Features English is missing - but most other languages have
Other languages have unique features that English just doesn't have access to. So, English, why don't you level up your skills with these linguistic tricks from around the world?
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~ Briefly ~
The first of two fun, experimental videos where I'm playing with features English lacks and has. This time we'll take a look at some grammatical skills that English might consider unlocking:
- reduplication
- distributive numerals
- politeness
- predicative adjectives
- question particles and interrogative word order
- copula vs locative be
- weather verbs
- instrumentals vs comitatives
- clusivity
- evidentials
Thank you for watching!
~ 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/1K...
I had a german friend tell me that english is perfect for constructing jokes because it doesn't give away the punchline until the end of the sentence
... not
but saying the punchline first would be like spoiling the joke
First German joke I have ever heard. A joke because the Germans put the verb at the end of the sentence. So, not until the end do you know the action: who is doing what to whom.
Oh, no wonder why the French are boring
In Japanese, verbs are said last, which makes noun-based jokes nearly impossible to use as well as English.
Reduplication: "So, do you *like* her, or do you *like like* her?
You're a damn genius man.
this is *really really* stupid but somehow works
This reduplication always reminds me of the Baby-Sitters Club movie.
@銀竜を白影 it is still part of common language
I haven't heard anything more 5tupid in my life like "like like her".
A clear detriment I’ve noticed in English is only one word for “love.” Greek (see the New Testament) has 6 different words for love, depending on whether you mean self-love, long-standing love, deep friendship, playful love, love for people in the world in general, or sexual love. You can get in big trouble in English if you mean one of those but someone else who speaks only English thinks you mean another.
well, consider this: the highest level of love from those 6 is agape . But women ( except very few exceptions that generally become saints) cannot really reach that level. So would cause problems for those that believe that women can do whatever men can do
i love children
@@Jane_Doe...3 I guess this is what they mean... Hopefully you mean in a parental/older sibling way!
@@headphonesaxolotl i like kids
Polish is more precise in other way, if I say "I ate" in English that's it. In Polish if someone says that you know their gender or if it were multiple people and if you finished it or was interrupted by something
In Indonesian, we use reduplication for several things: - as plural indicator - as “ish” in english (e.g childish, reddish etc) - imitation of something (e.g mobil = car, mobil-mobilan=car toy) - or completely different meaning (irregular) e.g langit = sky langit-langit = ceiling. We use “-“ for the repeated words to indicate they are one word. Anyway I don’t think saya-saya is Indonesian word tho but reduplication is indeed a thing in our language
Yep, that was a poor choice of example, and a wrong interpretation as well
This whole comment section reminds me of a story. "An english teacher said to his class, 'in many languages there is an equivalent to a double negative, in which two negatives make a positive. But there are no languages where a double positive makes a negative.' From the back of the class a student said, 'yeah right."
Goddamn, he just ruined that teacher's whole career.
"Yeah, Right" is a tonal phase.
@@jessc408 Yeah, right.
Sarcasm exists in any language.
@Jake Sangria Well, English is an overly simplified in some ways and overly complicated in others. It's a germanic language at its core, but borrows 2 thirds of its vocabulary from other languages. The most difficult thing in English is the irregularity of the pronunciation. You literally can't be sure how a word is pronounced if you haven't heard it at least once before. The Hungarian language, on the other hand, has a really difficult grammar, yet you can trust that people will read something exactly like the author did when they wrote it. Compound words in German are also a great way to describe something with precision (though I confess it is a nightmare to read). Romantic languages (French being an exception) can hide the subject of a sentence without harming the comprehension. Ex.: "(Tu) Vais ao mercado?" (Are (you) going to the market?) I do like how you don't have noun genders in English, however, it makes things considerably easier.
"You can't repeat a word twice to create a new meaning." Yeah, yeah.
Advanced hair, yeah yeah !!
Okay okay!
Fr fr!!!
My my.
🤣why didnt I think of that😂
5:45 yes, when it rains, we should point out the window and yell “RAINING”
right! 😂
Wait, you said "it rains", not rains. Your message should say "5:45 yes, when rains, we should point out the window and say 'RAINING'" 🤓🤓🤓/j
Yelling "RAINING" would be the American-english dialect. Most other English dialects would *say* "raining".
I think the majority of Austronesian languages have different words for inclusive and exclusive "we". This avoids awkward conversations.
That's true. In Malay, we have "kita" (inclusive) and "kami" (exclusive). And to be honest, this feature in Austronesian languages is extremely useful. I learned English when I'm 7, so sometimes it's kinda confusing to listen and talk with the word "we". I have to guess either it's about "everyone" or it's just about "us".
@@iskandarishak8998 In Tagalog, "tayo" is inclusive while "kami" is exclusive. Kitá means I (predicate) you(singular). Eg. "Narinig kita" means I heard you. Other meaning of kita(with glottal stop at the end) are profit and visible.
My Dravidian language (Malayalam) has the same distinction. "nammal" is inclusive, while "njangal" is exclusive.
@@iskandarishak8998 In Cebuano, it's also "kami" and "kita" but it can be shortened to "mi" and "ta" if they are positioned after the verb.
I'm trying to think of an instance where the inclusive or exclusive "we" wouldn't be clear from the context. If you're sitting in camp, and 7 strangers walk up to you and say "we are lost" you know they're referring to themselves, not you.
I'm surprised grammatical gender wasn't mentioned. I never knew it was a thing until I took a foreign language class and realized my door was in fact a girl.
those handles can get quite hot.
Hobostarr180 wait a minute, in my language doors are male
I started laughing because doors "are girls" in my native tongue
Hobostarr180 In German a young girl is neither male nor female but NEUTER.
How old is your door? Should you be touching her like that?
The correct way to address short people: "You don't tall."
That's Afroasiatic in a nutshell: All of them would sound super-odd if translated literally: "I am tall" would be literally: "I tall" He is at the market: "He at the market" It's dead: He/she dead (most Afro-asiatic languages have no neuter: everything's masculine or feminine). He's not dead: he not dead.
*hindi ka matangkad* it hurts me every time
That 'feature' reminded me way too much of Newspeak for me to be comfortable with.
in Polish it's some things like "nobody don't move" or something, it's a little strange, I think...
@@Albukhshi i use that all the time its called aave
“I like him, but I don’t like like him” we have repeating words (and sounds too!) but they’re mostly used informally and speaking so you wouldn’t see them in a book. In addition you can use adjectives as verbs but, again, you don’t verbify nouns and adjectives in formal writing, just informal :)
5:56 In Russian, the Instrumental is formed just by using the Instrumental form of a noun. A comitative case is formed when you add the preposition с to the instrumental noun.
Native lang: we need reduplication My sixth grade self: Do you like her? Like, like like her?
Those merely happen to be homonyms put next to each other in a sentence, that's not reduplication. Edit: I won't delete this comment, since people have replied to it, but I do stand corrected. Only the first and the second like as homonyms the second and the third are not. They are, basically the same word, but used in a different context, so this is indeed an example of reduplication.
@@nickzardiashvili624 effectively it is as it changes the strength of the word like. It is more than like, but less than love. It makes the same meaning as crush
Nick Zardiashvili That's the reason for the _first_ 'like', but not the other two.
@@nickzardiashvili624 If you look at all three words yes, but the second two likes are reduplication
If you can write at a sixth grade level, you might win a Nobel Prize, as Hemingway did with The Old Man and the Sea.
This must be why Google sucks at translating to English.
I agree with australia even tho i have no idea how a piece of land can write a comment i still agree
Well it mostly translate the common meaning or used. Worst scenario is that grammatically it wobble the original text and turns it into unexpected...horrifying...sentence.
Google sucks at translating pretty much all languages
Eu concordaria com você, entretanto o fato de que a evolução da tecnologia é originária dos EUA, vocês tem melhores ferramentas
En el español la traducción es en verdad horrible
in danish (and i think other scandinavian langauages too) we have different words for grandparents based on whether they're your father or mothers parents it's really simple tbh, the words are: mormor: mom mom (mom's mom) morfar: mom dad (mom's dad) farmor: dad mom (dad's mom) farfar: dad dad (dad's dad)
I've studied some Turkish, which distinguishes between "anneanne" (mother's mother) and "babaanne" (father's mother), but only has "dede" to mean "grandfather". However, it does have separate words for maternal and paternal aunts and uncles: "teyze", "hala", "dayı", "amca".
@@ghenulo ooh neat!! with regards to uncles and aunts, that’s another one where danish is exceedingly simple 😅 we have: - morbror: mom brother (your mother’s brother) - farbror: dad brother (your father’s brother) the sisters are a little harder to explain but it’s: - moster (kinda an amalgamation of “mom” and “sister”, your mother’s sister) - faster (the same but with father and sister) and then we also just have the words aunt and uncle (tante & onkel) which are used for the spouse of your parents’ siblings, or occassionally just used for a parents’ sibling themselves haha.
So mor and far should work though.
@@magnarcreed3801mor and far means mom and dad.
Gran = mothers mother Grandma = fathers mother Grandad = mothers father Grandpar = fathers father. I am almost certain this is not strictly the rule but seems to be used commenly in my area of the UK
In our Cebuano (Central Philippine) language, which is a Malayo-Polynesian language, reduplication is a prominent feature, the implications of which often refers to a second-rate version of the original word, regardless whether a noun, an adjective, or a verb is reduplicated. 1. NOUNS: refers to second-rate versions of things. asáwa = wife asawa-asawa = common-law wife anák = child anák-ának = adopted child; child in a role-play arrangement baláy = house baláy-bálay = makeshift house With nouns, reduplication could also imply multiplicity of the nouns: baláy = house baláy-baláy = houses; neighbourhood 2. VERBS: refers to less-serious versions of the actions being done. túlog = sleep túlog-túlog = pretending to be asleep kaón = eat kaón-kaón = leisurely eating, or eating not quite seriously 3. ADJECTIVES: refer to descriptions which are just second-rate to the original adjective from where it came from. dakû = big dakû-dakû = biggish; quite big ulán = rainy (usu refers to the noun “rain”, but could also be used as adjective, like in this example) ulán-úlan = drizzling; light showers
What English has that other languages don’t: phonetical inconsistency
German has that! To a lesser extent than English does, but still.
@@frankbruder3097 but not as english, to read english you need to understand how to pronuonce every fucking word, while in others languages you only need to know how the letters sound.
That implies phonotactics. English phonotactics are very clear. If you mean graphene-phoneme correspondence, look at Chinese.
The best is French where half of written word is silent
Well, in Portuguese we dont have it... we say „depois de amanhã“ (after tomorrow). In german it exists, but I think probably because German simply many times puts words together... „übermorgen“ is also like „After tomorrow“... but not literally translated
The lack of levels of formality in Engilsh is a blessing. Sometimes it's not clear cut which one to use so it just creates awkward moments and linguistically imposed hierarchies.
I know right, it can create some really akward moments sometimes, so when I learnt English, it felt so liberating to know I wouldn't go through that trouble xD
I can't agree more. It is especially useful for introverts, because you might know a person for a long time and still hesitate to call him/her informally, which is like a barier to more intimacy.
I remember it happened with my elementary school teacher. As kids, we were all just calling her with the informal "tu", but then growing up and proceeding to middle school or high school it is the formal "Lei" that has to be used with teachers (not to mention uni professors!). So, when I once bumped into her after years, i really couldn't stick to one form because it sounded so strange to me to say "tu" to a teacher 😅so i was always jumping from verbs declined to the informal way to those declined to the formal one 😅 I think that what conveys formality in English is the use of Sir/Ma'am when speaking, and the overall tone when writing.
@@dianapohe The English equivalent is to be on first name terms. If you're chummy with somebody you use their first name to address them.
@@viharsarok i think it depends, i address my boss (or any of his superiors as well, and university professors) by his first name, but I wouldn't say I'm chummy with him 😅 it sounds just like a neutral choice, adding "sir" would convey a lot more formality
There are three you's in Marathi: तू (tu) तुम्ही (tumhi) आपण (aapan) The first one is used for someone your age, like a friend. The second one is used for people elder than you, your parents and your teachers. And the third one is used for strangers or someone you do not know very well.
That makes sense why indian kids get so shy talking to older people in america
In the Philippines, we also have two words for the word "of" In tagalog, its Ng- referring to any abstract object, or a common noun Ni-refering to a specific person. Example House of my friend- bahay NG kaibigan ko House of Juan- bahay NI Juan
So you think English doesn’t have question particles at the end of phrases, eh?
i know, right?
maybe it's more of a structure, ya know?
Can I be the comment that just laughs cus this is hilarious? Lol
This is like a tag question, just like the usage of ね(ne) in the end of a sentence in Japanese お酒じゃないです This is not alcohol お酒じゃないですね This is not alcohol, isn't it? お酒じゃないですか Isn't this alcohol?
@nameless だ isn't used with i-adjectives. They are already predicative in and of themselves.
English has reduplication, though it might not seem like reduplication reduplication.
A: You mean you're going home, or are you going home home? B: I'm going home home, eating fast food is fine once in a while, but I need some food food, and no one cooks like my mum.
So so, same same, like like,
Yeah yeah
Doo-doo.
She doesn't read e-mail, so send her mail mail.
One observation about a slight deficiency in the language that no-one's mentioned (although it's not really a missing feature). The difficulty in differentiating in speech between "thirteen/thirty", "fourteen/forty", "fifteen/fifty" etc. This happens with native speakers all the time, where we commonly find ourselves either saying the number very slowly an emphasizing the final syllable very carefully, or spelling out the individual digits (e.g. "one-three" or "three-oh"). It's a genuine inconvenience. This is a pecularity of English because during the Saxon period it lost the distinctive "-g" endings which German and Dutch have. For example, you'd never get confused between "vierzehn" and "vierzig".
I remember for a long time I wondered about clusivity all on my own. I realized that it would make sense to have two different forms of we, one where you include the person you’re talking to and one where you don’t. Glad to learn that this is in fact a thing in other languages!
Me: "I was watching this video and the guy said English doesn't put 'what' or 'who' at the end of a question." Friend: "He said what?"
THANK YOU! Even if it is not correct, that's what I hear most of the time since learning English.
I am from the UK and I can identify that this is true because the UK was the first country to speak English
@@jovanp9348 but you know that modern American much more looks like English that Shakespeare spoke than England English right?
@Rei Ren because of the reforms of language that were accepted in England after USA get independent
@Rei Ren even standards are different. But I told mostly about speech. About grammar differences you could read in wiki
Australian english has reduplication. Yeah = tell me more Yeah yeah = I've heard enough yeah nah = no nah yeah = yes na na = bannana
Simmilar in German ja = yes, ja ja = fuck off
@@kulturfreund6631 funny how ja means go away in Hindi lol
tagalog as well, baba, down bababa, are you going down? and so on
@@kulturfreund6631 wait so when you watch starwars is he called Fuckoff Binks?
@@kulturfreund6631 ja means right now in Portuguese
English does have reduplication; there are plenty of examples of repeated words which changes the meaning. Some examples fall into sarcasm, but many don’t, and sarcasm is fairly important in social interaction anyway.
"Do you like her or do you like like her?"
@@sotmh A _guest_ guest? - Bernard from Spider-man 3 Also XXL means extra extra large.
Hear hear 👏
Do you only use reduplication to add extra emphasis to the word. Other languages use reduplication to change the meaning of the word completely
@@wren_. It's for emphasis but also contrast, "Do you want soy milk? No I want milk milk." Milk is reduplicated to indicate bovine milk.
I love how the english language sounds. Native english speakers use so many interesting sounds that no other language uses or at least they are rare. I learned most of them but they still fascinate me as someone who studied english as an adult
Curious isn't it...what are the chances that a language like English with its strange phonemes, and odd grammar, would become dominant?
@@jayc1139 Yh but it's also easy to learn i guess. It has very wierd rules from my point of view (as a hungarian) and the spelling is annoying at times too, but i got used to it over the years.
@@soundtrack1405 Old comment I know, but i have personally found as a native English speaker, that trying to puzzle out where we stole the word from helps with spelling. For instance, if it was originally french then it's probably an abomination of vowels.
@Justowner That's a smart tactic.
English is missing a word for "the day after tomorrow"
In finnish its "Ylihuominen" It directly translates to over tomorrow
And the day before yesterday
There are the archaic words overmorrow and ereyesterday
Some of us still understand "overmorrow". The fact that we *had* a word for this and lost it suggests that it wasn't that much of a loss. We also lost "darg", sigh.
In Croatian (and Serbian as well) tomorrow - sutra, day after tomorrow - prekosutra, two days after tomorrow - zakosutra. And we have words for the day before yesterday and two days before yesterday
I'm alway shocked that there are no words for "the day after tomorrow" and "the deay before yesterday". 😵
there are
@@Maria-fr9cn but they are obsolete and not used
in spanish it would be pasado mañana (after tomorrow) and antes de ayer (before yesterday)
chibisf4 ikr!
In portuguese we use the prefix "ante", which means "before", to express "the day before yesterday". The word is "anteontem". We don't have a word to express "the day after tomorrow", though (if there's a word meaning this, I don't know it).
I, for one, prefer to have to add a couple more words to the phrase to generate the same effect instead of having to deal with extremely complicated grammar stuff that might make some sentences shorter and wittier, but make the learning of the language way harder in general. I particularly have the German cases in mind while writing this.
2:36 we do have ”thee” and “thou” (the informal/familiar/single of “you”) but they’ve fallen out of use. “You” used to be the formal/plural.
"We each read three books." There, that wasn't hard, was it?
His videos are entertaining, but educational.
Yeah. Linguistics gives English a bad wrap. Because English is less a set of rules for constructing speech and more a toolkit.
@@zoch9797 ha no.
We read three bookseach
That's impossible! Didn't you watch the video? The narrator said that you can't DO that in English!
“You” was polite version so we’re just really nice all the time
What we have here is a failure to communicate
@@nosuchthing8 ?
@Pirate Jack That’s, how it was taught to us in the elementary school English here in Finland, as well. Also, English people *ARE* known for being very polite, at least relative to us Finns. So, it’s not that you don’t have politeness; quite the opposite: You’re *EXTRA* polite. 😁
This is true. In German the formal or polite "you" is Sie. The informal or "intimate" "you" is "du". In English the formal or polite "you" is "you", and the informal or intimate is "Thou", so within a family parents and children would address each other as "thou".
@@PC_Simo well, perkele
In Polish we have imperfective and perfective pairs of verbs, like robic = to do, zrobic = to have done. Besides, we have frequentative pairs of verbs, like jesc = to eat, jadac = to eat regularly or often. Finally, we have short-time action forms of verbs, jesc = to eat, pojesc =to eat for some short time, biec = run, biegac = run for some time. P. S. Polish nouns decline for 7 cases and 5 genders, yes 5!
Learning Mandarin was amazing. It's such an intuitive language even if the writing is monstrously difficult
As a native Russian speaker, I love English for its kind of... Mysticism. When I write songs about something that's hard to explain, I always use English, because my native language is too direct and detailed for describing what can have a million meanings. Personally, I don't think there are bad or dumb languages in the world, they're all just different and good at their own purposes!
Teach my Russian пожалуйста
Вау, I didn't expect the Russians here...
USE ANCIENT GREEK sorry caps but i was mad after hearing this
is also good for jokes, so many languages are too specific for that "gotcha" or any punchline for that matter.
@@darck_marque why not?
What’s wrong with “We read 3 books each” - this clarification is just as easy as adding to a word.
And if you wanted to say it the other say, you would say "We read three books in total"? Anyway, I think the point of the video is about features of languages that are compulsory, not about whether it's easy to add more words.
Each of us read three books. No, it's not hard.
We read the same three books. We each read three different books. Nope, not too hard.
also: "we read three books" means three total, not three each. The meaning is not obfuscated.
@@jeffsieck ambiguous*
To me, many of the shortcomings and aspects of simplicity of English make it the best language for humor, which is immensely valuable to me.
“I’m gonna read a book” “A book book or an e-book?” “I think I like him” “You like him or you like-like him?” English definitely does have reduplication
He's talking about reduplication that's "built" into the language that's known by all basic English speakers. Not "regional", "adaptive" or "temporary" ones like the examples you gave. For example, if you said 'book' and 'book book' separately, alone and with no context, they would have the same meaning, especially to an English speaker who hasn't been exposed to the word/phrase I hope this makes sense
English does have reduplication! Example: "My brother-in-law is English" "He's from America?" "No, the UK" "Oh, so like he's Scottish or something?" "No, he's ENGLISH English!"
d mark yeah! English doesn’t have formal, standardised reduplication but it definitely exists. “I’m having a salad today” “Haha like a salad with chicken, cheese, and tons of dressing so it still tastes good?” “No, a salad salad. I’m committed to my diet, Linda” “Oh.”
Yep. Even in this question 'Do you like him/her or do you like like him/her?'
_Do you speak Canadian French or French French?_
I'm not a native speaker of English but I definitely have heard reduplication being used in a sentence "Do you know Adam?" "Ya!.. Well, I don't know-know him. I met him at the bar the other day." Or in a video game where you can revive teammates "Are you dead-dead?" "No, revive me bro, quick!"
Yes, you'll see it in thing like "she's a girly girl" to like, amplify the quality of that trait's existence in someone. It's more casual usage, I have definitely used "Canadian French" versus "French French" and "salad salad" and "like like" and "know know" and possibly even "dead dead" as exampled above. I try to keep it out of my writing but casually verbatim, absolutely use it for emphasis or to point someone in the direction of a specific meaning when a word is multipurpose. Of course there are more formal ways to say all of these things. The evolution of language, eh?
"English, you're not normal." Aye, the fact that there's almost ten different ways of pronouncing 'ough' is proof enough.
But that's the fault of the first printers who came from Germany with no type for the yogh rune!
Prough*
"ough" this is painful and hard to say xdd
It all depends on the word being spelt. Though through sough tough rough rouge blah blah. Spelling makes the difference.
Yes, English can be weird. It can be understood through tough thorough thought, though.
Very funny and instructive, keep on going your good work, lad! Greetings from Belgium ;)
Regarding clusivity: in Skarù·ręʔ (Tuscarora), we distinguish "we" in four different forms. Which one you use depends on who your relationship to the audience and the subject of the sentence. 1.) í·θ yęknę̀·ruh = (EETH yik-nehh-roo) = you and I 2.) yęknę̀·ruh = (yik-nehh-roo) = someone else and I (you excluded) 3.) í·θ yękwę̀·ruh = (EETH yik-wehh-roo) = you all and I; we all (you included) 4.) yękwę̀·ruh = (yik-wehh-roo) = they and I (you excluded)
Other than English I also speak Czech, Slovak, German, Dutch and Italian. English is by far the easiest language where everything is so so so simple. The grammar tenses are so chill and there is so few of them. In slavic languages every word has around 15 - 50 different forms with different endings you just have to know and learn. English is just simple and lovely.
I've noticed tho that, with tense in English, tense is required making it more 'clear' as well. In Swedish I've noticed that 'jag dricker' could mean either 'i drink' or 'i am drinking' based on context. In english you need to use 'am' there if you're doing something at the moment, such as when you're asked what you're currently doing...'i am drinking water'. Saying 'i drink', in english, commonly means you drink alcohol often (unless you add the name of the drink after that). It's nice that English dropped the tense forms a long time ago giving way to more simple detached prepositions that don't change much.
@@jayc1139 But... who needs that? I'm Polish and we have something like Swedish. "(Ja) piję" means "I drink" but also "I'm drinking" and everything is clear with a context. And I like that a lot, I find those two tenses rather annoying than useful.
@@jayc1139 also past continuous sounds better when telling stories: “I was drinking water when...” instead of the simple past, “I drank water when someone robbed me” (that sounds really wrong). You can say “I drank some water and then I went to the gym”, but that’s more of a routine or stating the past stages you did in a day. I’m a native English speaker and this is what Ive noticed. Idk how to explain how to effectively to the tenses with their matching meaning/context. And I think this is a difficult part of English and if your birth language doesn’t have the same pattern or tense form for that certain context, can be confusing & takes a moment to get the hang of it. Our spelling & pronunciation is a bitch too.
@@laurenblanc6172 Oh no, Polish, as well as most European languages have a past and future continuous and simple, they just don't split present tense into any forms. At least in polish we have a different way to differentiate things that are done often/regularly and separately 'from time to time' and it's not as much a tense as a different form of the verb. So, "chodzę" - I go, "chadzam" - I go from time to time, "Idę" - I'm going. All 3 of these verbs can be used in most of the 5 tenses that we have. Believe me we have so many moods, modes and aspects that 5 tenses are enough to say anything exactly the way you mean it.
You haven’t seen arabic
Is it crazy how saying sentences backward creates backward sentences saying how crazy it is? Wouldn't've ever thought 'bout this.
Chinese:上海自来水来自海上。 Shanghai’s running water is from the sea.
lmao epic palindrome
@Róisín Grant Close enough, it means “on sea” actually, shang means up while hai means sea. If you translate the sentence word by word, Shang hai zi lai shui lai zi hai shang will be up-sea auto-come water comes from sea-up.lol.
gapple * You only need one “creates” because it’s the middle word and therefore the point of reflection
Some Spanish palindromes here: - Dábale arroz a la zorra el abad = The abbot gave rice to the fox (female) - Yo hago yoga hoy = I do yoga today - Roma ni se conoce sin oro ni se conoce sin amor = Rome is neither known without gold nor is it known without love.
And ps - simpler isn't always better. I live in Central America and have learned Spanish. There are soooooo many "simple" things... But the "simple" things often lack any ability to talk about or describe the much more complex things. For example, when talking about barrowing or lending things.... In English, if I borrow something that means I received it. If I lend something, the other person received it. So much more clear. But in Spanish there is only 1 verb - prestar. And the conjugation indicates some of the direction the thing travelled... From and to whom.... But it is often only understood by context, not directly expressed in words.
Same issue in German. They then added prefixes to the verb to awkwardly mend the situation.
But words are always spoken within a context. To just say “lend” or “borrow” in a vacuum, even if the words have more nuance to them, would be ultimately useless.
Turkish has evidental too. (also Korean has it) Withnessed past tense (-di suffix) and Heard past tense (miş suffix) are different in Turkish. (I saw that ) A thief broke into the house. =eve hırsız girdi. ( I did not see but I heard or learned/realized it later) A thief broke into the house.=Eve hırsız girmiş. (when you are back to your home, you see some objects are missing so you understand/realize that a theif stole them. gir=come in di=withnessed past tense miş=heard/learned later/realized later
What is gir-miş-miş-miş?
@@Samirustem there can be only 2 miş.. more than 2 miş do not have any meaning.
English has no way to express the idea "we read three books each?" You know, like by adding the "each?"
Yeah, that part was kinda silly.
Wait I would say that “We each read three books” not “We read three books each.” Which one is right?
@@therealcole7313 Either one is correct. Yours is slightly more formal, but they're both grammatically valid.
I believe the point is that English has no way of explain how many books are read besides adding on to the sentence. While other languages can just change a word in the sentence. Keeping it shorter.
@ktondragonrider: How is "we read threethree books" any shorter or simpler than "we read three books each"?
English does exhibit some reduplication: "I'm going out." "Are you going out-out?" (A special occasion, like a date).
"That video game is hard, but it's not hard-hard" (not obnoxiously difficult, but still challenging.) "It's cold outside." "Yeah, but not like cold-cold" (not absolutely freezing, but you'll feel a chill for sure). Just two more examples of English reduplication off the top of my head. The common theme is to emphasise an extreme in that situation.
That’s not what reduplication is at all. It’s hard to explain if your language doesn’t have that but I’ll try. For example, Run run would mean running. Eat eat would meaning eating. Cold cold would mean chilly. Etc. so if English had it, there would only be “cold” and “cold cold” to express it being chilly, the word “chilly” simply wouldn’t exist. .
@@Timothee_Chalamet_CMBYN The purpose of reduplication varies from language to language - it is not the same thing everywhere. English does use reduplication (in English's case mostly to create an emphatic form of nouns), and the video is wrong in saying it doesn't - it just uses it less than some other languages.
Zveebo you’re incorrect. Reduplication is saying a word more than once to make a new word. You May say “I like like you” in English and you’re saying “like” twice but that’s not what reduplication is at all. It’s hard to grasp like I said
@@Timothee_Chalamet_CMBYN "like like" is a new word, very distinct from "like" or "love" though? Cold cold might be a synonym of "chilly" (I would understand chilly to mean barely cold not extra cold, but agree to disagree), but it's also new distinct word. Is "big" not a new word because you could also say "large"?
English has many (many many) faults, but not one of the things you pointed out is among them. You made a great case for everything that English makes simpler and easier. By using English to illustrate what other languages can do you pointed out that English can do all of these things, usually in a simpler or better way. As the English say "Quod erat demonstrandum".
Hear hear. Oh wait, apparently we don't reduplicate words to change their meaning. My bad 🤦🏼♀️
3:42 english has this feature, right?
@@Rachel_M_ It's not reduplicating; it's just duplicating.
@@_Mentatif reduplication means changing the meaning through duplication, then English certainly has it. Though I think most of these really are much simpler, more straightforward and clear than English. Like Japanese particles, so simple, so clear. Nightmare writing system in Japanese, but the grammar is great.
I have to agree. Each example given was just as quickly backed-up by the sentence in English when trying to show otherwise. I’m not disrespecting everyone else out there, but i find that english has been able to remove a lot of unnecessary representations that exist elsewhere. I’m pretty sure that English does “it” better.
OH MY GOD - to the topic of two "with"s - in Russian we have the one "with" for "going with" and a whole instrumental case for "using with", which is even called somewhat like "creating case". I've never thought about it from this perspective, but now it appears so useful! It's so fascinating to think about cases not as those pure grammar rules you should just learn, but as the actual concepts used to represent certain relations between words.
In England “there there” is used. To show somebody comfort and support when you don’t know what else to say to make them feel better. And it often comes with a pat on the back or maybe a hug
This example actually is a repetition of the word. I don't think it falls under the definition of reduplication. In the same line, you could go "Oh, oh!" or "Hmm, hmmm". In bahasa, adding "jalan" to "jalan" means you are going to _say_ something completely different; from "jalan" (a road or a path, noun) to "jalan jalan" (walking, verb). Same for makan and makan makan.
In the Caribbean Spanish “Casi Casi” is used to say “almost”
@@hectorromero3903 But "casi" is also almost
@Philip Lafeber Fun fact: In Finnish, ”jalan” means: ”on foot”. ”Menen töihin jalan.” = ”I go to work on foot.” Nice coincidence. Next you tell me that ”makan” means: ”a bed” (noun), and ”makan makan” means: ”lying” (verb). 😆
@@PhilipLafeber I think it does, actually. Same as in "so so", "well well", because duplication has different meaning than single word.
English is very polite! I haven't heard a "thou" in some time!
thy, thee and thou, is old English. (Dein, Dich und Du in German.)
Now you mention it, I don't think I have heard a "thee" for a few decades either. Used to.
@@jerkjerkington3874 Very interesting. Thanks for all the details I haven't known about so far. I thought these pronouns were abandoned even earlier and that they were used nowadays only to recite old poems, theatre plays, biblical sayings, idioms etc. I like these old fashioned tunes. Thou shalt have a good night. (Is that correct?) Cheers from Berlin. : )
HunterShows Know any Quakers?
@@jerkjerkington3874 The Quakers kept the "thou" and all that because that was the language used in church. The other aspect of the singular informal was that it was used to speak to the flock. I think it was a deliberate choice to be godly in all aspects of their lives.
It's difficult to express "cannot NOT to do something" in English. For example "I can't not (to) ask" is incorrect BUT it's still doable: "I can't help but ask"
you have great skills to showcase what you are passionate about (I mean, languages of the world) and make such entertaining content... I really enjoy your videos, I will keep on watching them Sorry for my English! kudos to you!
As a Spanish speaker I find English's lack of a formal "you" to be a massive relief. Saves me the trouble of figuring out whether I should address someone as tú or usted.
Aleksei Carrion As an English speaker learning Spanish, I am envious.
@پاسدار فرد Александр From Yorkshire so pretty northern and I'd love to know what the hell you're talking about. We certainly don't have a polite way of saying you.
Maybe they mean sir or ma'am but those are just titles not a form of you.
As a portuguese, i also think its a very big relief, i dont have to think about my relationship with someone or about their age so i dont have to chose from "tu" to "você/vós"
"You" is the formal "thou." They eliminated the informal one to be formal all the time.
You missed the most obvious deficiency: the ability to make diminutives from nouns. A small cat is a kitten, a totally different word. Afrikaans: kat - katjie. Spanish: gato -gatito. A small car in English is a small car. Afrikaans: kar - karretjie. Spanish: carro - carrito. I'm told diminutives are easy in German, too. My proposal is to add ling. Duck - duckling. Cat - catling. Car - carling.
Yes Germany has that too. You can add -chen or -lein to it, like Katze (cat) gets Kätzchen or Kätzlein (both mean small cat), Ente (duck) gets Entchen or Entlein. Most times both can be used, but be careful some words only use one ending like Buch (book) gets Büchlein, you don't use -chen there, because it already ends on ch and it would be to hard to speak it that way. Herr (Sir) gets another meaning, when you say Herrchen. It doesn't mean a small Sir, what you could guess. Herrchen is the owner of a pet, like a dog. It´s a nicer way to say something like master. Herrlein doesn't exist. When Frau (woman) gets Frauchen, its used in the same way like Herrchen, while Fräulein is old fashion for an unmarried woman. You should not use that word anymore, it´s seen as impolite.
@@grauen1989 I always wonder about things. Is there a reason English missed something so obvious? I suppose nobody knows.
Whenever we want to use a diminutive we can always borrow one from one of our neighbors, usually the French suffix -ette, as in the small cigar-like thing: cigarette. We don't use it to create catettes because we've already got kittens. We've got specific native words for most immature animals: puppies for dogs, kids for goats, calves for cows, foals for horses, etc. We don't use it to create carettes because we usually want to be more specific, sports coupe, roadster, hatchback, etc. But we do use it to create small dining table booths: dinettes or banquettes. Small kitchens are kitchenettes.
@@dlwatib That does not change the fact that English does not have an easy way to create diminutives as other languages do. I know it gets by without it. Latin got by without either the definite or indefinite article. But it is optimal to be able to do it. English can change a noun into an adjective, like talking about a dog house. Spanish has to say, la casa del perro - the house of the dog. Something bad in English is the 'you' which is both singular and plural. It's not like that in other languages. In English, one has to use extra words to avoid confusion.
Or you could just use that one-syllable word called "small", which is actually less verbiage than adding a two-syllable suffix "-ito". It also leaves open the option to enhance the description beyond just a generic diminutive, such as "small cat", "young cat", "underfed cat", "bony cat", "newborn cat", etc.
Delighted to see Nar Nar Goon on your video (near home.) Thank you.
I have never heard saya-saya in Indonesian. We have a lot of duplication - usually to indicate plural but sometimes a similar but different meaning. For example we have a joke: what is far shorter if you double it? Langit (sky) vs. Langit-langit (ceiling). Usually to change meaning we add suffixes such as -an for a pretend object (mobil =car vs. mobil-mobilan)
“You saw who?” is perfectly good colloquial English.
* puts saw away... "He went over there, guv."
D Sullivan colloquial.
Whom did you see.
@@nandakishoren8566 For whom the bell once tolled, and angels carpets rolled, with which these things untold.. by any certain means. I watched the cusp so sure, her form surly allure, but not cup a was there so which brings, No things to see, no things.
@@parishna4882 Poetry is different from communication.
as someone from holland, who studies english, italian, german and french, i still think english is the easiest language
As someone from mars who studies marsian, the native languages of uranus, plutonian, and mercurese, i can confidently (without bragging) say that pluto is not a planet.
@@jeffthevomitguy1178 Martian?
Gary Hillis no, understandable mistake, martian is the species of life on mars, marsian is the tongue we use to communicate with( pronounced marz-EE-in)
@@jeffthevomitguy1178 Marsian was the language of the Marsi people of central Italy. Your explanation sounds plausible, but it's BS.
Gary Hillis No i think you’ll find that the marsian people of italy indeed did speak marsian, However, mars, as we all know, has very diverse languages of which, one of them happened to be the marsians. It is unknown whether or not the marsian tongue was chosen because of the nominal simularity, or if it was due to the fact that the marsians were indeed the first to establish a permanent settlement on mars in 2077, Either way, marsian has been adopted by mars and please be inclusive to all speaker of marsian, not just those originating from italy.
Such an outclass channel. I have always struggled with telling my English speaking students why we don't say "it" when talking about the weather. In Urdu and Hindi we have three yous, reduplication and noun genders. I am so happy that English doesn't have noun genders.
Hindi/Urdu does not have reduplication, at least western UP dialect
Very interesting video and informative inasmuch as you point out the diverse manners of expression different languages have, but these things you say we can’t do it English (like differential plurals or evidential systems), we _can_ indeed express; a better way to compare these features might be not whether we can or can’t, but whether it’s obligatory or not. I speak two non-English (one of them not even European) competently, so I’ve experienced lots of “missing” English words and mode of expression (and their counterparts in the other languages I use) and know that the question should be _how_ rather than _whether_ concepts and sentiments can be expressed, and that factoids claiming one language can and another can’t are more an indication of mistaken assumptions based on inadequate data than linguistic fact. FWIW, I think English itself is a bit of a creole, especially its local varieties, built on a still very strong Germanic substrate.
4:30 Swahili: Nani means who. Japanese: *何？！*
What?
@@user-hv6dv6wh7v I figured someone was going to ask this. In japanese, nani means what. The comment is a reference to the omae wa mou shindeiru meme from fist of the north star, where the main character tells an enemy "you're already dead" and the enemy replies confused "what?". 何 Is the kanji for nani.
@@noob19087 So Desu! I know that. It's why I said just what. I didn't say, (kore wa nan desu ka) what is this or (nan desu ka) what's this I just said what meaning nani. Which is the direct translation of what you wrote. I didn't need the long explanation just an acknowledgement that I got what you meant. II desu! Sayonara. (It's good! Goodbye)
@@user-hv6dv6wh7v これを読んだ後、わたしはとてもばかみたいだったよ。あなたも日本語の学習者ですか？
@@noob19087 Romanji please, I'm operating on a phone here with a western keyboard only... I haven't found a hiragana/katakana/kanji keyboard that works at all.
As a Kiwi, that's the best te reo Māori pronunciation that I've ever heard from a foreigner. Good job, man. Credit where credit is due.
Kiwi is a tasty fruit, innit?
Hell yeah!
NZ Europeans are pretty lucky; the phonology of Te Reo is very easy for English speakers to pick up. Doesn't stop people from completely failing though :\
@@majarimennamazerinth5753 that's because english people first translated Maori into the Latin script so all the letters are pronounced our way
He really killed it with the pronunciation. I notice it with other languages too. Especially the Mandarin i guess.
I was studying Old English and it turns out it had many features that we stopped doing
The weather thing; in Bengali (and many other Indian languages) we call it "বৃষ্টি (rain) পড়ছে (is falling)". The weather elements of weather act as the subjects themselves. Even if it goes a bit further like "it's sunny", we'll say "সূর্য (sun) বেরিয়েছে (has come out)". But the problem arises if it's consistently sunny from a long time. We don't have an EXACT expression for that, although there are many spare expressions, some even non-grammatical, to get the job done.
To me, the only really useful thing that's missing from modern English is two distinct pronouns for singular "you" and plural "you". I don't really miss any polite pronouns or other grammatical politeness markers, just an simple, non-awkward way of distinguishing between 2nd person sing. vs. pl.
the southern US has “y’all” for a plural you. i never use it because i find it to sound strange, but it’s there.
Simple. Thou is singular/informal and rarely used outside Yorkshire and the Bible. You (plural/formal) is the default form for simplicity. In fact, English has no impoliteness. When speaking other languages, English speakers are far more likely to address a child formally than the Queen informally.
You all. Cheese speak for yall. All Yall. Lotta guys. Yall. Multiple guys, ye-all, old british stuff. Yous guys. Lobstaaa speak for yall.
Y'all :P
Hindi also has tum(तुम) and aap(आप). But these are more related with respect than with numbers. So, "tum" is for singular but it can be made plural by "tum log" or "tum sab". " Aap" is generally for elder singular or general plural. Politeness and number are mixed. Sanskrit is very clear with this, it has 7x3= 21 ways of saying "you" with three number and 7 case system.
For the confused non-english speakers here, lead is pronounced like read and lead is pronounced like read.
But reed is a whole separate word, and it has nothing to do with read or read, or lead or lead!
Okay I'm definately not following😅 To me it says exactly the same thing...
@@femmm0336 They're two different words. Read is pronounced like red and past tense from read, which is pronounced like reed. Lead is a little bit different. Lead is like lead in a pencil, and pronounced like led. Lead is pronounced like leed and is like leading someone around. Make sense?
Ok, that's funny. Well played sir.
My brain ehhhhhhh
I'd love to see some more stuff on oceanic pacific languages im so glad you talked about maori language. Myself I'm half samoan and wasn't rly taught my language that much (same as my cousins) so I'd love to see some more pacific Island stuff and your opinion on the languages
Just found this channel. So interesting!
Surprised you didn’t mention “you” referring to a singular person and “you” referring to multiple people. (Like in portuguese, singular: você/tu, plural: vocês/vós). Now that would be useful.
Simple, just add a S like You: single person Yous: multiple people
That’s why we Southerns say “ya’ll. You plural.
Down our way 'tis as follows: Ye -plural (also singular but inviting a response from others not being addressed) Yourselves-plural, less formal Yeerselves- plural, informal Yourself -singular, informal Standard English and the various dialects are very different animals.
Who invented "you" to be both singular and plural in english in the first place anw ?
Jokes on you, the south figured that out. Now we’ve developed the most southern word of all southern words, y’all. Or if you want to get real crazy, all y’all.
Or we could just say "three each".
Too many words
That was literally my exact thought.
@@nikitaberejnoy4359 same amount of time to say it
@Logan Parsons ”Threech” is, like, 0.2 seconds faster.
I honestly wouldn't be surprised if the glottal stop in "three ' each" disappeared over time to make "threech"
1:25 A more appropriate term for Ghana English Creole, will be Ghana pidgin. And it isn't spoken by the population (like the Liberian or Nigerian pidgin English which is universal to most social or ethnic groups) but rather a few youngster social class- sth they adopt in high school. . It also spoken amongst downtown young ppl. In all cases men. It is also based on urban masculinity. Nobody in the country or villages speaks it. . I dont think there's anything like 'some lait lait' in Ghana . There are however, other similar expressions; "my body is doing me oh" or 'my body is doing doing...' which can mean many things depending on the context.
Interestingly, there is one example of duplication in LVE (London Vernacular English). When specifically referencing how long you are going to be, you can say "two minutes", or you can say, "two two's", when expressing a less specific but still urgent time frame.
Children: We read three books each Georgian: We read three times three books.
Each of us read three books.
you could also say we ALL read 3 books
Or you could put it like "we read thrice three books"
@@BertGrink That could mean that they read and re-read and re-read again those 3 books meaning the 3 of them would've still read only 3 books, thrice. The thrice there would apply to the read as in how many times did they read th the 3 books. If its for the number of something and not the nunber of times I think it should be triple not thrice
@@BertGrink sorry for the long reply xd
“English, you’re not normal” Two words that look the same and sound different: Read Read
I don't understand but are talking about homophones?
@@ISS600 The very contrary: homographs.
@@LeonardoJimenezHerrera Oh. Forgive my idiocy.
Rēad Reād Better?
nightinthetwilight is this supposed to be a snickers commercial?
I think clusivity for first plurl would be nice feature. It sure is a feature I've kind of missed a few times, where I had to specify what kind of "we" or "us" I ment. The way around can be anything from a few extra words, to a full sentence or two, depending on how explainable it
6:45 As I recall from my time in Idaho, the Shoshone language has those features as well. 5:55 Having different words for the instrumental and a comitative "with" would be helpful in scientific writing.
The video should be titled “how to make English even more confusing”.
The exclusive we is pretty useful, I think. There's an informal slang form used in Mandarin Chinese that can be used that way, and it's pretty neat.
More like titled "This guy needs to internet more."
I got so confused in his wording
English but it’s confusing and ng ng you you
@@asdkotable In Indonesian too, they use the exclusive "we".
I always thought the lack of the plural "you" is the most glaring linguistic omission English has. Unlike the lack of a you/thee distinction, the plural "you" actually causes communications difficulties, and unfortunately the solutions to it, including the most popular one (y'all) get derided as ungrammatical when they are solving an actual problem.
Y'all need to come to the southern US of A, then. Yous guys would know it's proper English in NYC.
In Scotland we say "ye" or "yous" for plural. Also if you speak in Scots, thou is still said, especially among older people. My gran will say, "Whit'll thou be daein the morrow?", = "What will you be doing tomorrow?", to just me. But, "Whaur'll ye be gang?", = "Where'll you be going?", to my brother and me.
A bigger "you" problem is referencing a general figure of a person, but they think you meant them directly. But I've never had an issue with understanding when someone meant plural or singular in person or through text. I sometimes will turn a generic person reference from "You need to" into "People need to," or to a specific group, I'll say, "You guys need to".
What's strange is that 'you' *is* the plural form, it's the singular we have lost. English used to have the T-V distinction of most common European languages. That was to have a singular form, which was only used in informal contexts, and a plural form used for groups or as a formal singular. So in French, 'tu' should really only be used informally to a single person, but 'vous' should be used to groups or to someone of higher status than you. English had 'thou' as it's informal singular, and 'you' as its formal singular and plural. We have gradually lost the singular form (though not completely, my dialect retains it in a number of circumstances, albeit *very* colloquially) whilst retaining the plural, which has evolved to be a singular. Now we're having to re-devise plural forms given the changing role of the old plural. Evolution in action!
Nerys Ghemor You works fine if there is no chance of contextual misunderstanding between singular and plural. And if there is “you all” works perfectly fine. It’s not like other languages don’t use two words for pronouns. Never understood why people are caught up on it when “You all” fixes everything, we just use “you” mostly for the same reasons that the romans tended not to use “ego”, because it is implied by the verb form (eg. amo) that one is talking from the first person perspective, and of clarity is needed they add the Ego, just like you all (all being the clarifier) clarifies the contextually less likely scenario when the singular and plural can be confused.
There are a few concepts that can't be discribed easily in English because the words simply don't exist. Like the German word "gelungen", it means much more than than the common translation "to succeed". It means the success came about with the help of a force that is not conveyed with the meaning of the word. This force could be god, coincidence or luck for example. As success in often not as predictable as we would want.
English instrumental preposition is "by," as well as, "with," which is "accompaniment."
So a reason like this is why many non-native English speakers, especially us Indians have a weird accent while speaking English because in our languages, we only pronounce the word exactly as it is written. It's just a neat feature to have in a language.
same in romanian, we pronounce letters, not words. It's indeed a huge advantage that sadly many languages don't have.
French : "oiseaux" 👁👄👁
Same with Portuguese. Once you learn the rules (that are really simple by the way) you can pronounce any word. But for English, I would that it's almost like Chinese at this point, because you have to remember how to pronounce every individual word e just because two words are written very similar doesn't mean that you can pronounce them the same way (Through/though/thought for exemple)
@@Samurollie engraçado.. eu acho ingles facil pq a gente tem regra pra caralho mas vc fez um bom ponto sobre a pronuncia
@@riqrimoli acho que se você já tem um bom vocabulário em inglês você consegue adivinhar (ou chegar perto) qual seria a pronuncia de uma palavra olhando apenas como ela é escrita. Mas eu acho que, principalmente pra quem vem de uma língua como o portugues e ainda tá começando a aprender, acaba se tornando um barreira a mais
Person: “What is the weather today?” Me: “rains”
I mean... I would just say rain, or forecast rain. is that wrong?
Might sound funny to you but that's exactly how we say that in Czech :-D
SMJSmoK Czech is basically drunk Russian
@@hermanbrachey7653 Haha that's...an interesting observation :-D
IT GONNA RAIN!!! Thank you Ollie.
The use of eh can be used to turn a sentence into a question in English. It can also be used to ask for agreement.
Likewise for huh or right.
Omg if the “we” differentiation existed in English it would have saved me so many awkward moments! The number of times someone else has said “we’re going to lunch” and I thought I was included. So awkward! The with one makes sense to. But the double meaning of with provides so many fun opportunities for a play on words.
“I like you” Vs. “I like like you”
got eem
If it's about filler word like(similarity) than I think it's just homonym with like(synonym to love)
or is that slang? and is it counted really?
@@gyu2994 Slang is still language. The fact that it's entered our language shows how English is evolving over time. Because that's what language does. It evolves.
"I'm good at chess, but I'm not GOOD good." Reduplication?
Well you're correct, but you're not *correct* correct yeah?
You would say great
@@ezicspy6749 You *COULD* say great.
@@nuberiffic yes or grand or I'm not amazing, or I'm not marvelous
@@ezicspy6749 ...you've missed the point entirely. Well done.
Something that made my informal english understanding better was when I noticed that you can make any name into a verb. It's often if not always used for humor and the context will make it understandable.
Watching though this has made me happy to have grown up in the southern USA so i have knowledge on both the "correct" formal english terms and slang terms. Redupication? we definitely do that (ex. Hear=to listen, hear hear=i agree. or "i'm hungry but not hungry hungry" to mean only slightly so, etc) and ESPECIALLY on the "better yes/no questions" part, cause yeah the formal way to ask a question would be "what did you just say?" or "whom did you see?" but 90% of the time the way i would say these things in a conversation i would say it like "you said what?" and "you saw who?", and it works perfectly well, even if its not whats taught to you in schools its instinctual and reflexive for fluent conversational english speakers who arent worried about writing/speaking in the same way you would type a paper for school or business. I could go on longer as well, but most of these are only things in this video english doesnt do OFFICIALLY, but theyre still things used by every day english speakers constantly in regular life.
We read three books each. Easy to differentiate.
You also need the other direction, but that also exists: We read three books between us. Or "We read a total of three books." If a feature is really needed in a language, speakers will find a way.
I still don't know if the Georgian version means "we read three books in total (each of us read one)," or "we read three books (each one of us read the same three books, still making it three in total)."
That brings up the point that sometimes there are ways to say something in English, but because of history or just difficulty in getting people to do things, people don't consistently use. That renders it almost like it isn't a feature of the language. Like, 'you' could mean the one person you're talking to or it could mean a group that you are addressing. Context usually fixes that, but not always. If you always meant one person and then we had to say youguys to mean we're talking to a group of people, then that would be a consistent rule/feature of the language.
@@NickRoman this is when dialects become useful for things such as "y'all", signifying a group that excludes the speaker.
Or you know we all read our own book.
"I mean it's kinda bad, but it's not bad-bad." "Oh man, his sunburn was red-red!" Colloquial English uses redupilcation all the time, often as an emphatic. It's just not taught on the syllabus.
Yeah yeah yeah. Sure sure. Oh no wait, Here ,here!
So do you like her, or like-like her. It appears to be a technique to increase the degree of the strength of the meaning of a word when English is lacking a more powerful word.
I like this comment but I dont like like it
Coloqualy speaking you can use whatever you want to get the point across. In my tongue also no duplication but if you say "nē, nē, nē" everyone will understnad that your either hurt or in disbelief.
that is only in an informal register of the language
Back when I learned Norwegian sign language, I leraned that the signs for 'we' or 'us' (same thing) was highly different according to context. 'We' as in 'us two', two fingers rolling back and forth between I and the person I was talking about, whereas 'we' as in a group, could be specified differently. If there were a group of people around me, I'd signal that by drawing a smaller circle in the semicentre of that group - and so fourth. Then - if it were to be a talk about 'we' as in 'all of us', the circle drawn, would be above my head, and rather large. I'm not sure if this is specific to Norwegian sign language or how they do it in other sign language languages/dialects, but I'm quite sure it's about the same. PS: Learning sign language is highly recommended - not just for including those that cannot hear to well, but perhaps most of all to see how rich that language family really is!
Every language is well in its own. While in German we do have prepositions like : Auf, zu, an, bei, nach, aus, von ...for location or direction. Same with English (with, on, at, to...) In Swahili you add just at the end of a noun a -ni to indicate the direction and location. Naenda sokoni (naenda- I go, soko- market plus the prefix -ni)
English has reduplication: At the end of the college school year I was walking down the street and I saw my friend driving a car. "Hey! Where ya headed?" I asked. "I'm going home." he said. "You're going 'home'? Or you're going 'home-home'?" I asked. "Home-home!" he clarified. "Oh! Have a nice summer vacation!" I said. "Home" = the dormitory where he lived during the school year. "Home-home" = his "real" home, i.e. his parents' home.
U r too smart for us
Called contrastive reduplication!
Also, do you like your friend, or do you like-like your friend?
I hear you and thought of similar examples, but my sources don't count it as playing a "productive" and "morphological" role. (Basically, if that counts as productive grammatical reduplication, to be consistent, so does so much repetition in language.) So they count English among "languages that do not employ reduplication as a grammatical device" (Rubino in WALS ch. 27).
Ha. And a car-car is a Real Car. Nice.
One thing I don’t like about English is having to ask how a word is spelled.
**French joined the chat**
So how do you feel about Mandarin?
*spelt :D
paepsae no, that would make it past tense.
@@libefiken1863 First those both mean past tense
Hey, love the content. I'm wondering if you've across or would do videos on General Semantics of Count Alfred Korzybski & "English^2 or English Prime ?" As a guerrilla ontologist/maybe logician love to hear any takes on these and useage in all languages. Keep up the good content either way! -AMKR/Shawn
Very interesting, as someone who also speaks Spanish from birth, I knew from the start you were going to bring up the polite and informal "you" from other languages. In Spanish it is "tu" ( informal ) and "usted" ( formal ).