How good is your English?

Can you read the whole thing correctly? Try it!

oh wow! I'm questioning my English here, I thought it was average but now I think I'll change the word "average" into "below average". Can't wait to see nio's reply here (his English is just...ugh...there aren't words to describe it)...ahahahah!

I read the whole thing, no issues. Probably helps that I read and write books a lot of the time!

Dalph, you're English is actually quite good. It's a rare instance I see a grammatical mistake in your writing that reminds me that it's not your first language. I look at some of the people here who claim English is their first language when it's obvious it's not.

Also, this fun little exercise above is to point out how inconsistent the English language is and how that inconsistency makes it difficult even for native speakers to know how to pronounce words. I'm actually getting ready to teach kindergarteners a reading curriculum that is supposed to help young students learn and understand the rules behind some of this seemingly nonsense. I figure I am going to learn a lot along with them. :)

Wow! I think I kept up with most of it, but some of the words threw me through a loop! Especially when she was saying words that had a similar word structure! It's amazing how people constantly tell foreigners that they should learn English and that it isn't that hard to learn it. English is one of the most complex languages to learn if you already know and speak your home language.

The narrator pronounced "viscous" as "vicious". [/hermione]

What's more sad is when you read posts and it's clear that English is their first language and it's still gibberish.

Maybe it's not the words which are complex, but the spelling.  The grammar is straightforward - no having to remember the gender of nouns and then make adjectives agree; relatively few irregular verbs etc.  But the relationship of pronunciation to spelling is, to be polite, non-obvious.

I had no problems with this, though I did wonder if the US pronunciation differed.  I have an extremely wide vocabulary and, when needed, a sophisticated use of language.  This, however, is not always a good thing.  I have often had to re-write dialogue (and posts) because I realise that the vocabulary might be unfamiliar to those for whom English is not their first language.  And then I have to remember to use US spellings!  Life in English can be complicated.

Since french and english share a lot, I'm quite used to unmatching spelling and bizarre pronunciations.

Still, there must be like 30% of the words there that I never saw before and don't come from french. These are those I had pronunciation mistakes.

The difference between the pronunciation of grieve and sieve struck me as peculiar. Anyone know the etymology of these two words?

I'm not sure about sieve, but grieve comes from the Old French 'grever': to burden and oppress.  The meaning of mourning (usually because of death) was added to by 'The Reavers' - people who lived on the borders between England and Scotland many centuries ago and carried out raids into both countries, stealing cattle and killing people.  Hence to "bereave" = to deprive someone, especially by death.  Ignore all the spelling differences between these words.

The nearest usage of grieve to the original 'burden' and 'oppress' is in phrases such as "I'm getting so much grief from my boss!"  "This car has given me nothing but grief".

EDIT

I was curious, so I looked up sieve.

It's Old English 'sife' which comes from Proto-Germanic 'sib' or 'sibi' and is akin to the Dutch 'seef'.  I, personally, don't find that very illuminating, but I've noticed that many words have migrated from 'f' to 'v' because of the pronunciation effect of different vowels either before or after them.

My English, according to my finals, was a 7 out of 10.

For me, I think I'm just slightly above average. 7/10 perhaps. 

I'd rate my English writing/typing at around 8/10


when reading silently, 6/10


Orally is my weakest at maybe 3 or 4/10. I don't know, I've lived with English and my native language my entire life but I kept forgetting/struggling to remember even the simplest words like I was reciting the elements of the periodic table.

I speak it as though I was raised in England, which I was.  :p

I still have problem with pronunciation too, that I was humiliated by everyone when I pronounce some words incorrectly. lol, At any rate, I wish I was a native English speaker, my native language is not used too much; especially in this globalization era. =)

mai engrish es vey gud bes off de bes

Your*. ;)

Actually, this is quite hard. Some of these words I didn't even know, and some I was like, "wait, they're pronounced like that? Strange."

I've read it before. A couple words I was unfamiliar with, but most of it was easy.

There are many words of which I don't know the meaning in the video but I could correctly guess the pronounciation of most of those words I wasn't familiar with. The problem is that, like people have already said, the pronounciation differences between similar words are what makes speaking English harder than it should be. I feel I am pretty good at grammar and my vocabulary must be above average but I am still having a hard time with these weird pronounciation mechanics.

My first language is Turkish and we pronounce every single word in our language as it is written, so I believe that might be the primary cause for my pronounciation hickups. We are completely unfamiliar with pronounciation inconsistencies.