Spanish is easy, English impossible

[Perikles]

I'm talking of pronuciation here. Try this:

If you can pronounce correctly every word in this poem, you will be speaking English better than 90% of the native English speakers in the world.
After trying the verses, a Frenchman said he’d prefer six months of hard labour to reading six lines aloud.
Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain .
(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation’s OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Fe0ffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty , library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas .
Sea, idea, Korea , area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation (think of Psyche!)
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won’t it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It’s a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight ,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!

[AngelicaDeAlquezar]

All English learners here should record ourselves reading it and be evaluated by native English speakers.

[Perikles]

Originally Posted by AngelicaDeAlquezar

All English learners here should record ourselves reading it and be evaluated by native English speakers.

I'll be happy to listen to any readings, if anyone wants to record them. And seeing that @Angelica suggested it ............

[AngelicaDeAlquezar]

It would be good practice. I'll give it a try when I have enough time.

[Premium]

I failed a couple of times. It's very good, though. Perhaps I'll give it a shot and send it to you.

[Hiperbólico]

American English is my first language and also that of my peers. Unlike other students, however, I'm trying to be more thoughtful on the pedagogical comparisons between English and Spanish. Most of the others seem to simply omit the possibility of English being a challenging language, only because it is effortless for them (of course, it has been their first language since birth).

Anyway, grammar aside, pronunciation must be a beast in itself. With Spanish, per contra, one pronounces everything exactly as one sees it, given a few easy exceptions.

[wrholt]

The comment about "better than 90% of native speakers" may be accurate, too. For example, the majority of native speakers do not know the names of all of the Greek Muses and may not guess the correct pronunciations of "Terpsichore" or "Melpomene". And a place name such as "Balmoral" may be well-known in the UK, but the average person in the US may have no idea of how to pronounce it, much less where or what it is.

[JPablo]

Random House gives,
Bal·mor·al, n.
1. a colored woolen petticoat, formerly worn under a skirt and draped so that portions of it could be seen.
2. (l.c.) Also called bal. an ankle-high shoe, laced in front.
3. a brimless Scottish cap with a flat top that projects all around the head. Cf. tam-o'-shanter.
[1855–60; after Balmoral Castle in Scotland]

It seems to me like a too steep cliff to climb... but Perhaps Perikles could give us his MP3 version... so we all could Possibly learn... and then see if we could try...

[Villa]

There are 20 vowel sounds in American English. However, in reality, the language has sixteen single vowel sounds, nine double vowel sounds and eleven triple vowel sounds. In addition to the vowels, the language has twenty-four consonant sounds.

Spanish only has five vowel sounds. ah eh ee oh oo
That's it. Same as the Italian language.

So yes, English is much more difficult to read and pronounce.

[zuma022]

Just the other day I was thinking how hard it would be to learn reading in English as a kid. In German and in Spanish there are a few very simple rules, so you can just kind of sound out the letters and it'll form a word. But in English there seems to be very little rhyme or reason how the combination of letters are pronounced. Do you basically just have to recognize the entire word before you can read it?
In any case it's one of the things I really appreciate about learning Spanish. If I hear an unknown word, chances are I can spell it correctly and look up the meaning. Something that was next to impossible in English.

[Perikles]

Originally Posted by zuma022

Do you basically just have to recognize the entire word before you can read it?

Not only that, but also the context, for example

I read the newspaper every day.
Yesterday I read the newspaper.

I'll make an audio file if anybody is seriously interested. I could get the wife to do it because she articulates (shouts well) whereas I mumble a bit. She actually made one mistake, but only because she was unfamiliar with nautical slang. But she got gunwhale correct, pronounced gúnnal

Oh, in the above, Terpsichore is probably one of the most difficult, but in context quite easy because you know it rhymes with trickery.

There is of course the true story about the foreign student who had spent years trying to speak English, and drowned himself on seeing this advertisement for a musical:

My Fair Lady: pronounced success.

[poli]

Originally Posted by Perikles

Not only that, but also the context, for example

I read the newspaper every day.
Yesterday I read the newspaper.

I'll make an audio file if anybody is seriously interested. I could get the wife to do it because she articulates (shouts well) whereas I mumble a bit. She actually made one mistake, but only because she was unfamiliar with nautical slang. But she got gunwhale correct, pronounced gúnnal

Oh, in the above, Terpsichore is probably one of the most difficult, but in context quite easy because you know it rhymes with trickery.

There is of course the true story about the foreign student who had spent years trying to speak English, and drowned himself on seeing this advertisement for a musical:

My Fair Lady: pronounced success.

On the other hand, simple English is easier than Spanish. (I see, you see, he, she, it sees, they see, we see). So many Spanish speakers know English to a certain extent at least. In comparison, not many English speakers learn Spanish well enough to communicate. I don't know if it's because: 1) English is culturally dominant,2) Spanish is extremely difficult or3) English speakers are linguistically impaired perhaps from the damage incurred while mastering their native tongue.

[JPablo]

Originally Posted by Perikles

My Fair Lady: pronounced success.

Masterful!

[Premium]

Originally Posted by poli

On the other hand, simple English is easier than Spanish. (I see, you see, he, she, it sees, they see, we see). Some many Spanish speakers know English to a certain extent at least. In comparison, not many English speakers learn Spanish well enough to communicate. I don't know if it's because: 1) English is culturally dominent,2) Spanish is extremely difficult or3) English speakers are linguistically impaired perhaps from the damage incurred while mastering their native tongue.

As for myself I think English was easier regarding grammar. Spanish is easier in terms of vocabulary.

[Villa]

Originally Posted by zuma022

Just the other day I was thinking how hard it would be to learn reading in English as a kid. In German and in Spanish there are a few very simple rules, so you can just kind of sound out the letters and it'll form a word. But in English there seems to be very little rhyme or reason how the combination of letters are pronounced. Do you basically just have to recognize the entire word before you can read it?
In any case it's one of the things I really appreciate about learning Spanish. If I hear an unknown word, chances are I can spell it correctly and look up the meaning. Something that was next to impossible in English.

I have a book called "1100 words you need to know" (English words). Barron's Educational Series, Inc.
This book is for native English speakers to improve their more advanced English vocabulary. Every single word
comes with a phonetic pronunciation as if they are foreign language words. Learning advanced English vocabulary
is some what like learning a foreign language. Of course then again even many simple English words need to
be able to just recognize the word as a sight word. Many times I think of how the word is written in Spanish
and that helps my English spelling.

[JPablo]

Rait!*