English and its weirdness

      The brake lights wouldn’t shut off, no matter how many times I turned the ignition on and off and how many times I twisted the light switch knob. So, I did what any tyro car mechanic would do: I googled what do you do when your brake lights won’t shut off.

      The answer, it turns out, has to do with a little plastic grommet. Yeah, I have no idea what this is either, and I was an English major. But—way after I was able to get the car over to the shop and have them replace the broken little plastic grommet—it made me start thinking of English words that really don’t seem like actual real words at all.

      I’ve made a list.

·       Flummox

·       Kerfuffle

·       Tumult

·       bamboozled

·       persnickety

·       skedaddle

·       nincompoop

·       discombobulated

·       frangible

·       shibboleth

·       bloviate

      And there are, undoubtedly, many more. Maybe you can add to the list?

      In any case, the words got me thinking about how difficult it must be to learn English, particularly as a second language, particularly for immigrants to this country.

      English spelling, of course, is famously irregular, which is why we have "through," "tough," "though," "thought" and "cough," which makes predicting pronunciation from spelling very difficult. That’s a major stumbling block not found in languages with more phonetic spelling like Spanish or Italian.

      English also has a large number of vowel sounds (around 14-20, depending on dialect), many of which don't exist in other languages. And as a stress-timed language, with stressed syllables occurring at regular intervals, we have unstressed syllables shortened which give us confusing situations like RE-cord vs. re-CORD. Plus, we have abundant irregular verbs (go/went/gone) as well as adjectives (good/better/best) and prepositions that are based on convention rather than strict rules.

      And English has one of the largest vocabularies of any language, with more than 170,000 words in current use and, more than most other languages, is constantly evolving, with slang, pop culture references and tech talk making informal conversation particularly challenging. 

      All in all, a mess, a very difficult language to learn to speak competently.

      Of course, learning any new language, particularly as an adult, is difficult. In advance of a trip to Sicily, my wife has been using the Duo Lingo app to learn at least a modicum of Italian. My friend Esther, after some time spent in Paris, has been working on improving her French. Progress has been made on both fronts, but—let’s face it—it’s hard.

      As we age, the neuroplasticity of our brains is reduced, fewer synapses forming and pruning dynamically, as they did when we were younger. Our neural networks no longer adapt as easily and rapidly. We have passed our “critical period” for learning and cognitive patterns have been set. Learning a new language as an older adult requires a conscious effort rather than an intuitive process. 

      So, the next time you hear people speaking a foreign language in this country, or trying to speak English, or speaking English with, say, a strong Hispanic accent and jumbled construction, just try to remember how very hard it must be for them. It’s, well, discombobulating.