>>I do not envy those who have to learn English as a second language.
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>Even less envy for those who venture into learning other languages with English as their first.
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>>There may be more exceptions than rules.
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>Our youngest learned of a rule in her AP English course, something about some weird combination of e and i when followed by a consonant from a certain set, or some such. And then it was commented by the teacher as a non-rule, because there were a total of twelve such cases in the whole language, eight of which were exceptions to this rule.

We are not very good at learning other languages. We seem to assume everyone should learn English. I have some pidgin Spanish and that's about it.

There is a great scene in one of the few bad movies Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon starred in together. Lemmon is a prosecution witness and Matthau is the assassin hired to kill him. At the end Matthau disguises himself as a priest to get into the hotel where Lemmon is sequestered. As he nears the hotel he is grabbed and exhorted to administer last rites. He clearly doesn't know the words. "Ipso facto, caveat emptor, hasta luego," he says, crossing himself. A great line in a bad movie.