Expressions of gust
I am thankful to be a native English speaker. Because honestly, this language would just be too darn hard to have to learn as a second language. We may not have declining verbs, or have to remember the gender of tables, cars and spoons in order to get the associated articles correctly parsed... but there are still challenges aplenty!Last night Jeremy and I were contemplating the inconsistent use of the prefix 'dis-'. Usually, it negates things. If we are not connected, we are disconnected. If my orderly array is messed up, it is disarrayed. But what if it were not messed up, but disturbed? Would its' reassembly be a "turbing"? And in King Tut's final preparation to become a Mummy (like an antenatal class, but different), did they "embowel" him with spices? If I am comfortable, could you describe me as "tressed"? And if I were candid about personal affairs, would I be "creet"? Tee hee. What a fun evening to consider all these oddities, with expressioins of "gust" :-)
posted by Bronwyn at 5:11 pm
1 Comments:
Yeah, talking about learning English as your second language!!!
English was a mandatory foreign language to study in junior high school in Taiwan, and I believe it still is. I had approximately 1 1/2 years of it before immigrating to the U.S. It certainly took a lot of practice and humbling mistakes before I can confidently say that I am proficient in this language.
Of course, these days, I consider English to be my first language when it comes to writing. I simply just cannot compose a message or even a short essay in Chinese anymore. I would look like a 4th grader leaerning how to express myself clearly.
Yes, English is a wonderful language with all these prefixes, suffixes, and roots from Latin, French, Spanish, German, and all other languages. For a language that uses alphabet, it has a unique way of expressing many things. Gotta love it!
Post a Comment
<< Home