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Eh, the vocabulary thing I don't think is unique to English. If you look at this Wikipedia article, the first entry for English when sorting by headwords is aro

Eh, the vocabulary thing I don't think is unique to English. If you look at this Wikipedia article, the first entry for English when sorting by headwords is around 140k. German by example is around 100k for it's lowest entry. At the high end it's approaching 400k for German and 470k for English. I'm omitting the Wikipedia dictionaries for all languages. I suppose that doesn't disqualify your point either. For me, the greatest strength of "English" currently is that it's widespread adoption means that native speakers are excellent at understanding accents when compared to other nations where non-standard accents are not as common. This goes to your point as well about transliteration. By contrast, I am learning Dutch and it's a bit of a meme that Dutch people will switch to English if they detect a hint of an accent (excluding regional dialects of course). My theory is that they do not have an ear for it _because_ most Dutch nationals tend to also speak English at a B2+ level. Contrast that to native English speakers, where the 3 major nations are home to a huge number of immigrants from all around the world, and it makes sense. If English speakers refused to talk with anyone that didn't have a perfect British/American/Australian accent, then nothing would ever get done. In countries where the local population is tolerant of individual accents, I think the native language tends to thrive (Germany, China, Brazil, etc). Edit: article link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dictionaries_by_number_of_words https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dictionaries_by_number...

mkingston 3y ago
> native speakers are excellent at understanding accents when compared to other nations where non-standard accents are not as common Interesting to read this; I had developed exactly the same hypothesis about French speakers: that they're less accustomed to a variety of accents (with the obvious caveat that it's even more risky to generalise from an anecdote than from data!).
avgcorrection 3y ago
> native speakers are excellent at understanding accents when compared to other nations where non-standard accents are not as common So you assert.
- yurishimo 3y ago
  I apologize. As a native English speaker now living among one of these cultures, it seems to follow. From the few limited interactions I've had and seen elsewhere online in a similar scenario, it seems to track. Obviously it will differ per person as well, but as a whole, in my experience, this tends to be a trend amongst homogenous language countries. I suspect it could also be true for countries like Luxembourg and Belgium where it's normal for many people to speak 2-4 languages all within a very close proximity to each other. These people need to listen to competent speakers whose home language may differ from that used by their neighbors and business contacts on a daily basis. At the end of the day, my hypothesis is that proximity breeds tolerance. Based on other social experiments and observations, I don't think I'm too far off, but thank you for (validly) checking my bullish assertions.
stevekemp 3y ago
> Eh, the vocabulary thing I don't think is unique to English. I suspect it depends upon the type of language; consider the difference between "I fell" and "I fall". There's a different word there for doing something in the past. (Obvious examples are run/ran, pay/paid). In other languages you might use a suffix on the same root-word. So in English you need to learn more words. You can't have a simple rule to say "I read" vs "I read in the past". The word you use is .. different, and you have to know it if you want to be correct.
- yurishimo 3y ago
  And then the continuous! “I have fallen/was falling.” Irregular verbs are not unique to English, but I guess there probably are more of them in the common lexicon. This is probably true is lots of language with irregular verbs. The irregular ones are irregular because the sounds have been adapted to flow better in everyday parlance. The nice part of most irregular verbs however is that they are also common. If you read regularly or consume lots of content in the language, they will come up over and over again. Is this something that non native English speakers struggle with early on in the language or does it feel more like a constant battle even past B2? In Dutch, I’ve largely just accepted that I’m going to screw up irregular verbs until I can start reading novels on my own. I assume at that point the exposure will help drill them into my brain like reading as a young child did in English.

mkingston 3y ago

> native speakers are excellent at understanding accents when compared to other nations where non-standard accents are not as common Interesting to read this; I had developed exactly the same hypothesis about French speakers: that they're less accustomed to a variety of accents (with the obvious caveat that it's even more risky to generalise from an anecdote than from data!).

avgcorrection 3y ago

> native speakers are excellent at understanding accents when compared to other nations where non-standard accents are not as common So you assert.

yurishimo 3y ago
I apologize. As a native English speaker now living among one of these cultures, it seems to follow. From the few limited interactions I've had and seen elsewhere online in a similar scenario, it seems to track. Obviously it will differ per person as well, but as a whole, in my experience, this tends to be a trend amongst homogenous language countries. I suspect it could also be true for countries like Luxembourg and Belgium where it's normal for many people to speak 2-4 languages all within a very close proximity to each other. These people need to listen to competent speakers whose home language may differ from that used by their neighbors and business contacts on a daily basis. At the end of the day, my hypothesis is that proximity breeds tolerance. Based on other social experiments and observations, I don't think I'm too far off, but thank you for (validly) checking my bullish assertions.

stevekemp 3y ago

> Eh, the vocabulary thing I don't think is unique to English. I suspect it depends upon the type of language; consider the difference between "I fell" and "I fall". There's a different word there for doing something in the past. (Obvious examples are run/ran, pay/paid). In other languages you might use a suffix on the same root-word. So in English you need to learn more words. You can't have a simple rule to say "I read" vs "I read in the past". The word you use is .. different, and you have to know it if you want to be correct.

yurishimo 3y ago
And then the continuous! “I have fallen/was falling.” Irregular verbs are not unique to English, but I guess there probably are more of them in the common lexicon. This is probably true is lots of language with irregular verbs. The irregular ones are irregular because the sounds have been adapted to flow better in everyday parlance. The nice part of most irregular verbs however is that they are also common. If you read regularly or consume lots of content in the language, they will come up over and over again. Is this something that non native English speakers struggle with early on in the language or does it feel more like a constant battle even past B2? In Dutch, I’ve largely just accepted that I’m going to screw up irregular verbs until I can start reading novels on my own. I assume at that point the exposure will help drill them into my brain like reading as a young child did in English.