Interesting observation. The spelling of English still reflects the Scottish accent. English has changed quite a lot since the spelling was standardized centuries ago. I have often found myself apologizing to people who have studied English, trying to explain the silent letters and spelling that no longer relates to the modern pronunciation.
It’s a good first language, harder second language.
Its a good second language too, probably the easyest language possible to learn 
at least to learn to a point you can comunicate with.
English is pretty versatile, but irregular in the details. It seems this is because English arose spontaneously in the castles of the new ruling French after 1066, the children of the elite playing with Saxon children. They made up their own rules, which is why English is backwards to most European languages.
Except Danish. You wouldn’t want to learn it. Too many sounds made far back in the throat. Only if you listen very carefully you realise proper words are hidden in the mud.
I don’t know if there’s any truth to it, but they say Danish is the hardest language in the world too learn and that children in Denmark almost grow up before they can communicate
Wery true thugh on your observation on dialects thugh. There is one small group of people here that speak a dialect that has nothing in comon with any language l know of. I can not understand a word.
Kristijan, it’s confirmed.
A parallell stretch of the power line, owned by a different company, is being cleared from young growth this week. I fired up, brought the vejnic and payed it a visit this morning. Two mini-busses of young guys from Poland and Ukraine were swinging their brush-saws. When they all stopped for a break I walked over to them. They had a hard time believing I was running on wood and that the small load of sticks on my bed was equivalent to 500 km of petrol
To my point: I asked them how well they communicated: -Ok, but sometimes a little English, one of the Polish guys said smiling.
Foreign language, cooking corn with a gasifier… 
I just had to share this video. What this 13 yo girls does is absolutely mindblowing.
Seems to be a fair number of Europeans on this site. I’m wondering if there are any Russians. I occasionally watch you-tubes about things guys build there. Always fascinating. I’m wondering if they got so crafty because the had to with the fall of the Soviet system or because of the Soviet system. Never know what they are saying and how in the hell do you learn an alphabet like that, but always interesting.
I’ve said it before, you that speak English ,as a second language amaze me— this young lady leaves me embarrased. TomC
I believe we had only one or two visiting this site for the last couple of years. I’m guessing mostly because of the language barrier than anything else.
I love Russian DIY-build videos too, as well as from India and SE Asia. To be able to manage with very little always impresses me. They will be ahead of most of us when the SHTF.
Don’t be, TomC. Either you have it or you don’t. I spent years and years trying to play the piano. I’ve come to the conclusion that part of my brain doesn’t exist.
My dad used to say instead of playing the piano for amusement he played it for his own amazement.
Well I’ve been playing guitar since I was a teenager and on my best day ever I may have been about a quarter as good as this kid and I’ve been watching him for several years now so even when he was six or seven he was a mile better than me. Now I just blame the arthritis There is no end to the kids out there playing incredible now.
She is amazing. I couldn’t ever learn another language. I know words from several languages. The younger you are the easier it is to learn. The brain has more plasticity or something like that. Like ages 3-6 are extremely important for development, and they soak up knowledge like sponges.
There may be some hope. We noticed that once you reach a certain age, people think they are invincible again like they were when they were teenagers… 
Tom, I moved here not to clutter the KISS thread.
Languages are so interesting and I agree with Kristijan - English being a simple language. Especially American English is very straight forward. However, the spelling makes no sence sometimes. I know the latest Swedish spelling reform was introduced 1906. As far as I know English spelling has never been formally reformed
Scandinavian languages are very similar to English, even if they belong to the Germanic group. Especially Scottish dialects have many words in common with Swedish. Bern (child) for example is “barn” in Swedish.
I found a Christmas song with English subtitles on Youtube. If you are bored and want distraction you can learn some Swedish watching it. Since you already know some German it should be a piece of cake
I am glad you moved this here JO. I enjoy discussing things like this. When I went to Middle and high school in the early 1960’s everyone was still required to take a second language. Choices, spanish, french, german or latin. I don’t know why or when this was abandoned. Kind of makes Americans dumbed down compared to the majority of people in the world. I didn’t realize that English was considered a easier language to learn since so few native english speakers do it well. As I said, I took 4 years of German in school and could write it and carry on a conversation. My Grandfather still spoke Norwegian and my Grandmother Danish and my German seldom allowed me to make total sense when they were speaking it but they seemed to have learned each others native tongue fairly easily. The ones that really baffle me is the folks that use a cyrillic alphabet and yet have adapted to use the same one in use in our parts of the world. Or Japanese, Chinese or all the Asian languages using forms of pictographs. You would have to retrain your brain to jump from one alphabet to another. Who remembers Esperanto.
The Wonderful Horrible History of Esperanto, the Universal Language - Owlcation. I put a little effort into it when I was young but it didn’t seem to be a good use of my time. I doubt many people are interested in these musings but I am still pleasantly surprised by how so many can use my language so well. I believe I do you a disservice by not being able to reciprocate.
Yes JO ,thanks.
In dutch you can find some/ a lot of Scandinavian words. Probably something to do with the Vikings and so.
And I wanted to reply on Kristijan. Slavic language is very hard indeed. I dont even try. I can order my beer and that is it. Tone posted two videos, I think in Servo-Croatic? Only a little was understandable for me.
And a friend of mine did his stage ( the right word?) in Germany. After a few months one wouldnt see the difference between a local and him. Next practice was French. The same story. Then on a holliday to Spain with a mutual friend. The other guy took a Spanish course. And guess what? He did better. The next step was the Czech Republic. Stayed there for one year and didnt manage…
And dont talk about Cyrillic. We got lost on Kreta once and my wife should understand the signs. The good part is that Kreta is an island, otherwise we would end up in China or so.
Yes, Norwegian, Danish and Swedish are close to dialects of the same language. I sometimes have more trouble understanding eldery people in villages only 10-15 miles from here, compared to news standard Norwegian or Danish.
Agree. Beyond my comprehension.
And the other way around of course. Lot’s of immigrants from mainand Europe for hundereds of years brought part of their languages here as well.
Managing English and a some German in addition to my own language, I can pick up maybe 25-50% of your mother tounge, if written.
As far as know Cyrillic is completly different to the Greek alphabet. No surprice you got lost 
This thread has been a great way to spend the morning, I’m your typical uncultured American that can’t speak any other languages but it is fascinating to me, especially the Slavic/Nordic speak where my ancestors were from. I know I have swedish danish and Norwegian and Blackfoot Indian lineage but that’s all I know
I believe Cyrillic is adapted from Greek but modified for the extra syllables that Slavonic languages had. Started as a written church language I think.