English Compared With Other Languages

This is only a brief comparison of English with other languages, not a complex one.

1. Endings
Unlike words in some other languages, English words do not have a lot of different endings. Nouns take s in the plural (miles), but they do not have endings to show whether they are subject or object.

Verbs take a few endings such as ed for the past (started), but they do not take endings for person, except in the third person singular of the present tense (it starts).

Articles (e.g. the), Possessives (e.g. my) and adjectives (e.g. good) do not have endings for number or gender. Pronouns (e.g. lime) have fewer forms than in many languages.

2. Word order
Word order is very important in English. As nouns do not have endings for subject or object, it is the word order that shows which is which.

Subject - Verb - Object
The woman loved the man. (She loved him.)
The man loved the woman. (He loved her.)

The subject-verb order is fixed, and we can change it only if there is a special reason.

3. Verb phrases
A verb phrase can have a complex structure. There can be auxiliary verbs as well as the ordinary verb.
I climbed up the ladder.
I was climbing the mountain.
We shall be climbing to an altitude of eight thousand feet.

The use of tenses and auxiliary verbs can be difficult for speakers of other languages.

4. Prepositions
The use of prepositions in English can be a problem.
We flew here on Friday.
We left at two o'clock.

Both prepositions and adverbs combine with verbs in an idiomatic way.
They were waiting for the flight. The plane took off.

There are many expressions involving prepositions that you need to learn as items of vocabulary.