What English does - but most languages can't

English has unusual linguistic features most other languages don't! These skills really make English unique compared to other languages around the world.
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~ Briefly ~
The second of two fun, experimental takes on features English lacks and has. Part one lives here:
• Features English is mi...
Last time we met skills English is missing compared to other languages, now it's time for what it does have:
- (its spelling system)
- suppletive ordinals
- obligatory plurals
- definite and indefinite articles
- possession with "have"
- perfect with "have"
- passive voice
- asymmetric noun-pronoun alignment
- particle comparative with "than"
- interdental fricatives
- rhotics
- r-colored vowels (ahem, "coloured")
- nounless adjectives with "one"
Thank you for watching, and see my sources doc below for even more!
~ Credits ~
Art, narration and animation by Josh from NativLang.
My doc full of sources for claims and credits for music, sfx, fonts and images:
docs.google.com/document/d/1r...

Пікірлер: 11 000

  • @jeffh3649
    @jeffh36494 жыл бұрын

    English is pretty consistent at being inconsistent.

  • @Jeuro38

    @Jeuro38

    4 жыл бұрын

    So true. And French is rather inconsistent at being consistent.

  • @sazji

    @sazji

    4 жыл бұрын

    Jeff H I think Indo-European languages are generally pretty good at that!

  • @ciarenkruger8347

    @ciarenkruger8347

    4 жыл бұрын

    @SandboxArrow No, not really. Due to it's history, English is rather inconsistent in some areas. Spelling, pronunciation (not pronounciation such as in pronounce, pronouncing or pronounced) and in some areas even constructions are sketchy. It makes for beautiful poetry and literature as the same thing can be said at least a half-dozen ways, but it makes English hard to learn due to lack of solid rules.

  • @theyoshi202

    @theyoshi202

    4 жыл бұрын

    English is fairly consistent in writing but definitely not in pronunciation.

  • @lukeriftwalker1306

    @lukeriftwalker1306

    4 жыл бұрын

    @SandboxArrow English is not consistent.

  • @s.q.10-e66
    @s.q.10-e663 жыл бұрын

    In Korean, if you want to say specifically "Fingers" you literally say "Hand Branches"

  • @MirroMirro26

    @MirroMirro26

    3 жыл бұрын

    In Japanese, wrist is 手首, which is literally "hand neck".

  • @hodayahsm2332

    @hodayahsm2332

    3 жыл бұрын

    In Hebrew, there is a word for finger, but there's no differentiation between arm and hand. To say hand, you say "arm spoon" (Technically the word spoon comes from a more general word, so it's also used for palm fronds and other vaguely spoon-shaped things)

  • @kyriljordanov2086

    @kyriljordanov2086

    3 жыл бұрын

    In Czech and Slovak toes are "fingers on the foot" or leg since it's usually called the same word. Hand and arm also are the same.

  • @gabrielabatista6016

    @gabrielabatista6016

    3 жыл бұрын

    @@kyriljordanov2086 oh, we call it similarly on portuguese! We don't have a specific word for toes so we just call them "fingers of the foot/foot fingers" (dedos do pé, on portuguese)

  • @suchanhachan

    @suchanhachan

    3 жыл бұрын

    ​@@MirroMirro26 Similar of course to 足首, "leg/foot neck", or ankle...

  • @RedwoodTheElf
    @RedwoodTheElf10 ай бұрын

    A language professor was talking about how in many languages, a double negative would become a positive, but how there was no language where two positives made a negative, and one of his students replied: "Yeah...right."

  • @bacillusanthrasis267

    @bacillusanthrasis267

    8 ай бұрын

    I hope to Da Lord he caught that.

  • @olwens1368

    @olwens1368

    8 ай бұрын

    Having been brought up in Scotland this was a common joke- except it was 'Aye...right'. It is true that when you hear a Scot saying those words you know that in the next phrase he's going to explain why you are a blithering idiot.

  • @felixfourcolor

    @felixfourcolor

    6 ай бұрын

    bruh that's just how logic works 😂

  • @NoNumbersAtTheEnding

    @NoNumbersAtTheEnding

    6 ай бұрын

    ​@@felixfourcolorwent over your head bro. "Yeah, right" is a double positive that means a negative

  • @PsychicAlchemy

    @PsychicAlchemy

    6 ай бұрын

    Technically that's more a matter of sarcasm than grammar, but it is quite clever.

  • @jammahan
    @jammahan10 ай бұрын

    I always thought English as both the easiest and hardest language to learn. Hard if you follow the rules, easy if you completely ignore them. Just as effective either way.

  • @MikeYm98875

    @MikeYm98875

    5 ай бұрын

    That makes no sense

  • @Lur-vz5oy

    @Lur-vz5oy

    5 ай бұрын

    English has very simple rules, a lot simpler than most European languages.

  • @ultimatestuff7111

    @ultimatestuff7111

    5 ай бұрын

    @@MikeYm98875 ”the bombing in Gaza is a tragedy to the Palestinian people” “Bombing in Gaza bad” Both get the point across

  • @evanwhite2845

    @evanwhite2845

    4 ай бұрын

    @@johnc8643Hay the ated horses… 🤷‍♂️

  • @Hugo-xr1mg

    @Hugo-xr1mg

    4 ай бұрын

    good point, but does not mean intensity, and in that regard, it's kind bad (purposelly mispel)@@ultimatestuff7111

  • @gxtmfa
    @gxtmfa4 жыл бұрын

    Half these comments: “We do that in my (Western European) language. It’s not that rare” This video: “These concepts are rare outside of Western Europe.”

  • @tibbygaycat

    @tibbygaycat

    4 жыл бұрын

    Wait places exist outside Europe?

  • @rotundmonibuv5103

    @rotundmonibuv5103

    4 жыл бұрын

    @@tibbygaycat Yeah, apparently there's this really weird place called Asia and its even larger

  • @LuisAldamiz

    @LuisAldamiz

    4 жыл бұрын

    Whatever! Then don't say "English", say "Western European languages".

  • @davidweihe6052

    @davidweihe6052

    4 жыл бұрын

    > “These concepts are rare outside of Western Europe.” So they used to be unknown in East Germany until the Wall fell?"

  • @HollywoodF1

    @HollywoodF1

    4 жыл бұрын

    @@LuisAldamiz Because it's a gradient. The farther away you get from English geographically, the more of these features disappear.

  • @rubyy.7374
    @rubyy.73743 жыл бұрын

    What surprised me a lot about Japanese was the fact that the word for “foot” and “leg” is the same. It just seems so... Inconvenient.

  • @Mein_KampfyChair

    @Mein_KampfyChair

    3 жыл бұрын

    Same in Czech, and probably other slavic languages

  • @jimmybob3948

    @jimmybob3948

    3 жыл бұрын

    人1:俺の足が傷つける! 人2:どの足 人1:はい

  • @averagepersonality2035

    @averagepersonality2035

    3 жыл бұрын

    It's the same in Irish, "cos" can be either foot or leg depending on the context

  • @yehan5132

    @yehan5132

    3 жыл бұрын

    Sort of the same in Burmese. There’s a root word chì that could mean anything below the hips. We just add another word to specify

  • @jimmybob3948

    @jimmybob3948

    3 жыл бұрын

    @@Yaj_3514 Probably not but who cares, it was just an excuse to flex my limited japanese ability lol

  • @londonanderson9622
    @londonanderson9622 Жыл бұрын

    One thing I adore about the English language is the word “The” not the TH sound but the use of the word. The main thing is that English is a non-gender language. So you can use the word “The” For absolutely everything without having to think about its gender, the same also goes for plural. Even if the noun is a plural noun you can still use “The” for it as well. It can be used for all nouns and even plural ones. Very useful in getting the hang of a language lol.

  • @mep6302

    @mep6302

    Жыл бұрын

    Yeah. I speak Spanish and when I started learning English, I learned the definitive article the. The explanation: the is used for all nouns. Me: really? Is that it? How easy

  • @juniperrodley9843

    @juniperrodley9843

    10 ай бұрын

    @@hah-vj7hc Is it easy to learn at a basic level? I can't speak to that, it's my first language, but I always assumed it'd be troublesome all the way through. Nothing in the language seems all that consistent or intuitive compared to the two I'm currently learning.

  • @badart3204

    @badart3204

    10 ай бұрын

    @@juniperrodley9843 Think about all the people you have met that spoke broken English and realize you understood them. It’s inconsistent but very forgiving with out of order and missing words not screwing up the emssgae

  • @oey21329

    @oey21329

    10 ай бұрын

    That’s interesting,in my native language, we don’t have the/a/an or even the plural form of nouns. So having to learn to use it in english is confusing 😂

  • @juniperrodley9843

    @juniperrodley9843

    10 ай бұрын

    @@badart3204 Damn wait that's a very good point. Well, pretty good; there are people whose English has very much been too broken for me to understand, but I get your point.

  • @ludvigabay
    @ludvigabay10 ай бұрын

    The thing I love about English the most is what wasn't mentioned in this video - the ease of introducing new or foreign vocabulary into a sentence. Pretty much most languages have some grammar rules that make the process difficult, but in English you just the vocabulary from another language, like "sushi" and throw it into the sentence as you'd do with any other food name. Or you can take a proper noun, like "google" and use it like a verb, because there are no grammatical rules that make it impossible, but in every other language I know - there are at least one or two rules of why nouns cannot be used like verbs.

  • @ultimatestuff7111

    @ultimatestuff7111

    5 ай бұрын

    Yep the redundancy is amazing, I can say like, I like your shirt, or your shirt is of the most divine style, or I can just say, yo fire shirt

  • @paulstelian97

    @paulstelian97

    2 ай бұрын

    And you can just omit words outright and... it still works. Like your "but in English you just the vocabulary from another language" has a single, clear meaning despite missing the "take from" words before the "the vocabulary". Don't omit _too_ many that the primary idea is lost but here you quite accidentally did a great job at proving that redundancy.

  • @Sakamoto_Hina
    @Sakamoto_Hina3 жыл бұрын

    English: finger, toe, hair, wrist, ankle Korean: hand-stick, foot-stick, head-stick, hand-neck, foot-neck

  • @Molotov49

    @Molotov49

    3 жыл бұрын

    Korean is better tbh

  • @kaioocarvalho

    @kaioocarvalho

    3 жыл бұрын

    English: wrist, ankle Japanese: hand-neck, foot-neck.

  • @MrBabyBlue1993

    @MrBabyBlue1993

    3 жыл бұрын

    @Kevin Pope is it a joke ? Right

  • @MrBabyBlue1993

    @MrBabyBlue1993

    3 жыл бұрын

    @Kevin Pope is it a joke ? Right

  • @karaqakkzl

    @karaqakkzl

    3 жыл бұрын

    Finger: toe-hand or finger-hand (ngón tay) Toe: toe-foot or finger-foot (ngón chân) Tay: hand , Chân: leg (foot) Ngón is hard to translate, it could be toe or finger

  • @kompatybilijny9348
    @kompatybilijny93484 жыл бұрын

    English nouns do not have genders, while in most European Languages they do.

  • @FirstNameLastName-oz5ij

    @FirstNameLastName-oz5ij

    4 жыл бұрын

    Some nouns have genders. Waitress and waiter, widow and widower, and actor and actress to name a few. Edit: Since so many people are still replying to this comment correcting me, I'm just going to leave this here. Yes, I am well aware that other languages have non-living objects that have "genders" whereas English does not. I understand now that that is what the original commenter was talking about. I misunderstood the original comment because it said, "English nouns do not have genders" which IS technically false, but now I realize they (even though it was not specified) were referring only to inanimate nouns having no gender in English.

  • @kompatybilijny9348

    @kompatybilijny9348

    4 жыл бұрын

    @@FirstNameLastName-oz5ij well yes, but in other languages nouns like "ball", or "water" also have genders.

  • @Maki-00

    @Maki-00

    4 жыл бұрын

    S Y These are not inanimate objects, though. These are gender markers based on the actual gender of the person. This is not the same as saying that a table is feminine and a shoe is masculine.

  • @omp199

    @omp199

    4 жыл бұрын

    @@Maki-00 *based on the sex of the person

  • @thats_a_human_person1478

    @thats_a_human_person1478

    4 жыл бұрын

    @@omp199 ? She was correct

  • @ThePlataf
    @ThePlataf Жыл бұрын

    As I always tell my ESL students, " Don't worry about the grammar. No matter how you mangle it, chances are, you'll be understood. Besides, most native English speakers don't worry about precision, so why should you?" Then it's the nightmare of English spelling. I tell them, " WE have problems with it, so you're on the same level as us. It's insane, no rhyme or reason, and very few people are perfect spellers, so just relax." Once they know that nobody will judge them harshly, they can start enjoying their lessons.

  • @fluffytail5000

    @fluffytail5000

    10 ай бұрын

    @@hah-vj7hc There, there, don’t mind them. It’s easy to get “there”, “they’re”, and “their” all mixed up as they’re all pronounced the same. They’re fine. (the above line aside, it really is easy to get them mixed up. but half of the U.S.A? i have no words)

  • @alicemilne1444

    @alicemilne1444

    10 ай бұрын

    @@fluffytail5000 It depends where you live and what your accent is. I'm from Scotland where we pronounce "their" differently from "there" and "they're". As for getting things mixed up when writing, sometimes it is the dreaded autocorrect that takes over.

  • @rhuttrho88

    @rhuttrho88

    10 ай бұрын

    🫡

  • @rhuttrho88

    @rhuttrho88

    10 ай бұрын

    Yeah we only care if you're a commie!😤😡🤬

  • @spiceforspice3461

    @spiceforspice3461

    10 ай бұрын

    @@hah-vj7hc To be fair, it's and its is kinda confusing, since its is the only possessive form of a noun/pronoun in the English language that doesn't have an apostrophe. It's just a really weird exception to the rule of adding ' or 's to the end of a word.

  • @Tyrinath
    @Tyrinath9 ай бұрын

    it's a terrifying observation that you can learn a language fluently end to end, be able to use it perfectly, but to break it down and explain WHY you use it the way you do, is an entire area of study, vast as the ocean and thrice as deep.

  • @GormTheElder
    @GormTheElder3 жыл бұрын

    Kurdish is really interesting too. If you wanna ask: "do you have a cigarette", you ask "Does your cigarette exist?"

  • @111166053

    @111166053

    3 жыл бұрын

    Similar in Korean. We say "Cigarette exists?"(담배 있어?) or "You cigarette exists?"(너 담배 있어?).

  • @AndyJarman

    @AndyJarman

    3 жыл бұрын

    In English English we say may I have a cigarette. Do you have a cigarette is not a request, it is merely asking if you are in possession of something. It's the same with "can I get?" In English English this is considered gauche and clumsy. It is asking a stranger to reveal something about yourself. People from the UK say, "may I have?". This is asking the person in possession of what you if they are willing to give you something.

  • @clockworkkirlia7475

    @clockworkkirlia7475

    3 жыл бұрын

    @@AndyJarman "People from the UK" almost never act as one, though you are right about the general case.

  • @constantineravenna86

    @constantineravenna86

    3 жыл бұрын

    "Does your cigarette exist?" "Well it did but it broke the basic laws of space time and stopped existing."

  • @danielbishop1863

    @danielbishop1863

    3 жыл бұрын

    In Hebrew, "I have a cigarette" is "יש לי סיגריה", which literally translates as "there-is to-me cigarette".

  • @andrewturkington369
    @andrewturkington3694 жыл бұрын

    Here are the rules of English: 1. There are no rules except rule 2 2. Any rules that are taught to you in school are wrong and get broken repeatedly

  • @TaIathar

    @TaIathar

    4 жыл бұрын

    "are* wrong" looks like the broken part is working though.

  • @andrewturkington369

    @andrewturkington369

    4 жыл бұрын

    @@TaIathar Fixed. I wrote it late at night as I remember.

  • @thethrashyone

    @thethrashyone

    4 жыл бұрын

    To posit that English is an exception in having numerous exceptions is exceptionally naive.

  • @stephenpowstinger733

    @stephenpowstinger733

    4 жыл бұрын

    Idiotic. You shouldn’t break them if you want to speak clearly and advance professionally.

  • @andrewturkington369

    @andrewturkington369

    4 жыл бұрын

    @@stephenpowstinger733 Bruh, I meant rules like i before e except after C that gets conveniently trashed. Lighten up, it was a JOKE

  • @MavikBow
    @MavikBow Жыл бұрын

    One of my favorite features about informal English is that you can make phrases or even entire sentences into verbs. In my language it's not as easy to say "to groundhod-day someone" or "Stop I'm-counting-to-three-ing me!"

  • @ihsahnakerfeldt9280

    @ihsahnakerfeldt9280

    6 ай бұрын

    Yep. I think English is the only language on earth where you could come up with a sentence like "I came in and nope'd right out of there" lmao.

  • @danitho

    @danitho

    5 ай бұрын

    I think English is the only language with interwords as well. Un-freaking-believable, as an example

  • @Yellowsnow69420
    @Yellowsnow694202 жыл бұрын

    English seems like the most descriptive or specific of all the common languages. I think that might be because English is made from multiple languages. We don’t just have “finger, hand, and arm,” we have “digit, palm, backhand, wrist, forearm, etc.”

  • @geoculus5606

    @geoculus5606

    11 ай бұрын

    Also "limb," "extremity," "thigh," "lower leg." I wonder if some languages have no distinct name for what we call "thumb."

  • @cas343

    @cas343

    10 ай бұрын

    ​@@hah-vj7hcThose phrases aren't really more descriptive, just specific. What he's referring to are the number of unique words used for available objects and concepts. "Extremity" and "limb" can both be referring to a body part. Or limb can refer to a tree. Extremity can refer to a quantity or degree of something "the extremity of the heat wad unbearable."

  • @somethingforsenro

    @somethingforsenro

    10 ай бұрын

    @@hah-vj7hc everyone knows what you were trying to say, we were just telling you that you missed the point of the original comment. it's a valid point, but not in response to the above, because english having more specificity in terms of verbs (see the 'cool' vs 'tepid' comment) and german nouns being self-explanatory are completely different concepts

  • @ExHyperion

    @ExHyperion

    10 ай бұрын

    @@somethingforsenro German kinda cheats by slapping 40 words together to form one immense word, their point was that English has the most unique and non-conjoined words that mean different things, take “small” and “finger” as two separate words that come together to make “pinky” in German, for most cases, a word that is conjoined in German is a singular word in english

  • @F14thunderhawk

    @F14thunderhawk

    10 ай бұрын

    violently seeking out other languages to pillage for lexicon helped

  • @kaasmeester5903
    @kaasmeester59033 жыл бұрын

    The adjective "one" in English gets even weirder when you're talking about multiples: "The red ones". That's right, English has a plural form of the word "one"...

  • @fernandobanda5734

    @fernandobanda5734

    3 жыл бұрын

    A lot of languages have a plural form of "one" or "a(n)".

  • @Riyoshi000

    @Riyoshi000

    3 жыл бұрын

    @@fernandobanda5734 unos, uns

  • @bihuahua2600

    @bihuahua2600

    3 жыл бұрын

    romanian also has a plural for one, also a masculine and feminine. unul/una, unii/unele

  • @feedYOURchildrenKORN

    @feedYOURchildrenKORN

    3 жыл бұрын

    Because each individual thing is one.

  • @skywriter4308

    @skywriter4308

    3 жыл бұрын

    Haha, that does seem strange. I'm fairly sure that 'one' as a number and 'one' as an indefinite pronoun are distinct senses though, so they can have different behaviour; surface forms don't equal underlying forms! You could also say 'one' as a regular noun, in the sense of 'a symbol that represents one', so you can talk about the 'ones' on the page.

  • @lufc4ps3
    @lufc4ps34 жыл бұрын

    A line, not mine, that has always stuck by me: English is hard but can be taught through tough thorough thought though.

  • @avancalledrupert5130

    @avancalledrupert5130

    4 жыл бұрын

    I'm highly dyslexic but never struggle to read only write. When reading I basically predict the next word based on context and look for a recognisable letter for confirmation. I had to read that centance 3 times to do that.

  • @brettfluhr9973

    @brettfluhr9973

    4 жыл бұрын

    That's a stupid line, just because those words look similar shouldn't confuse anyone since they are used so differently. Just learn how to use context and suddenly English not only stops being hard but actually very easy.

  • @Maki-00

    @Maki-00

    4 жыл бұрын

    brett fluhr Not stupid at all. If a person, who just started learning English, saw that sentence, they'd have no idea that "ough" is pronounced five different ways! That's the point, not how the words are used!

  • @SergioGarcia-my2zi

    @SergioGarcia-my2zi

    4 жыл бұрын

    That was really good to me!

  • @nicomol4882

    @nicomol4882

    4 жыл бұрын

    Like, "whether the weather is hot or whether the weather is not, we weather the weather, whatever the weather, whether it's hot or it's not". A little rime I learned in school in the Netherlands 35 years ago. Never forgot.

  • @personifiedmarvel6964
    @personifiedmarvel69642 жыл бұрын

    I always thought that the most unique English feature was the auxiliary verb do, which has many purposes and allows to express things difficult to express as simply in other languages.

  • @ryandylan6946

    @ryandylan6946

    10 ай бұрын

    in german the english do is "tun" , there is nothing in english you cant say even better in german! you can express even much more things but sometimes it gets to difficult and foreign german language learners have a hard time. It was easy for me to learn english because anglo saxions are an old german tribe so german and english vocabulary are very similar. Sadly the middle Europe german tribes made their grammar very precise and complicated after the anglo saxions went to England. Maybe to much influence from the slavic south european and islamic world, idk! Everything said in this vidio you could also say about german(deutsch). With one difference, German is the most precise Language and even more complicated than english. One examle?, the english "the" is "der die das" in german: Der Mann(the man) mostly masculine or singular or things with a name, die Frau(the woman) mostly female or plural or things without using the name, das Haus (the house). When you use the name of things it gets complicated and is mostly allways the gender article der or die and very rare the article das, mostly used for houses with a name like "das Weisse Haus"(the white house)!!!! And sometimes it doesnt make a lot of sense, "the PC the Car the Saw": (Der PC, Das Auto, Die Säge). Why is the car neutral, the PC male and the saw female? idk and i am a native german speaker, it makes no sense at all and should be removed! Das Auto(the car) mostly things without a name. One example: Das Schiff, das Auto, die Titanic(the ship, the car, the titanic), very complicated for german learners and maybe not really nessesary. Cars like "der BMW, der Ford Mustang" are male, ships like "die Titanic, die USS Missouri" are female and i really dont know why? male and female for things??? Even worse is: the axe= die Axt female, the hammer=der Hammer malel. WTF almost identical tools with different articels instead the english The Sometimes i dream that linguist from enlish and german sit at a round table and made a language (R)evelution with new similar grammar as an advancement. And all new things like Smartphones (Handy in german) should have the same name in all countries. By the way, the vietnamese People did a very good job by switching to latin letters, the chinese india and japanes and some other country people should do the same to give their children easier learning in school!! No need to learn 11000 japanese letters when 26 letters are fare better and 100 times easier and even more precise!

  • @alayneperrott9693

    @alayneperrott9693

    9 ай бұрын

    I am learning Welsh and was surprised to discover that some of the features you note are also found in Welsh, even though it belongs to the Celtic language family, is gendered, uses VSO word order and has no word for "have". For example, the perfect tense is common, although differently expressed: "I am after going". Welsh, like English, makes extensive use of auxiliary verbs such as "be" and "do". I had assumed that this was copied from English, but I recently watched a video suggesting that this useful feature may have been acquired by the Anglo-Saxon invaders from the Romano-British population as they intermarried.

  • @ryanjensen1945

    @ryanjensen1945

    8 ай бұрын

    @ryandylan6946 It's a little ironic you're bragging about your language with such terrible grammar and punctuation.

  • @GeorgeDCowley

    @GeorgeDCowley

    7 ай бұрын

    I know Japanese has "shimasu".

  • @mquietsch6736

    @mquietsch6736

    6 ай бұрын

    Italian has "fare". I think most languages have some such all-purpose verb. At least, that's my impression from the precious few languages I've come across.

  • @ardeshirmehta9327
    @ardeshirmehta932711 ай бұрын

    I am a little bit surprised that you didn’t mention the fact that English has in almost everyevery case, two words for any given idea; one descended from the Germanic languages, and the other from Latin and/or Greek! With subtle differences between them. Doesn’t that indicate a tremendous ability to differentiate between minute differences in concepts?

  • @jacquelineking5783

    @jacquelineking5783

    10 ай бұрын

    Probably has more to do with the Norman invasion of England and several Romance words entering the language because of it.

  • @odenoki9571

    @odenoki9571

    10 ай бұрын

    I believe french once being the lingua franca and the language spoken by many medieval English aristocrats also has something to do with that

  • @rbrowne2998

    @rbrowne2998

    10 ай бұрын

    You should include here English in the Germanic languages. Namely those home grown words from England: about, mind, round, entropy, .... There is not always a choice. Sometimes native English is needed. Reading an Encyclopedia will familiarise you to many abstract words but if you want to speak plainly Germanic is the way; Tolkien, Orwell, King James Bible, The Sun, ...

  • @_Titanium_

    @_Titanium_

    9 ай бұрын

    Plenty of other languages have that, korean and japanese for example have native and chinese words for the same thing.

  • @PatricenotPatrick

    @PatricenotPatrick

    6 ай бұрын

    Or that a lot of Latin based words aren’t really used these days. Because there is comedienne but I rarely hear it anymore.

  • @robertrosenthal7264
    @robertrosenthal72643 жыл бұрын

    English is like a second language to me, but I still haven't found the first.

  • @shalenkay7967

    @shalenkay7967

    3 жыл бұрын

    What ever language you spoke originaallly

  • @faiali2895

    @faiali2895

    3 жыл бұрын

    lmao

  • @stephenphillip5656

    @stephenphillip5656

    3 жыл бұрын

    If you watch British TV, you'll find you're not alone. Estuary English is second only to Chinglish for sheer impenetrability.

  • @baldychkn2949

    @baldychkn2949

    2 жыл бұрын

    @@shalenkay7967 what if English is my original language

  • @Alhdwfajdgak

    @Alhdwfajdgak

    2 жыл бұрын

    @@shalenkay7967 I think that's the joke

  • @marcussherlock6318
    @marcussherlock63183 жыл бұрын

    One of the things that always comes across in videos like these is that when you hear speakers of other languages speaking broken English, they are actually precisely translating the thoughts in their head.

  • @billkeithchannel

    @billkeithchannel

    3 жыл бұрын

    The problem with a wordy language is it can take a long time to say what you want to actually say and convey your point.

  • @gabrielabatista6016

    @gabrielabatista6016

    3 жыл бұрын

    Indeed, I speak portuguese and I can translate well most of the time; but sometimes it gets kinda broken due to me translating wrong due to a false cognate (push, that sounds like "puxe", which means pull, is a common one), messing with the word order due to the difference in sentence structure (like, for example, on portuguese the adjective usually comes after the substantive, but you can put it before and still maintaining the meaning and not being wrong, it's just odd and not usual or common) or not having a precise word for translating what I mean (as an example of this, I present you the word "guerrear", which can be translated as battling or fighting but none of these are precise translations, since "guerrear" derives from "guerra", war; the word actually mean a type of battling specific and exclusive to war, and it also includes other acts related to war such as battle strategy and such; and english doesn't have a word with this exact meaning =/)

  • @NZBigfoot

    @NZBigfoot

    3 жыл бұрын

    The thing thats good though to me, is that an English speaker can still understand whats being said despite it being broken even heavily broken English... from what ive gathered it doesnt quite work that way in reverse (ie an English speaker using heavily broken speech in some other langauge).

  • @gabrielabatista6016

    @gabrielabatista6016

    3 жыл бұрын

    @@NZBigfoot well yeah, I've seen english speakers trying to speak portuguese before, they mess the gender of the words, the verb tense, the substantive, the order of words (many things use a different order, like adjectives being after the substantive); if it's too broken it's near impossible to understand what precisely they mean =/

  • @adamaenosh6728

    @adamaenosh6728

    3 жыл бұрын

    I love listening to broken English. People feel ashamed of their mistakes, but I don't hear mistakes, I hear poetry.

  • @KARMAZYNA
    @KARMAZYNA2 жыл бұрын

    In Polish, we have specific words for "arm" (ramię), "forearm" (przedramię), "palm/hand" (dłoń), and "finger/s" (palec/palce), but we also have a general word for the whole limb (ręka) that can sometimes be used in the same context as "palm/hand". Oh, and fun fact: we have no word for "toes". We literally just say "foot fingers" or "fingers of the foot" :P

  • @atrifle8364

    @atrifle8364

    10 ай бұрын

    The palm of your hand is a different world than hand

  • @thelightshineth8848

    @thelightshineth8848

    10 ай бұрын

    I am in favor of adopting "foot fingers." This is objectively better than toes.

  • @elcaponeholyemperorofnj1169

    @elcaponeholyemperorofnj1169

    10 ай бұрын

    That sounds awesome, I’m gonna learn polish after I learn german

  • @vdokos

    @vdokos

    8 ай бұрын

    In Russian, it's the same

  • @mquietsch6736

    @mquietsch6736

    6 ай бұрын

    Foot fingers is also used in Italian and Spanish. It's only logical...

  • @williamtell5365
    @williamtell5365 Жыл бұрын

    English is great for its subtlety. I also speak Swiss German fluently, and French and Vietnamese with some proficiency (wife is a native Vietnam speaker). So I fully get how languages affect the understanding. They're number of tenses in English is one thing that really sets it apart. It also has a voluminous vocabulary. German is great for technical words, and I learned a lot about seeing the world differently through Vietnamese

  • @IRJustman
    @IRJustman4 жыл бұрын

    A bar was walked into by a sentence in the passive voice. "Ouch!" was said.

  • @DidrickNamtvedt

    @DidrickNamtvedt

    4 жыл бұрын

    LMAO this makes me wonder if there are any stories out there written only using the passive voice. Now that would make for an interesting read.

  • @stevend285

    @stevend285

    4 жыл бұрын

    This joke is being stolen by me

  • @IRJustman

    @IRJustman

    4 жыл бұрын

    I love it when you say that your sealing that joke about the passive voice WHILE SPEAKING IN THE PASSIVE VOICE... ERM... WHILE THE PASSIVE VOICE WAS BEING SPOKEN IN! *ahem* I can't claim credit for the joke. Though sometimes I do like to take things I hear and have fun creating a sort of "Passive Voice Theatre" in my mind.

  • @liamflynn1120

    @liamflynn1120

    4 жыл бұрын

    This hurts me because it reads like something I would've written when I was trying to sound sophisticated in middle school.

  • @Ortorin

    @Ortorin

    4 жыл бұрын

    Shouldn't it be: "A bar was walked into by a sentence. In the passive voice, "Ouch!" was said."

  • @maximpaxim7903
    @maximpaxim79033 жыл бұрын

    English: 97 French: 4 20 10 7

  • @ksub91

    @ksub91

    3 жыл бұрын

    Danish: 7 + (-(1/2)+5) x 20

  • @alizo3

    @alizo3

    3 жыл бұрын

    😂😂😂😂😂

  • @yangkong7935

    @yangkong7935

    3 жыл бұрын

    Mandarin: 9 x 10 + 7

  • @ksub91

    @ksub91

    3 жыл бұрын

    Yang Kong That’s the same as in English and probably most other languages.

  • @HarunaMaurer

    @HarunaMaurer

    3 жыл бұрын

    @@birdsplaybs1234 just like arabic too

  • @heatheranne9305
    @heatheranne9305 Жыл бұрын

    I grew up speaking English, but have lived in Germany. I also speak some other languages. I basically have a soup of vocabulary swimming around in my brain. When I construct a sentence in my mind, I could end up pulling from any of these sources. Although English has an immense vocabulary, sometimes a word in a different language just matches my message better. The thing I like about English, is that when I'm talking to my family (who also speak German), I can throw German words into an English sentence and they make sense more easily than if I did the same in German. I suppose this is because it evolved as a melting pot for other languages... I don't know enough to explain what this phenomenon is caused by, but I like it.

  • @gstlb

    @gstlb

    10 ай бұрын

    What I love, as a native English speaker, about German is the consistency of pronunciation. Even if I don’t know what a word means, I can still say it. Also the creativity of stringing small words together into a long one.

  • @tovinbradley

    @tovinbradley

    7 ай бұрын

    @@gstlbYeah, Indonesian is also completely phonetic. Try reading “Aku makan jeruk” our loud - there is a 90% chance you read it correctly, without knowing what that means (I eat an orange). Whereas English, every word can have a different pronunciation (not phonetically consistent)

  • @r0ald_
    @r0ald_9 ай бұрын

    I am Dutch and grew up learning English and just on the English side of youtube, and most of the language features in this video are pretty much the same in Dutch. But that last one (lol) blew my mind, since Dutch does do that different and I've literally never thought about how it's different.

  • @srn511
    @srn5114 жыл бұрын

    English: toes Spanish: ;) English: please no... Spanish: fingers of the feet Overused joke, ik

  • @williamduke7217

    @williamduke7217

    4 жыл бұрын

    Toenails: nails of the fingers of the feet... 🤦🏻‍♂️

  • @catalin779

    @catalin779

    4 жыл бұрын

    in Romanian you would say: the fingers from feet (degetele de la picior)

  • @AlexanderVlasov

    @AlexanderVlasov

    4 жыл бұрын

    The same in Czech. A term for "toes" exist in medicine, but colloquially it's "legs fingers"

  • @Maki-00

    @Maki-00

    4 жыл бұрын

    I love Angelique Dedo del pie = finger of the foot = toe.

  • @leofreitasa9933

    @leofreitasa9933

    4 жыл бұрын

    Portuguese too

  • @islagkage15963
    @islagkage159634 жыл бұрын

    "few languages have more distinct vowel sounds than English" *Danish has entered the channel*

  • @musicscores439

    @musicscores439

    4 жыл бұрын

    soooo true tho

  • @MrDoomperson

    @MrDoomperson

    4 жыл бұрын

    I wish NativLang the best of luck making a system out of Danish. I'm sure there is an answer, a system, a law. But it has eluded my glorious people for a at least a thousand years.

  • @valcan321

    @valcan321

    4 жыл бұрын

    Wher do you think English got its flair from

  • @alrightletskeepgoing890

    @alrightletskeepgoing890

    4 жыл бұрын

    Roeaghgdgroeaogaugh maed floaede

  • @AlRoderick

    @AlRoderick

    4 жыл бұрын

    Specifically the English channel. They're coming over and won't leave for a few centuries.

  • @bradfordharris5355
    @bradfordharris5355 Жыл бұрын

    English has a masterful way of incorporating words from other languages.💯

  • @MichaelSmith-xb5cp
    @MichaelSmith-xb5cp Жыл бұрын

    One thing that must be considered with English(and most euro languages, but especially English) Is that the modern form is actually a complex and ever evolving conglomeration of many languages and etymological roots. It is also important to understand that English evolved from a supremely "written language" culture. What I mean by this is, that it has a vastly expanded vocabulary compared to many others, especially when it it comes to descriptor words that apply to science, medicine, technology, or ANYTHING that delves into a subject that involves "Precision"....SL: "The cat is up the tree" WL:How far is the cat up the tree? SL: cat is up the tree, or it's not up the tree. WL: I need to know how far that damn cat is up the tree?: SL: This I can not say, because there is no word ....This is because most languages evolved from a "Spoken language" culture and were extremely limited by the human brain's capacity to memorize and recall. Spoken language culture tends to limit the descriptor especially when it comes to abstract thought. The English placed extreme importance on abstract thought and revered it as a gift directly from the triune god. They took it upon themselves to create a vocabulary that could convey abstract thought to peers or subjects, quickly and efficiently. So while every child that received a classical education learned Greek and Latin, this expansion of English was necessary to fulfill true destiny. As missionaries went out to the 4 corners of the earth, these English(and other occidental missionaries), to the best of their limited abilities, filled in the blanks as they crafted the dictionaries for these spoken word cultures, into a written form.

  • @BudgieJane

    @BudgieJane

    6 ай бұрын

    You don't need to be too precise with your verbs; you just use adverbial phrases for that precision. "The cat is twenty feet up the tree". Or you can be more-or-less precise: "The cat is about twenty feet up the tree".

  • @GeorgeDCowley

    @GeorgeDCowley

    6 ай бұрын

    @@BudgieJane Or relative, "The cat is halfway up the tree".

  • @tris9889

    @tris9889

    5 ай бұрын

    This is interesting, because I've been learning Japanese lately and one thing I started thinking about is how difficult it is to actually express yourself in English by comparison. On the other hand, also how difficult it is to write stories from the third person in Japanese. This would explain why. English is hyper specific, unwieldy and unpersonable, but it also makes for good third person storytelling. Japanese, being a primarily spoken language until relatively recently, is extremely good for self-expression and much less unwieldy, but also not as specific and struggles with third person storytelling. TLDR, english feels better to write, japanese feels better to speak, who would've known languages have their own strengths and weaknesses based on their origin

  • @SouthernersSax
    @SouthernersSax4 жыл бұрын

    Any English noun can become other parts of speech given the right context. This lets us sentence however we like.

  • @shroom2k

    @shroom2k

    4 жыл бұрын

    It's a nightmare for translators.

  • @TheGreatBackUpVIDEOS

    @TheGreatBackUpVIDEOS

    4 жыл бұрын

    I've said this before although I just say "It's a flexible language" cuz you can bastardize our language and still derive some meaning from it...probably. Most languages seem to have this weird property where one wrong part of a word makes you go from talking about the fish at home to how a pencil got stuck in your toaster.

  • @SouthernersSax

    @SouthernersSax

    4 жыл бұрын

    @@TheGreatBackUpVIDEOS English has that problem as well. It's very important that any instructions one gives are absolutely clear. This makes sure nothing gets stuck where it doesn't belong, e.g., the toaster or ceiling fan.

  • @TheGreatBackUpVIDEOS

    @TheGreatBackUpVIDEOS

    4 жыл бұрын

    @@SouthernersSax Instructions unclear, got dick stuck in ceiling fan.

  • @rrrrogahtaylah2636

    @rrrrogahtaylah2636

    4 жыл бұрын

    Sentencing strangely is rather enjoyable.

  • @EloquentTroll
    @EloquentTroll4 жыл бұрын

    I'm pretty sure English is actually 3 languages in a trench coat.

  • @jkfecke

    @jkfecke

    4 жыл бұрын

    Oh no. It's far more languages than that. Celtic, French, Danish, German, and its orthography was fixed by Latinphiles who decided that we couldn't simply use f for phi, we needed to use ph because reasons.

  • @leeofthevoid

    @leeofthevoid

    4 жыл бұрын

    @@jkfecke quite a bit of Greek and even some Asian words as well such as tsunami, sushi, etc..

  • @herrfriberger5

    @herrfriberger5

    4 жыл бұрын

    @@jkfecke "German" is actually quite misleading. That makes people think of the more recent southern dialect "high German" and the similar "standard German" they typically hear in movies. The language mainly related to English (as well as to Scandinavian) was the language of the Hansa leauge, called Low German or plattdeutsch, etc. Basically another language (and closer to Proto Germanic than what the sound changed and latinized high German is). These two kinds of "German" are as distant as Dutch and standard German, and grammatically *almost* (a little stretch) as different as Swedish and English.

  • @charlesbrowne9590

    @charlesbrowne9590

    4 жыл бұрын

    That is a very clever comment.

  • @deadlive3212

    @deadlive3212

    4 жыл бұрын

    Herr Friberger well actually standard german originates from north germany, not south germany. High german dialects are not really close to standard german, biggest one for example would be bavarian. Standard german originates in north germany.

  • @breadtubediet1524
    @breadtubediet1524 Жыл бұрын

    I like that English can and does convert nouns into verbs. House, cup, hand, fridge, strike, shade, and catch are just a few examples of words that often act as both nouns and verbs. And, thanks to the normalcy of this phenomenon, even nouns not typically turned into verbs can sometimes see use as verbs. The statement "the man moused across the floor" makes sense despite "mouse" not being a verb. The use of a verb suffix and contextual details such as "across" demonstrate the intention of the sentence: the man moved across the floor in a manner like a mouse

  • @nkbm3120
    @nkbm3120 Жыл бұрын

    3:05 I think you forgot a very popular one here, the one in Slavic languages. E.g. Russian «У Меня» (doesn’t exactly have a translation exactly, меня is the genitive case of я), can be translated as “by me” (meaning near me, next to me). In Russian, we can add есть to make у меня есть, “I have”, and then use an undeclined noun like масло (butter). We can also say у меня and then the genitive case of the object. So while they can be considered a bit different, у меня масла and у меня есть масло both are translated as “I have butter”, without a proper “I have” verb.

  • @mquietsch6736

    @mquietsch6736

    6 ай бұрын

    I have enjoyed two years of Russian at school, and one thing many seem to find difficult is that there is no "to be". "I am Marcus" becomes "I - Marcus" "ya - Marcus", where the dash is only written, never spoken. "You are good" becomes "you - good". Once you get accustomed to it it's absolutely clear. Why does one even need such a basic word as "to be" when it is quite clear from the rest of the words what is meant? It makes such a lot of sense. It's the same with "to have" "u menya masslo" is quite clear, no need for the fancy word. It seems that English is a good first candidate for "I've got the most unneccessary words" 😂

  • @NativLang
    @NativLang4 жыл бұрын

    This one's for you, English. In part one, you lacked. In part two, you're all "have"s.

  • @tyrranicalt-rad6164

    @tyrranicalt-rad6164

    4 жыл бұрын

    Do a video on different sign languages , Braille , or kinesics if you haven't already.

  • @user-kd1eb6vc7y

    @user-kd1eb6vc7y

    4 жыл бұрын

    @@tyrranicalt-rad6164 when requesting a favor of someone higher than you, imperatives come off as rude; a feature of many languages.

  • @trezapoioiuy

    @trezapoioiuy

    4 жыл бұрын

    Well, many of those didn't impress me that much, and it made me realize I might be a little too Euro-centric. I guess I really should learn a non-European language, but that will have to come after Polish, as I need to learn it now.

  • @tyrranicalt-rad6164

    @tyrranicalt-rad6164

    4 жыл бұрын

    @@user-kd1eb6vc7y really ? IDK I'm sorry. 😞. I'll unsub now , thanks for the info.

  • @xwtek3505

    @xwtek3505

    4 жыл бұрын

    You forgot stranded preposition and the funky pronoun system (both independent and bound to the verb).

  • @redmjoel
    @redmjoel3 жыл бұрын

    I'm surprised you didn't mention the odd role that "do" plays in English. "Do you believe me?" "Did you clean the bathroom?" Or as an emphasis -- "They did go to the store!"

  • @carloalberto17

    @carloalberto17

    3 жыл бұрын

    in italian “avere” (have) has pretty much the same role

  • @trewstrong1918

    @trewstrong1918

    2 жыл бұрын

    @@carloalberto17 yes English and italian are closely related

  • @delphinewartelle3105

    @delphinewartelle3105

    2 жыл бұрын

    this is called do-insertion, either emphatic or for questions.

  • @1m073zh

    @1m073zh

    2 жыл бұрын

    In many Balkan and Slavic languages you have "Czy"(Polish) or "Dali"(Macedonian and Bulgarian) or "Jel"(Serbian, Bosnian, Montenegrin, Croatian) or "A"(Albanian) which have the same role as "Do"

  • @blah7983

    @blah7983

    2 жыл бұрын

    Esperanto has it for some reason. Makes it easy for english speakers to learn, kinda defeats the point of making it the easiest second language.

  • @GRAYgoose124
    @GRAYgoose12411 ай бұрын

    This is one of the most high value channels on KZread. Thank you for your mind, your passion, and your work.

  • @ebee3522
    @ebee35222 жыл бұрын

    This makes me love the English language even more👌🏻 I love how English is very specific and more explanatory; Greek & Hebrew are also but both of them have specific words for feelings also which lends them a higher amount of words which leads to much more writing to project a story, topic or issue etc etc however still more explanatory than many of the old more primitive languages.

  • @thereaction18
    @thereaction184 жыл бұрын

    English has clearly pirated the "arrrr" sound.

  • @rodschmidt8952

    @rodschmidt8952

    4 жыл бұрын

    It's spelled R. See the Bertie Wooster books. I suspect it stands for "Right"

  • @kasai7272

    @kasai7272

    4 жыл бұрын

    @@rodschmidt8952 Crew Member: The canons be loaded Captain. Captain: ARE. The canons ARE loaded

  • @driftingdruid

    @driftingdruid

    4 жыл бұрын

    Arrr ye matey

  • @khasab6124

    @khasab6124

    4 жыл бұрын

    You all ought to know that The typical accent we associate with pirates was only introduced by an actor in the 40's. Robert Newton in his performance as Long John Silver in the 1950 film Treasure Island. He adopted that accent from the West country. Otherwise there's no special reason to think pirates would have that accent. Most of them probably had cockney London accents...

  • @boxsterman77

    @boxsterman77

    4 жыл бұрын

    Good one!

  • @darth_hylian
    @darth_hylian2 жыл бұрын

    I've always had empathy for whoever learns English as a second language. Sometimes it seems like familiarity and memorization takes over logic when it comes to spelling or grammar

  • @carb_8781

    @carb_8781

    2 жыл бұрын

    true. if it wasn't the international language, it would be a lot harder. we all manage because it's everywhere

  • @SHIFTSRK

    @SHIFTSRK

    2 жыл бұрын

    @@carb_8781 dude, what language is your native? English is one of the easiest.

  • @lorrainecrampton1632

    @lorrainecrampton1632

    2 жыл бұрын

    @@SHIFTSRK I think they mean spelling and pronunciation which is all over the place in English.

  • @albertacorralez2871

    @albertacorralez2871

    2 жыл бұрын

    @@SHIFTSRK there's no easiest language to learn, that isn't a thing.

  • @gustavonery2041

    @gustavonery2041

    2 жыл бұрын

    @@albertacorralez2871 yeah that is definitely a thing lol

  • @lindaeasley5606
    @lindaeasley560611 ай бұрын

    English is a wonderful language in poetry and song . Because there are so many one syllable words in English ,it makes for nice even flow of lyrics in songs . This is especially useful in ballads. There are a few non English language songs I like but by and large you can't beat it

  • @mattbonner12
    @mattbonner122 жыл бұрын

    It's funny that you mentioned how "th" is difficult for people who speak other languages. My Dutch grandmother used to pronounce my name Machew because she had trouble pronouncing the "th" sound. As far as strange language features, the future perfect of Latin is pretty strange to me.

  • @crossleydd42

    @crossleydd42

    10 ай бұрын

    ....and some folk learning English feel awkward about showing the tip of their tongues when saying 'the'.

  • @arnorrian1
    @arnorrian14 жыл бұрын

    English way of using "do" as a verb pronoun and for verb emphases is unusual.

  • @vincelamb4063

    @vincelamb4063

    4 жыл бұрын

    John McWhorter thinks that's something English picked up from the Celtic languages of the Britons.

  • @littlefishbigmountain

    @littlefishbigmountain

    4 жыл бұрын

    That’s one I’ve heard my friends who have learned English as a foreign language talk about a lot. And mostly they love it! It’s so versatile. Many told me they wish they had it in their L1. I think it was definitely worth a mention

  • @stanrogers5613

    @stanrogers5613

    4 жыл бұрын

    McWhorter will tell you himself that the Celtic hypothesis isn't his, it's just something that makes a whole lot more sense than anything else that has been proposed for the origin of do-support. Also, there's the whole "present tense" thing. We don't have one. The "verbs" that are rendered in what we might see as present tense aren't really verbs, they're more like state and relationship indicators. Anything else that looks like present tense is either habitual or in (for want of a better phrase) in "narrator mode". "She walks to the door" is either a stage direction, a description of what your player character is doing this turn, or a thing she does every time she hears the doorbell ring.

  • @C.I...

    @C.I...

    4 жыл бұрын

    Can you give an example? I'm not sure I understand.

  • @andrewdunbar828

    @andrewdunbar828

    4 жыл бұрын

    @@stanrogers5613 English only has past and non-past tenses linguistically. Everything else is due to centuries of people explaining English grammar as though it has to fit an ancient Latin grammar book.

  • @saku577
    @saku5774 жыл бұрын

    One of my favourite things about the English language is how nouns/names can be used as verbs and adjectives. You can say "I am so going to chimney you!" or "That was very Lady Gaga of her." and while the meaning of these have never been defined, the sentences they're used in are technically correct and invoke a very specific thing.

  • @tiihtu2507

    @tiihtu2507

    4 жыл бұрын

    Without any derivational suffixes, that is. The ability to turn nouns/names into verbs and adjectives is not limited to English, but I think the ability to do so without using derivational suffixes could be rather unique.

  • @ranchocommodorereef

    @ranchocommodorereef

    4 жыл бұрын

    that's how English slang becomes enhanced

  • @HeadsFullOfEyeballs

    @HeadsFullOfEyeballs

    4 жыл бұрын

    @@tiihtu2507 It's generally how isolating languages work, actually. When you don't have a lot of morphology telling you which word class any given word belongs to, you tend to just sort of throw them in wherever.

  • @Sovairu

    @Sovairu

    4 жыл бұрын

    @@HeadsFullOfEyeballs Not "wherever." The words get put into specific word order patterns, and that's how the part of speech is made clear.

  • @melodiclogic9904

    @melodiclogic9904

    4 жыл бұрын

    Sa Yu in the uk, if you say “you’re such a...” followed by an adjective it sounds like a plain insult. For example, my nan used to call me a “soppy date” if I ever did something stupid. Basically she was calling me a stupid/wet fruit... thanks nan

  • @edmundodelamadrid7624
    @edmundodelamadrid7624 Жыл бұрын

    There's a Brazilian Portuguese variation (generally spoken in the countryside) features a very similar "r" as in English ("porta", "melhor", "fazer"), and it is because the European "r" phonem was non-existent among the languages spoken before the Portuguese arrived, ending up in a mix between "L" and "R".

  • @phatnana2379
    @phatnana2379 Жыл бұрын

    One thing I have noticed is that a lot of other languages will have a lot of different words all meaning the same thing... In English, we have alot of words that are pronounced exactly alike, but have different meaning... That just something some friends told me about learning English as a second language

  • @theOlLineRebel
    @theOlLineRebel3 жыл бұрын

    Just knowing some German and something about other languages and I'm actually quite impressed with English. It's highly flexible.

  • @icmull

    @icmull

    3 жыл бұрын

    Germans super flexible though.

  • @jeveuxmourir4370

    @jeveuxmourir4370

    3 жыл бұрын

    German’s way more flexible than English

  • @LSG101097

    @LSG101097

    3 жыл бұрын

    Knowing a little bit of German and a some Chinesee as foreign languges I'm just keeping to *laught in russian*. In English pronunciation and spelling is a bitch, but I love English for it shortness, logic, and almost always one way to make a sentence. It's not flexible at all, even comparing with German where they have two possible word orders in a sentence instead of one (and comparing to Russian it is still nothing).

  • @iu9199

    @iu9199

    3 жыл бұрын

    @@jeveuxmourir4370 how

  • @jeveuxmourir4370

    @jeveuxmourir4370

    3 жыл бұрын

    @@iu9199 Declensions (which means there’s more ways to say the same thing) and compound nouns (which leads to a lot of more complicated/abstract vocabulary). You’d have to at least learn German grammar to know the pedantics of it, though.

  • @carolmeindl8973
    @carolmeindl89733 жыл бұрын

    The experience he had had had had no impact on the ultimate result.

  • @susanzoeckler4926

    @susanzoeckler4926

    3 жыл бұрын

    Full disclosure: my word nerd self had to read that twice before I got it

  • @carolmeindl8973

    @carolmeindl8973

    3 жыл бұрын

    @@susanzoeckler4926 Full disclosure: I did not invent it myself. I heard something like it once and it stuck with me

  • @susanzoeckler4926

    @susanzoeckler4926

    3 жыл бұрын

    @@carolmeindl8973 👩‍🏫 probably most such grammar goodies are borrowed -- still a great choice! Thanks

  • @mjt1517

    @mjt1517

    2 жыл бұрын

    Or more eloquently rendered: "His experience had no impact on the result."

  • @mtanaka3844

    @mtanaka3844

    2 жыл бұрын

    I don’t understand what This means after the second had lol

  • @droger1448
    @droger144810 ай бұрын

    I've learned a lot today thank you.. plus the comment section was incredibly helpful too! Thank for the knowledge everyone

  • @Someone-sq8im
    @Someone-sq8im10 ай бұрын

    One awesome thing about English is that it’s very flexible with conjugation. Almost any word can be made into a noun, verb, adjective, adverb, or even interjection depending on the context and suffixes used. Not many languages do that IME

  • @benshiotsu8553

    @benshiotsu8553

    5 ай бұрын

    I love how we can sentence however we want

  • @noctarin1516
    @noctarin15162 жыл бұрын

    Honestly, it feels weird that English is a language that actually exists and that I actually speak when I think about it sometimes.

  • @itzelmontalvo6645

    @itzelmontalvo6645

    2 жыл бұрын

    It is not that weird when you speak more than 1 language, trust me, you get used to switching the language, especially if you live in a bilingual area like I do.

  • @noctarin1516

    @noctarin1516

    2 жыл бұрын

    @@itzelmontalvo6645 I'm Trilingual you know

  • @vyrva5690

    @vyrva5690

    2 жыл бұрын

    @@itzelmontalvo6645 as a trilingual who also lives in a pretty bilingual area i second this

  • @nobleradical2158

    @nobleradical2158

    Жыл бұрын

    I get this feeling as a native English speaker as well. Sometimes I think about a sentence I just said and think “what a weird language. Why is that sentence structured like that?”

  • @soobindoll9561

    @soobindoll9561

    Жыл бұрын

    Exactly 😭

  • @Joseph-li3df
    @Joseph-li3df4 жыл бұрын

    One thing that I find interesting about English is how it's completely lost grammatical gender except in the 3rd person pronouns, despite the fact that gender is so common throughout Indo-European languages.

  • @wesnohathas1993

    @wesnohathas1993

    4 жыл бұрын

    Gendered suffixes can be found on some nouns, but they're typically optional.

  • @crystalwolcott4744

    @crystalwolcott4744

    4 жыл бұрын

    This is my favorite thing about English. I would love to know if their is a historical linguistic reason for that.

  • @hebneh

    @hebneh

    4 жыл бұрын

    I think this is a major positive attribute of English over its companion European languages; I’d appreciate it if I was learning it as a second language. Trying to comprehend that inanimate objects were considered male or female seemed pointless when I first studied French 50+ years ago. Stupid, in fact.

  • @johanna-hypatiacybeleia2465

    @johanna-hypatiacybeleia2465

    4 жыл бұрын

    Persian has gone farther than that and eliminated gender 100%. The 3rd-person singular pronoun in Persian is "u" which means he/she/it.

  • @ducttapeanddreams

    @ducttapeanddreams

    4 жыл бұрын

    English has no grammatical gender. We have gendered pronouns for gendered objects (animals and people), but inanimate objects do not have gender (keys are not inherently male, cats are not inherently female)

  • @WyzrdCat
    @WyzrdCat5 ай бұрын

    A lot of these distinctions are actually quite important. I can't imagine speaking a language without some of these kinds of specificity. I imagine it would affect everything, how you think... probably not for the better. I wonder what the most specific language is.

  • @Adam-wt5id
    @Adam-wt5id10 ай бұрын

    Eichiro Oda, author of One Piece, is really good at writing word puns and number play into his writing (originally Japanese) that translates well into other languages, and sometimes the reverse is true, he’ll use an English word that translates back well into Japanese. Of course some of his word play CANNOT translate because of how Japanese is constructed, but if you’re interested in languages, Oda is really interesting to read because when studying his work across multiple translations it reveals hidden clues to his story.

  • @inserttexthere4070

    @inserttexthere4070

    5 ай бұрын

    Oh wow, I didn't know that! Sounds very interesting

  • @DanskJvel
    @DanskJvel4 жыл бұрын

    English has 13 vocal sounds Danish: hold my rødgrød med fløde

  • @nelsonricardo3729

    @nelsonricardo3729

    4 жыл бұрын

    All of which can be properly pronounced with a mouth full of Lego.

  • @Gew219

    @Gew219

    4 жыл бұрын

    Why did you puke all over me?! 😉

  • @khasab6124

    @khasab6124

    4 жыл бұрын

    we have about 27 actually

  • @janvandergaag

    @janvandergaag

    4 жыл бұрын

    @@khasab6124 That must be a record! Did Danish just look at the IPA chart for vowels and decided: "I want them all!" 😁 EDIT: Or did you speak about English?

  • @khasab6124

    @khasab6124

    4 жыл бұрын

    @@janvandergaag I'm referring to English

  • @abhijayarunprasad1170
    @abhijayarunprasad11704 жыл бұрын

    English: Lobster Mandarin: *Dragon shrimp*

  • @bedofdust

    @bedofdust

    3 жыл бұрын

    My mom: Seabugs. Haha

  • @piinjja5802

    @piinjja5802

    3 жыл бұрын

    English: Dragon Finnish: Salmon snake

  • @jennifer9047

    @jennifer9047

    3 жыл бұрын

    English: noun Mandarin: name word English: adjective Mandarin: describe word English: verb Mandarin: move word

  • @bens5093

    @bens5093

    3 жыл бұрын

    English: computer Mandarin: e l e c t r i c b r a i n

  • @piinjja5802

    @piinjja5802

    3 жыл бұрын

    @@bens5093 English: computer Finnish: knowledge machine

  • @gustavorimoli5585
    @gustavorimoli558510 ай бұрын

    Nice video! It's interesting how Portuguese, at least the Brazilian one, has almost all those oddities, despite of being such a different language from English. Great job!

  • @rivernlong5979
    @rivernlong5979Ай бұрын

    I love how flexible (non-standard) english is. The amount of word-forging you can do, how you can verb using nouns, how creative spelling can demonstrate different accents while still remaining ledgible.

  • @rembeadgc
    @rembeadgc3 жыл бұрын

    What I find most fascinating is how language helps to shape how people think and process information and how that works out in action.

  • @LisetteMendoza

    @LisetteMendoza

    3 жыл бұрын

    That’s really fascinating to me too!! Have you seen the movie “Arrival”? It touches on that theme, it’s pretty cool :)

  • @stephenmcdonagh2795

    @stephenmcdonagh2795

    3 жыл бұрын

    I remember watching a travel documentary where an Indian guy who ran a large tea plantation in Darjeeling, said that he actually thought in English. Being a typical Englishman myself and never really learning any other language- though I've tried, I always wondered how strange it seemed to think in a second language.

  • @rembeadgc

    @rembeadgc

    3 жыл бұрын

    @@stephenmcdonagh2795 I'm gonna tell you, the human mind has capacities beyond the conventions of any language, but it is often specific language that facilitates the development of those capacities. One language may be more like geometry and another like music. If you know both languages and can "speak" them you know that your mind will accommodate the necessary mode of thinking based on the need of the circumstance and conventions of the language. New words are made then, when the language doesn't meet the need of the communicator. It probably occurs with all of us quite often and on different levels in circumstances that we wouldn't normally think would qualify. Languages are just systems for communicating ideas. I think it's more fascinating, nuanced, complex and simple, at the same time, than we can imagine.

  • @stephenmcdonagh2795

    @stephenmcdonagh2795

    3 жыл бұрын

    @@rembeadgc That makes a lot of sense. The other week I was sleep talking to someone, unlike a dream which they say can last only a few seconds, I'd actually remembered sitting up and seemed like I was having a perfectly normal conversation with someone- though obviously there was no one there, it was quite strange. To my knowledge I've slept walked only two times, and both of these I'd put down to sleep deprivation. Now I hide my car keys, hoping I'll not remember where I'd put them if I was to wake up and tried to jump in the car. It seems a lot of knowledge you didn't know you had comes together whilst in REM sleep.

  • @holdthatlforluigi

    @holdthatlforluigi

    2 жыл бұрын

    @@rembeadgc I think all languages have their geometry and their music. There are fascinating ways in which languages differ, but I think people often romanticize those differences too much. I've learned of very few features in other languages that would seriously change how I thought of anything, and they're all fairly arbitrary issues, nothing that has a big impact on ideas, decision-making, interests, or personality: non-decimal number systems, fewer or greater basic colors, and different spatial representations of time.

  • @MarlonEnglemam
    @MarlonEnglemam2 жыл бұрын

    I'm a Portuguese native speaker and in Portuguese we only have one word for ''fingers'' and ''toes'' which is ''dedos'', I remember finding it amazing that English has two different words for those when I first started learning English. Didn't know other languages could go as far as to have only one word for hands, arms, fingers etc lol!

  • @MarlonEnglemam

    @MarlonEnglemam

    2 жыл бұрын

    @??? sim, é de origem alemã. Se não me engano o original era ''Engelmann'', aí aportuguesaram para englemam.

  • @jpanosky

    @jpanosky

    2 жыл бұрын

    English does have another word, "digit," which means "finger or toe." But it's much less commonly used. It was slightly mind-blowing when I first learned about "dedos" in Spanish too. I felt bad for the poor Spanish toes, not even getting their own name.

  • @MarlonEnglemam

    @MarlonEnglemam

    2 жыл бұрын

    @@jpanosky I didn't know about ''digit''. Anyways, in Portuguese and Spanish we can specify ''dedos das mãos'' and ''dedos dos pés'' if we need to emphasize which part of our body we're talking about. But even so, not the same thing as having a unique word as English does!

  • @carb_8781

    @carb_8781

    2 жыл бұрын

    same for romanian! the word toe is so funny to me. it's so useless and yet makes sentences shorter so it's not skshfj my poor toes will always be feet fingers in my head. always compared to the better fingers. what a sad life

  • @davidblackwood106

    @davidblackwood106

    2 жыл бұрын

    @@carb_8781 Foot fingers 🤣🤣🤣🤣 That would be so weird lol

  • @beenaplumber8379
    @beenaplumber83792 жыл бұрын

    I thought you might say something about our vast catalog of synonyms, which makes English such a good language for poetry. Or our vast catalog of homonyms and homophones that can drive English learners crazy! My favorite oddity (from a Bulgarian friend who spoke English like a native after 2 years of learning!): When I turn on my radio, it makes a sound. When set off an alarm, it also makes a sound. Intuitively I get it, but cognitively, what???

  • @Dr._Vita
    @Dr._Vita7 ай бұрын

    3:15 Personally, for my newest conlang, I use "to with." It incentivizes a strong connection between two nouns. But the replacement for to be would probably be like "to and," since it's like saying both nouns are one and the same.

  • @wackypilled
    @wackypilled4 жыл бұрын

    about the “th” sound, i never realized how uncommon it was until my mom told me when she was learning english that she would go home, sit and look in the mirror and just repeat that sound over and over until she could get it right

  • @Intrspace

    @Intrspace

    3 жыл бұрын

    An unrolled R sound is uncommon too, I'd say

  • @peterd788

    @peterd788

    3 жыл бұрын

    My German-born mother came to England as a teenage refugee and never in her over seventy years here got the hang of that fricative. Her written English was perfect and she devoured books in English but she never got the 'th' thing.

  • @KuroshiKun

    @KuroshiKun

    3 жыл бұрын

    Never knew that was difficult before this video. Makes sense though. Reminds me of the "Tsu" sound in Japanese. That's Hella hard to pronounce correct apparently no matter how many times I think I do it right haha

  • @peterd788

    @peterd788

    3 жыл бұрын

    @@KuroshiKun I don't know why it's difficult but it is. I've worked all over Europe and the majority of mainland Europeans have difficulty with it even if their English is very good. Swedish people, who generally speak English very well, struggle and the same is very true of native German speakers. Dutch people use 'th' to make a different sound entirely in their own language which creates a mental block. I have a Dutch friend who was taught to practice "This thick thing thinks that thing is thick" at school.

  • @KuroshiKun

    @KuroshiKun

    3 жыл бұрын

    @@peterd788 if the sound doesn't exist in your native language it's difficult to reproduce despite hearing it. That was may issue with "Tsu". Like I'd pronounce "Tsunami" as "Sunami". I don't even know it well enough to spell it out phonetically how it's supposed to be said lol

  • @lizzief4461
    @lizzief44613 жыл бұрын

    English: I can insult you in a billion different ways without using rude words Every other language: that’s not rude it just doesn’t make sense

  • @Duck_Duck_Goose789

    @Duck_Duck_Goose789

    3 жыл бұрын

    laughs in hungarian where litteraly every single word can be used as a curse word and make a sentence with only insults.

  • @199NickYT

    @199NickYT

    3 жыл бұрын

    @@Duck_Duck_Goose789 "make a sentence only with insults" yeah that's possible in English too

  • @adsfornothing3146

    @adsfornothing3146

    3 жыл бұрын

    german can do this too because some words that are rude in english aren't in german

  • @docinabox258

    @docinabox258

    3 жыл бұрын

    @@adsfornothing3146 can u make a insult in german where each individual word is not a curse, but only become one when they are together ? Like me calling you a great supine invertebrate jelly, or butter fingers

  • @adsfornothing3146

    @adsfornothing3146

    3 жыл бұрын

    @@docinabox258 Jep you can do that

  • @sagacious03
    @sagacious032 жыл бұрын

    Interesting analysis video! Thanks for uploading!

  • @terrylane1492
    @terrylane14925 ай бұрын

    As a bilingual person, speaking German and English. I always found it remarkable how similar those two languages are. I got very interested in other language constructs while studying Japanese. I love learning about how people developed strategies to communicate.

  • @moorek1967
    @moorek19674 жыл бұрын

    Tahiti person: Doctor, I cut off my hand. Tahiti Doctor: Would that be the hand, finger or arm? Tahiti person: Yes.

  • @kimaya.3563

    @kimaya.3563

    4 жыл бұрын

    oh god

  • @theletal4839

    @theletal4839

    3 жыл бұрын

    "uuh the handtips"

  • @isobellabrettjl1617

    @isobellabrettjl1617

    3 жыл бұрын

    Bavarian person: I have hurt my foot. Doctor: top or bottom? Reason why our English teacher said: In English your foot starts at the ankle not the hip.

  • @joeschmo6488

    @joeschmo6488

    3 жыл бұрын

    @gamer time it's a joke

  • @shaungordon9737

    @shaungordon9737

    3 жыл бұрын

    @gamer time I bet you're fun at parties.....

  • @afreen5058
    @afreen50583 жыл бұрын

    Explaining "the" and "a" to someone who doesn't know those concepts is really hard lol because I don't have an actual understanding of the function, just an intuitive one.

  • @kathyh.1720

    @kathyh.1720

    3 жыл бұрын

    It's better to explain "a" and "the" from a communicative perspective than by giving rules. What are you trying to communicate in a particular sentence in a particular conversation? Does the other person know what you're referring to? Are you introducing something new to the conversation? Example: "A dog bit me yesterday." [Beginning of conversation. Introduction of one dog. Use "a".] "Then it ran away." [Pronoun "it" used because the dog is "activated" in the conversation right now. The other person knows what you're referring to because it's what you're talking about.] "Oh, by the way, I forgot to tell you that I bought some more dog food for Fido, my poodle." [Topic of conversation was changed briefly.] "Okay, so after the dog ran away, I went home." [Referring back to the dog at the beginning of the conversation. It is being re-introduced since the topic had shifted. The other person knows which dog you are referring to. Use "the".]

  • @mufazahd2782

    @mufazahd2782

    3 жыл бұрын

    @@kathyh.1720 thanks, it is really helpful

  • @seancassidy674

    @seancassidy674

    3 жыл бұрын

    @@mufazahd2782 Definite vs. indefinite is just that - the former is specific or assumed to be known, the latter is much more general - not necessarily about a specific object. To explain this, you could say as an opening to a conversation, one would state, "A dog bit my leg." Once the dog is introduced or "known," the definite article would be appropriate after, as in "I yelled, then the dog ran away." Besides articles, German does something vaguely similar with "there is/are." General statements use es gibt (There are penguins in Antartica); specific one use da ist (There is my coffee).

  • @Network126

    @Network126

    3 жыл бұрын

    I've had a difficult time explaining past tense to people (I think they were Asian). I'd try to explain something that I did already, but they think I'm talking about the present moment.

  • @mr.raslyon6626

    @mr.raslyon6626

    3 жыл бұрын

    You have to "present" your noun or its too direct and rude.

  • @grimly105
    @grimly1055 ай бұрын

    One thing i think is really cool about english is that sometime how you say something (the tone you use) can change context of the sentence. Like implying a question with tone. But maybe that is true of most other languages also.

  • @CamouflageMaster
    @CamouflageMaster4 ай бұрын

    I used to believe English was the only language using the 'soft R', but it seems like I keep coming across examples of other languages/accents doing this too: Swahili, Chinese, Swedish (in some region), people from Holland (a province within NL), some (or I know at least one) guys from West-Flanders, some West-African language (it might've been Twi)... Idk there's probably more

  • @neorich59
    @neorich593 жыл бұрын

    A German friend of mine, who taught English, once said to me that English is a beautiful language, because there are *so* many ways of saying the same thing. Also, regarding playing word games, double meanings and rhyming, it makes it the perfect language for poetry, prose and song writing.

  • @kevcat8655

    @kevcat8655

    3 жыл бұрын

    I commend your grammar, Sir.

  • @Inritus618

    @Inritus618

    3 жыл бұрын

    I honestly love English and I fully agree with the idea that having so many synonyms and different sentence constructions lends itself to poetry and expression.

  • @brunohill3229

    @brunohill3229

    3 жыл бұрын

    The English language was the most effective weapon the Irish had to use against the English.

  • @CagTzn

    @CagTzn

    3 жыл бұрын

    Of course your German friend would think that. When I was learning German, our tutor said if I he sees the same word twice within 5 sentences, it is not good German. (Context: darum, deshalb, deswegen...) I know you are talking about different structures of conveying the same meaning but Germans really do like their variety :)

  • @sebastianfoster5250

    @sebastianfoster5250

    3 жыл бұрын

    That's quite funny because German has some of the best poetry... And it can express things with words that English doesn't have

  • @thomasrinschler6783
    @thomasrinschler67834 жыл бұрын

    I was floored when I first learned awhile back that the ending -r sound is used in the two most widely spoken languages in English and Chinese... and by virtually no one else. It's funny how that sound is used by a large quantity of speakers, but by a very small quantity of languages. I'm glad you brought that one up, I was looking to see if it would make it!

  • @pia_mater

    @pia_mater

    4 жыл бұрын

    The English -r sound also exists in Brazilian Portuguese

  • @kelving420

    @kelving420

    4 жыл бұрын

    In Portuguese we speak this sound quite often (whenever an R is between a vowel and a consonant, like in the word "alert": "alerta"), except on some of Brazil's states, where it can be replaced by an "h" sound, or by the "r" sound that you hear in spanish

  • @babelKONI

    @babelKONI

    4 жыл бұрын

    I know, it's like a joke.

  • @oscarnemo8084

    @oscarnemo8084

    4 жыл бұрын

    It appears in some form in rural Swedish dialects, especially in Finland.

  • @ArkhBaegor

    @ArkhBaegor

    4 жыл бұрын

    They don't mean the r sound itself, more the quality of the vowels before the r sound at the end of words, which is unique to english and mandarin

  • @Blondie42
    @Blondie422 жыл бұрын

    Like Ruby Y said, in Japan leg and foot use the same word: ashi > あし > 足 But arm, wrist, hand, and fingers all have separate names. Arm: Ude > うで > 腕 Wrist: tekubi > てくび > 手首 Hand: te > て > 手 Finger: yubi > ゆび > 指

  • @Topomato1
    @Topomato110 ай бұрын

    I am a Persian/Farsi speaker who has, or at least I would like to think so, learned English well enough. To me, what was interesting was that a lot (not all) of what you said is exclusive to European languages also exist in my language. For example, comparatives do exist in Persian/Farsi with the same structure, though with different word placement in a sentence. I suppose being part of the Indo-European family, same as most European languages, this is expected to some extent.

  • @nobody6317
    @nobody63172 жыл бұрын

    What I find fascinating about English is the descriptiveness it gives because of the utter amount of adjectives and adverbs. Like, in my first language we don’t have words like ‘facinating’ & ‘descriptive’ & ‘insecure’ & ‘absolutely’ & ‘loyal’ & ‘spunky’ & ‘edgy’ & ‘perturbative’ and thousands more

  • @angeldude101

    @angeldude101

    Жыл бұрын

    A decent bulk of these are probably thanks to Germanic and Romance variants of the same concepts. Others are different parts of speech transmuted into adjectives and adverbs. "fascinating" -> present participle turned adjective of "to fascinate," from Latin "descriptive" -> adjectival suffix + "to describe," from Latin "insecure" -> negative prefix + "secure" from Latin; "secure" also has verb form "to secure" "absolutely" -> adverbal suffix + "absolute" from Middle French; also has noun form "an absolute" "loyal" -> from Middle French "spunky" -> adjectival suffix + "spunk," apparently fully Germanic "edgy" -> adjectival suffix + "edge," from Germanic "perturbative" -> adjectival suffix + "to perturb," from Old French Of these 7 adjectives, 3 are from verbs, and 2 are from nouns. The one adverb is derived from another adjective. There are even multiple different ways to transmute the same word's part of speech.

  • @mrosskne

    @mrosskne

    11 ай бұрын

    then how do you describe a fascinating thing?

  • @TooDeepForSleep

    @TooDeepForSleep

    10 ай бұрын

    I love how English just keeps on expanding really fast. My language also lacks most of these words and we have to use english ones instead.

  • @huntno

    @huntno

    10 ай бұрын

    ​@@TooDeepForSleep wait actually? You just toss in an English word when you don't have a word for something? 😂

  • @fuzzblightyear145

    @fuzzblightyear145

    10 ай бұрын

    @@huntno My Maltese relatives would always be throwing in english words in conversation for things. (made it easier to fill in the gaps for me understanding them). I think it's because there were either often short snappy english words that didn't need to (relatively) complex construction to form it in, or was just more commonly used. Maybe it's like me trying to speak portuguese, and dropping into French when i get stuck.

  • @benthomason3307
    @benthomason33074 жыл бұрын

    English: "I can do lots of stuff, what can you do, Georgian?" Georgian: "*sfdjjgotnins;nfpoadn!*"

  • @daRYZEboy

    @daRYZEboy

    4 жыл бұрын

    Yeah I can have a stroke in English too you're not that special

  • @Perririri

    @Perririri

    4 жыл бұрын

    *Abkhazian and Ossetian freedom noises*

  • @asktheetruscans9857

    @asktheetruscans9857

    4 жыл бұрын

    I think they make creams for that. Damn girl!

  • @minihwas

    @minihwas

    4 жыл бұрын

    The first time I saw the Georgian alphabet I lowkey thought it was a fake alphabet created for a fictional language or something because it just looks so different to others, especially compared to other Eastern European countries

  • @etherealstars5766

    @etherealstars5766

    3 жыл бұрын

    @@minihwas Look up the Glagolitic script. I'm Croatian and understand that it was used far in the past in the slavic region where croatia is now, and even further, though I don't know the details.

  • @stupedasso6819
    @stupedasso681910 ай бұрын

    As someone who is currently trying to learn a new language, I found this extremely interesting and it answered a lot of questions

  • @The_Viscount
    @The_Viscount10 ай бұрын

    I can tell this is an interesting and we'll researched video. Perhaps it's because I'm tired, but, unfortunately, much of it was lost on me. Still, I can tell you're passionate about it. Thank you for sharing your knowledge even if it was a bit lost on me.

  • @rrrrogahtaylah2636
    @rrrrogahtaylah26364 жыл бұрын

    American English has clear "r" sounds... but then there are the British. If it's at the end of a word, it might as well not exist.

  • @TheBritt2001

    @TheBritt2001

    4 жыл бұрын

    I've been teaching this to my Chinese students recently. British soft r versus hard American r.

  • @frazzleface753

    @frazzleface753

    4 жыл бұрын

    Except in southwest England. Have them say 'Cider' to you!

  • @TheBritt2001

    @TheBritt2001

    4 жыл бұрын

    @@frazzleface753 Ah yes, you are right there :p. I think we should be clearer and either say 'most British accents' or just go with 'received pronunciation'.

  • @stephenpowstinger733

    @stephenpowstinger733

    4 жыл бұрын

    When I was a kid in Jacksonville people said “idea” as “idear”. At an early age I decided to stop that as it didn’t make sense.

  • @hohhoch3617

    @hohhoch3617

    4 жыл бұрын

    @@stephenpowstinger733 Well. That's a good ol' southern twang. And in Texas, everything is bigger. Including the words.

  • @DJFlare84
    @DJFlare844 жыл бұрын

    "I before E, except after C" SCIENCE says "lol no".

  • @richardstimmel278

    @richardstimmel278

    4 жыл бұрын

    I’d like to think it’s because of the sc compound

  • @Maki-00

    @Maki-00

    4 жыл бұрын

    Richard Stimmel Yes, that makes sense!

  • @AhmedKhan-qk3xi

    @AhmedKhan-qk3xi

    4 жыл бұрын

    DJFlare84 it’s a WEIRD rule

  • @gabor6259

    @gabor6259

    4 жыл бұрын

    receive, deceive, perceive, conceited, counterfeit, but believe, relieve, achieve, and... society Edit: society doesn't count as some people in this thread kindly pointed out

  • @xoxb2

    @xoxb2

    4 жыл бұрын

    It's "i before e except after c when the two letters sound ee".

  • @jamesturpin9091
    @jamesturpin90919 ай бұрын

    You can see how much English is directly effected by militaristic pasts. Even if it's a non descript noun you can quickly state "the green one" or "the green three" and give a quick and accurate description. Doubling down on plurals allows for a quick and secure way to describe numbers. Our sentence structure is built around emergencies by always placing the subject and verb first then followed by an adjective. We speak in exclaimations all the time. "Fire, burning, fast", "cavalry, flanking, right" "i, run, away"

  • @changer_of_ways_beep_bop_boop
    @changer_of_ways_beep_bop_boop5 ай бұрын

    We're really good at stealing words, making up words, forcing words to be anglecized, and turning everything into a noun or a verb with little effort. There's also a lot of nuance. I've had discussions on the different between nice and kind as an example. Because we have a massive lexicon from both Latin and Germanic to begin with, we have a lot of overlap that allows for nuance and specificity. English is like the Blob or Frankenstein's monster or Pickle Rick of languages. We sort of just graft on more when we need it.

  • @6thstreetradio
    @6thstreetradio2 жыл бұрын

    One thing I've always wondered about English is the fact that you can absolutely butcher the grammar, and still be mostly understood, at least at a basic level. You can flip subject/object, adjective/noun, misconjugate verbs, leave out articles, just about anything, and as long as the basics are there, you'll get your point across. That does not seem to be the case in ANY other language, where if you flip just one pair of words or use the wrong declination, it changes the meaning 100%. It seems that English has redundancy BUILT IN to it, so it can at least be used even if you're not fluent. The same is not the case for "most" other languages. That's the way I see it, anyway.

  • @Udrys999

    @Udrys999

    2 жыл бұрын

    Interesting perspective. I come from Balto-Slavic background and local patriots like to brag about their languages being superior to English since due to cases you can flip the word order. But now I do think that an incorrect ending can leave someone thinking for seconds before understanding what was said, that is worse than just flipping words that don't have a case at all.

  • @schrodingerscat3741

    @schrodingerscat3741

    2 жыл бұрын

    I will say, in some languages word order is important, in some it is not important at all (grammatical relationships are indicated in other ways). English might be unique in that way among languages for which word order is important.

  • @mitatf

    @mitatf

    2 жыл бұрын

    I actually believe English has a very straight forward and simple structure. There was a commentary above, using German as an example, where "An apple eat I" doesn't make any sense and "An apple I eat" sounds incomplete and can only exist as "I eat an apple", while the German "Den Apfel esse ich" and "Ich esse den Apfel" are both correct. The Spanish "yo como una manzana", "una manzana como yo". Like, in English class (for not natives) you have those really specific charts that, even if I have learned a much more complex way to structure my sentences, they don't seem to break that much, while the other two languages I learnt (German and Japanese) where more confusingly flexible with their structures even if I just learn the basics.

  • @Monica-br8pi

    @Monica-br8pi

    2 жыл бұрын

    Nah.

  • @avivastudios2311

    @avivastudios2311

    2 жыл бұрын

    could you give an example.

  • @ozanemekter2693
    @ozanemekter26934 жыл бұрын

    Possession in Turkish is like this: I have a pencil = My pencil exists

  • @user-iz4un6tv5n

    @user-iz4un6tv5n

    4 жыл бұрын

    var ile? (kalemim var)

  • @gergelygalvacsy2251

    @gergelygalvacsy2251

    4 жыл бұрын

    Hungarian is similar. It’s kinda like: “There is a pencil of mine”

  • @ozanemekter2693

    @ozanemekter2693

    4 жыл бұрын

    @@user-iz4un6tv5n yeah and var literally means to be existent/there to be

  • @ozanemekter2693

    @ozanemekter2693

    4 жыл бұрын

    @@gergelygalvacsy2251 Basically the same in Turkish, I just chose to translate it that way. The Uralic and Turkic languages share several common features anyway. Agglutination, SOV, and vowel harmony FTW, my Hungarian comrade!

  • @PoloElefante

    @PoloElefante

    4 жыл бұрын

    does "you don't have a pencil" = "a pencil does not exist for you!" ?

  • @waitwhat3148
    @waitwhat314810 ай бұрын

    The best ;) Not only is "best" hanging out there all alone, but it's a couple of steps away from where it started.

  • @sovahkiin4250
    @sovahkiin42509 ай бұрын

    It's nice to learn how the Langue I grew up with is unique in a special way and no framing it as a bad thing thank you!

  • @nobruca
    @nobruca3 жыл бұрын

    I love the way almost everything can become a verb - like Jerry Seinfeld once said "she shooshed me!", or "text me", "facebook me" and so on.

  • @CornmanC

    @CornmanC

    3 жыл бұрын

    I like to use the phrase, "In English, we can verb whatever we want."

  • @billkeithchannel

    @billkeithchannel

    3 жыл бұрын

    Like Robert Bork has had his last name become a verb and adjective. "He was borked by the senior staff." "Don't tell them that or they will bork you."

  • @viharsarok

    @viharsarok

    3 жыл бұрын

    @@billkeithchannel You can be litt up, too.

  • @herrbonk3635

    @herrbonk3635

    3 жыл бұрын

    We do that a lot in scandinavia too. Hanging an -a at the end of a noun is often sufficient, makes the noun into a verb (text -> texta, boll -> bolla, lek -> leka, spel -> spela, skit -> skita, piss -> pissa, etc...)

  • @fuseydunae397

    @fuseydunae397

    3 жыл бұрын

    you can do that on turkish too

  • @ingvik3703
    @ingvik37034 жыл бұрын

    english: *Vacuum cleaner* swedish and all other languages on earth: *"inhales"* english: *no, don't* swedish and all other languages on earth: *dustsucker* *Edit because of comments* *Edit again* damn so many likes for such a shitty comment

  • @podemosurss8316

    @podemosurss8316

    4 жыл бұрын

    In Spanish the word we use literally means "aspirator"

  • @sehabel

    @sehabel

    4 жыл бұрын

    German: Staubsauger "Staub" means dust, and "Sauger" means sucker. Germanic languages for the win!

  • @petrfedor1851

    @petrfedor1851

    4 жыл бұрын

    In Czech we use *vysavač* . It means basicly sucker.

  • @supersonictv8916

    @supersonictv8916

    4 жыл бұрын

    Russian: Пылесос (dustsucker)

  • @butterflyclip

    @butterflyclip

    4 жыл бұрын

    Finnish: "imuri" meaning *sucker* or "pölynimuri" meaning *dustsucker*

  • @jitaru3707
    @jitaru3707 Жыл бұрын

    Loved the video, and realized how diverse languages are when I couldn't compare some of the grammatical things to my second language (Japanese) because it operates on an entirely different scale of rules

  • @ryanchapman3995
    @ryanchapman3995 Жыл бұрын

    Something I don't hear mentioned very often and I am curious about is how common it is to say that you would have done something in a different situation. I remember reading somewhere that it is a pretty unique way of thinking to consider alternate possibilities given different past events, but I don't know how true that is.

  • @JamesRedekop
    @JamesRedekop4 жыл бұрын

    Victor Borge had a joke about interdental fricatives: "I'm from Denmark, and we don't have this 'th' sound. Our language is more like ''. It was very hard going from '' to 'th'. I had a friend who tried to go the other way, from 'th' to '' -- he drowned."

  • @bikkies

    @bikkies

    4 жыл бұрын

    Ah, the late, great and sorely missed Victor Borge. "Inflationary Language" never ceases to amuse me. "You look twoderful threenight". The man was fantastic.

  • @JamesRedekop

    @JamesRedekop

    4 жыл бұрын

    @@bikkies I'm going to add the other bit of the 'th' joke, for completeness: "My English teacher told me, 'Thpeak like thith for a month and get uthed to it onth and for all.' Tho I thpoke like thith for a month, and got uthed to it onth and for all. It worked very well -- ethept when I met other people who thpoke like thith. Or in crowded liftth."

  • @gazzaboo8461

    @gazzaboo8461

    4 жыл бұрын

    @@JamesRedekop That is what the thpanish did with their language! It is totally different to thpanish everywhere elsth in the world.

  • @Astrologist

    @Astrologist

    4 жыл бұрын

    Hahaha I can relate, I'm an English speaking Australian learning Danish!

  • @Sorrowdusk

    @Sorrowdusk

    4 жыл бұрын

    @@Astrologist 0.o I now want to learn more about Danish

  • @dannypoe7842
    @dannypoe78423 жыл бұрын

    “Why waste time say lot word when few word do trick?” - Kevin Malone

  • @Alfred_Leonhart

    @Alfred_Leonhart

    3 жыл бұрын

    I read that completely differently

  • @hariszark7396

    @hariszark7396

    3 жыл бұрын

    "Kevin Malone" ? Try the Spartans 2500 years ago.

  • @dannypoe7842

    @dannypoe7842

    3 жыл бұрын

    It’s a scene from “The Office” where Kevin tries to save time by saying fewer words. m.kzread.info/dash/bejne/kX9hrpuumNaofLA.html

  • @tsaltine43

    @tsaltine43

    3 жыл бұрын

    IM WEAK

  • @elias_xp95

    @elias_xp95

    3 жыл бұрын

    Beltalowda

  • @Fatalesubs
    @Fatalesubs2 жыл бұрын

    I think the most difficult aspect about English is that the spelling of a word doesn’t match its pronunciation. Like in the word “pronunciaTION” the tion is more like a shon, or like the word “two” is pronounced as tu and not two, or the word “beautiful” doesnt sounds like beautiful, it sounds like biutiful, or the word “first” doesnt sounds like first, it sounds like ferst. Also, the fact that they have so many extra sounds like TH, PH, SH makes it harder. But the thing I struggle the most with is with the letter “E” at the end of a word, changing some or all of the way the vowels sound in a word. The “e” at the end of the word at the end doesn’t makes its purpose because of the many exemptions it has when changing the sounds of a vowel. Also, the way the vowel’s sound can change in each word is a headache, like, the word “way” doesnt sounds like wAy, it sounds like wei. You literally have to memorize the way each word sounds, like if they where kanji. Out of its pronunciation and scripture, I think it is a pretty easy language though, it just takes time to learn how to pronunciate words correctly.

  • @totoitekelcha7628

    @totoitekelcha7628

    3 ай бұрын

    If ypu complain about spelling and sound go and try oit spanish language it is quite opposite of the sounding to that of its spelling. In contrast English has very very few differences of spelling and sound but in spanish every spelling and sounds are quite opposite in nature.

  • @bravelittleroomba
    @bravelittleroomba5 ай бұрын

    I learnt somewhere that English has a much larger vocabulary, with a lot of words for very specific things, than most other languages, often by a country mile. And that this came about mostly because of all the other languages that have contributed to English over the centuries.

  • @_-369-_
    @_-369-_4 жыл бұрын

    Remember, when you find yourself in a difficult situation regarding "English" language, you can always say "pardon my French".

  • @karenvaughan8521

    @karenvaughan8521

    4 жыл бұрын

    "Pardon my French" is a euphemism for acknowledging ruefully that you were swearing, and probably should not have.

  • @user-nf9xc7ww7m

    @user-nf9xc7ww7m

    4 жыл бұрын

    When the french swear, do the say "pardonnez mon anglais?" Is there a joint bilateral treaty of linguistic banter?

  • @irgendwer3610

    @irgendwer3610

    4 жыл бұрын

    @@karenvaughan8521I am probably being whooshed, but I thought "Pardon my French" was a reference to how 40% of the English Vocabulary comes from Latin mostly introduced by French

  • @karenvaughan8521

    @karenvaughan8521

    4 жыл бұрын

    @@irgendwer3610 no

  • @karenvaughan8521

    @karenvaughan8521

    4 жыл бұрын

    @@user-nf9xc7ww7mWhenever something is slightly unsavoury we call it French: French letter is a euphemism for a condom, French lessons is a euphemism a prostitute uses to advertise her services, French kiss is a kiss with tongues. And yes, the French return the insult:"Capote anglaise” is slang in French for condom

  • @TheRaisingLower
    @TheRaisingLower4 жыл бұрын

    I like the current usage of “going to” meaning “about to” as opposed to “going to a place”

  • @thisisaloadofbarnacles921

    @thisisaloadofbarnacles921

    4 жыл бұрын

    Spanish uses it that way too

  • @cameronmcgee7113

    @cameronmcgee7113

    4 жыл бұрын

    French does it both ways

  • @Big_Tex

    @Big_Tex

    4 жыл бұрын

    I prefer to use the more formal "fixin' to"

  • @thisisaloadofbarnacles921

    @thisisaloadofbarnacles921

    4 жыл бұрын

    @@Big_Tex How about Finna

  • @Olivia-wg8gv

    @Olivia-wg8gv

    4 жыл бұрын

    This is a load of barnacles “going to” saves me in spanish class since we don’t know future tense yet lamao

  • @Minty1337
    @Minty1337 Жыл бұрын

    of course im biased, but i like english for its *mostly* practical set of traits, beyond spelling and certain parts of pronunciation, but in terms of grammar and vocabulary, it seems far easier to describe what you intend exactly in english than in other languages, for most situations

  • @billmmckelvie5188
    @billmmckelvie51885 ай бұрын

    Congratulations, you just mastered learning English! So you decide to come to the U.K. to hear the wonderful & rhythmic tones of its speakers! Only to find out no one has bothered to tell you about the musical score sheet you need for each dialect, and the different regional names and or pronunciation of each object! An example of simple answer to a question. leaving a tourist utterly bewildered! How do I get the railway station, please? Tha' needs to catch a buz! Hopefully a buz number is provided along with a gesture to a buz stop giving any clue as to what you've been told! So the 'very Best of British' to any tourist who decides to come to the U.K.