Why Spanish is So Hard....

[Luna Azul]

We all have come across those long “poetic” demonstrations of Why English is So Hard:
(Which are great, by the way)

“We’ll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes,
But the plural of ox should be oxen, not oxes.
Then one fowl is a goose, but two are called geese,
Yet the plural of moose should never be meese,
You may find a lone mouse or a whole nest of mice,
But the plural of house is houses, not hice.…..

etc.. etc..”


Well, someone surprised me with this one today and I really enjoyed it..
Kind of a vengeance against the English language..
Well.. not really.. I thought it was funny and I wanted to share it with you guys.
I don't think it's new but I hadn't seen it before.


Tomado del Homenaje al III
Congreso de la Lengua Española

Señores: Un servidor Pedro Pérez Paticola,
cual la Academia Española
"Limpia, Fija y da Esplendor".

Y no por ganas de hablar,
pues os voy a demostrar
que es preciso meter mano
al idioma castellano,
donde hay mucho que arreglar.

¿Me queréis decir por qué,
en tamaño y en esencia,
hay esa gran diferencia
entre un buque y un buqué?

¿Por el acento? Pues yo,
por esa insignificancia,
no concibo la distancia
de presidio y presidió,

Ni de tomas a Tomás
ni de topo al que topó.
de un paleto a un paletó,
ni de colas a Colás.

Por eso no encuentro mal
si alguno me dice cuala,
como decimos Pascuala,
femenino de Pascual.

Mas dejemos el acento,
que convierte, como ves,
las ingles en un inglés,
y pasemos a otro cuento.

¿A vosotros no os asombra
que diciendo rico y rica,
majo y maja, chico y chica,
no digamos hombre y hombra?

Y la frase tan oída
del marido y la mujer,
¿por qué no tiene que ser
el marido y la marida?

¿Por qué llamamos tortero
al que elabora una torta
y al sastre, que trajes corta,
no lo llamamos trajero?

¿Por qué las Josefas son
por Pepitas conocidas,
como si fuesen salidas
de las tripas de un melón?

¿A vuestro oído no admira,
lo mismo que yo lo admiro,
que quien descerraja un tiro,
dispara, pero no tira?

Este verbo y otros mil
en nuestro idioma son barro;
tira, el que tira de un carro,
no el que dispara un fusil.

De largo sacan largueza
en lugar de larguedad,
y de corto, cortedad
en vez de sacar corteza.

De igual manera me quejo
de ver que un libro es un tomo;
¿será tomo, si lo tomo,
y si no lo tomo, un dejo?

Si se le llama mirón
al que está mirando mucho,
cuando mucho ladre un chucho..
¿se le llamará ladrón?

Porque la sílaba "on"
indica aumento, y extraño
que a un ramo de gran tamaño
no se lo llame "ramón".

Y por la misma razón,
si los que estáis escuchando
un gran rato estáis pasando,
estáis pasando un ratón.

Y sobra para quedar
convencido el más profano,
que el idioma castellano
tiene mucho que arreglar...





Comments, anyone?

[Rusty]

[Luna Azul]

Originally Posted by Rusty

Thank you.. Did you really like it?

[Rusty]

Yes! One important thing the poem teaches (in a very good way) is that accent marks are not gratuitous in Spanish.

[Luna Azul]

Originally Posted by Rusty

Yes! One important thing the poem teaches (in a very good way) is that accent marks are not gratuitous in Spanish.

That's soooo true..

[Perikles]

Nice one. But wouldn't a language be boring if it had nothing you could be critical about? A bit like people.

[wayfarer]

I didn't understand every word of the Spanish poem but it seems funny!! Indeed English seems simpler than all the neolatin languages, in order to conjugate every verb one should remember only five forms (es. draw - draws - drew - drawn - drawing), while in French, in Spanish and in Italian the forms are a lot more. In general, words are more short, English is a more practical language, that is one of the reasons why it is the most important language of the world. Probably british and U.S. american children spend less time than french, spanish, italian, ecc. children to learn the language and have more time left to learn other things.

[poli]

It's funny, and it shows that language is full of paradox even a comparatively modern one like Spanish. I think its paradox is a reflection of how our brains work or maybe eve the way nature is. Most of the time things are logical and even symetetrical, but along comes things that need to be lopsided , and others that defy explanation.

[wrholt]

Originally Posted by wayfarer

... Probably british and U.S. american children spend less time than french, spanish, italian, ecc. children to learn the language and have more time left to learn other things.

You've forgotten about that additional subject that English-speaking elementary school pupils have: spelling.

[Awaken]

Each language has their thing is appears. Verbs and gender for Spanish. Spelling, exceptions, homonyms, etc... for English.

I'm still waiting for the world to adopt a constructed language. I'm not holding my breath. Imagine how awesome it would be if you had a super simplified language to learn as a 2nd language and everyone knew it.

Spelling and pronunciation of Spanish (minus the 'rr') =)
Verb Conjugation and lack of gender of English.

Interlingua gets my vote.

It might not be the prettiest, but you could easily learn it in little time. it would just be a matter of vocab after that.