/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.16731168]

Why do ESLs always say English is ugly, or that it's not as good at x thing be it talking about love, or insults? Do you think it's occurred to them the only reason they think these things is because English isn't their native language?

[Anonymous No.16731193]

Apart from my native language I also know German, Russian, English and a bit of Spanish. I must say English is horrendous and it pains me that it's become the lingua franca of the world. None of the clarity of German, none of the beauty of Latin based languages. Sad. The one thing I like about it, though, is the mess when it comes to pronunciation and ortography, lots of plebs are filtered by the lack of uniformization from outside in these fronts. English isn't super special anyhow, so it's fine if you only speak it.

[Anonymous No.16731207]

>>16731193
Coming from another polyglot, that's just like, your opinion man.

[Anonymous No.16731226]

>>16731193
What's your native language frend

[Anonymous No.16731240]

>>16731168
I love English for it's ability to annihilate other languages. English is the language of the Capital.

[Anonymous No.16731252]

>>16731168
I've never seen anything particularly beautiful in any language, so posts like this >>16731193 always feel like horseshit to me. I think a lot of the anti-English you see is from 1) ESLs with an inferiority complex, 2) native English speakers who have listened to the former group and have developed their own inferiority complex, or 3) native English speakers who have learned another language and due to its novelty and the effort invested, end up seeing something special in it that isn't real.

[Anonymous No.16731254]

>>16731226
French, mon ami.

>>16731207
Of course it is, but per OP's post he seems to have noticed a trend in such opinions. I'm not trying to claim there's something inherently ugly about English, I'm just saying that I'm also on that camp of ESLs who are taken aback by the expressive powers of English. It's really fine, man. The language gave us Eliot, so it has already justified its existence.

[Anonymous No.16731260]

>>16731168
I'm ESL and I think English is the most elegant language in existence although that might be because it's the only foreign language I know apart from German

[Anonymous No.16731262]

>>16731252
Are you able to read the best poetry available in 2-4 languages apart from your native one? Because that's the test I've come up with when I form my subjective opinions.

[Anonymous No.16731266]

Scandinavians love English since its basically cooler sounding Norse (we also have the same Romance words).

[Anonymous No.16731295]

>>16731193

Jealousy. German is pompous, Latin languages are restrictive and, dare I say it, kind of gay.
English is based just because of how widespread it is alone. You can use basically any turn of phrase and people will understand what you mean.

German is like a violin. It's hard to learn, even harder to master. In the hands of anyone but a master it's just a crude piece of wood.

Latin languages are like percussion instruments. Easy to get into, kind of cool, but ultimately limited in what you can do with them.

English is like a piano. It looks easy, but if you think it's just pressing buttons, you just don't get it.

>inb4 dumb American

I'm not and I do speak German, Spanish and French.

[Anonymous No.16731296]

>>16731262
I affirm, you say, "Prove it." I equivocate, you say, "So you can't." Red herring.

[Anonymous No.16731305]

>>16731226
I’m the same guy, English. Ranked by order of competency I speak

English > Spanish > Latin > Portuguese > Old English

I consider listing Portuguse sort of be cheating since most of what I know comes by analogy with Spanish.

[Anonymous No.16731313]

>>16731295
>Latin languages are like percussion instruments. Easy to get into, kind of cool, but ultimately limited in what you can do with them.
That's the biggest load of shit I've ever read in my entire life.

[Anonymous No.16731315]

>>16731305
Oh sorry I thought you were replying to me. I’m phoneposting, sry

[Anonymous No.16731359]

>>16731295
>You can use basically any turn of phrase and people will understand what you mean.
This is something I like about English. Despite its simplified morphology it has this strong fluidity of expression. I think the greater degree of simplification and outside influence that English has undergone renders it into a more advanced state than more provincial European languages.

[Anonymous No.16731406]

>>16731254
French people are colossally butthurt about England and Anglos to a degree where your opinions on this subject are pretty much worthless because they are all the result of seething spite

[Anonymous No.16731425]

>>16731252
Fucking cope. English is ugly, face it anglo.

t. ESL polyglot

[Anonymous No.16731429]

>when a frog starts talking about how bad english is

[Anonymous No.16731433]

>>16731168

[Anonymous No.16731437]

>>16731425
The ugliest language to me is French.

[Anonymous No.16731453]

>>16731252
It's pretty obviously just ESLs who can barely even speak the language and despise Anglos out of feelings of inferiority. Nobody who can speak a given language actually thinks it's entirely ugly or beautiful, it is a genuinely retarded thing to say.

[Anonymous No.16731455]

>>16731406
Why would French people hate English when French has influenced it more than any other language?

[Anonymous No.16731461]

Your perspective on English is probably dependent on your original language. In my experience Latin-family language natives tend to find it ugly, which is understandable, but Germanic language natives like it, and Asian language natives find it cool, though part of it's due to the latin alphabet. English to me is a very flexible language but lacks aesthetic sense generally, it feels plain, though you can do great things with it.

[Anonymous No.16731475]

>>16731455
Cultural dominance.

[Anonymous No.16731510]

>>16731461
Dirty romance language peasants are the worst.

[Anonymous No.16731512]

>>16731168
try talking about love in German, or even harder: talking about sex without an ironic undertone. English suits itself to everything you want to talk about because you have the Latin influences to talk about noble things and the dirty anglo saxon basis for the rest.

[Anonymous No.16731532]

>>16731168
because it is ugly

[Anonymous No.16731546]

>>16731168
Just don't be that guy who thinks a language is primitive because you don't understand the syntactic functions.
>Heh.. Timentibs eum? What a stupid simple language

[Anonymous No.16731556]

>>16731168
English if fine to me but people learn it mostly for practical reasons

[Anonymous No.16731612]

They're just mad they suck at English.

[Anonymous No.16731633]

>>16731612
their*

[Anonymous No.16731635]

>>16731193
>The one thing I like about it, though, is the mess when it comes to pronunciation and ortography, lots of plebs are filtered by the lack of uniformization from outside in these fronts.
Same. I wish it were worse so that it would be as difficult as possible for ESLs.

[Anonymous No.16731759]

I don't think English is bad it doesn't sound special for me, but I like my native language more which is Turkish, gives me more emotionalfeels. I also know Chinese and I find that to be very sophisticated.
I'm currently learning German and I love listening to it, so is Russian. Maybe in the future. I feel like French is ugly.

[Anonymous No.16731770]

>>16731759
>ghab gooake gepo
>french is ugly

[Anonymous No.16731783]

>>16731262
I can read english latin and spanish, and english does have a charm to it. I think it can be very Circumstantial and dependent on the writer/speaker if its beautiful or not.

[Anonymous No.16731810]

>>16731770
Sorry I don't understand
>french is ugly
Yes sounding like you are chewing something all the time isn't nice to my ears

[Anonymous No.16731818]

>>16731759
Holy fuck, fat app Cavill looks like me. Could I be a chad with low body fat? I'm literally going for a run right now.

[Anonymous No.16731836]

>>16731818
Perhaps

[Anonymous No.16731855]

I had no strong feelings about this topic until I began posting on /lit/. These people should be kept on a separate internet.

[Anonymous No.16731861]

>>16731855
Which people?

[Anonymous No.16732073]

>>16731168
English is just like Swahili but better

[Anonymous No.16732122]

Reminder the English has the best R sound.

[Anonymous No.16732785]

>>16731818
fat hides all your features, all fat people look the same

[Anonymous No.16732802]

>>16731759
I like how in Turkish you drink cigarettes.

[Anonymous No.16733104]

ESL cope

[Anonymous No.16733112]

>>16731429
t. tranny

[Anonymous No.16733134]

>>16731168
I dated a French girl for a while who loved for English for its lack of deep vowel sounds and lack of glottal stops. She said English sounded very light and Elven for an ESL.

[Anonymous No.16733264]

>>16731168
I don't know but I find it hilarious when they start shittalking English here. It's like Koreans going to 2ch just to rage, in Japanese, about how shitty Japanese is. There's just something impotent about the act.

[Anonymous No.16733310]

>>16733134
>English sounded very light and Elven

wut, english sounds harsh, like a step above german. Celtic languages sound more elvish and nice to me

[Anonymous No.16733350]

The sheer fact that the world "Anglo" is prevalent in their complaints tells you it's seething ESLs.

[Anonymous No.16733622]

>>16731437
Ranking of World's ugliest languages
Thai > Vietnamese > Mandarin Chinese > Zulu

[Anonymous No.16733783]

>>16733310
Irish spoken by native speakers is about as guttural as it gets. Sounds like Arabic. Welsh isn't too far off. I'd say stereotypes of celtic culture are pretty much entirely responsible for the idea that celtic languages are soft and lyrical.

[Anonymous No.16733818]

>>16733622
and Dutch

[Anonymous No.16733910]

>>16731295
>Latin languages are like percussion instruments. Easy to get into, kind of cool, but ultimately limited in what you can do with them.
This reads like that comic comparing movie directors to foods. Why did you make that analogy, which is both tasteless and wrong?

[Anonymous No.16733987]

The problem with English is that it's a mutt with more exceptions than actual rules.

[Anonymous No.16734036]

>>16733310
>Voiced and unvoiced dental fricatives
>Rhoticity
>No glottal garbage
English phonology is aristocratic dude. It has two dental fricatives and rhoticity in every dialect and accent as a rule. It also has no glottal garbage. Say what you will about the whole "not being able to choose between Greek, Latin, French, or Anglo-Saxon vocabulary" thing, or the "not actually having an orthography" thing, but English's phonology is top tier.

>>16733622
>first choice isn't hebrew
I'd rather listen to Mandarin than a language that considers gurgling to be a consonant.

[Anonymous No.16734052]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iJ9gnt7wNo

[Anonymous No.16734104]

>>16731254
>French
Opinion discarded

[Anonymous No.16734269]

>>16734036
Just saying if you go from Japanese to English dub in anime, English voices sound like some cave men speaking in comparison it's so gruff

[Anonymous No.16734293]

>>16731168
English is the greatest language. The language of boundless literature, science, and philosophy.

[Anonymous No.16734712]

>>16734269
I accidentally switched to the Japanese dub of a Hollywood movie and they voice actors sounded like recently civilized rice farmers.

[Anonymous No.16735176]

>>16731295
I feel like the violin was a bad choice in this analogy. It's one of the few instruments that are as good or almost as good as a piano.

[Anonymous No.16735211]

>>16732802
LoL, and we hear smells too XD

[Anonymous No.16735366]

>be australian
>mfw a europoor starts trying to insult me by calling me a “convict” or a “kangaroo”
Do they really think this works?

[Anonymous No.16735507]

>>16731168
For me it is stress timed languages vs syllable timed. The latter is simply more melodic and nicer to ear.

[Anonymous No.16735528]

>>16731295
>Latin languages are restrictive
t. doesn't know shit about Latin languages

[Anonymous No.16735595]

>>16731168
English is a literal creole. What do you expect?

[Anonymous No.16735630]

>>16731295
>Latin languages are restrictive
Now say that in any other word order

[Anonymous No.16735631]

>>16731193
>>16731455
English can sound great when it needs to in a way that other languages struggle with, especially French. For Russians, English is that language where anything said in it sounds professional and well-spoken. This even carries to American accents, as much as they get shit for being stupid. French, as an accident of its pronunciation and rigidity, does not have the potential to be lingua franca in the modern world because it is not a professional language. Literature is debatable, obviously, but Shakespeare is unironically incredible in ways that Germans, French, and Russian authors cannot convey. English, on the other hand, can.

[Anonymous No.16735634]

>>16731406
Everytime you speak English there’s inside your head a Norman raping an Anglx Saxon twink
Cope

[Anonymous No.16735676]

>>16734293
>literature
Shit, Shakespeare is overrated and all brits know it, but mutts pretending to be civilized claim it’s good. Any translation into English shits up the book since it’s a ruleless language
>science
Go to university, retard
>philosophy
Impossible. Words have no fixed meaning because English was a pidgin and the speakers retarded. It spawned a whole school of philosophy focused on analysing language (LOL) itself
Monotongue retard

[Anonymous No.16735711]

>>16735676
How is Shakespeare overrated if all Brits know it is?