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.

[Luna Azul]

Originally Posted by 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.

That was the idea when L.L. Zamenhof invented Esperanto almost 125 years ago and even though there are quite a lot of people who speak it around the world, they are not as many as you would expect after all this time.

[Awaken]

Originally Posted by Luna Azul

That was the idea when L.L. Zamenhof invented Esperanto almost 125 years ago and even though there are quite a lot of people who speak it around the world, they are not as many as you would expect after all this time.

Yep. He had the right idea. It's tough now. Especially with English already in place as the semi-official 2nd language of the world.

[Luna Azul]

Originally Posted by Awaken

Yep. He had the right idea. It's tough now. Especially with English already in place as the semi-official 2nd language of the world.

Maybe I'll start studying Norwegian, they say it's the easiest language for someone whose native language is English or masters English.

[Perikles]

Originally Posted by Awaken

Yep. He had the right idea.

I don't think he did. An artificial language, bound to fail. I also think the absence of genders in a language removes a lot of colour. In fact, I find generally that the harder the grammar the more colourful the language, and the more worth studying. I don't see the virtue in simplifying a language just to make it less of an effort to learn. We will finish up where man started, just grunting. I know some teenagers who do that already.

Originally Posted by Luna Azul

Maybe I'll start studying Norwegian, they say it's the easiest language for someone whose native language is English or masters English.

The most difficult aspect of Norwegian is to find somebody to speak to, because they all seem to speak excellent English. And their pitch accent must be quite difficult to emulate.

[Luna Azul]

=Perikles;113960] I know some teenagers who do that already.

What a coincidence!!! So do I!!!

The most difficult aspect of Norwegian is to find somebody to speak to, because they all seem to speak excellent English. And their pitch accent must be quite difficult to emulate.

Yes.. I guess it would be a waste of time and effort... I'll stick with English and French..

[Awaken]

Originally Posted by Perikles

I don't think he did. An artificial language, bound to fail. I also think the absence of genders in a language removes a lot of colour. In fact, I find generally that the harder the grammar the more colourful the language, and the more worth studying. I don't see the virtue in simplifying a language just to make it less of an effort to learn. We will finish up where man started, just grunting. I know some teenagers who do that already.

The key is that it needs to be a 2nd language. I am not recommending replacing primary languages. I would always want to keep English as choice for expressing ideas in "colourful" ways. However, it would be nice to be able to travel the world and communicate my point with anyone. I am lucky in my case that my native language is the default 2nd language, but learning English is significantly harder than a constructed language.

Just my opinion.

[CrOtALiTo]

Why sometimes the English is so hard?

hahahahah

[Perikles]

Originally Posted by Awaken

but learning English is significantly harder than a constructed language.

agreed

Originally Posted by CrOtALiTo

Why sometimes the English is so hard?

hahahahah

Q.E.D.

[Caballero]

It might not be the prettiest, but you could easily learn it in little time.

Nope. It's not called the language that is very hard to learn, but easy to read for nothing. Besides there are so few resources in it compared to Spanish. And anyway, when it is spoken, it just sounds like bad Spanish to Spanish speakers, or Spanish-Italian mixed together. Probably the best use for it would be just to learn Spanish, and read a lot of things in Interlingua, noting the differences, and then speak it to Italians, because it is easier for them to understand that Spanish. Or it can be used to quickly get an overview of the Romance language grammar. But still nobody hearing it would recognize it as what it is. I remember reading an anectdote about at an Interlingua conference somewhere. Almost nobody could speak it very well, except for one guy who seemed to be speaking it quite well and fluently. It turned out he was from Mexico and was speaking Spanish!

Sin embargo, a causa de pocas personas realmente parla Interlingua, non es necessario parlar la lingua exactamente correctamente. On pote agregar parolas de epaniol e probablamente un italiano pote comprender que tu deci. Aussi es bon si on parla lentamente, proque es plus facil comprender que una persona deci quando on parla lentamente que rapidamente.

Well, that was my attempt at Interlingua, sometimes adding in Spanish words when I couldn't remember how to say it in Interlingua. I wonder if an Italian could understand all of that.

but learning English is significantly harder than a constructed language.

I think one of the main reasons constructed languages are easier for everyone is because the grammar is much more permissive, where it is often very rigid in a natural language. In Interlingua for instance, one can phrase things like they'd be phrased in Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, English, etc. and it is still correct, but it would not be correct to phrase things in Spanish like they are in Italian. Learning how things are phrased in a language is probably the hardest aspect.

The most difficult aspect of Norwegian is to find somebody to speak to, because they all seem to speak excellent English.

Well, here's the thing. You can simply skip the pitch accent. You'll be understood the vast majority of the time. If they speak English to you, what you can do is either tell them flat out that you'd like to communicate in Norwegian, or just keep speaking Norwegian to them, and let them respond in English back to you. For awhile that will actually be quite beneficial, as when you're a beginner you probably wouldn't understand what they said to you anyway. When you become more advanced it will get anoying. But anyway, having a two langauge conversation is often a very effective way of communicating. Often I do that with Spanish--I speak Spanish to everyone that I meet who can speak Spanish (in fact I ask everyone I meet if they can speak Spanish.) Some people do speak English back to me, but instead of getting discouraged, I just keep speaking Spanish back to them. It's fine now, as I'm not to the level where I can understand fast Spanish, and luckily there are some people who will speak Spanish to me back.

[wayfarer]

No creo que, si todo el mundo comunique con un idioma artificial, las cosas serian más fáciles. En Gran Bretaña y en los Estados Unidos hay cientos de millones de personas que hablan el inglés como primera lengua, estas personas son una referencia por todos los otros y además normalmente no han necesidad de aprender alguna otra lengua. Adoptando como lengua principal una lengua construida, en cambio, ningun la hablaria como primera lengua, todos deberían aprenderla y la calidad media del lenguaje sería mucho peor.

Es vero que el spelling de las palabras ingleses es más dificil, una idea podría ser adoptar un inglés donde la pronunciación es la misma, y donde pero a cada sonido corresponde una letra o grupo de letras. Este resultado se puede obtener, por exemplo, mediante El Alfabeto Fonético Internacional. Probablemente, pero, hoy es demasiado tarde para adoptar una solución similar, se deberian modificar millones de textos, de paginás web, de enseñas, ecc. En mi opinión, es dificil encontrar un idioma mejor de el inglés para comunicar globalmente.