English is so much easier than, let's say, Greek, Russian, or French (at least these I know firsthand). Even Bulgarian, my native language, which is simpler than Russian, is much harder than English, with a lot more things to memorize. Two things in English take time: punctuation and vocabulary (with all the nuances of words). Everything else is easy-peasy!
Punctuation is easy in English. Especially compared to Russian.
Spelling is horrendous, and it takes a lot of time to memorize it and internalize it. And even then: <a href="https://people.cs.georgetown.edu/nschneid/cosc272/f17/a1/chaos.html" rel="nofollow">https://people.cs.georgetown.edu/nschneid/cosc272/f17/a1/cha...
To me, English punctuation seems chaotic compared to Bulgarian, which could be hard but logical. English spelling is better than, let's say, Greek or French.
As a developer, I'm surprised people write either "Hello world!" or "Hello, world!" In Bulgarian, as in Russian, the addressee is always set off by commas.
Most people can ignore APA rules and just wing it. E.g. English comma is more of a "there's a pause" in most communication.
Don't know about Bulgarian, but Russian punctuation is notoriously horrendously complicated. I still remember a dictation [1] which had a sentence that had a comma after nearly every word. (And this last sentence would have three)
> English spelling is better than, let's say, Greek or French.
Can't speak for Greek, but IIRC in French a collection of letters usually conforms to a rule. "eu" or "ou" will rarely represent different sounds.
Whereas one of the famous spellings of "fish" in English is "ghoti": <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghoti?wprov=sfti1" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghoti?wprov=sfti1
[1] Common in Soviet and post-Soviet schools: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictation_(exercise)?wprov=sfti1" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictation_(exercise)?wprov=sft...
nikolay · · focus · HN ↗
troupo · · focus · HN ↗
Spelling is horrendous, and it takes a lot of time to memorize it and internalize it. And even then: <a href="https://people.cs.georgetown.edu/nschneid/cosc272/f17/a1/chaos.html" rel="nofollow">https://people.cs.georgetown.edu/nschneid/cosc272/f17/a1/cha...
nikolay · · focus · HN ↗
As a developer, I'm surprised people write either "Hello world!" or "Hello, world!" In Bulgarian, as in Russian, the addressee is always set off by commas.
troupo · · focus · HN ↗
Don't know about Bulgarian, but Russian punctuation is notoriously horrendously complicated. I still remember a dictation [1] which had a sentence that had a comma after nearly every word. (And this last sentence would have three)
> English spelling is better than, let's say, Greek or French.
Can't speak for Greek, but IIRC in French a collection of letters usually conforms to a rule. "eu" or "ou" will rarely represent different sounds.
Whereas one of the famous spellings of "fish" in English is "ghoti": <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghoti?wprov=sfti1" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghoti?wprov=sfti1
[1] Common in Soviet and post-Soviet schools: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictation_(exercise)?wprov=sfti1" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictation_(exercise)?wprov=sft...