English is weirdly different from other languages

Overdrawn. Nearly every language has certain features (or annoyances) that very few other languages have (except for closely related ones). There's a "fat tail" of these weird-isms, basically, and English is just another dot on that fat tail. Yes it's a creole (and creoles are kind of weird), but it's not like it's unique that category either.

As a german the commentary here strikes me as sadly defensive. I'm in contact with and kinda familiar with a lot of languages, and out of the ones i know English is the weirdest one, if only by its most basic property: English text does not remotely map to english pronounciation. This may sound weird to native english speakers, but it's the truth. To give a more concrete example: With many languages in movies, it is easy for me to…

‘English speakers know that their language is odd. So do people saddled with learning it non-natively. The oddity that we all perceive most readily is its spelling, which is indeed a nightmare. In countries where English isn’t spoken, there is no such thing as a ‘spelling bee’ competition.´ The author has no clue - try French spelling ( there are no spelling bee competitions but grammar+ spelling ones). As a native speaker of multiple languages, I’m a bit surprised at…

Bill Bryson wrote about this and I find his stuff pleasant/humorous to read. I didn’t see a mention of English’s ability to interchange nouns and verbs to go with stealing from other languages. I vultured that code, etc. Are they both saying it’s easy to learn badly? And it can be understood with few words and thick accents which also helps.