arcturus17 7y ago
> English is perfect for tech stuff. Short, concise and clear. As a Spaniard who's also fluent in French, I agree that it's the best of technical lingua franca of the three. Like the article says, the most convoluted part about English is its pronunciation ("lead" as in leading a team vs. "lead" as in the metal - WTF?), but otherwise I'd say it's easier than Romance languages. A very interesting conversation has ensued in the comments of the article, where some Esperanto speakers claim that it would be the best lingua franca. I don't have trouble believing that a well-engineered artificial language might solve many of the problems that natural languages present, but in the latter category perhaps English is one of the least difficult.
- scoutt 7y ago
  I don't find pronunciation extremely difficult (as spanish has most of the 'sounds' already), but in most cases, as the word 'lead', can be parsed easily according to context. What infuriates me the most of the english language is phrasal verbs. There is no rule and no context-parsing, and can mean completely different things.

by scoutt 7y ago

darkwater 7y ago

Well Italian has some exceptions in pronunciation too, for example "gli" and "agli" sounds the same but "glicine" does not. About putting the accent, italian is just as bad as english..I still struggle with "vegetables" after so many years!

throwaway744678 7y ago
You'll always find exceptions, but it does not disprove the fact that the general rule covers 90-something percent of the cases. I don't speak Italian (except the usual hello/goodbye/thank you), but I can read a sentence to a native (say from a travel guide) so that they'll understand it. Try doing that with English.
- darkwater 7y ago
  Oh yeah, absolutely! I'm on Salvatore's side here: English pronunciation is just plain random

nerdponx 7y ago

Interesting take. I'm a native English speaker and I found Spanish refreshingly structured and consistent.

sheepdestroyer 7y ago

As a French, I am almost sure by now that the existence of H is just a lie, even if some say that haricot and hérisson suffice to prove that it's not.

gpderetta 7y ago

You are completely right about accents of course. In theory written words should have accent marks, but it is common accepted practice (outside of dictionaries) to omit them.

arcturus17 7y ago

> English is perfect for tech stuff. Short, concise and clear. As a Spaniard who's also fluent in French, I agree that it's the best of technical lingua franca of the three. Like the article says, the most convoluted part about English is its pronunciation ("lead" as in leading a team vs. "lead" as in the metal - WTF?), but otherwise I'd say it's easier than Romance languages. A very interesting conversation has ensued in the comments of the article, where some Esperanto speakers claim that it would be the best lingua franca. I don't have trouble believing that a well-engineered artificial language might solve many of the problems that natural languages present, but in the latter category perhaps English is one of the least difficult.

scoutt 7y ago
I don't find pronunciation extremely difficult (as spanish has most of the 'sounds' already), but in most cases, as the word 'lead', can be parsed easily according to context. What infuriates me the most of the english language is phrasal verbs. There is no rule and no context-parsing, and can mean completely different things.