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As a Spanish speaker I can say that even if it has some phonetic exceptions, Spanish is still extremely easy to pronounce compared to English. However, English

As a Spanish speaker I can say that even if it has some phonetic exceptions, Spanish is still extremely easy to pronounce compared to English. However, English grammar is much simpler than Spanish grammar.

thesuperbigfrog 3y ago
>> However, English grammar is much simpler than Spanish grammar. So true. Learning Italian and Spanish as a native English speaker is daunting because of the sheer number of verb tenses and irregular verbs you must master: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_conjugation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_conjugation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_conjugation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_conjugation The other challenge is learning the correct gender for inanimate objects: https://learnitalian.web.unc.edu/home/nounsarticlesadjectives/nouns/#:~:text=Most%20Italian%20nouns%20ending%20in,automobile%2C%20stazione%2C%20carne https://learnitalian.web.unc.edu/home/nounsarticlesadjective...). Who would have guessed that a motorcycle is female: https://www.webspanish.com/blog/spanish-lesson-se-dice-el-moto-o-la-moto/ https://www.webspanish.com/blog/spanish-lesson-se-dice-el-mo...
- argentinian 3y ago
  Certainly. English can express the same ideas with less tenses, and having a gender for inanimate objects is absurd.
  - thesuperbigfrog 3y ago
    But English pronunciation and spelling can be awful: "A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed." See https://emmawilkin.com/blog/2020/2/17/a-rough-coated-dough-faced-thoughtful-ploughman https://emmawilkin.com/blog/2020/2/17/a-rough-coated-dough-f...
    - argentinian 3y ago
      "The Chaos" is a poem demonstrating the irregularity of English spelling and pronunciation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfRSvTSY0d4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfRSvTSY0d4
  - kerkeslager 3y ago
    > English can express the same ideas with less tenses This isn't exactly correct. We have all the same tenses, it's just that in English these tenses are more frequently created using separate words, rather than a modification to the infinitive verb. Since modifications to the infinitive verb may not work on all infinitive verbs, this results in more irregularities in Spanish. For example, the future tense in English takes the infinitive verb ("to pay" or "to eat") and adds "will" before it ("I will pay", "They will eat"). In Spanish the future tense take the infinitive verb ("pagar" or "comer") and modifies the ending--but the endings are different, so they have to be modified differently--the results are similar but different enough to matter. And there are different conjugations for the subject as well. So: I will pay => Pagaré They will eat => (Ellas|Ellos) comeran If you know the future tense for "pay" in English, you can easily construct the future tense of any infinitive verb for any subject ("They will eat", "He will run", "You will go"). But knowing "Pagaré" teaches you nothing about how to conjugate even the same infinitive for a different subject, let alone other infinitives.
    - jrochkind1 3y ago
      This is from high school Spanish and I don't know what I'm talking about, but I don't think the Spanish past preterite vs past imperfect distinction exists in English grammer? You can of course do some things to capture them when translating to English, like sometimes use the "past progressive" in English to translate the past imperfect in Spanish -- but, then, Spanish also has a "past progressive" as a separate grammatical form too. And you probably wouldn't want to just always translate Spanish imperfect to English past progressive mechanically anyway, not for a good translation. In general I don't believe it's true that every language has exactly the same tenses, I think they actually can vary.
      - btilly 3y ago
        Correct. Languages do NOT all have the same tenses. Chinese, for example, has no tenses. When it comes to counting tenses of languages, people disagree on how many there are. For example consider English. https://www.englishclub.com/grammar/verb-tenses.php https://www.englishclub.com/grammar/verb-tenses.php offers 12. But as noted there, it can be argued that there really are only 6. Spanish is usually said to have 16 tenses, but there is again some wiggle room. See https://www.busuu.com/en/spanish/tenses https://www.busuu.com/en/spanish/tenses.
- 13of40 3y ago
  There are some languages (e.g. Russian and English) where you can power through and just memorize a ton of vocabulary and a few conjugation forms. I was just reading an article the other day about Korean, for a counter example though where there was a simple phrase "I eat rice" where the root words are "na (I) bap (rice) muk (eat)" except every word had at least another random trailing syllable: 나는 밥을 먹는다 (naneun bapeul mukneunda) It's like if in English you had to say "Iaroni eatatastic ricalicious."
- Accacin 3y ago
  I find it odd that every time that a language topic comes up it turns into "my language is much harder than your language". It is like some form of patriotism? Genders and verb tenses are hard if you choose to see them as that. However, what I do is treat the gender part of the word I'm learning. The same thing with learning Chinese and seeing that the tone is part of the word and shouldn't be seen as separate. Literally any language you chose to pick up a book on grammar will feel daunting. Realistically, you don't need to "learn" most of it. If you keep learning how to speak the language the grammar will come naturally. Think about it like this, Japanese is described as one of the harder languages to pick up and learn. However, does a Japanese speaker automatically find it easier to learn Spanish because that's described as an easier language? I'm sure if they open a book on Spanish grammar they'll also feel completely overwhelmed.

thesuperbigfrog 3y ago

>> However, English grammar is much simpler than Spanish grammar. So true. Learning Italian and Spanish as a native English speaker is daunting because of the sheer number of verb tenses and irregular verbs you must master: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_conjugation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_conjugation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_conjugation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_conjugation The other challenge is learning the correct gender for inanimate objects: https://learnitalian.web.unc.edu/home/nounsarticlesadjectives/nouns/#:~:text=Most%20Italian%20nouns%20ending%20in,automobile%2C%20stazione%2C%20carne https://learnitalian.web.unc.edu/home/nounsarticlesadjective...). Who would have guessed that a motorcycle is female: https://www.webspanish.com/blog/spanish-lesson-se-dice-el-moto-o-la-moto/ https://www.webspanish.com/blog/spanish-lesson-se-dice-el-mo...

argentinian 3y ago
Certainly. English can express the same ideas with less tenses, and having a gender for inanimate objects is absurd.
- thesuperbigfrog 3y ago
  But English pronunciation and spelling can be awful: "A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed." See https://emmawilkin.com/blog/2020/2/17/a-rough-coated-dough-faced-thoughtful-ploughman https://emmawilkin.com/blog/2020/2/17/a-rough-coated-dough-f...
  - argentinian 3y ago
    "The Chaos" is a poem demonstrating the irregularity of English spelling and pronunciation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfRSvTSY0d4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfRSvTSY0d4
- kerkeslager 3y ago
  > English can express the same ideas with less tenses This isn't exactly correct. We have all the same tenses, it's just that in English these tenses are more frequently created using separate words, rather than a modification to the infinitive verb. Since modifications to the infinitive verb may not work on all infinitive verbs, this results in more irregularities in Spanish. For example, the future tense in English takes the infinitive verb ("to pay" or "to eat") and adds "will" before it ("I will pay", "They will eat"). In Spanish the future tense take the infinitive verb ("pagar" or "comer") and modifies the ending--but the endings are different, so they have to be modified differently--the results are similar but different enough to matter. And there are different conjugations for the subject as well. So: I will pay => Pagaré They will eat => (Ellas|Ellos) comeran If you know the future tense for "pay" in English, you can easily construct the future tense of any infinitive verb for any subject ("They will eat", "He will run", "You will go"). But knowing "Pagaré" teaches you nothing about how to conjugate even the same infinitive for a different subject, let alone other infinitives.
  - jrochkind1 3y ago
    This is from high school Spanish and I don't know what I'm talking about, but I don't think the Spanish past preterite vs past imperfect distinction exists in English grammer? You can of course do some things to capture them when translating to English, like sometimes use the "past progressive" in English to translate the past imperfect in Spanish -- but, then, Spanish also has a "past progressive" as a separate grammatical form too. And you probably wouldn't want to just always translate Spanish imperfect to English past progressive mechanically anyway, not for a good translation. In general I don't believe it's true that every language has exactly the same tenses, I think they actually can vary.
    - btilly 3y ago
      Correct. Languages do NOT all have the same tenses. Chinese, for example, has no tenses. When it comes to counting tenses of languages, people disagree on how many there are. For example consider English. https://www.englishclub.com/grammar/verb-tenses.php https://www.englishclub.com/grammar/verb-tenses.php offers 12. But as noted there, it can be argued that there really are only 6. Spanish is usually said to have 16 tenses, but there is again some wiggle room. See https://www.busuu.com/en/spanish/tenses https://www.busuu.com/en/spanish/tenses.
13of40 3y ago
There are some languages (e.g. Russian and English) where you can power through and just memorize a ton of vocabulary and a few conjugation forms. I was just reading an article the other day about Korean, for a counter example though where there was a simple phrase "I eat rice" where the root words are "na (I) bap (rice) muk (eat)" except every word had at least another random trailing syllable: 나는 밥을 먹는다 (naneun bapeul mukneunda) It's like if in English you had to say "Iaroni eatatastic ricalicious."
Accacin 3y ago
I find it odd that every time that a language topic comes up it turns into "my language is much harder than your language". It is like some form of patriotism? Genders and verb tenses are hard if you choose to see them as that. However, what I do is treat the gender part of the word I'm learning. The same thing with learning Chinese and seeing that the tone is part of the word and shouldn't be seen as separate. Literally any language you chose to pick up a book on grammar will feel daunting. Realistically, you don't need to "learn" most of it. If you keep learning how to speak the language the grammar will come naturally. Think about it like this, Japanese is described as one of the harder languages to pick up and learn. However, does a Japanese speaker automatically find it easier to learn Spanish because that's described as an easier language? I'm sure if they open a book on Spanish grammar they'll also feel completely overwhelmed.