English is crazy

I have found some pictures that show just how silly, crazy and difficult the English language is.  Personally I feel really sorry for those people who have had to learn English after speaking an entirely different language their whole life.

Remember back to when you were little and trying to learn how to spell and what the meaning of words were.  It was very difficult, there was so much to learn.  You had to understand blends; vowels and consonants; phonetics; prefixes and suffixes; verbs, nouns and adjectives; homophones, homonyms; compound words; definitions; spellings of words; the list just goes on and on.

You probably would have tried to spell many words phonetically, most people would have initially spelt scissors as 'sisors', and said would be 'sed', there are so many ways to spell words but it seems that the most logical way (phonetically) is usually the wrong way.

Now imagine that you have spoken an entirely different language your whole life and you are now expected to learn English, one of the hardest languages due to so many different pronunciations of single letters as well as multiple letters.

This photo shows how single letters and multiple letters can be pronounced different ways.  Even though it has told you how 'ghoti' could be pronounced as fish, saying 'ghoti' realistically sounds nothing like fish.  This is why English can be so hard for people to learn.

The next picture pretty much sums up the lunacy of the English language.  Whoever came up with the words must have just assumed that everyone would easily be able to spell and pronounce them, if you spoke English that is.

If that isn't confusing enough then there are all the language conventions including but not limited to; similes, metaphors, idioms, figures of speech, colloquialisms and of course sarcasm.

A conversation I once had went something like this:
Me: 'You must live under a rock or something.'
Them: 'No I don't, I live in a tin shed, saying I live under a rock implies that I live in a stone house.'
Me: 'Uhh... I didn't mean it like that.'
Them: 'Oh....'

It was extremely hard to not laugh about their mistake right in front of them, but how on earth do you explain to someone what that means without just confusing them even more? After that conversation I made a mental note to never use figures of speech in front of them again.

So to everyone out there trying to learn how to speak, read, write, or all of them, my hat goes off to you.  Trying to learn such a difficult language will take time but with perseverance you will succeed! Best of luck

References:
http://designyoutrust.com/2012/02/english-is-a-crazy-language/
http://weknowmemes.com/2011/11/welcome-to-the-english-language-asshole/
This one wasn't included in this post, but it is still confusing/amusing.  You have to scroll down the page a little when it loads. http://reallifebh.com/is-english-easy-to-learn