The English Language Through The Eyes of a Foreigner

The first time I heard somebody speaking English, I thought, ”what beautiful sound!” to me it sounded like music. When I came to England many years ago, everybody said, it is easy, the English language is easy, That made me happy, I really wanted to learn that enchanting language.

When you learn a language you star with the A B C, a sound for each letter, the teacher said. So we started with the A, it is a sound like in CAT, MAP, MAN, that was easy I thought, but then an Ape appeared “excuse me that is not the same sound” that’s right, the teacher said, it is because it is at the beginning of the word, ok, that was good, suddenly somebody said CAKE, that A was in the middle of the word but it was pronounce like Ape, not like cap. I was getting more and more confused, I was coming to the conclusion that the rules of the pronunciation of the English language must have been written by someone completely drunk or delirious with a fever, otherwise, how could it be that you pronounce and A where there was a U like in umbrella, and the O of orange, was completely lost in FOOT and two

Os became a U, this language was erratic. We started with the consonants, good I thought, maybe the person who made the rules for the consonants is a different one and it makes more sense. I spoke too soon, the teacher said “write this words please”: enough, I wrote “enaf” when I looked at the blackboard, there wasn’t any F in that word, I was sure she had pronounce an F, it is because the ugh sound she said, ahhhhhh ok, I was starting to breath easy when she said “though” hang on, you haven’t pronounce the F and it is “ugh” again. I was completely sure that the same person who wrote the rules of pronunciation of the vowels had also written the rules of the consonants. And I came to the conclusion that the English language was like the English weather CRAZY.

I have now lived in this country since 1970 when I was twenty years old, I am 54 now, and the music that makes this language is still beautiful like this great nation, but I still think that somebody drunk, delirious or with a weird sense of humour wrote the rules, but I wouldn’t change any of it, I love the language and the people of this land.