Language is confuzzling!

I found this in my online bored time....
Its a bunch of sentences that use homonyms- words that are spelled the same, but have completely different meanings. Things like these are some of the biggest complaints i ever got from non native speakers - (them folk who aint speakin 'merican as their primary source of comunication) Fun aint it? Think of more! MORE !!! and post them! POST! BWA!!!

1. We must polish the Polish furniture.
2. He could lead if he would get the lead out.
3. The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
4. Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.
5. A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
6. When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
7. I did not object to the object.
8. The bandage was wound around the wound.
9. The farm was used to produce produce.
10. The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
11. The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
12. There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
13. They were too close to the door to close it.
14. The buck does funny things when the does are present.
15. A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
16. To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
17. The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
18. After a number of injections my jaw got number.
19. Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.
20. I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
21. How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

oo-er. Those make my head hurt

very confuzzling. But take this, in some Chinese dialects, there are eight different tones. So that means that the same word can mean up to eight different things depending on how it's inflected.

Don't skunk the skunk!

True, and chinese is un-questionably harder to learn than english. Japanese is actually listed as the hardest language to learn, because there are several japaneses that all fall under the same name. Japanese for guys, for girls, for adults, for different classes...

Don't I know it. I've been studying Japanese and it is soo hard. Strangely enogh, I actually had a harder time in french. Here's the different words for "you" in Japanese: anata, omae, sonata, kimi. They don't really use sonata anymore. It's kind of archaic, like thou. And then I: watashi, watakushi, boku, and for we, they don't even have a different word. to make a pronoun or any human noun plural, you add tachi to the end of it.

That is confussing. It makes my head hurt too.

"6. When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes."

Just to let you know, proper English would eliminate that one. The second "dove" should be "dived." It's just that no one knows that rule lol. But yeah, English is confusing to non-Englishers. Oh well, too bad for them HA HA. Just kidding, I feel for them.

Yea, like this (pronouncing only)
I lose patience with patients who don't have patience

Here's another one I just thought of from Japanese. Chizu means map, but if you hold the I a bit longer, it means cheese.

I was trying to learn Chinese and Japanese last year but didn't think that was a good idea in the end since I was also trying to do a GCSE in German...which I have now forgotten completly. Languages are hard but I hate it when people are like "The whole world should speak English!" God no...much rather speak Japanese

I totally agree with you, mouse. The whole world isn't all one identical culture, as much as some people would like it to be, and language is an integral part of any culture. And a point made by someone made when Canada was having major conflicts regarding its bilingual status. "Why shouldn't we learn as many lanaguages as we can? It'll only make us smarter."

I'm learning Latin!

lol thats so great i gotta think of some!

Reichieru wrote:Don't I know it. I've been studying Japanese and it is soo hard. Strangely enogh, I actually had a harder time in french. Here's the different words for "you" in Japanese: anata, omae, sonata, kimi. They don't really use sonata anymore. It's kind of archaic, like thou. And then I: watashi, watakushi, boku, and for we, they don't even have a different word. to make a pronoun or any human noun plural, you add tachi to the end of it.

you've obviously been learning japanese longer than me but i just wanted to say: japanese don't normally say 'you' do they? we've been taught to say the person's name instead.

e.g. reichieru kyokai wa nihongo wo naraimasu instead of anata wa nihongo wo naraimasu cause the second one is impersonal (?) does that sound right...?

anyways, personally im learning 3 languages (hopefully soon it'll be 4), and i find that with grammar etc, japanese is the easiest.

mainly cause the verb is the same whoever you're talking about whereas in french it would be:

j'ai
tu as
il a
elle a
nous avons
vous avez
ils ont
elles ont

(for the verb 'avoir')

vocab can be a bit annoying though when you have to say 'ie' instead of 'iie' so it means the right thing. particles are also annoying...

reichieru, how long have you been doing japanese?

Yes, that's true. They don't usually use it unless speaking to a person whose name they don't know. I actually haven't been studying it for a long time, though I did take two years of it in night school. I have translated J-pop songs and even a picture book. I wanted to try Harry Potter because one of the city libraries has a copy of it in Japanese. The only problem is I can't read kanji, and books at that reading level don't show you how to read all of the kanji. For now I'm going to stick to picture books and ones that show you how to read all of the kanji.

The sad thing is, I took French in school from grade four to nine, and I hardly speak a word of it. But Japanese, though I have a very minimal vocabulary right now, if I were to increase it just a little, I could easily go to Japan and teach English, which I hope to do one day, and get by fine.

Doushite watashi ni kyokai ga meiuchimaska.