Wanna join my revolution?

Let me preface this post by stating that I love languages. I took French and Russian in high school. I took French, Russian and Latin in college. The elementary school I am sending my children to in Portland teaches Greek and Latin, starting in kindergarten. I strongly believe that every child should learn at least one foreign language.

However, my love for the English language is quickly fading away.

I had learned from my high school language classes that the English language has some crazy rules regarding verb conjugation. For example, in French, there are something like 17 irregular verbs. That basically means 17 verbs do not follow the same rules the 1000 other verbs follow. This is a pretty small number if you think about it! Granted, two of those verbs, 'to be' and 'to have' are used quite often. You simply memorize them. I can still rattle off in my head:

I have (j'ai)

you have (tu as)

he/she has (il/ elle a)

we have (nous avons)

you have (vous avez)

they have (ils/elles ont)

In French, there are three types of verbs. Ones that end in 'er', ones that end in 're', and ones that end in 'ir'. With the exception of the very few irregular verbs, ALL FRENCH VERBS ARE CONJUGATED THE SAME WAY. Makes it simple right? Very.

English is not like that though. There are over 400 irregular English verbs. Yikes, that is a lot. Not only are there a lot of irregularities when it comes to conjugation, but even the conjugation itself does not make sense!

Take, for example some regular present tense verbs. To see, to read, to play.

I see, read, play

you see, read, play

he/she sees, reads, plays

we see, read, play

you see, read, play

they see, read, play

Notice the one change? The extra letter added on to the verb? That is right, an 's'. But the 's' is added on in the SINGULAR tense. Not the PLURAL tense where this makes sense!

Anyway, back to my revolution.

Now that Levi is learning how to read, I have found a new distaste for the English language. Teaching Levi to read was wonderful when all the a's made the same sound. When k's did not exist, or when letters were not silent. But now that he has mastered the short vowel sounds and we are learning the long vowel sounds, I am realizing that there are a lot of rules and they each get broken. We are learning about bonker e's. You know, when there is an 'e' at the end of a word the 'e' makes the vowel closest to it say its own name. For example: bike, like, hide. Oh wait! Unless you have the word live! This could be a long 'i' or a short 'i':

"I want to live!" OR " I saw Dave Matthews Band live!"

Or the word have! Don't make the 'a' long, it makes a short sound here. Another problem? Don't forget to keep the 'e' silent in all these words!

And why do we have double letters? Do we really need two 'p's' in happy? Or snapped? Or flapped? And why do we have some letters at all? Really, do we need a 'k'? And speaking of 'k', a 'c' should not make an 's' sound. And another thing... did you know that 'ur', 'ir', and 'er' all make the same sound? So why three ways to say the same thing?

There are a million examples that we have encountered over the past few weeks. These are just a few that are currently stuck in my brain.

And, honestly, I understand WHY the English language is they way it is. I know that it is a blend of many languages, French, Latin and German being the predominant ones. I just don't understand why we continue to teach spelling and reading rules, only to teach the ways to break them the next day. Can't we streamline the English language and make it easier?

I know, I know. We all learned it. And so will Levi. I will teach him the rules and then the exceptions. It is just lame, that is all.