{"id":1889,"date":"2014-03-19T15:45:08","date_gmt":"2014-03-19T14:45:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eurotalk.com\/blog\/?p=1889"},"modified":"2014-03-19T15:45:08","modified_gmt":"2014-03-19T14:45:08","slug":"the-oddness-of-english","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/the-oddness-of-english\/","title":{"rendered":"The oddness of English"},"content":{"rendered":"

I don’t know about you, but I think one of the challenges about language learning is knowing how to spell a word you hear spoken and knowing how to pronounce a word you see written down. Some languages are more phonetic than others, which makes things a bit easier, but then some don\u2019t have any standardised spelling, which makes things very hard. English, luckily, has standardised spelling, but its pronunciation lacks some logic and so it can be a nightmare knowing where to stress a word – and often if you get it wrong you say something you don\u2019t mean to!<\/p>\n

\"Confused!\"<\/a>A few words in English have optional pronunciation, like \u2018harass\u2019, which can be either \u2018harAss\u2019 or \u2018hArass\u2019, but the majority of words have a standardised pronunciation. This can cause problems when the spelling is the same for several different words that sound different. You can\u2019t guess these things, they just have to be learnt.\u00a0\u2018Bow\u2019 is a great example: depending on how you pronounce the vowel it can either mean the bow that an archer uses or the bow of a boat. Then, to confuse matters more, a bow (lowering your head to show someone respect) has the same pronunciation as the boat bow. Some other common examples include \u2018minute\u2019, which can be either a division of time or an adjective for \u2018very small\u2019, and \u2018wind\u2019, can be a strong breeze or the action of twisting something around. People row amongst themselves and row in a boat. And, although there\u2019s a capital to help distinguish them, lots of tourists (understandably) pronounce \u2018Reading\u2019 (the city) as they would \u2018reading\u2019 (a book).<\/p>\n

So, fine, we accept and conquer these challenges and push on with the language learning. But then there\u2019s a new pitfall: words which sound exactly the same but have multiple spellings, each one indicating a totally different meaning. Depending on whether you learn better from listening or reading, you\u2019ll probably be more flummoxed by one of these caprices of the English language than the other, but they\u2019re both pretty challenging. Plenty of native English speakers, especially at the end of a long day when the concentration is waning, will find themselves putting \u2018whether\u2019 when they mean \u2018weather\u2019, \u2018their\u2019 when they mean \u2018there\u2019, \u2018where\u2019 when they mean \u2018wear\u2019. These are the ones that always spring to mind, but when you start thinking about it you’ll find a huge list of potential stumbling blocks.\u00a0\u2018Hey\u2019 is a greeting\u2019 whilst \u2018hay\u2019 is dried grass; \u2018wine\u2019 is a drink and \u2018whine\u2019 is the sound of a petulant child; \u2018sails\u2019 belong to a boat whereas \u2018sales\u2019 are discounts in the shops; you drink a \u2018draught\u2019 of something or use it to describe the depth of your boat, but a draft is a first copy of something.\u2018Hour\u2019 is a division of time but \u2018our\u2019 belongs to us all. You grow \u2018leeks\u2019 and have \u2018leaks\u2019 in your roof. You \u2018knead\u2019 bread and \u2018need\u2019 air to survive. A plant has \u2018roots\u2019 but a road is a \u2018route\u2019.<\/p>\n

I could go on, but \u00a0the list is very long and I also want to mention the third group of confusing words, the ones which both look and sound exactly the same but have two completely different meanings, which have to be divined from context. So, a \u2018coach\u2019 both trains athletes and is a large vehicle. Fish have \u2018scales\u2019 and \u2018scales\u2019 are used to weigh things. A \u2018stable\u2019 houses animals and describes how sturdy something is. \u2018Second\u2019 is both a division of time and comes after first. \u2018Bark\u2019 belongs to a tree and is the sound of a dog. And \u2018port\u2019 is either a fortified wine, a harbour or the left side of a boat.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve only mentioned a few of them and they\u2019re the ones I\u2019ve noticed causing confusion, but if you have any you\u2019d like to add, whether in English or any other language you may know, we\u2019d love to hear them!<\/p>\n

Nat<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I don’t know about you, but I think one of the challenges about language learning is knowing how to spell a word you hear spoken and knowing how to pronounce a word you see written down. Some languages are more phonetic than others, which makes things a bit easier, but then some don\u2019t have any … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[150,3],"tags":[401,32,2,402,403],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1889"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1889"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1889\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}