And I've never met a 'technical Quaker' I didn't like!

Never having got beyond the level of a four year old obsessed by gastronomy and liturgy in any language other than English, I am not in a very good position to say.

I get the impression English appears far more grammatically simple than other European languages (no genders, no cases, hardly any verb ending variations).  When I am faced by all this variations in endings, I panic.  (I find Italian and French OK, and I can order a meal, but German makes me panic, and I dare not put a sentence together as I am bound to get an agreement wrong.)

The present tense in English may not have many variations in ending, but when do you say "I write", when "I am writing" or "I do write"?  I know the difference by instinct.  Heaven help anyone trying to learn any rules.

Yes, cases are very complicated.
I don't know how anyone can learn say Russian. I think it is a little easier than Chinese, though I would not know for sure.
However, I met a few people from England and Scotland who spoke my language perfectly and with very slight accent.

I remember one specialized in Chekov.

I think it is the matter of not taking on every aspect of the language, but concentrate on a small part for a while.
Also if you don't live in the country of the language it will be very "dry". I am trying to say that there will be boring rules and exercises and then you will go home to speak English.


For me learning German was very difficult because of this "dry" boring matter.

However, now it doesn't seem to be so scary because I can come from English. English and German have a lot in common.
I can understand now that languages become easier to learn if you sort of know two or more already.

I do agree that may be grammatically English is more or less simple. It is probably not as difficult to learn if you know German.


Also to speak a language and to be able to write intelligently are two different things.

I keep wanting to add a finite verb ("bark at"?!) to the end of that sentence.

What kind of you You you are using to speak to each other on this forum?

Meanwhile, the onward march of monolingual Britain continues, as seen through the eyes of this French commentator:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/22/britishidentity.languages


O tempora, O mores

On a related but slightly unusual note, I suddenly started thinking about something else. Something I've experimented with sometimes is writing in the second person, especially in a 'genre' (or a 'register' ...) where this is not expected, e.g. CD liner notes or concert reviews. I find it produces an interesting effect.

Actually you can't write 'in the second [or any other] person', of course, since a given piece of writing will use first, second and third persons depending on the relation and positioning of speakers, listeners and subjects at any given moment. So the fact of 'being written in the second person' is part of the illusion, and arises only in a context of style or subject-matter where the 'you' is generally excluded. And this means that you only need to use the word quite infrequently for it to seem as if you're using it a lot: just 'stepping outside' the material two or three times to address the reader directly draws attention to the fact that the reader is normally a completely silent, invisible presence in such writing contexts.

I wonder what 'you' would be translated in such contexts. I'm addressing an imaginary reader whom I don't know, but the particular tone I adopt when I use this technique (well - I've done it twice that I can remember for published work) is usually a rather intimate one, as if I were reading to someone by the fireside.

A similarly interesting trick is to 'transpose' a whole piece of writing into the future tense (so that pasts become future perfects, etc. etc.). This is quite an interesting way to write a novel.

Counting things in russian is GROSS GROSS GROSS