Spanish vs. English
I’m making progress with learning Spanish, remembering phrases when needed and memorizing nouns and verbs. I get the gist of conversations but don’t talk much. Although some people are patient, it’s still uncomfortable to talk like an idiot. The verbs are the killers. Did you know that there are at least 126 conjugations of the verb “to be” in Spanish? For comparison, consider: Am, are, is, will be, was, were, have been, had been, would have been, will have been =10 conjugations for “to be” in English. See what I mean? And think of all of the verbs that there are in Spanish, each with about 60 conjugations. This, plus assigned gender articles before nouns and useless filler words is why I agree with José: that English is easier to learn to speak than Spanish.
I’ll grant two things to Spanish which make it easier to read and write: 1. nouns are easier to remember because they are mostly associated with Latin roots that also are sometimes used in English (alas, not enough). 2. Spanish spelling is phonetic and consistent whereas English spelling is diabolical and stupid: why should there be 6 ways to spell the sound of “e”? (e, ee, ie, ei, ea, y). This crazy spelling makes reading and writing English nearly impossible to master in one lifetime. Thank God for reincarnation- now, if I could only remember what I had learned before.
Latin roots: for example=por ejemplo: news=noticias, journal=diario, newspaper=periódico, magazine=revista (as in review), book=libro (as in library). You can read the Spanish and guess what the words mean by relating them to the Latin-based English equivalents. From a Spanish perspective the English terms seem not to be related to any logical system. The weakness in English stems from its Germanic roots: incomprehensible terms created to name objects: news -related to new? Journal -related to journey? Magazine -related to munitions container? Book -stumps me! (related to look?)
The ultimate orderly and systematic language is a dead one: Sanskrit. It was described by my MIU professors to be so precise, organized and internally consistent that it could be used, with minor modification, as a computer language. Sanskrit is still used by scholars studying the ancient Vedic scriptures of India and by spiritual seekers who desire to benefit from the subtle power of the language on the nervous system (mantra and much more). That’s the next language I want to learn.
Source: http://bhavatitdhyan.wordpress.com/2008/07/21/23-spanish-vs-english/
