"Every language is a conventional code system. It is not like the one used in diplomacy, which often changes according to the situation. Instead, a language resembles the traffic code, which is permanent and easy to understand. Red commands us to stop in all regions of the world. Green tells us to proceed. Arrows show the direction of traffic. Languages, too, have their international codes: punctuation marks."
I only became aware of the diversity of our sounds when I heard a German student of Hungarian wailing about how difficult it was for him to distinguish such words as pártalan, páratlan, parttalan, pártatlan, párttalan.It’s also easy to get confused among the words megörült, megőrült, megürült, megőrölt…"
"We get used to the fact that in Hamlet’s famous utterance “To be or not to be,” the long /i/ sound is written “e.” But it is written “ee” in the word “bee,” “ea” in the word “leaf,” “ie” in the word “siege,” and “ey” in the word “key.”"
"You fall into a reverie when hearing the word “violet”: what a gentle, kind little flower. The word “violence” clangs angrily in your ears, although its letters are
almost the same. The word “Andalusia” tinkles softly, but “vandalism” clangs roughly, even though both words come from the same root."
"For example, “to turn” is a verb whose basic meaning changes completely when certain adverbs are added to it. These combinations of verbs and adverbs, called phrasal verbs, need to be remembered one by one, as new words.
Here are just a few examples:
I turned down (I rejected)
you turned up (you appeared)
he turned in (he went to bed)
we turned over (we sold)
you turned out (you produced)
they turned on (they switched on)"
"In a hundred years, 'drizzle' might be pronounced 'dritszel', but that will be of no importance as long as the place occupied by the consonant in the middle of the word is filled by something that allows us to continue to differentiate the word from other similar words in the English language, such as 'dribble'."
