BB FANS

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.
8) 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.
18) 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?

... and yet a lot of people who don't have English as a first language speak it better than a lot of us!!

Too true Nicki!

Well if you look at it that way..

I actually think the english language is one of the easiest languages in the world to learn. It has nothing to do with grammar or any technical detail, it's just that you hear it, see it and use it everywhere. It's a universal language.

Children learn languages like that, Liisi, they just hear it, see it and use it everywhere - whatever the language is. The way children learn the language makes any language in the world easy. My daughter is full of interest about any language at the moment and she's just four years old. Unfortantely adults brains doesn't function that way the childrens brains does.

But I find it universal that in Finnish we have with the same logic same type of phrases:

'Kun lakkaa satamasta hae lakkaa satamasta'
'Kato kärpänen katos nyt se katos'
'Kokko kokoa koko kokko koko kokkoko koko kokko kokoon koko kokon kokoon'

Don't you think there are a few commas missing or something? It took me a few minutes to figure that out without them

Yep - but that looks like more fun without them

Should we translate it in English?

'Kun lakkaa satamasta hae lakkaa satamasta'
When it stops raining, get some cloudberries from the harbour.

'Kato kärpänen katos nyt se katos'
Look, a fly on the seiling, now it's gone

'"Kokko, kokoa koko kokko" "koko kokkoko?" "koko kokko" "kokoon koko kokon kokoon"'

"Kokko, put up the whole fire". "The whole fire"? "The whole fire." "I'll put up the whole fire all together"

Gee - thanks Liisi!

lakkaa = varnish

I have a pal who used to live in Finland and when he was telling me about some of the Finnish 'grammar' it sounded decidedly nightmarish.

Say hello to your pal! Hopefully your pal didn't get horrified with Finland!

I believe that Finnish is one of the most natural languages ever in a human history and if you can speak, write or read it you can learn any other language that you want - don't worry about grammar at all - it's just prejudice if you believe it's nightmarish just because your pal has said that.

I know a little bit about language learning and I often hear about how difficult Finnish is, having few connections with any other languages or language patterns.

It'll be a new challenge, once I get Hungarian sorted...

You're doing Hungarian Cam? What made you decide to do that I wonder? I find it interesting why people decide to learn a particular language

I learned Japanese starting in 1995 and once I was fluent in that it made other languages much easier to learn so I agree with Mari that learning one language makes many others easier bcz you're more familiar with verb-endings and grammar and such of certain other languages.

Contrary to popular opinion you don't have to be particularly intelligent to be multi-lingual because learning one difficult or unfamiliar language kind of 'sets you up' to learn others that follow similar rules so they come much easier.

It's not about intelligence anyway bcz if you study for 2 hours a night then you'd have to be pretty dim not to become fluent eventually!

edit: Just thought of something! Hungarian - are you making fun of gullible people again Cam!? hmmmm...

edit: re-read the post! You ratbag! You are! It was the '...' at the end of 'Hungarian' that gave it away! Pffft!

Feel free to ask me for lessons when you feel like it Cam. I'll only ask for some Orkney fudge in return

Molly, this is my 8th year of learning French (although the first four were P6-S2 so you don't really learn all that much to be honest) and I've now started learning Spanish but still find it very difficult.

I just seem to find French so much more logical, even when there are twists in the rules I can understand why but find stringing simple Spanish sentences together a lot more challenging. Agree about verbs mind you, it's just generally I'm finding Spanish pretty difficult - although thankfully I'm quite good at just memorising sentences so hopefully this will help.