You're not fluent in English if you don't know this
2024 ж. 15 Қаң.
50 000 Рет қаралды
This is what you should be using if you want to sound like an advanced speaker of English and not a robot. You'll learn common English expressions and lot more about litotes.
Sign up for the LetThemTalkTV newsletter here. It's full of interesting insights and stories about the English language and it's free!
eepurl.com/izRKww
#litotes
I have to admit that this class wasn't a total loss: litotes can be pretty tricky, but it's not my first rodeo and I won't be mean about handling this topic. Thanks as always!
I commonly use it in my native language but translating to (or thinking in) English I should know exactly the more appropriate words which is very unlikely unless I didn't learn it as an idiom.
I couldn't say that I totally disagree with you.
"A tad peckish" is what I came up with. I remember when teaching, one of my class arrived having walked to school through a downpour. He walked in and said "It's a tad moist out there" which I thought was rather witty for a 12/13 year old. (ed. Don't know why I am watching this as I am a native Brit. Never knew ironic understatement was "litotes" though).
Your story was more than a tad interesting
A tad peckish sounds very British to me, even more so than "perhaps"!
"Thrice" - I like this word. When I taught it to my children and my daughter dared to use it in an essay, the teacher asked who she had heard that nonsense from and sent me a message not to teach silly things to anyone, I was not a teacher after all. I even checked its frequency in ngram viewer of google and saw that although its frequency in written material is six times less than that of "three times", it's not vanished yet. And now I am grateful for hearing it from someone's mouth who does matter.
The teacher is wrong. We all need thrice in our lives. Let's bring it back.
@@LetThemTalkTV Cock-a-doodle once. “I shall not deny him!”. Cock-a-doodle twice. “I shall not deny him!”. Cock-a-doodle thrice. “I deny him!”. Thrice he denied him! (apostle Peter, story told by a storyteller in the flick from 2001 called A Knight's Tale) :)
I like it, too. See the example in my reply to Gideon :)
In the speech (in Shakespeare) by Marcus Anthony about Julius Ceasar , there is something like this: Ambitious? I THRICE presented him a kingly crown, which he refused, was this ambitious?
Once, twice, thrice beats one time, two times, three times, every time. One time two time sounds cumbersome, wordy, and therefore excessive.
I'm a 58 yr old native speaker. I've used litotes my whole life, but never heard the word "litotes" before this video. Thanks.
Not too shabby at all, kept me far from bored.
I'm not displeased with your comment
@@LetThemTalkTV SIR THE SHIP HAS STRUCK A BERG!
In Hindi (india) we often remark "ye itna bura bhi nahi hai waise" which means "it's not that bad after all" which actually means "its great" 😊
't kon minder = (northern) Dutch for "it could be worse" = totally awesome!
It wasn't a waste of time at all! Most of the expressions are far from useless and I watched the video not without pleasure. Thank you Gideon ❤
I wouldn't mind watching more videos like this one.
You won't be disappointed with the ones coming up. They're not half bad
I would point out that this is less common somewhere like North America… Brits and Aussies use understatement and irony a lot more 😊
Yes! Was looking for this quote. As an American I agree with this. We do absolutely use litotes, but less often, and I think our examples are less artful than the ones given here. Americans just aren't as big on (therefore aren't as good at) wordplay as the Brits. But I think part of why Brits are so good at this is precisely because being direct and saying what they mean seems to be an enormous faux pas. Like Brits would rather perish than just tell someone they either really liked or really didn't like something! But it makes their langauge so much more interesting than ours.
I wouldn't claim your channel lacks informativeness. In fact, I'd go so far as to not entirely fail to thank you for your efforts, which are far from unappreciated.
I wonder what the noble answer will be😊.
I loved this! I never learned the word "litotes". The truly brilliant high school student from China living with me has recently started doing this on his own which indicated to me that he was advancing quite well with his English after only 2 1/2 years!
I'm from Jutland in Denmark, I have never heard about this way of speaking before 🙂 Google: "In Danish, understatements using litotes are seen as characteristic of the Jutlandic dialect. A stereotypical example is the phrase det er ikke så ringe endda ('it is not even so bad'), which is used to mean 'that's great'."
not-half Interesting
I used to hear that all the time when I lived a couple years in the Copenhagen/København area, so maybe that isn't just jyske?
I haven't studied Danish at all, but from my time living in Sweden I got the impression that the subjunctive tense could be used to signal wistfulness or irony. So in Swedish I think you could say "Det var inte så svårt" rather than the expected "Det är inte så svårt" to set up a mood similar to litotes. I could be very wrong about all of this, and it may have no bearing on Danish at all. My background is computational linguistics, and we're very much prescriptivists, so I very much WANT to look for rules such as these, even when they might not be found.
But now, I don't know, if you really don't speak this way, or just made a joke. That's why I dislike this way of speaking, at least in some situations. You need to be very familiar with the person you are talking to, to have an idea how they get it. Maybe that's why it's more used in spoken, when in written language.
@@holger_p I'm always responsible for my interpretation, so I choose the "positive" but am giving you right it's sometimes very difficult to know what is meant in written language
Now, that video wasn't half bad. I'm no stranger to English and I rarely struggle with comprehending litotes, but actually using them is not exactly an easy feat. Saying it took me a good half an hour to come up with the previous sentence would hardly be an exaggeration. In Russian, my favourite litote is недурственно (ne'durstvenno) - an exaggerated form of недурно (nedurno) - "not bad", "not too ugly", which is very high praise.
That wasn't shabby at all, but no reply? I dare not think it is because you are Russian. Come on, don't be bad sports! Is it not the nation of Tolstoi, Chechov and Pushkin? I, for one have more than a passing admiration for the many geniuses of your country!
Borrowing недурственно from your volcab fam, thank you
@@amatista65 Thanks for your support! Also, kudos for mentioning Pushkin, I was under the impression he was less than well-known outside the Russian-speaking world.
Allow me to give one more example of a Russian litotes, a modern one. If something is really good/excellent, we use the epithet "годный", which roughly means "it will do", "it's tolerable", "you could use it (without much disgust)".
"Not the brightest crayon in the box." Our version of it in French translate to: "Not the sharpest pencil in the box." In Quebec we also have this one that goes: "Not the most thawed corndog from the box."
In German we say „Nicht die hellste Kerze auf der Torte“ (not the brightest candle on the cake)
Quebec's is the best I've heard! Eh?
Not a terrible way to spend 10 minutes. I enjoyed that.
My use of Litotes is less than sporadic and Gideon's erudition of this aspect of English has not fallen on deaf ears. I'm sure we covered this topic in high school. Most people use Litotes unconsciously so as to ameliorate what could be perceived as a "harsh" or "firm" statement, similar to speak excessively in platitudes (which I hate !!!). Cannot stand platitudes. Thanks for another excellent video Gideon.
As an American I’d just like to say that there are many of my fellow Americans that will ask "What language was he speaking?"
I'm told "peckish", meaning a little bit hungry, is not in AE.
Not bad lesson at all! It's not everyday that we can find such a brilliant teacher. I'm not averse to learning something new from you soon! Warm greetings from Poland!
I wouldn't be in the least dismayed it you watched my other upcoming videos.
I think you've used some examples of litotes in your comment. Bravo 🎉
@@LetThemTalkTVGreetings from the underground; thanks a lot for your insightful lessons.
Many thanks, dear teacher. Here's an example by the late Christopher Hitchens, when he was asked a provoking question by a member of an audience: "would that the question was as clever as it sounds".
This lesson again have brought me to the limits of my abilities and that did not left me disappointed at all!!! 😁
I would expect nothing less
As a linguistic teacher, your usefulness is not a flash in the pan. Kol ha-kavod Gideon!
Gideon's lessons are far from boring. I'm not sure why you'd write to him in Klingon, though.
@@Gideon01not the sharpest tool in the shed yourself, aren't you? 😂
@@alexanderbarsukov1796 Why would you be so mean to me, tovarish?
@@Gideon01 why would you say dumb things about languages, mate?
@@alexanderbarsukov1796 אלכסנדר ידידי, אתה צריך לפתח חוש הומור.
I have found this video so important and not missing it even stop doing my job.
This lesson was bordering the perfection.
Bordering ON perfection 😊
This f***** English!!!. Always the same problem with preposiions on , in, at, over and many more. Thank you .
"Not my cup of tea" I loved to learn that!
It's not really the sort of video I wouldn't show to my students. But I must say that I also love the English expressions that use images, some of them being very graphic, like "He's as thick as a brick", "let's call a spade a spade", "that takes the bicuit", and so many more.
This lesson wasn't that dull I suppose. In fact, I mightn't fail to remember litotes in my next conversation :)
It wouldn't be a waste of effort.
Couldn't do without literary devices Sir G. -- litotes, simile,metaphor, euphemism, pun,irony and so on Couldn't thank you enough 🙏
More literary devices coming soon. Thanks
@@LetThemTalkTV Nothing like it Sir G.
Thank you.
My favourite litotes , or maybe its just ironic sarcasm, is very Scottish. 'Aye, did yea', meaning 'You are full of BS'. The more someone continues to extend the dramatically unbelievable , the more the phrase is repeated as the singular response, usually with a tilt of the head and a further inflection of one of the three words.
Yes, that's a good example. The one I can think of that is quite similar is "yer don't say" that you hear a lot in old American movies.
I don't remember anyone subsequently being smashed over the heid with a bottle of Buckfast in any old American movies though 🤨 @@LetThemTalkTV
Saturday night on the tiles in Glasgow, ahh it takes me back.
Brilliant!
It's not lost on me that these lessons aren't a bad thing at all. Can't appreciate this enough!
Gideon, my man! You´re the GOAT of English teaching! Excellent video!
Such a useful point! We are already familiar with this usage. For example "to be not dissimilar to sth". I mean to say, I learnt to use dissimilar in this fixed expression only most of the time, which sort of shows the usage you have been talking about.
Not bad at all, Sir! Btw, in Modern Greek we use the term σχήμα λιτότητας (skhíma litótitas), lit. "figure of litotes".
Good to get a comment from a Greek speaker. I hope my pronunciation wasn't too bad.
@@LetThemTalkTV 😄 In classical times, λιτότης was pronounced /li'totε:s/, and later on /li'totis/. In Modern Greek it's λιτότητα, pronounced /li'totita/.
I know a Greek who says "I don't prefer it" (δεν το προτιμώ) a lot. It's a typical Greek way of saying you don't like something, I think? (I am learning Greek, am Norwegian, and we are no strangers to the use of litotes either).
@@goddessfreya13 Νομίζω ότι δεν είναι καθόλου σπάνιο :)
@@bkwrmgl 😄 Not uncommon, then!
Thanks a lot dear Gideon, as usual, your videos did not left me without useful knowledge. Have a good day🙏
I have never heard of litotes but I did know of understatement as a means of expressing ideas in a more subtle way.
As a side note - this is used much more in England than America. If you use it in American English, you'll still be understood, but will come across as being British Generally we say things a little more directly - "I really didn't want to wake up early" is more emphatic than "I didn't want to wake up early", rather than downplaying it to "less than keen" Downplaying is used almost exclusively when joking - if you go bowling with a friend and get a really good score and then they get better than you, some people will just come out and say "You're amazing, where'd you learn to bowl like that" or something but a lot of people will downplay their accomplishments as a joke - "I guess you're alright" Many people who are confident in their abilities but not arrogant will also use this to downplay their own skill to make others feel better - if I absolutely annihilate a friend's score, I might say "I have done this a time or two" or "I've had a bit of practice over the years" This is all in negative cases - you're unhappy about being beaten by a friend, or you're trying to make them feel better because they've been beaten by you If we're referring to good feelings (like the example of the meeting being cancelled) it's much more common. It's a pretty common occurrence that you'll hear that someone "isn't exactly devastated" about plans being cancelled
Hi Gideon, many tks for the video that I've found very, very effective. Have a nice the rest of the day. I look fwd to seeing you soon.
The pleasure is mine
Litotes - really interesting addition! I often share new words( new for me😊) and phrases with my learners in grade 8 and we all love it! Because it’s my cup of tea.
I wouldn't be upset if you taught us more of these not uncommon expressions.
Learning litotes is no mean feat ...it´s tricky but useful...Thank you Mr. Gideon !
I won't disagree with Gideon that litotes can add bit of flavour to our words. But wouldn't be surprised at all if he was less than keen to show off his full potential here.
Thanks, the lesson was not bad! I can't say that I didn't know about this topic, but this term was new to me.
You're not alone
She sure wasn't the brightest bulb in the marquee but then she wasn't too hard on the eyes, either😅
This is the kind of thing I live for. I say that without a trace of irony. I'm unable to be ironic in print.
Understated irony is somewhat underrated
In Berlin, where I grew up, a common expression is "Da kannste nich meckan", Can't Complain. It shows the constant inherent dissatisfaction of the Berliner with everything and anything around them.
My brother literally only speaks/mostly writes in litotes. I'm always in awe, it's so interesting to read his messages :p In like every sentence. I can't grasp it.
I think that litotes are very specific to British English. It reminds me of a sketch on TV when a woman spoke to an unhappy man:"You are not entirely happy, are you?"
Once I read an essay about British humour. It gave an example of a British-style advertisement (contrasting it to American ads which tend to describe the product in superlative degrees): "Try the ... Juice. Many don't like it. You may become an exception". Litotes seems to be a handy instrument for deadpan humour.
I should say that in my experience these kind of expressions - litotes, I learnt something today - are not as commonly used in the USA as they are in Commonwealth countries. I was surprised, having come from Australia and moving to the USA at age 29, that In general Americans don’t seem to use, and often don’t even get, these kind of nuances and expressions
They do this in the southern states. If food is good, they say that well, that didn't suck. This area tends not to be effusive with praise but want to express that they liked it in sort of a sarcastic way.
I'm American, everything he said in the video are phrases occasionally heard in media in America. I can't imagine they wouldn't get it. Your usage of them may have made you sound weird, if you were using sentences and phrases that no American would say. That's probably going to be true anytime you are in a significantly different dialect region. An example of a regional phrase others wouldn't know would be "how much you like" in the Southern states, and Northerners would never understand it means "how much longer will you be," or "how much do you have left?" Australia has a lot of localized phrases that no one outside of Australia uses, and Australian media rarely is distributed internationally, so it's more likely for an Australian to run into that problem.
@@litigioussociety4249 point taken. Yes, there are quite some differences; things I didn’t understand at first. I was first in Kentucky and found there to be much richer in language than where I am now, in Michigan.
I'm not averse to hearing about it from an American perspective
@@krisrowan in good Dutch: "het eten was goed binnen te houden", i.e. "the food was easy to keep down".
I dared my friend ChatGPT like this "It wouldn't be incorrect to say that I'm curious about litotes, double negatives, and linguistic recursion. I challenge you, using a sentence that is not impossible to understand, you create a sentence with recursion, litotes and double negative." And he replied: "Challenge accepted! Here is a sentence that incorporates recursion, litotes, and double negatives: "It is not uncommon to find someone who is not above saying that they are not disinterested in avoiding complexities in language." It was quite challenging to understand, but I think he meant "It's common to find someone who says they are interested in avoiding complexities in language".
Your friend will get you into trouble.
This technique changes the emphasis. If you say that's very good, the emphasis is that the baseline is bad and you have surpassed that. On the other hand, if you say that's not bad at all, the emphasis is really on perfection. You did not achieve perfection, but it was not bad considering the standard was perfection.
As if there weren't a comment coming your way. Not the worst video I've watched today 😅 Much of thanks to you, always
Your comment could be worse.
I wasn't unimpressed by your presentation. And I wouldn't object to experiencing another one.
Brilliant. At least 80% of Australian English is litotes. Pretty much every statement is issued with a qualifier, e.g. “It’s not far” [less than a 5-hour drive]; “It’s not bad” [It’s good]; “I’m not feeling too good” [I’m dying]; “It’s not cold today.” [It’s 40 degrees Celsius in the shade]; “You’re not wrong” [You are 100% correct]; etc.
Not too shabby. In German we share the same concepts but I never yet heard the word "litotes". I think litotes are one of the spots in the world where English and German humor meet.
ChatGPT: "I might not be absent forever."
you get chatGPT to write your comments?
@@LetThemTalkTV Just this one! I asked it to say "I'll be back" using litotes.
ahh! got it. You got a robot to write the line for a robot.
@@LetThemTalkTV Robots are no stranger to litotes anymore!
Sir, I have a big confusion in participle clauses. Please make a video on participle clauses.
Another way to increase his knowledge and be more subtle is to say something indirectly by using the definition of a word instead of it. 'i think that person always prioritises his own interests in any kind of situation.= He's egoist. 'as usual he didn't show us his courage in this simple conflict'=he's a coward
I won't be inconsolable if I find another video like this.
- Are you a robot? - I am not too far from using litotes.
Not too shabby. "Do you any favours", meaning benefit, or improve is used this way a lot. He was due to give an adress to the convention, but getting trolleyed[drunk] on the mini bar had done his clarity of mind no favours"😮
5:00 "... he was just a tad bit hungry"
4:03 "... I wasn't totally displeased" / "... I didn't quite shit in my pants" / "... I didn't die of shock" ...
NOT READY FOR A LATOTE, BUT READY TO THANK YOU FOR ANOTHER FANTASTIC LESSON.
French speaker here. Litotes are hardly unusual in my language, so I don't have trouble with these. I don't hate using such figures of speech.
pas mal, n'est-ce pas
I had a friend who was a gruff old marine, he used to say “he won’t like that so pretty good” or some variation of it.
Hello there. I'm from Mexico. Every now and then I considered my command of English to be not too bad at all and then am I reminded of a colonoscopy when I come across advance british native speakers 😮
We use litotes all the time in my country, for instance we say; Do you live in a tent? when someone enters into a room and they don't close the door; or Did you eat glass today? when someone stands in front of the Tv and they don't let you watch it. She doesn't have all the candy in the bag (she is a bit stupid) and so on...by the way I live in Argentina and I love your videos!!!
In the American South you will sometimes hear "Well, bless your heart" by middle-aged women who are restraining their desire to throw curses at someone who annoys them.
Gideon, greetimg from Essaouira where I am spending a couple days before heading off back to Casablanca.
Say hello to Jimi Hendrix.
It wasn't too bad to hear about litotes. I wouldn't say that people don't use it very often.
Here's another nice Dutch one: "Ik kon mijn lachen inhouden." This translates to "I managed to keep myself from laughing" and you may think this is said when someone tells a joke that wasn't funny. But no, this means you were suffering great physical pain after having some kind of accident. When this happens it is typically immediately followed bij "achteruit bidden", which translates to "praying backwards", meaning cursing in a blasphemous manner.
Sounds a bit like the German "mir ist nicht zum Lachen zumute" = I don't feel like laughing, when something bad has happened to you.
Today I studied this way of communicating, being more spicy in my observations, getting out of the normal way, I didn't know "litotes" I'm going to use it... I'll follow your advice, 2024 is going to be exciting💥
i have to tell you-this video was not too boring at all!
Example: "This person is missing some candy in the jar"
Not bad, that one ;-) No, I loved it :-)
Here's my attempt at one I feel is a bit more subtle, an understatement without negation, what do you think of it? Henry had been hiking for 3 days without even a snack and when he finally reached the town he found himself inclined to consider looking for rerplenishment.
In germany it's not different. For example we also say "nicht schlecht" "not bad" or to food "kann man essen" "you can eat it" and thats a compliment. But of course, english and german are so simular, so it's not surprising at all.
Well, that wasn't the worst use of my time! I feel like litotes suggests a prior expectation (or concern) to the contrary. "The arugula and peanut butter sandwich wasn't half bad" is saying you were worried it was going to be awful. But I would be careful about using it in very serious situations: nobody wants to hear a brain surgeon, when asked how the life-saving operation went, say "not half bad! I could have done worse!"
We should judge our brain surgeons on their medical prowess and not on their use or ironic understament
[use of ironic understatement]
And in my house, getting along isn’t rocket surgery 😂
I don't think this teacher is excessively overrated!
Not by half, this video wasn't bad! But seriously, I learned a name for these types of phrases, so thanks!
I don't particularly like litotes because I often think a lot longer than usual to find a good usage which fits a situation but I started adopting it. To be fair, it makes me sound less illiterate and uncivilized.
I really enjoyed this video, but I have one comment to make. It seems to me that figures of speech (including litotes and many others) are something that a person may or may not be proficient in and comfortable with even in their *native* language. (Although using them in one's second language may present its own, additional challenges; and it's also true that each language has its idiosyncrasies when it comes to figures of speech.)
I wasn't surprised cause psychologically speaking, using these litotes/idioms and expressions wouldn't harm anyone :))))
Sure, they can add confusion and an extra effort, by resolving their original meaning. Saying "don't shrink" instead of grow, is harder to realize.
As a native English speaker, I try very hard to avoid litotes, especially when speaking with non-intimate friends or people whom I know are not native English speakers, regardless of their proficiently.
I wouldn't stress too much about it. This seems to be an extremely common mode of casual speech in many languages. To give one small example, it's very common in Québec to say "pas pire" either as a backhanded compliment or as a grudging concession of some achievement. The phase "pas pire" [not worse] is dialectical Joual, not grammatical French. Properly one would say "pas mal" or "pas mauvais" and everyone understands this practice of grammatical regularity. So breaking with it is perhaps slightly outrageous. Thus it's perfect for setting up irony or sarcasm, and for giving a backhanded compliment into the bargain. I've encountered similar forms in Swedish, Russian, and German, but I won't offer examples as I'm not fluent enough in those languages to do them justice. My point is really that this seems to be something we humans tend to do fairly universally. Don't be afraid of it. Language is meant to be playful. It's how children learn, after all.
@@starfishsystems Yes, but moving between languages makes understanding specific instances of these forms rather difficult.
@@starfishsystems I agree. Although I had never heard the term "litotes" for theses expressions before, there are a lot of them in German and in other languages, too of course Here are just a few German examples that are used very often in every day speech: "nicht schlecht"= not bad; "da sag ich nicht nein" or "da bin ich nicht abgeneigt" = you mean yes; "das ist nicht gerade die feine Art" = when someone is behaving rudely; "das ist keine Wissenschaft" = it's easy to do/make; "er/sie hat die Weisheit nicht mit der Muttermilch aufgesogen" or "er/sie hat die Weisheit nicht mit dem Löffel gefressen" = talking about a stupid person; "mein Verständnis hält sich in Grenzen" = you don't have any sympathy/understanding at all for a certain behaviour/deed.
I agree with you--with people who don't know you well, or at least somewhat, irony and sarcasm can lead to misunderstandings. What I do, if I'm using these kinds of expressions with people who haven't known me very long, is use tone of voice and facial expression to indicate that I'm being ironic or sarcastic or...litotistical?
Me too having been accused of being sarcastic or patronising or any of many various crimes for speaking English.... also when using 'big words'
In short, recurring to using Litotes in the speech is tantamount to the uses of clisés or very conventional ways of expression, which definitively I abhor and "is not my cup of tea". (grin) 😜🤫
On the other hand, speaking in litotes only will not entirely improbably make you sound like a broken robot. 😁 Cheers for not a completely uninteresting lesson! In broken Arnie's voice: "Well mate, it's not like we'll never see each other again!"
Call the man over two meter’s Arnie instead of Arnold…😂,but excellent video,thank you so much for posting this gem!
This video has not been entirely unhelpful in expanding my knowledge.
I'm a software developer, and due to direct speach, I might sound a bit of "inhuman", when I say what I want, instead of "I don't want the opposite of what I want". If you instruct a computer, you try to make the job easy for the computer, so the job will be processed faster, without any extra double negation for 'decoration'
I can't be sure if the lesson is not terrible, but I am quite confident I could say it was not useless at all!
Your manner of teaching doesn't seem unappealing to me. Keep it up :)
The salt of the english repertoire ^^
sometimes i have the urge to use a litotes. maybe a faux litotes. such as "i'm not the biggest mccartney fan." which sounds like i'm not a mccartney fan. which i am. but i'm humble about. i'm realist about it. i know ram, band on the run, tug of war, pipes of peace. but some of the other albums. others know more. faux litotes could get you in trouble.
These litotes are very British expressions. Americans would probably use similar expressions with different words but they would sound incredibly charming to our ears because we're not sophisticated 😂.
Although she wasn't the brightest bulb in the class, she managed to become a medical doctor, not a mean feat!
The 'Terminator's "I'll be back" was a threat not merely an 'I'll see you later' or 'ta-ta fo-now.' He's promising to come back and seriously mess someone up 'real bad.' 😉
British always say in answer to "how are you" - "Not too bad" - in the US they say "Great" or some other positve. I guess the implication in Britain is that it is always bad, so if it's not too bad, it's good !