re: For those who know foreign languages, what are some weird things about English?

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It was pointed out to me by a few Russians that English has many words which are pronounced the same way but have totally different meanings, i.e., might (maybe & strong) & mite, "desert" (a dry barren land) and "desert" to abandon someone.

And sometimes English words are spelled the same but are pronounced differently depending on how they are used in a sentence, such as "read" (present tense) and "read" (past tense), "bat" as in baseball and "bat" as in the flying mammal. Other examples, "fair," "lie," "lead," "minute," "refuse," "project" and "fine."

They told me how difficult it is for them to learn English when words are so hard to use correctly.

And don't even get me started about how the word "ball" can have different meanings...

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