I've read through this essay, it's really TL;DR type.
But why don't we talk #Hungarian instead of #English? 😁
Discussion
I learned English at age of 8. It was weird, when coming from a phonetic language like Dutch, I agree. I understand Frisian too and a little German. Frisian Is mentioned in the article which surprised me because so few people seem to know about it. I was in Curaçao the first 4 years of life, where they speak Papiamento, Spanish and Dutch, so I've been exposed/immersed in a few. 😃
Spelling bees not being common in phonetic languages is understandable. Hadn't thought of that before. 🥹😆
Wow, how many languages do you speak? 👀
Only Dutch and English proficiently. Understand Frisian very well, understand German if spoken slowly in simple terms. If immersed I could maybe get by in German. After 2 weeks in Noumea years ago, I could get what I needed in French in the super simplest ways. I think that having even 2 well developed languages and having learned another couple at school and uni (now forgotten due to lack of use), then it seems easier to pick up new languages. Immersion and frequent use is key. I've noticed too that I'm very good at understanding new migrants in Australia who have very strong accents. Better than my husband or friends. For all the reasons above, I think it's really beneficial for children to be fluent in two languages. It improves their ability to learn their own language too. 🧡✨🤗
I'm very envious, because I speak English only as foreign language (my mother tonguenis Hungarian as I mentioned earlier). And you are right, the frequent use - and the environment with native speakers - are the key (unfortunately it was decades ago when I was in native environment for weeks). I was tautht to French is high school (completely forgotten), and Russian for many many years (it was mandatory "thanks" to we are in the Eastern - communist - Block). I forgot this language too (sometimes I can catch some words). And I learled Hebrew and Zulu in autodidact manner, but it was a "kiss for a dead".
Some people, like you has special talent to easily learn languages. E.g. my daughter's mind is like a sponge, it sucks any language in very short time and she can actively use them, from English to Korean.
I think it the "sensibility" for languages depends on some special layout and wiring in brain.
So you are very lucky, cos you can move and get any job, and/or living quasi anywhere in the world.
And yes, I know Hungarian is a world language, but the world doesn't know about this fact 😁
My theory is English was consciously changed in the Tudor/Stuart period to allow for ambiguous interpretation of text.
Shakespeare and Bibles enabled the changes to stick.
Our elites all learnt greek and Latin , did yours, too, do you know?
Latin and ancient greek always was traditional languages taught mainly the people of the church and the aristocrats. On the other hamd the #Hungarian language is unique. Some scientist say it has a connection with the #Finnish, but others say it comes from #Sumer, and so on.
But if the #English is so odd as Hungarian language I suggest to speak Hungarian (cos it is my mother tongue :-) )
That's interesting. learning greek and Italian was so wide spread among the upper classes, who wrote all the books then, yet european languages largely stayed distinct.
I'm trying to learn Czech ATM, which is highlighting oddities of English.
I think it's not Greek but Ancient Greek, and not Italian, it's Latin. These are dead languages. So I think there is no any influence of a dead language to the living ones. But the Latin was the root of many living languages (Indo-Europeans?)
Btw: Hungarian language is also changing continously. (...or: it is continously changing - the word order is not so strict in Hungarian). Even the letters was different in ancient times - originally was runic writing.
Nowadays we couldn't umderstand the ancient Hungarian neither speaking nor writing.
And last but not least the Hungarian comes from "Hun" (refer Attila the Hun, called "Whip of God), but our country's name is "Magyarország" in Hungarian, which comes grom "Magyar". This refers to an ancient myth about the Wonder Deer, and about brothers Hunor and Magor. They became tribe leaders later called Huns and Magyars.
I love folklore, and stuff like that.
Strangley, I've had two work colleagues in my small town that were learning Hungarian.
I would love to see some of the architecture one day.
You can see many Humgarian buildings, architecture, because we have a large studio "village" working on many movies and TV series (thanks to the Hungarian producer in Hollywood, the late Andy Vajna). Some of these movies' scenes was captured in Hungary from Will Smith's "Gemini men" to the new TV series "The Day of the Jackal". But I could mention Katy Perry's clip "Dark Horse" too.
Anyway these architectures seeing in person is another feeling. Good luck if you will have any opportunity to visit Hungary.