'Your English Sucks!' thread

[HungFist]

Nonsense. The English language has one of the biggest vocabularies in the world. The French language only has 100,000 words compared with the 1 million words the English language has. Which is hardly surprising given it's place in history. Even then, you'll still obviously come across phrases in one language, that aren't in another.

It's purely a guess but I imagine it's much larger than the Finnish language too. Don't just take my word for it (this even says English has twice as many words as Mandarin Chinese!):

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/ju ... -milestone

Hmmm... that's interesting. I admit I didn't check any facts, as I had been living under the impression that English is a very limited language. Personally I constantly run into the problem when translating my Finnish reviews into English that the word I'm looking for simply doesn't exist in English.

Also, what puzzles me is that if English really has such large vocabulary, how come it's such an easy language to learn? I learned the damn language almost without studying it. Although this also much because the English grammar is extremely simple.

I wonder if this is a structural thing. Perhaps a million slang equalents for words that already exist, or an excessive amount of technical vocab that hardly anyone uses? Or old words that are no longer being used? Something doesn't match here, and I'd almost be willing to bet it's not my limited English skills...

Something more to read:
http://www.economist.com/blogs/johnson/ ... ting_words

[Shingster]

Give over. Slang is just as much a form of articulation than the "straightforward definition".

But it's not always the usually accepted form you twonk! That's why a word like "sick" still most commonly means "ill/disgusting/vomit" and not "Awesome/Cool" like how the yoofs of today use it.

[grim_tales]

I've never seen/heard "sick" being used to mean awesome. I always use it in the "ill/disgusting" sense.

[Markgway]

Personally I constantly run into the problem when translating my Finnish reviews into English that the word I'm looking for simply doesn't exist in English.

Thus the fault lies with the Finnish language and its untranslatable words.

Also, what puzzles me is that if English really has such large vocabulary, how come it's such an easy language to learn?

It was designed to be understood by foreigners with untranslatable languages.

[HungFist]

[Yi-Long]

I've never seen/heard "sick" being used to mean awesome. I always use it in the "ill/disgusting" sense.

It's slang, mostly used to express admiration for a cool trick or skill or something. Can't believe you never heard it used before.

[bradavon]

Also, what puzzles me is that if English really has such large vocabulary, how come it's such an easy language to learn? I learned the damn language almost without studying it. Although this also much because the English grammar is extremely simple.

There's your answer. We've got none of this masculine/feminine bollocks many European languages have. We do have plenty of contradictions but I guess they're easier to learn.

Many European speakers are surrounded by English from an early age, making it much easier to learn. You could of course also have a knack for languages.

I wonder if this is a structural thing. Perhaps a million slang equalents for words that already exist, or an excessive amount of technical vocab that hardly anyone uses? Or old words that are no longer being used?

I'll add another: We've got shed loads of words nicked from other languages, jodhpur and kaputt to name two.

[romerojpg]

Go and watch a film instead of spending hours on here babbling

[Markgway]

Many words these days have been basterdized (some more than once).

Take 'gay' for example.

Used to mean 'happy' -- then 'homosexual' -- now 'lame'.

[bradavon]

It's meant gay for a long time. I wouldn't even call it a bastardization any more. The meanings changed from happy to homosexual. Being used to mean lame is just insulting.

[Markgway]

It's meant gay for a long time. I wouldn't even call it a bastardization any more. The meanings changed from happy to homosexual. Being used to mean lame is just insulting.

I don't think homosexuals have any right to complain about an innocuous word they hijacked being hijacked in turn by another group (urban youths) to mean something different. Gay meant happy for a lot longer than it has homosexual.