I can understand that sentiment, with all of its crazy rules, especially the contradictory exceptions to almost every single one of them. Having studied other languages, I can see comparisons that make even me scratch my head at English's weirdness. ~
Many other languages have their own complications; declensions, conjugations, genders of nouns and clitics to give some examples. Common verbs and nouns are frequently irregular (as sometimes in English).
English does have some odd expressions which would drive me bananas so when learning the language, I'd better not put all my eggs in one basket and cut corners as that might leave me feeling under the weather and I'm already not playing with a full deck so I wouldn't be on the ball but may get a taste of my own medicine for trying to pull the wool over people's eyes as a picture paints a thousand words thus I really should let sleeping dogs lie rather than let the cat out of the bag because if I try to do both at the same time, it will be raining cats and dogs.
Karen, sorry to go all Randy D on you, but for some reason it bothers me to see 'plum'( the fruit) used when 'plumb' is meant. But please notice that I didn't point out that you used thinks instead of think in your question and give me credit for that.
My keyboard at work sometimes sticks and I didn't catch it. It's also a small laptop and sometimes I have trouble seeing it. When I'm doing my reports, I wear my prescription glasses with a pair of readers on as well. It looks funny, but at least i can see the screen. :)
I had no trouble learning it. I try to keep my speech and writing simple. When I studied German, I found it also easy. Then Russian, not too difficult. I like the phonetic spellings of both...which makes French incomprehensible to me.
"I've always considered American English to be a language that has to be memorized, not learned." Just since I've left school, it has changed so many times I can't rely on what I "learned" in school to be the accepted version.
I wish it were that simple. How am I supposed to know what generation I'm talking to when I'm online? In school, I "learned" that the symbol "@" meant per or each ... now it means "at." If I try to use it as "per", no one knows what I'm talking about. :):)
Randy D 