this post was submitted on 25 Apr 2024
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Showerthoughts

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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. A showerthought should offer a unique perspective on an ordinary part of life.

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It must confuse English learners to hear phrases like, "I'm home", instead of "I am at home." We don't say I'm school, or I'm post office. (lemmy.world)
submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by ParabolicMotion@lemmy.world to c/showerthoughts@lemmy.world
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[–] skyspydude1@lemmy.world 7 points 7 months ago (2 children)

It's so funny because whereas a lot of other languages have rules with defined exceptions here and there, speaking English is more of a theoretical approach.

I feel like this also makes it useful in that you can butcher the hell out of it, and still communicate somewhat effectively. I don't feel that's the case in some other languages, or maybe I'm willing to put up with my colleague's broken English far more than they're willing to put up with my broken German/Spanish/etc.

[–] merc@sh.itjust.works 3 points 7 months ago

I think English allows you more different ways of doing things than most other languages. The future tense being "going to X" and one of the past tenses being "used to X" means that new English learners don't need to spend as much time studying yet another verb tense.

OTOH, the spelling and pronunciation is such a massive hurdle compared to a simple language like Spanish.

[–] Mesa@programming.dev 2 points 7 months ago

Yeah, it's definitely convenient in most cases, I would say. Though it can also be inconvenient when messaging, because sometimes said need to add context can read very unnaturally in an otherwise grammatically correct sentence.