In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, =?ISO-8859-1?Q?S=F6ren_Kuklau?= <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >On 3/24/2002 4:47 PM, Phillip M. Jones, C.E.T. apparently wrote exactly >the following: >> American English, is difficult to learn as well. I know I magle it all >> the time. > >Trust me, American English is one of the easiest (if not *the* easiest) >languages world-wide.
I know where you're (see, a contraction with its ridiculous rules and exceptions :-)) coming from on this, but you should have added a smiley. A good analogy is learning to play chess. It's easy to learn the moves, but becoming a master is another matter entirely. I know many foreigners that supposedly speak English. I guess clucking and chirping can be passed off as English sometimes. :-) OTOH, I know foreigners whose spoken and written English is far superior to those of most Americans. All made possible by its popularity and flexibility. BTW, I'm listening to some fine German tunes as I write this. The musicians' names are Klaus, Ulrich, Rudolf (auch Michael manchmal), Frantz, Herman, und Matthias. A heart felt atta-boy (can't think of a German equivalent for this colloqialism) to the first one that correctly identifies the band. Peter Stein
