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    Why English is tough

    Posts: 2,963 Member
    edited October 2024 in Chit-Chat
    Twenty-one reasons why English is hard to learn.

    1. The bandage was wound around the wound.

    2. The farm was used to produce produce.

    3. The dump was so full it had to refuse more refuse.

    4. We must polish the Polish furniture.

    5. He could lead if he would get the lead out.

    6. The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.

    7. Since there was no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.

    8. A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.

    9. When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.

    10. I did not object to the object.

    11. The insurance was invalid for the invalid.

    12. There was a row among the oarsmen on how to row.

    13. They were too close to the door to close it.

    14. The buck does funny things when does are present.

    15. A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.

    16. To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.

    17. The wind was too strong to wind the sail.

    18. After a number of injections my jaw got number.

    19. Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.

    20. I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.

    21. How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

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    Replies

    • Posts: 5,382 Member
      Ahh Ill admit I had to read a few of them more than once to get it to sound right lol
    • Posts: 40
      Awesome!
    • Posts: 423 Member
      Hahaha i love this!
    • Posts: 429 Member
      I love this so much! Their, there and they're! Hahaha
    • Posts: 50 Member
      AWESOME!
    • Posts: 1,322 Member
      LOL this is pretty cool..didn't even think about most of these
    • Posts: 290 Member
      I never really noticed how f'd up English is until I started teaching my son how to read and write. I have a whole new love for teachers! :love:
    • Posts: 2,963 Member
      Ahh Ill admit I had to read a few of them more than once to get it to sound right lol

      Seriously. .it was like oh crap double take!
    • Posts: 224 Member
      bump
    • Posts: 1,133 Member
      I had to read them out loud!
      I learned English when I was 6-7, and still tend to "lose" my English when I'm nervous etc.
    • Posts: 1,079 Member
      lol nice
    • Posts: 841 Member
      Seriously, English makes no sense.
    • Posts: 194 Member
      I love English. :D
    • Posts: 2,675 Member
      I teach EAL and other foreign languages and have some of these up outside my classroom to show the English kids how hard their own language is :wink:
    • Posts: 184 Member
      If I may augment/alter #20:

      "I had to subject the subject to correct the sentence subject."
    • Posts: 4,698 Member
      You forgot the MFP classic: "You lose weight to get loose clothes" :wink:
    • Posts: 397 Member
      Clever. I find it interesting how you automatically change pronunciation based on context. I didn't notice it until it failed me on 'number.'
    • Posts: 1,400 Member
      When I used to teach English, this was my favourite:

      ========================================
      I take it you already know
      Of tough and bough and cough and dough?
      Others may stumble, but not you,
      On hiccough, thorough, lough and through?
      Well done! And now you wish, perhaps,
      To learn of less familiar traps?

      Beware of heard, a dreadful word
      That looks like beard and sounds like bird,
      And dead: it's said like bed, not bead -
      For goodness sake don't call it deed!

      Watch out for meat and great and threat
      (They rhyme with suite and straight and debt).
      A moth is not a moth in mother,
      Nor both in bother, broth in brother,
      And here is not a match for there
      Nor dear and fear for bear and pear,

      And then there's dose and rose and lose -
      Just look them up - and goose and choose,
      And cork and work and card and ward,
      And font and front and word and sword,
      And do and go and thwart and cart -
      Come, come, I've hardly made a start!

      A dreadful language? Man alive!
      I'd mastered it when I was five!
    • Posts: 3,634 Member
      Honestly I just learned to improve my English writing a few years ago but until now I still can't speak it without twisting my tongue. I always fall asleep during our English class before. :yawn:
    • Posts: 384
      Wow
    • Posts: 181
      When I taught English in Poland, I realized one day that while there are only two ways to spell the "oo" sound in Polish, we have at least six in English. Why? I remember teaching my advanced students how to spell "fish" as "ghoti". Gh = the f sound (like in rough), o = the i sound (like in women), ti = the sh sound (like in ration). English is a funny language.
    • Posts: 397 Member
      When I used to teach English, this was my favourite:

      ========================================
      I take it you already know
      Of tough and bough and cough and dough?
      ...
      A dreadful language? Man alive!
      I'd mastered it when I was five!
      A couple of them don't work in "American", but VERY cool.
    • Posts: 3,000 Member
      I couldn't decide whether the weather would be fine....

      How do you spell FISH?

      GHOTI!

      Gh - Enough
      O - Women
      ti - Station.
    • Posts: 2,963 Member
      When I used to teach English, this was my favourite:

      ========================================
      I take it you already know
      Of tough and bough and cough and dough?
      Others may stumble, but not you,
      On hiccough, thorough, lough and through?
      Well done! And now you wish, perhaps,
      To learn of less familiar traps?

      Beware of heard, a dreadful word
      That looks like beard and sounds like bird,
      And dead: it's said like bed, not bead -
      For goodness sake don't call it deed!

      Watch out for meat and great and threat
      (They rhyme with suite and straight and debt).
      A moth is not a moth in mother,
      Nor both in bother, broth in brother,
      And here is not a match for there
      Nor dear and fear for bear and pear,

      And then there's dose and rose and lose -
      Just look them up - and goose and choose,
      And cork and work and card and ward,
      And font and front and word and sword,
      And do and go and thwart and cart -
      Come, come, I've hardly made a start!

      A dreadful language? Man alive!
      I'd mastered it when I was five!

      Totally love this!
    • Posts: 2,963 Member
      You forgot the MFP classic: "You lose weight to get loose clothes" :wink:

      Indeed:laugh: :laugh: :laugh:
    This discussion has been closed.

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