them

[john walker's workshop]

[Jeff Higgins]

I hope we can keep this one light hearted...

My neighbor up the road is from Ukraine. He's lived here since he was a kid, but still has a very heavy accent and struggles with pronouns, past, present, and future participles, and stuff like that. We've had many fun conversations regarding just how "simple" English used to be...

Being raised bilingual (my mom only spoke German with us), I'll just have to say we have it easy in regards to gender assignments. Or, as this guy points out, we used to. In German, everything has a gender. Lamps, tables, doors, cars, houses - everything. The infamous "der, die, und das" - masculine, feminine, and neuter. And no, most of it does not make any sense whatsoever. Not intuitive in the least. This guy would have a field day. But, then again, I would not be surprised if his native language has similar pitfalls.