I love English and was once good enough to become an English teacher at a Japanese junior high school. However, that was in the past and since then my knowledge of English has been declining rapidly. So, as part of my language learning, I decided to submit some simple questions and comments about English language that are not easy for me (and that I should ask on HiNative or Quora) to Newgrounds. I am not an expert in English and may be making elementary mistakes, but thank you for your patience.

What is the one thing you hate about English language? | English Is Not So Easy 5

As a native Japanese speaker, my complaint with my native language is that it is hard to distinguish questions in colloquial Japanese. For example:

・宿題はもう終わりました（lit. '(My) homework is already over.'）

・宿題はもう終わりましたか（lit. 'Is (your) homework over yet?'）

a question can only be expressed by adding just one letter "か" at the end of the sentence. Furthermore, in colloquial speech, even this "か" is usually omitted. In other words, it becomes impossible to distinguish between a platitude and an interrogative sentence when the colloquial language is transcribed into written form. As a result, I often experience conversations like these examples:

Example 1

"宿題終わった？(Is the homework over yet?)"

"へぇ、そりゃよかった。(Oh, that's good.)"

"違う、聞いてんの。(No. I'm asking)"

Example 2

"あの映画観た？ (Have you seen that movie?)"

"ほんと？どうだった？ (Really? How was it?)"

"違う。聞いてんの。まだ観てないよ (No, I'm asking. I haven't seen it.)"

Example 3

"あれ面白い？(Is that interesting?)"

"ほんとに？変わってるね… (Really? You're weird...)"

"違う。聞いてんだヨォォォォォ (NO, I'M ASKING YOU!!!!)"

I know the root cause of this inconvenience is my pronunciation, but this is what I find frustrating about the Japanese language.

Then, what are your dissatisfactions with the English language? …Before I ask you this question, a native speaker already gave me an answer.

ghoti

Although English seems to be a very logical and organized language compared to Japanese, I was troubled by the discrepancy between spelling and pronunciation. For example, when I first started learning English, I could not write "hamburger" correctly.

HUMBURGER

HAMBURGAR

HUNBARGER

(Three muscular German guys?)

recognize

ReKoGuNizzZe

(Delicious Italian bread?)

claim

KuLaaIMu

(Delicious French cake?)

My advice to all English learners is, "Buy an electronic dictionary that can pronounce English, not a paper dictionary!"

As to why English has a particular form of pronunciation, I learned that it has undergone complex changes from its old Germanic origins, with words coming from the Netherlands and being introduced by the French, plus the presence of the Vikings and letterpress printing technology also influenced this tendency.

Incidentally, English is also known as a highly efficient language for information transmission, capable of conveying the same amount of information in short sentences. At the same time, English is known as a language with the largest number of syllables and the largest number of words in the world. It is not a good example, but a person who does not know the word "nipple" cannot guess what it means by looking at the letters, but this is not always the case in other languages. For example, in German it is "Brustwarze; Brust ("breast") + Warze ("wart")", and in Japanese it is "乳首; 乳 ("breast") + 首 ("neck")".