Re: RPN maps to basic mathematic expressions nicely

Gerry wrote:

> On 12 Nov, 01:21, "cr88192" <cr88...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>> <sl...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
>>
>>
>> technically, afaik, English is one of the hardest languages to learn
(in
>> general),
> 
> This web-site suggests otherwise
> 
> http://www.micheloud.com/FXM/LA/LA/index.htm

Apparently with a biased point of view. English is easy to learn if you
are
already familiar with north European languages. The vocal inventory of
European languages in general is tough for the majority of the world's
population (which happens to sit in Asia ;-), though not nearly as tough
as
e.g. the San language in South Africa, and also easier than east European
languages.

What's difficult with English:

* Not really phonetic alphabet
* Homonyms or almost homonyms written completely different (e.g.
write/right/rite/ride)
* Extremely large vocabulary with many synonyms
* Grammar combines the problems of European and Chinese (flexion, but
words
can be verb/noun/adverb)
* Most native speakers mumble
* Consonants are more im****tant than vowels

What's difficult with Mandarin:

* Iconographic glyphs
* Homonyms are written completely different, also there are way too many
of
them
* Grammar relies mostly on word order rather than pre- or postfixes
* Tones
* Slightly different sibilants matter ("zhingchangqong" ;-)
* Vowels matter more than consonants.

About pronunciation: One of my two Chinese teachers (he's from Shanghai)
had
to admit that we students spoke a much better Mandarin than he did. We
didn't have problems with 's'/'sh' and we could pronounce the Peking
dialect 'r'. In effect, I'm fairly convinced that my English accent is
significantly worse than my Mandarin accent. I just had another holiday in
China, and I'm quite surprised how much I can understand with the limited
vocabulary I have (about 1500 words). It takes some time to kick in, but
e.g. when I think how much time I had to spend to understand French to
that
extend, Mandarin is definitely easier than French. And English has an
unfair advantage for being a partly derivative of northern German; a
significant amount of the vocabulary is at least easy to guess (though
some
false friends spoil the experience ;-).

-- 
Bernd Paysan
"If you want it done right, you have to do it yourself"
http://www.jwdt.com/~paysan/