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Comment by avaika | Hacker News Reader

I'd argue that Arabic is simpler than English. It might have been simpler for you as your were the native :) For me Arabic and English both are foreign and I can definitely tell you that English was much simpler to learn.

While words "transformation" might seem cool and convenient, there is no common rule on how to predict final meaning.

Also the pronunciation is very (VERY) important. One tiny mistake and you will end up telling your girlfriend that you have a gift from deep of your dog (كلب/ Kalb) instead of deep of your heart (قلب / K'alb).

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you're right ! and a little bit biased because pronunciation is important for all languages out there I see the same issue with french foreign speakers too.

In Arabic pronunciation is straight forward, in english pronunciation depends on each word (a,u,o) can have a different sounds (depends in which word used) and the emphasis also is a dark magic :D there are no such exceptions in Arabic

Arabic can be difficult but simple. English can be easy but complex.

I agree with you, I even think that Arabic speakers are the best at understanding foreigners speech.

As he pointed, you might tell your girlfriend this is a gift from your dog (كلب) instead of heart (قلب), but I'm sure that if she is a native speaker, she'll understand correctly.

I've seen the same mistakes happen in other languages, but the native speaker usually miss the meaning.

I think this relates to the fact that Arabic spoken language has a vast number is unique dialects, and they mostly understand each others dialects, unlike other languages that differs between dialects mostly in spelling sounds.

And language aside, a partner that is willing to meet you halfway in understanding is a great partner. :)

> in english pronunciation depends on each word (a,u,o) can have a different sounds (depends in which word used)

It is also highly regional. Someone from Glasgow pronounces things rather differently to someone from Brighton.

Is it as regional as Arabic, though?

I don't speak Arabic, but my understanding is that someone from Morocco can't necessarily hold an easy conversation with someone from Qatar.

Whereas, I can name very few varieties of English that aren't easily mutually intelligible with basically all of the rest of the English-speaking world - patois and gullah, for example.

In my work, I have colleagues from all Arabic countries among others, I talk to people of Morroco and my Arabic is more Levante, with no issue at all. Syrian dialect, along with Egyptian, has gained a lot of ease in the region due to popular tv series and movies (more Egyptian than Syrian ones)I predict that the variations will be reduced since the differences grow out of old geographical barriers that gave distinctions and differences. There is a lesser strict everyday language that is very simple yet formal Arabic, as in the news, be it TV or online. So please look further before jumping to conclusions, as in the region you would read the news regardless of the geographical aspect of the source. If an Arabic website in Morroco has a compelling news story, or article speakers of Arabic in the whole region and abroad will read it very comfortably.

The difference is that English words don't really change meanings based on pronunciation. Words do have many pronunciations, but the meaning remains the same.

Oh really, what about 'lead' and 'lead'?

They will never be confused because context supplies the clues.

This is often true, but far from universal. Oftentimes there are differences in verb and noun (as with "lead" and "lead"), or transitive vs. intransitive verbs ("seconded"), but occasionally we have problems with two nouns or two verbs with the same form:

"I read that magazine": do I mean regularly, or that I have done in the past?

"The messenger wrote down Lincoln's address": was that his home, or his speech?

The context would need to be quite explicit to work around problems such as this.

If context supplied enough clues, grammar correction software would work much better than it does.

Words don't change meaning based on pronunciation. They're different words.

What do you mean?

“Dog” and “cat” have different pronunciations in English, and therefore mean different things.

Dog and Cat are different words.

There are many word pairs in many languages that are written exactly the same way but have different pronunciations and different meanings.

You are thinking of the written language as the fundamental thing. Actually spoken language is fundamental, and writing is an imperfect representation of it.

The verb "lead" and the noun "lead" (i.e., the metal) are two different words, pronounced differently. The fact that they are spelled the same is just an example of how the English writing system doesn't encode the English language perfectly accurately.

That's a totally different letter, not a different pronunciation..

It's like confusing thumb with sum

... which likely happens as well.

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