Why English Is Such A Difficult Language to Master?

Without prejudice.

I received this email from a friend. Please take a look.

Subject: RE: xxxxx Nite 2010
Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2010 11:07:57 +0800

Hi there,

Good day.

Thank for your attention and interest.

I regret for my late inform, which about the dateline of registration. The registration has already closed, due to there was a dateline for us to finalize the number of table.

Anyway, i was glad to heard from you with the replied, thank you. we shall arrange another dinner to involve all of u, perhaps it will be next xxxx Nite, will inform u guys earlier.

Thank you, and have a prosperous tiger year~^^

Regards,

xxxx

Reputedly, this email was written by a profession graduated from University of Malaya. I think it is best that I keep silence on his profession lest I might offend his fraternity. Maybe, we have a simplified English in Malaysia. Don't forget that language is a living thing and it can evolve.

This is another written work of Y.B. Teresa Kok which appeared in her facebook.

Visited snatch thief victim and family in Salak South for second time

Yesterday (18 March 2010), I went to visit snatch thief victim 18-year old Chong Chooi Yoon at her home in Salak South area which is part of my Seputeh constituency. You might have read in the papers that she was a victim of snatch thief just a few days before Chinese New Year. It was…

Any comment on her writing?

Did she go to two places, namely the victim and another family?

I wonder why she wrote “ I went to visit” instead of “ I visited”, was it a translation from Chinese language?

“Go to” is always followed by “someone” or “ something”.

Example:-

i. I went to her for advice. – someone

ii. I go to the bank. – something.

Maybe, Y.B. is correct and I'm just ignorant of the inflected usage of "go to".

The private secretary to the late Tunku Abdul Rahman once told me that he used to vet the latter's written works in "The Star". He was not allowed to change the style of writing but only allowed to correct glaring grammatical errors. If Tunku could make grammatical error, so were we.

I do not profess to be an expert in English language. It does take a toll on one's effort and time in order to achieve high level of proficiency. It is best illustrated by the graph shown below. Time is on the x-axis and y-axis represents level of proficiency. You could put in a lot of effort and time, however the return on the proficiency is negligible. So, what is the solution? I leave it to the readers.

Time ( in arbitrary unit )