Proficiency alongside "poverty".

<To my mind, the articles are the trickiest part of English grammar>

And modals?

Forbes wrote:

Cool Breeze, your English is faultless! I think that Mr P has hit the nail on the head. In English the complexity resides in the syntax. Many say that English has no "grammar" because you do not need to grapple with conjugations and declensions, but of course if it had no grammar it would just be soup. I have been to Thailand many times. I have made a not very sucessful attempt to learn Thai, which is even more analytical than English.

Forbes, in one respect I am more British than you: I have also been to Thailand many times but have never bothered to try and learn the language. I have noticed that they never put an English noun in the plural and that there are some other local peculiarities.

MrP's comment about syntax makes sense to me as well.

Thank you for your comment regarding my English. I wish it were faultless! I think I'm just fairly good at fooling people into thinking it is better than it actually is. I achieve this by using mainly words and expressions I am familiar with, in other words, I use English I have seen or heard before. However, occasionally I step aside from the well-trodden path either inadvertently or on purpose because I feel imprisoned by the obligation or compulsion to sound 'natural'. Maybe I'm something of a nonconformist. For example, I know full well that native speakers like to place only in the same position as the adverbs of frequency (often, always, never etc.). I quite often place it elsewhere...

My word power in Finnish is from another planet compared with my English vocabulary. I would never dare to proofread a legal document written in English, for example. But since I don't make many mistakes in what I consider English grammar and I have a good ear that helps me avoid doubtful expressions, I often make an unwarrantedly favourable impression on the reader.

Cheers
CB

<They are similar to other Germanic languages in structure and as there are only two infinitives in English (and in Swedish, for that matter), the modals or defective auxiliaries are very easy and simple to learn. They have no inflections for different grammatical persons, which is also helpful.>

I'm surprised. Most people including teachers, would say that English modals are one of the most difficult areas to master.

<A learner might as well focus his efforts on more useful things to improve his English.>

Modals are not important?

<To use any other form of write with a defective auxiliary is always wrong, except for reductions like: He will have. Looks extremely simple to me! If English were an arttificial language, I can't imagine how anyone could possibly make this simpler without adding considerably to the ambiguity of English.>

I see. So when you refer to knowing how to use an item, you mean knowing how to use it syntactically, right? Well, that's probably the easy part of much English usage. Semantic and pragmatic knowledge are often much harder to learn/master.

BTW, what would be the difference between "I know how to use modals" and "I've mastered modals", IYO?

<What is not important are endless arguments about the real or imaginary differences between, say:

He has to go and

He must go.>

Well, I guess that would be part of the mastering part of the language - i.e. the complex part. It's easy for anyone to claim that English is not complex, or is much simpler than many other languages, if he/she avoids talking about mastering the language.

<After the learner has a good command of the basics, he should of course be taught the not-so-common uses that some modals have.>

Again, you seem to be jumping thoughts. Are you saying that the difference in use between  "have to" and "must" is not a common thing?

<Compared with other languages, this is not an insurmountable task at all.> *<How surprising that you should know it.>

Again, your view is quite subjective and personal. *Compare the above with other languages by showing us examples from other languages.

<In every language, words have very common uses and less common uses.>

And often, the less common uses are based on differences in register or text type. The language that one needs at any time in his/her learning, and what is or is not common/  frequent for that student, depends on his/her personal situation. For, example, many of my students are lawyers. They need formal language. The above use of "should" would not be uncommon at all in their environment. Therefore, they would need to learn it early in their training.

 

MrPedantic wrote:

If native speaker A and native speaker B disagree about the meaning of structure/phrase X, then clearly, when A uses X, B does not understand X as A intends. In which case, if A and B are representative of the native population as a whole, the best that non-native N can hope for, when he uses X, is to be misunderstood much of the time by many people.

MrP, the lucidity of your thinking is admirable!

CB