I went to an evening for parents at my daughter's school a couple of years ago. We were given about half a page to read to each other in the way that children read, a word at a time. It was cleverly constructed so that at the end of each sentence we had to go back to the beginning and re-read it, changing the pronunciation of one of the words. In each case our initial assumption had been incorrect - for example we had chosen lead weight rather than lead the race.

It made me realise how difficult English is as a foreign language - there is so much to be gleaned from context.