Why the English Language is so Hard to Learn

[AmethystPriestess]

1) The bandage was wound around the wound.
2) The farm was used to produce produce.
3) The dump was so full that 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 is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.
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 about how to row.
13) They were too close to the door to close it.
14) The buck does funny things when the 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
1 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?

There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat.

Quicksand works slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig. And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham?

If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it? Is it an odd, or an end?

If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship?

How can you have noses that run and feet that smell?

How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?

P.S. - Why doesn't "Buick" rhyme with "quick"?

[Gardwin]

We did that on purpose so that Johnny Foreigner would have to try harder...

[echoes]

you learn more than you might think initially when you learn a foreign language. english is my native language, but in high school i took conversational spanish and french, but didn't really care for it. so i took conversational german, then beginning, intermediate, advanced, and then independent study. so as you can tell i enjoyed german...now i speak pretty much fluent german. its been more difficult to keep it in practice since i graduated, but i listen to german music and translate stuff in my head sometimes it seems like its involuntary, and if a website i visit happens to be in german, i won't translate it, just for practice....
anyways, you learn the stupid and good stuff about your own language when you learn another.

[Gardwin]

You make a very good point. On the other hand, we English find it helps to just speak louder and slower, maybe with the occasional hand gesture to interact with Non English speakers... :P

[lineback]

Of course, we Americans would never do anything so boorish...

[butler bill]

To Americans, Brits speak a forign language.

[echoes]

You make a very good point. On the other hand, we English find it helps to just speak louder and slower, maybe with the occasional hand gesture to interact with Non English speakers... :P

lol. no kiddin