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#51167
mtgordon
Participant

Despite the existence of strong verbs (common to all Germanic languages, I believe), English has a very simple grammar. For weak verbs, conjugation is very formulaic. There’s pretty much no noun declension; that’s for pronouns, and even there, it’s pretty trivial considering that English effectively only has two cases, nominative and accusative, for purposes of pronoun declension, and most native speakers manage to mess up even that on a regular basis. English grammar got streamlined a lot post-Conquest. One of the characteristics of creole languages (and I consider English a creole of Old English and Norman French) is comparatively simple grammar, and English is no exception.

The vocabulary is admittedly both huge and highly irregular. Spelling, pronunciation, and plural construction don’t follow any fast rules, largely because the vocabulary is formed from the union of three or four languages. If your native language is a Germanic or Romance language, you’ll find that English has plenty of cognates.