Fantastic Features We Don't Have In The English Language

[@yahlibar6832]

I love how I can watch a tom scott video and never know if it’s from 10 years ago or 10 minutes ago

[@banned2911]

Omg bruh what AAAH

[@lucasthech]

wow, just noticed that now, I thought the video was more recent

[@skidaddleskidoodle]

@@lucasthech Same exacly, I just saw that one in recomended under the newest video, I thought it's like a week old or smth

[@GlebNikolaevskii]

I kinda like this lighting more

[@rottenapple2276]

Wait what

[@themindstorm9947]

Maybe these features will be added in the next update

[@multistuff9831]

I hope they also patch the political class

[@ferna2294]

Actually, we are abandonware.

[@tmyfatmufo]

Buy the DLC for 29,99 for two different words you'll never ever use.

[@Reixuria]

Im evil I changed your likes from 699 to 700 😈

[@Reixuria]

Shronk Donk then why tf you making a big deal out of it then?

[@joshporter5205]

I'm studying Swedish at the moment and I am rather taken with the fact that the words for grandmother/grandfather, uncle, and aunt tell you which side of your family they belong to. Morbror, for example, is your mother's brother. Farfar is your father's father. Morfar? Your mother's father.

[@massive.nerd.potential]

I have today learned that that also applied to chinese.

[@davididchi]

We have that in Bulgarian as well, but only for aunts and uncles, not for grandparents. (Vuicho and vuina are maternal uncle and aunt, chicho and lelia are paternal uncle and aunt respectively.)

[@yiklongtay6029]

This is an interesting dilemma when designing languages. Do we go for precise vocabulary to convey information efficiently or do we go for generic and vague vocabulary to keep it easier to learn.

[@FilippaSkog]

As a native swede I’ve always found it a little weird that this isn’t the case in every language. “My grandmother on the maternal side”... or just mormor? Much easier. Good luck learning Swedish, Josh! I’ve heard it’s tricky. May I ask why you want to do it? It’s such a small language (though useful in three countries which is neat!).

[@derdenni6780]

@@FilippaSkog no

[@aurelia_the_jelly]

I'm learning Swedish and I discovered that it has 2 words for yes. 'Ja' and 'jo'. 'Ja' is used as we use yes, but 'jo' is used when someone asks a negative question like "Aren't you coming?" and you'd say "Jo" or "nej" so there's no confusion whether you mean "Yes, I'm not coming" or "No, I'm not coming".

[@allisonguthrie8257]

That’s brilliant

[@fridamamen2081]

Norwegian too :)

[@lourencovieira5424]

in french too

[@jb.9526]

This features in all Germanic languages (except English) and in French.

[@dumsquirrel]

That has always been one of the biggest sources of confusion in English for me. That's great. Although, I believe old English had that at one point.

[@shibaarmy4385]

"We're lost! what do we do?" Don't worry I'll use my special technique. *Absolute Direction*

[@hhhhhhhhhhhhhnhhhhhhh]

Wow that sounds like it came straight from an anime studio that heard the isekai is popular and just made another of the RPG type game based animes. How did you do that?

[@qaweeorltuys]

Just figure out which one of your hands is your north hand, and you can know the way

[@AJ-vs3yz]

Seems like something out of highschool dxd

[@allx1048]

That can't save you if I use the ability of my *Time Independence* You will find yourself in space but can you find yourself, *IN TIIIIIIIME*

[@jamesdewane1642]

I was horribly easy to disorient as a kid and had to train myself in what to pay attention to later so as not to be always driving the wrong way. People from languages with absolute direction always freaking know their orientation. They don't get lost unless you drug them and fly them to a different continent.

[@backfisch_op6297]

the difference between "female friend" and "girlfriend". In german it's the same word and it's often confusing if I'm talking about a female friend.

[@jliller]

That's a problem in the US too.

[@darklibertario5001]

This always confused me in English, in Portuguese (and romance languages as a whole) dating someone and being friends with them are two completely different concepts expressed with different words. Female friend = Amiga Girlfriend = Namorada

[@Lenoxuss]

@@jliller And it's mostly generational. Anyone I can think of saying "girlfriend" for their platonic female friend is almost certainly over 45 years old at this point

[@miguelpimentel5623]

@@darklibertario5001 i realise your coment is 7 months old, but something cool is that in portuguese "amigo/a" used to mean girlfriend/boyfriend but also friend. Basicly it was like German or English with same word for both concepts causing mildly annoying confusion. One example of this was the medieval songs known as "cantigas de amigo" meaning "songs to boyfriend". In the 1300s people all over Portugal started using "amigo/a amado/a" or "amigo/a enamorada/o" to create diference to normal "amigos". Later the "e" was dropped turning the word into "namorado" which people started using as a noun instead of an adjective. There is a writting by some academic medieval dude complaining about the younger generation using this new widespread term. Supposedly it is one of the oldest clearly recorded instances of complaits about how young people are speaking wrong and using slang.

[@darklibertario5001]

@@miguelpimentel5623 That's some very interesting insight, I've studied about the troubadours and "cantigas de amigo" but never really connected the dots about the original use of the word, in a weird way I'm really glad that those two concepts were divided linguistically, I wish English had this.

[@cathe8282]

It drives me crazy that in English there is no determination with, say, "brother/sister-in-law". It could mean your spouse's sibling or the spouse of your own sibling.

[@dariialysiuk8787]

Ukrainian/Russian speaker here, and trust me, you're BLESSED to have this system. See, we have a separate name for almost every member of the family; there are so many complicated names that almost no one knows every one of them, and when someone does and mentions it everyone will be like 'wtf is that? Do you mean your spouse's sibling?' (and, of course, all the terms are separate for the two genders) There even are competitions at knowing all of these, if I'm not mistaken. I'm fascinated with how plain and simple it is in English.

[@MohsinExperiments]

But in Urdu we do have different names for these relations.

[@dariialysiuk8787]

@@MohsinExperiments oh cool! And do you, like, actually know all of them??

[@history2know422]

@@dariialysiuk8787 Yes

[@Cepheus_01]

@@magicpenguin9988 I was just about the say the same thing. Step sister and sister in law are bother the same word in French.

[@geoffreyhui830]

Being bilingual in English and Cantonese, it is much easier to chat with other bilinguals using a mixture. Actually, once you start, it is extremely difficult to revert back to one language or the other without contamination, unless a monolingual third person joins the conversation.

[@pelipoika88]

English-Finnish bilingual here and I agree. I mix the two languages a lot when talking with friends and find it harder to speak only English. Only Finnish is a bit easier for me, as it's my native language, but easiest is to mix both of them on the fly.

[@Rage_Quiting]

English-thai bilingual here, me too

[@neecogwheelsword3627]

In my experience this ease is a consequence of lacking vocabulary in one of the two, might just be a language purist though idk

[@geoffreyhui830]

@@neecogwheelsword3627 Not in all cases.

[@ZratP]

​​@@neecogwheelsword3627 sometimes yes but sometimes it's just that one language has an amazing way of describing a situation that the other doesn't. Maybe it's shorter, maybe it's all condensed in a single word while it's a full sentence on the other, maybe it's just more accurate. I speak French-English-Japanese and with some other trilinguals we often end up with sentences that are full of words from the 2 other languages.

[@LumaSloth]

- Have you ever heard about that band? - Which band? - *Absolute Direction*

[@beth629]

HahahAhhhHhahaha

[@saadhorsepower8908]

- Have you ever heard about that band? - Which band? - Absolute Direction

[@virginialao5132]

*Absolute funny*

[@Razorcarl]

hahhaaaahshshssh

[@krishna2803]

*badam tsss*

[@ma-tanica]

about inclusivity - there's soviet joke about some party official who during his speech makes an optimistic prediction: "In year 2000 we will live much better". One of his listeners, an ordinary worker, replies "I get it, what about us?"

[@samo_di8420]

Why did I read this in a Russian accsent

[@ma-tanica]

@@samo_di8420 because I typed it with a russian accent!

[@Liggliluff]

Yes, there are 3 types of exclusivity for "we" and people usually only focus on two. It's me+you, me+them, me+you+them (where them is any number of people). - Your suggestion of an "everyone" pronoun isn't bad either. But -we- everyone already got "everyone".

[@konstantinstepanov5461]

but isnt Russian "we" is the same as Eglish "we"? I mean it can mean (you/me) or (me/them) or (all of us)

[@TGlooknohands]

Who are you, Comrade Question? :P

[@IdliAmin_TheLastKingofSambar]

“No, dum-dum, your OTHER North!”

[@itay1232]

Lmao

[@thegreypenguin5097]

"Make sure you keep west when driving"

[@captainahab5522]

This would get confusing in space Maybe have orientation with the sun and the body that you are orbiting

[@ragdollrose2687]

As an adult person who can't quickly distinguish left from right and tell time under pressure, I'm certain I would be told that anyway

[@blackfordoblique1965]

"No, dum-dum your OTHER North!" it's, 'No, dummy, your OTHER North" a dummy may exhibit temporal situational disorientation including xy and z & t or inappropriate or inordinate responses socially for myriad reasons. A dum dum...

[@y0y4y0]

I personally don't use it when typing, but in Spanish you have to start every interrogative question with ¿ This helps out a lot when reading a text and having questions that are super long.

[@joannas322]

so true! same with exclamation marks ! I'm a big reader and sometimes a character will say something but you don't realise until after the sentance that they were meant to be shouting the whole time. Then I go back and read the sentence again to get the full effect.

[@y0y4y0]

@@joannas322 double reading! It's actually kind of a shame we don't have that in other languages (like Catalan or English)

[@DistrarSubvoyikar]

i sometimes use the ¿ in English too

[@alahiri2002]

My favorite thing about this is that it doesn’t necessarily draw attention to the complete sentence, rather focusing purely on the interrogative portion. The following sentence is a grammatically correct question in English: _Dad, what is that?_ In Spanish, this is what you would write to express the same question: _Papá, ¿que es eso?_ It may not look like much, but for long sentences with multiple commas and only one phrase that is actually doing the “questioning,” this makes reading Spanish exponentially easier.

[@vignotum132]

@@alahiri2002I disagree with it being exponentially easier, as English uses reverse word order, which together with interrogative words like “what” or “how” and questions being separated by one of .,:; makes it quite clear what is a question and what is not. OP even admits to it being left out of a lot of typing, can you imagine how little people would use it in English, especially considering the amount of weird contractions English uses?

[@nevadie133]

“I’m east-handed, when I’m facing north”

[@dioganes]

How handy!

[@ravenhart4387]

"I'm west-handed, when I am facing south."

[@PerryStevPT]

OMG, I laughed so much!

[@DragonMoth34]

im south handed when facing north

[@fBOMBB]

"I'm south-handed when I'm facing east"

[@tytywuu]

I am from Hong Kong and in Chinese, we have a word for every position in a family tree. For example, 姑姐 means "dad's younger sisters" and 姨丈 means "dad's younger sister's husband" In English, they are just simply uncles and aunts.

[@onisuryaman408]

Not to mention the cousins and nephews. I get lost on that.

[@wngmv]

It's widely different in different part of china as well. I'm from northern china, dad's younger sister would be 姑妈/小姑子。 姨丈 would be 姑父. 姨 in our dialect means mom's relative. For example, 姨父 would be mom's brother or brother Iaw.

[@kayjpjessie]

does it take a lot longer to write or type chinese than english (assuming somebody was equally fluent in both), i’ve always thought the characters must take a while to draw

[@tytywuu]

Kayjp writing 100 Chinese characters definitely takes more time than writing 100 english words, but a 100-word passage in english can be translated into chinese with ~60 characters; in terms of typing there are many Chinese typing systems, eg. pinyin (type according to phonetics in english alphabets) and cangjie (breaking down each chinese characters into fragments represented by alphabets)

[@kayjpjessie]

@@tytywuu ah that makes sense, your language is so descriptive. Thanks for the response😊

[@anujfnitepro]

Imagine this happening; "Hey! We won the lottery But you haven't" Then suddenly miss your south kidney

[@blueeye2281]

Southwest*

[@vinayr395]

You had me🤣🤣🤣🤣 South kidney, seriously? Body part are supposed to be left and right, I wonder how the people who use cardinal directions are used to describe it.

[@himura-miki]

I'm slightly more concerned with how such people could communicate online or over the phone, or to those who are blind, where which direction you're facing isn't entirely obvious. Sure, you have a north foot and a south foot, but are you facing west or are you facing east? How does the listener know if they can't see you? You know your south kidney is missing, but if you tell your friend online who just recently stole an east kidney, would they know if they stole your kidney or someone else's?

[@CruseCtrl]

@@himura-miki Maybe they just ask each other which way they're facing?

[@Berilia]

I'm slightly ashamed it took me a minute or so to remember what the hell you meant by south kidney

[@wizengy]

Hawai'ian; Apart from only having 13 letters there are two words. Mauka for toward the mountains, inland (away from the ocean) and Makai for toward the ocean. On the islands these are important directions and commonly used by everyone. English also gives us the windward and leeward sides of the island.

[@rogerrienstra1174]

To be proper, it should be either ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi or Hawaiian. The English word Hawaiian doesn't have an ʻokina in it.

[@SonnyBubba]

Kind of like in downtown New Orleans. North south east and west don’t work because of the geography of the river’s curve. You get uptown (or upstream), downtown, towards the river and towards the lake. It’s even more hopeless using compass directions, as South Carrollton and South Claiborne are two streets that intersect, at 90 degrees no less.

[@samcraft7573]

@@SonnyBubbaNew Orleanian here. Can confirm. I’m from the West Bank, which of course is southeast of downtown. 🤷

[@hahagostudy633]

"We've just won the lottery, but you haven't" has the same energy as "Call an ambulance! But not for me"

[@olivep]

i thought of "but mr krabs, we don't deliver!" "WE don't deliver, but YOU do"

[@JannieKannie]

Ey kenma

[@bananabird735]

1:23 is when you've won the lottery but there's this one aunt/uncle that you have a restraining order against

[@rolfeyM8]

Thought the exact same thing

[@CraftingTableMC]

This made me exhale from my nose

[@Hemlol]

"We've just won the lottery, but YOU haven't" I felt that

[@thewanderinggamer1369]

*Influencers on Instagram:*

[@irfanhakim6171]

*WE* felt that! *COMMUNISM INTENSIFIES*

[@adityaprasadbrahma9069]

🥰

[@NetAndyCz]

Well, the "we" in English may be confusing, but "you" can be even trickier.

[@0000-z4z]

There was a time, where English had second person singular. The word was "thou". And it was conjugated separately: with the ending "st". Like "Thou writest a comment." Like in German, second person plural was used a polite form for storagers or people of high rank (The person counts like many persons.) The English were so polite, that they began using this form for everyone. In German, the polite form is today third person plural. So, "Can you help me?" would literally mean "Can They help me?"

[@randomguy263]

@Kanashimi Report THEM?

[@mimull1378]

YES

[@hostgrady]

My French friend cries because there isnt a super popular plural form of you

[@jorgekunrath1016]

@@hostgrady yeeeesss, as a brazilian I never know what "you" they are using. In portuguese we have "você" for singular and "vocês" for plural, and is SOOO more easy. I think that every latin language have this feature

[@montywoodside]

I wish English had at least two ways of saying "love". In Spanish, querer and amar can both mean to love, but querer is used specially for friends and amar is used specially for a s/o. I rarely say "I love you" because I always thought of it as a romantic thing.

[@DE3P_Beats]

Isn't querer "want"? I'm dumb so idk

[@LilSulfite]

​@@DE3P_BeatsIt can also be used that way

[@anonymouswhite352]

Love can be applicable to both platonic and romantic relationships.

[@GeorgeDCowley]

I guess "like" is a little different to both.

[@personalexperience3637]

To varying degrees... adore, admire, love, like, even worship (...to ellivate that person to another heavenly realm)

[@finlayhutchinson7370]

Teacher: those are west handed scissors, you can't use them! Me: *flips 180* sorry what was that

[@DustInComp]

"Now they're east-handed scissors."

[@kingcrimson4133]

This is just speculation, but in those languages the hands might have special names, like "the strong hand" for right and "the smart hand" for left, or something like that. Or, they just do what the guy above said.

[@nilaksh007]

@Sir Thiccums I am south south west handed currently.

[@MangroveLord]

or they'd just be the 'dominant hand'

[@jacobbruckelmeyer3466]

I'm west handed right now

[@joeghezzi37]

We need a word for “my left your right” and “my right your left”

[@shanesalinas3645]

That falls under the absolute directions. If you say "west" west is always the same direction.

[@dwagincon4841]

you can always tell someone to mirror you

[@AnHebrewChild]

Shane Salinas not if the two people are facing the same direction and the object is between them. And so, the request for this word remains unanswered...

[@mandc20022]

we have that in the south is called Over Yonder

[@nyx142]

What about just "my left/right"

[@benlevy5585]

Fun fact: In Ethiopian grammar, they have a punctuation symbol used like a full stop, question mark or exclamation mark to indicate sarcasm.

[@tompatterson1548]

We have an optional one in english that I use a lot: "/s".

[@MaliciousOnion]

technically we have one in english as well, although it's rarely used - the interobang (‽)

[@novelle.27]

@@MaliciousOnion I thought the interrobang was like “?!” but a single punctuation mark.

[@gettingshotsomeonesgonnapa8635]

In my language we use "(!)" if we're being sarcastic.

[@chrono0097]

@Gray El entrenador Pokémon Never heard of (!), and i been speaking spanish for a while now, the more you know

[@bluephoenix3392]

Bengali speaker here. In our language we have 3 separate words for 'you' ( আপনি, তুমি, তুই - Aapni, Tumi, Tui), and you have to use either of them by judging multiple factors, such as age of the listener, age gap between you and the listener, his/her social position, your intimacy with him/her etc. We Bengali speakers know how to use them by default, but I guess others who come to know our language finds it a bit hard.

[@just-a-hriday]

Not just bengali - a lot of other north indian languages too, and maybe even some south indian ones. Hindi, for example, has "aap", "tum", and "tu".

[@mewmimo8465]

Tbh i too find it hard to use as a native bengali. When i try to address someone younger than me but also a stranger i don't know if i should use "aapni"(used for strangers) or "tumi"(which can be used for people younger than you)

[@eldreyte]

There's a similar thing in russian too. We have ты and вы. Ты is used when you're talking to singular person you're comfortable/familiar with. Вы is used either for plural you (talking to multiple people at once) or as a respectful way to refer to singular person who's higher in social hierarchy (and also respectful way to adress a stranger)

[@paul22411]

@@eldreyte so Вы is the same as 'vous' in French?

[@-Alarion]

In german we also have two forms of you. You would say "you" to your friends, family, vlose ones, or younger persons, while you would use "Sie" for business partners, strangers or any kind of person who is at least at the same level in social hierarchy and you aren't very close to.

[@sallybradshaw4576]

I liked how the "Absolute Direction" font was the 1D font, nice touch.

[@dillanbrownbp]

I noticed that too

[@lucky_lol]

I don't get it. Anyone can Explain?

[@tonin8499]

@@lucky_lol I think it's the One Direction band's font. Actually is a idea, to my sense

[@heejinsx]

@@lucky_lol bc 1d is only 1 direction and it’s called direction

[@DepFromDiscord]

That’s 2D

[@snorf525]

"As a language speaker" omg me too

[@matteomagurno3068]

i also speak languages, what a coincidence!

[@Dr.Leymen]

@@matteomagurno3068 No way! I speak languages too

[@Lemon-fp5zn]

Ok this is a miracle... I speak languages too

[@varunsathya1912]

I don't speak languages :'(

[@Lemon-fp5zn]

@@varunsathya1912 well you see, I believe you are typing in something called ‘English’ which is classified as a language, so you do speak languages :D

[@owenllewellyn5692]

Having no left or right might complicate surgery: "Mr. Jenkins, we have to remove your South kidney".

[@jaypaans3471]

@Aridalways the subject's left or right, obviously. :-\

[@jaypaans3471]

Good point, because the orientantion of your body matters at the moment of the statement. On the other hand: this is exactly why in most hospital i know writing something like "This leg off -->" on the leg in question, is already normal.

[@nyangret]

Can i just say that in medical terminology they use the ventral/dorsal/posterior/anterior/etc. system for locating certain body parts and it is a definitive way that all doctors understand ... they don’t use right and left because your right wouldn’t be the patients right and that’s just confusing

[@johnz5359]

@@darknut1223 Right and left might not be used in other languages, but that has no bearing to parts of your body for doctors to care about. If you're talking about a patient's left kidney, it is the patient's left kidney. Not the "kidney on the left" either the doctors left or the patients left. If I said you left hand, you wouldn't ask "Do you mean my left, or your left?" We're talking about YOUR hand. Your left hand will always be your left hand, whether I'm talking about, or you're talking about it.

[@satunbreeze]

@@nyangret I scrolled down to see if someone mentioned this cause Im taking Medical terminology right now 😄

[@Nippontradamus]

A feature of my language I really appreciate is having a separate derivative word for every familial relative you could have. You can accurately figure how two people are connected by a single unique pair of words. Features in languages help gain insight into how the society functions and how language adapted to it.

[@randomchannel8436]

There is also another thing, like in Chinese, there are shapes and structures in the word. So for example, 门 is door, and heart is 心.When you put them together, 闷 means stressed, sad or depressed. If you look at the shapes you can see that the heart is behind a door, meaning that there's things going on in your heart(mind) that is not spoken out, the thoughts are confined, therefore stress and sadness. This is quite useful because in some Chinese songs/poems they use it to show some hidden meanings, which is rather cool in my opinion.

[@jay-ki6ie]

That's cool

[@alinah1403]

Yep. That's called "pian pang bu shou" or radicals. If a word has 心, then it's related to feelings (not the muscle that pumps blood). 想 means think, and 感 means feel.

[@hadwinying6664]

we should learn traditional Chinese. in simplified Chinese, love is 爱 but in traditional Chinese, love is 愛 which has the character 心in it which means heart. You cant love anyone without a heart!

[@Smileyreal]

@@hadwinying6664 Emotion comes from the brain, all the heart does is pump your blood.

[@yukhimli1807]

no it means bored not stressed nor sad nor depressed

[@Cheasle2]

A new language feature every language needs is a universal word for "sorry don't speak that"

[@KoneSkirata]

Excellent idea. but probably hard to find a small word that is not already in use *somewhere* on earth xD

[@CrazyLeopardStarYay]

I don't think it would work 🤔 people are used to twisting their tongues in such unique ways that there can't be one word that is the same but also pronounced and interpreted the same. Just how it's difficult to understand what non natives are saying when they speak a foreign language. It's sometimes almost impossible because they cannot form certain words or sounds

[@rightwingsafetysquad9872]

Most have "English?". Best part is even if both parties only know a dozen English words, it's still the fastest way to communicate that you don't know what they're saying almost anywhere in the world.

[@AaronTheGerman]

I thought that's "huh?"

[@garette8672]

7LeopardStar ??? typical humans are capable of making the same sounds as everyone else. the word “help” can be pronounced by any typical person, regardless of their native language, it just wouldn’t be spelled help.

[@NoahW]

In Swedish we have separate words for a “countering” yes (jo) and a “confirming” yes (ja). Let me show an example: - You’re wrong. - No! - Jo!* *’Jo’ is a countering ‘yes’ in this context; you say it as a counter to the recipient’s ‘no’. - Are you going to the mall? - Ja.* *’Ja’ is confirming the previous yes/no question.

[@theunicorn1167]

In german we have that too! But instead of Jo we say Doch. Ja is the same

[@YnasMidgardNaule]

If you want to preserve the difference, English has you covered: A: You're wrong. B: No, I'm not. A: (You) are too.

[@theunicorn1167]

YnasMidgardNaule I‘ve never heard the answer „You are too“ to a „No“ answer. Tf

[@Polyglot_English]

In Russian we just use da 'yes' and nyet 'no' for that purpose, why do you need a separate word for that?

[@menear]

arabic has this too

[@Goursome]

Surgeon: "Quickly!! Stitch the lying patient's West foot!" Nurse: *having a panic attack trying to think which is the west foot of a person who is lying down*

[@janegardener1662]

This is why the people who prepare patients for surgery use special marking pens.

[@valonyaver600]

Different words for a mother's siblings and a father's siblings

[@DirtyPoul]

We have that in Danish. Moster, faster, farbror, morbror. Mother's sister, father's sister, father's brother, mother's brother. The former are more used than the latter since the latter are not proper words. It's just father (far) or mother (mor) + brother (bror). A lot of people use uncle (onkel) instead because the others sound kind of dumb.

[@nisa202]

Hindi has that too

[@cuamanhong2719]

Vietnamese has that too. The mother's older sister and brother are "bác" The mother's younger sister is "dì" The mother's younger brother is "cậu" The father's older brother and sister are the same as the mother's The father's younger sister is "cô" The father's younger brother is "chú".

[@erischama1922]

A lot of Asian languages have that

[@jmartine]

@@cuamanhong2719 And what about the spouses of those people? In English, your mother's brother and your mother's sister's husband are both "uncle". Are the spouses of your parents' siblings another whole set of words in Vietnamese?

[@gowzahr]

Another neat feature of languages in the Philippines is that you can turn nearly any word into a verb by throwing on a conjugation. For example instead of -Should I get my shoes on? -No, you can go barefoot. Becomes -Should I shoe? -No, you can barefoot.

[@alexbireta4668]

English also does this quite often.

[@中野梓-i4b]

English does that in some words but without applying any conjugation. The expression "to foot the bill" is an example of it.

[@yutazenrenchin9701]

"Sapatos?" "Paa nalang." Edit: "[mag]paa [ka] nalang."

[@julianaldama6631]

Mag-shoe

[@seefzi]

I only have experience with English and German but this happens frequently in both languages.

[@korbinmdavis]

There were a lot of African students at my old university that used absolute direction, so they painted every North wall in every building orange.

[@alexeysaranchev6118]

Or the confused students could have just carried compasses with them.

[@zaharacreative]

They... Meaning the students or the university administration?

[@pierbertone2957]

Source: trust me dude

[@jerrygreenest]

Oh no... There’s a whole separate story of confusion about directions. Some compasses use red/orange arrow to direct North, but some other use red arrow to direct South. Which kinda makes sense: North should be blue, since it associates with cold, and South should be red, since it associates with warm.

[@1985230ce]

@@jerrygreenest I suppose that depends on which hemisphere you are in.

[@minarchist1776]

Well, I have been considering writing a science fiction novel. One of the characters comes from a civilization that has had faster than light travel capability for upwards of 40,000 years. Given that they have had to deal with problems caused by various different sorts of hyper-drive malfunctions they have come up with a "temporal Imperfect" tense. That describes an action which has either occurred in the past, is occurring now, or will occur in the future. But you don't know which. 🙂

[@trappedcosmos]

faster than light travel is completely impossible

[@briangerra5236]

@@trappedcosmos Recall that he says he is writing a book

[@bellyjelly0812]

@@trappedcosmos that's crazy I didn't know that I guess that's why it's a fiction book and it's not real

[@Victorina32]

@@trappedcosmos I fear you missed the point

[@trappedcosmos]

*Science* fiction, its not fantasy, scientifically it's impossible

[@NoEgg4u]

@3:42 "Can you think of a new language feature?" I have a suggestion. But English lacks the means to explain it.

[@artifex2.080]

Use a differrent language

[@imthatgayguy]

@@artifex2.080 r/woooosh

[@davidgoldrock7264]

A character for sarcasm I'd use a symbol that isn't in my keyboard- question mark but facing left

[@Gihntemos]

@@davidgoldrock7264 I know portions of the internet use "/s" to mark it, though it's not universal enough. Sometimes I use caps to indicate emphasis on a word to make it more clear, but obviously that can just be confusing.

[@davidgoldrock7264]

@@Gihntemos you know that's nice, but I'm talking bout somthing universal: somthing that you can see in a book or a newspaper

[@triplewario]

Fantastic Features & Where to Learn Them

[@Julian0505z]

What are you doing here?!

[@JesseWetherell]

Linguistics, and you may learn where ever you want to, good luck

[@EssieP]

illiteration? Erm, we have that.

[@ursuslegolas1215]

Do you know Clint Eastfoot?

[@lilylou2615]

WwwWario is this a Harry Potter reference ❤️

[@Mr123awesomecoolio]

We just need to fix “do you mind if I....” because if you say yes, a lot of people get confused if you mean yes I mind (don’t do it) or yes that’s fine (since the asker is usually asking if they can do something they want to)

[@tim-4368]

I usually answer with sure go for it or ide rather u not

[@SkillMinecrsft]

Valve, please fix

[@18lucky17]

NobodyMiner whats bad with that

[@kokuyosekihaiwado8561]

Jack Rhodes this is me on the daily I have no clue whether to say no or yes to answer those kinda questions because as you wrote could mean two things

[@tropinnka]

That’s what yea and nay were meant to do, as being absolute yes or no. Do you mind if I do this? -Yea means go ahead, Do you mind if I do this? -Yes means I do mind

[@jarancrane2462]

I really like the Japanese feature of a different 'there' if it's close to the listener or far away. Like これ 'kore' is here, close to speaker それ 'sore' is there, close to listener, あれ 'are' is over there, close to neither of them.

[@covo5084]

in italian it’s “questo”, “codesto”, “quello”

[@ovoanaestheticovo3740]

spanish has same feature too!

[@qara_ch]

My native Cebuano has it too! Kiri - This (closer to speaker than listener) Kari - This (equally near to speaker and listener) Karâ - That (closer to listener than speaker) Katu - That (far from both speaker and listener)

[@luv5077]

korean has that as well!

[@ponytail336]

こそあど言葉 in general is really cool

[@cmb9173]

here's a vital feature: a singular short word that has about the meaning "look, i'm sorry but i really want to end this conversation right now" which is generally accepted and respected

[@gettingshotsomeonesgonnapa8635]

Just say "goodbye." "Hey dan remember the match last weekend-" " *Goodbye* " *Walks away without making eye contact or saying a word*

[@lucasrobin2788]

the entire english language politeness system works around saying a lot of words and being vague, so good luck trying to undo centuries of that. Polish is an example of a language that goes the other way. In Polish it's polite to be short, direct, and with as few a words as possible.

[@byron4545]

@@danahanley888 As a response to "tja" you usually get a "Und sonst so?"

[@DougAdams]

In the midwest US we say "Welp" and the other person says "Yep" and that's it.

[@tandemdwarf745]

@@DougAdamsSame in the Pacific Northwest, so maybe just an America in general thing.

[@melonbals5512]

fantastic features that we dont have in the english language 1. rules that are actually consistant

[@Randy.Bobandy]

*Consistent.

[@joeschroedernz]

Their ahh know rewlz ... roolz? Ruze?

[@Iunanec]

@@Randy.Bobandy If "consistent", therefore "resistent"? 🤔

[@mikehu2451]

like pro *noun* ce but pro *nun* ciation

[@oriorchids]

I before e except after c unless sounding like A like neighbor or weigh or when the English language is being weird, such as either or height. Speaking of height, why do height and weight sound different? They're incredibly similar words when it comes to spelling, but they're both pronounced differently. Leisure and foreign are ei words that have also gone rogue from this spelling rule. And then there's science, glacier and species, which definitely is breaking the rules. Heirloom, atheist, forfeit, and seismic follow this trend as well. So in conclusion, English sucks. Edit: Wow, I didn’t know a lot of these English rules. Thanks for telling me.

[@leonard4733]

When I was learning English, I was so puzzled as to why I have to use subject in virtually every sentence even when it is so obvious from the context, because In Korean and Japanese we usually omit them! But I’ve seen how it is also puzzling the other way around :)

[@usbee]

Can confirm. As a Hungarian who learns English, it is really strange to me too.

[@alialmans]

Same here in Poland

[@MrRedstoner]

Add Slovak and Czech to the list.

[@djungbo4462]

And romania too

[@alialmans]

@@StackOfPancakes2216 In Poland we use a phrase equivalent to "raining" when we want to point out that it is raining, none of us need to scream and point out the window, as we all just assume the subject without needing to point it out either verbally or nonverbally.

[@antonsopanen]

In Finnish language we have a word called "jaksa", it can mean "I prefer not (to do something)", "I'm too tired (to do something)" or "I dont have enough strentgh (to do something)", I use that word a lot; English language unfortunatly dosen't have a translation for that word.

[@stijnvinkenburg8878]

In other languages there is a difference between the word “you” when you’re talking to one person and “you” when you talk about more people. As someone who learns to speak english it is very confusing what other people are talking about. So in my opinion the english language needs a new word for “you” when you talk to multiple people.

[@abelnemeth4346]

It already had one: "thou" and "thee" (same way as I and me), but like in french, to be polite to someone, they used plural. Now English people at some point decided to be polite to everyone. So when you say: "You idiot!" It is already the polite and civilised way of saying "Thou idiot!" Nowadays you only see it in the Bible: strictly when addressing God.

[@EricRedbear]

You've never used "y'all"? Then again, in some parts of the South "y'all" singular and "all y'all" is plural.

[@TheGreatBackUpVIDEOS]

As Ábel said, thou and thee would have been singular and you would have been plural but then you became all three. It even had a huge amount of resistance with new-age you'ers being regarded as stupid just like what people who use singular "they" are facing...which is weird since singular you happened WAY later on in history.

[@LuizAlexPhoenix]

@@EricRedbear That... Sounds needlesly complicated.

[@Anon-uv9mj]

Just say yall when its more😂😂😂😂😂😂

[@scaryocean8272]

After seeing the list of minor languages at 3:27, I found out that 2 days after this video was released, the only native Livonian language speaker Grizelda Kristiņa had died.

[@michaelball4683]

What will happen to Livonia?

[@scaryocean8272]

@@michaelball4683 Livonia isn't a country, it used to be one though, in the region of modern-day Latvia and Estonia. Latvia speaks Latvian, Estonia - Estonian. The last native speaker of this language lived in northern Courland (Latvia).

[@Hüljes]

@@michaelball4683 The language will be carried on by a younger generation since people in the area do take a lot of pride in it. Even though the native speakers have passed, there's still people who speak it as a second language. There's a lot of different dialects in Estonia and Latvia that are also slowly fizzling away but effort has gone into maintaining them through literature, poetry, dictionaries and music. Grizelda also left behind many recordings and textbooks about Livonian and the language can be studied in universities in both Estonia and Latvia.

[@JohnGardnerAlhadis]

@@Hüljes That's somewhat relieving.

[@milantoth6246]

Sadly, the same will happen to votic in probably a few years. Our language falling apart:/

[@sakurafan771]

Having a conversation with just two letters. For example in Filipino...let me demonstrate by a conversation at an elevator. Fil 1: Bababa ba? Fil 2: Bababa Which means in english... Eng 1: Is this going to go down? Eng 2: Yes, it's going to go down. Yes, we are minions.

[@dudcats]

sakurafan771 lmaoo

[@joshuamason2227]

"Going to go down?" "Going to go down." same thing with english

[@allainediapana619]

Banana warriors

[@nzbg1132]

Wu Chenglin no one talks like that

[@swiftdrifter01]

Isn’t that kind of like: Q: This is going to go down? A: This _is_ going to.

[@austinross4093]

Something every language should have: A lack of irregular verbs.

[@stratonikisporcia8630]

Well I mean, Japanese only has 5 so close enough

[@austinross4093]

@@stratonikisporcia8630 How important are those verbs? Like, are they thinks like “to be” and “to do”, or are they other obscure verbs?

[@stratonikisporcia8630]

@@austinross4093 They're the most used ones. The most irregular is "da" = "to be", then you have the medium irregular ones: "suru" = "to do" and "kuru" = "to come", finally two are only slightly irregular: "iku" = "to go" (participial form "itt-" instead of expected ["iit-"]) and "aru" = "to be" (yes another one, it's kinda similar to the ser / estar situation in Spanish) that just doesn't have a connective form. Well, there are some other irregular verbs, such as "masu" or "irassharu" but these ones are either auxiliaries or expressions, so you won't have to conjugate them.

[@Eren______]

In Turkish we just put -tı -ti -dı -di or -mış -miş (Adds Uncertainty) At the end of the Verbs to make them past tense.

[@stratonikisporcia8630]

@@Eren______ Japanese: *-ta*

[@trashpanda5947]

In Swedish we differentiate between grandparents on the mothers side and on the fathers side. The Swedish word for grandfather on the fathers side is "farfar" which roughly means father's father. Somewhat confusing sometimes when people talk about their grandfather in English and I'm like: "Which one?".

[@xd-lt2ul]

Simon Ulander yeah, we do that in Denmark aswell, but that makes sense since our languages are quite similar

[@trashpanda5947]

Panda Danish is just Swedish with a speech impediment. ;)

[@tylerv.g.6268]

Very interesting!

[@zeezy6691]

Same in Turkish 👍🏽

[@jammydoughnuts]

If you're talking to a friend whose grandparents are unknown to you, does it really matter which ones they're talking about? Or do you just feel as if it should be differentiated because it's what you're used to in Swedish?

[@farid1071]

"Mamihlapinatapai" meaning --->: a look shared by two people, each wishing that the other would initiate something that they both desire but which neither wants to begin

[@bengrace8808]

What language is this from?

[@purplefire2834]

Oddly useful and I love it

[@supernenechi]

Wow, that's a very specific use case for a word

[@luvcaitlen9455]

Ben Grace the yaghan language , which is now dead

[@alanbrito4941]

@@bengrace8808 yagan, southern Chile

[@couldntthinkofachannelname9316]

English literally has a word for sending a person or group of people a link to the song never gonna give you up and that’s kind of crazy to me

[@taidyesch]

The word 'rickrolled' exists but a word for 'a day after tomorrow' doesn't. Oh hey, and the word rickrolled is even in my Grammarly system since I typed 'rick rolled' however it auto corrected to 'rickroll'. .____.

[@acookie7548]

Miss Flower i think an archaic term for it is overmorrow

[@evae9415]

@@acookie7548 in my native language we have a word for the day after tomorrow, and it literally means over-tomorrow so that makes sense

[@acookie7548]

@@evae9415 oh that's so cool! is that dutch?? or like hindi? those are the only two languages i know with a word for it asdfghjk

[@dslc]

Miss Flower in german „a day after tomorrow“ is „übermorgen“ and a day before yesterday is „vorgestern“

[@Kimeikus]

That time independence concept explains why Native Chinese speakers who aren’t accustomed to English say: “He *watch* movie” or “They *sing* song” no matter what the tense they’re referring to is.

[@Back-Space.]

The fact that there's no word for 'the day after tommorow" or 'the day before yesterday'! It's so annoying.

[@limsshouse]

BackSpace In chinese "the day after tmr" is 后天(hou tian) and "the day before ytd" is 前天(qian tian). Pretty sure there might be some other languages that can describe those too!

[@astrastellari5986]

Russian and other Slavic languages have words for these too. ^_^

[@giudittanatalini5369]

in italian we say "the other yesterday"

[@Kenexxa]

In Germany the day before yesterday is "Vorgestern" (It's basically the words "vor" (Before) and "gestern"(yesterday)stuck together... ) and the day after tommorrow is "Übermorgen"(Über = Above; Morgen = tomorrow)

[@Ceruleanst]

The English word "overmorrow" has been forgotten, but it's plain enough that you could probably bring it back and start using it without having to explain what it means.

[@nessmercieca9966]

Most other language also have a separate plural version of the word ‘you’. English could really do with that!

[@gwishart]

Several English dialects do: "y'all" "youse" "thas" etc.

[@kv297]

How about ye?

[@dbfangirl8484]

The South US uses y'all. But don't say you people bc that can be an ethnically discriminatory

[@adriancombe]

We used to have it. It is seen, e.g. in the King James Bible. You, ye, your etc. are plural. Thee, Thou, Thy etc. are singular. Allows it to match the source language intent. I want to say Shakespeare used them that wasy as well.

[@spinnis]

yall

[@jamesstewart556]

"Only one more step to defuse the bomb, lieutenant. Carefully cut the east wire."

[@natnuss98]

So the right one if you're facing north

[@nukesrus2663]

what if the bomb is along a north - south axis and every wire is on the east side

[@Deksudo]

Your east, or mine?

[@alexandreduarte6533]

@@natnuss98 If not you're dead

[@Yazan_Majdalawi]

@@natnuss98 that would be easy IF you knew where you were facing. And suppose after your efforts, you found out that you're facing the South West :)

[@kismetkiss]

One thing I love about some languages (Japanese and Carrier are ones I've encountered) is that the verb is usually located at the end of the sentence so you have to listen to the speaker's whole sentence before responding, it makes exchanges feel more respectful and polite.

[@Nichtdu-rt4ih]

Gosh i hate that one. When translating you need to change the english start of a sentence depending on whether a japanese speaker adds a desu ka at the end of their sentence

[@marlene2723]

Also those dying languages have good insights: Scientists learned about this one turtle that hibernates because a native word for that type of turtle is "turtle-that-goes-down-in-the-winter"

[@RosimInc7]

@Random playground That's how I'd name a parrot that doesn't repeat after me.

[@archwaldo]

@@RosimInc7 or you could rename yourself into "poor parrot trainer"

[@reanetsemoleleki8219]

@Random playground your butt can't what?

[@sliceofbread2611]

@@reanetsemoleleki8219 this is why people should not change their name on youtube.. or in general.. oh i miss the days where one would pick a nickname and just stick with it forever..

[@tenacious3911]

"Passifik Oshan"

[@deyesed]

You can greatly vary the implication of the sentence "I didn't say I robbed the bank" just by emphasizing any one of the words.

[@hearnia2k]

But it's not so easy to emphasize words in text.

[@TheStandardIsTheStandard]

Christopher Hearn That’s why I wish iOS keyboards had an italics feature

[@MakerJake101]

That’s actually great.

[@shrekonion8307]

@@c_e_n_t_ how

[@renno2679]

@@TheStandardIsTheStandard _youtube has it_

[@travisbean3927]

Glad there are no absolute direction societies at the poles :D

[@Summerman000kesamies]

There are no societies at the poles

[@CastafioreOnYoutube]

@@Summerman000kesamies exactly

[@hearnia2k]

I feel for those peoples if/when the poles flip though.

[@sasukesarutobi3862]

It'd make it either really, really easy or really, really hard to arrange to meet up.

[@hearnia2k]

@@sasukesarutobi3862 How so? Wouldn't you arrange to meet at 'the bar' or 'the statue' or whatever?

[@yousefabutaleb5063]

Weird fact: In Arabic, the word can have more letters if the speaker wants to show strong emotions like saying "اصبر" which means you have to “wait” and "اصطبر" which means that you have to “wait a long time!”

[@PavloDurov]

Is it like "waaaaait"?

[@m7mdisenm866]

@Oo Pp It definitely exists in modern standard Arabic but it's not used that much in modern dialects

[@m7mdisenm866]

@Oo Pp Bro there is literally a whole thing called "صيغة المبالغة" in "نحو" Have you never heard of it?

[@ibrahimyounis3886]

​@osamarefaai9770إفتح القرآن وإقرأه، كلمة اصطبر موجودة في أكثر من مكان فيه، ولك أن تقرأ كلام المفسرين عن الفرق بينها وبين إصبر

[@justanaveragebuzzsaw]

this is so cool, i wish more languages had this feature

[@unrelatedK]

Simple. We (inclusive): still We. We (exclusive): *me and the boys*

[@itacom2199]

Exatly

[@canadian__ninja]

That's not literally one word though. It works, but misses the point.

[@d0943]

that would be "the boys and me" or "the boys and I"

[@enzo1468]

This needs atleast 1k likes

[@Timothee_Chalamet_CMBYN]

This isn’t correct at all, English lacks that. For example if an African tribe language lacked the word for the month June and referred to it as “the 6th month” instead of having a word “June”, it’s primitive ish. English lacks the we inclusive/exclusive and needs to add more words to convey meaning that most languages have a word for

[@kenninast]

I very much like the Spanish inverted question and exclamation marks in the beginning of a sentence, so you know right away what kind of sentence it will be.

[@UltimateHammerBro]

Questions are pretty clear in speech since the intonation shows it's a question. It's in writing they may be ambiguous: that's precisely why inverted marks exist.

[@kenninast]

Obviously I meant writing. A bit weird that I have specify the obvious thing that a punctuation symbol is only written and not spoken.

[@UltimateHammerBro]

***** I meant they're clear in Spanish.

[@ukras01]

In Portuguese, we don't have the initial question mark. So We kinda have the problem. Reading aloud, a long sentence that happens to be a question, may make the reader look retarded. However we can mitigate this by postponing the changing of intonation to a point where it becomes clear it will be a question. Kinda "I've already seen the question mark with my peripheral vision"... Or by reading aloud with sufficient pause, to allow a quick sentence inspection. Or by using the grammar constructions in ways that clearly hint about the existence of a question. But, today's people write fast, without much care for proper phrase construction, so I see the point of adding and inverted question mark.

[@Grissol69]

It's not like the words "How, who, when, where, what, why" indicate that the sentence is a question

[@mattp.158]

Removing the letter C and having K and S take their plase konsistently.

[@Gamebuilder2000]

What about that cheese

[@Statusinator]

Sheese

[@Gamebuilder2000]

Statusinator but that sounds like She’s

[@sonoftheway3528]

X and Q also, Q should take over the "ch" sound X should take over "sh" sound idk what C can do

[@ahmadtarek7763]

German had entered the chat .

[@Hiya8partyz]

Been learning Spanish. A nice feature it has is that you don’t need to constantly add in the subject. What I mean by that is words like ‘you’, ‘we’, ‘I’, etc. For example, in English: “You go to the supermarket so you can buy milk for your mother.” In there, the listener is referred to 3 times, though you can simplify the sentence so it becomes 2 times. Meanwhile, in Spanish, you can just do this: “Vas al supermercado para poder comprar leche tú madre.” In this, the word ‘you’ is only used once. However, the listener knows we are addressing them because of the ‘vas’ at the beginning, since ‘vas’ is the you(familiar) conjugation of ‘ir’, which means ‘to go’. Also, this means we don’t have the conjugate the ‘comprar’ (to buy) to ‘compras’ since we’ve already used ‘vas’. While the whole conjugation in Spanish can be confusing, it does make the specific-ness of English very minimal. Of course, I’m only learning Spanish, so this could be complete BS, but oh well.

[@EnglishwithMax]

Loved it! It would be handy if we had an equivalent of "doch" (German) or "si" (French). In other words, a word for "yes" to contradict negative statements.

[@jacasch3164]

yet

[@LC-mw1lh]

si is spanish

[@moonyollie6977]

I Cusworth I "Si" is also French

[@BIGDUCKHUNTFAN]

Livi Rip Si means if in french

[@moonyollie6977]

Jackson T Not only. It can mean confirmation/yes also

[@fleurettea]

I love how the font for "Absolute Direction" is the One Direction font 😂

[@jesseo8212]

theresa I just noticed that too!

[@ray._.0004]

OMG, I'm exhausted 😩 I've been scrolling the comments for 2 minutes straight until I finally found someone who actually noticed that. FINALLY 😌

[@kedabro1957]

@@ray._.0004 Wish we could let the graphic designer know his cleverness was appreciated.

[@dattokkaji]

IM SO DEAD AHAHAHHA

[@JamieAubrey]

I hate myself for even knowing that

[@bernardososa3126]

"We've just won the lottery!" :D "But not you!" D:

[@Liggliluff]

Come on, write it in the same direction: :ꓷ

[@blackfordoblique1965]

YESSS!!!!

[@blackfordoblique1965]

@@Liggliluff 101 /)(\

[@vanzwho854]

*pulls out glock*

[@RoflcopterLamo]

@@Liggliluff hold up

[@EVModules]

From a Star Wars perspective, I chuckle at the fact that I know a language that C3PO cannot use to communicate with, despite being "fluent in 6 million forms of communications" even if it was exposed to him. American Sign Language is quite an interesting language that has its' own structure, rules, punctuation, grammar, and sentence order. It's also a language which cannot be written down. To answer your question you posted at the end of the video, gestures are what every language should have. (waving)

[@katiescheuermann1086]

we need to bring back the yes/no, yay/nay system- one set for a positive question, (are we going to the park?) one for a negative question (are we not going to the park?), because i'm tired of the confusing "are we not going to the park?" "no" "no we're not or no we're not not?" Edit- a lot of y'all agree that a way to fix it is by saying "correct" or repeating the question in the answer, and that's how the hosts if the podcast "futility closet" handle it when solving riddles (or as they say, lateral thinking puzzles).

[@Novacrab]

This.

[@Duconi]

Or just stop using questions with "not" in it. That's the way I handle it and it works really good.

[@Avalinara]

Yes, I was just about to comment this! As a kid, the evil, grammar-stickler school librarian once mockingly asked me “Do you not speak English?” And it threw me for a hell of a loop as I tried to do the mental gymnastics around why both “yes” and “no” answers made it sound like I was saying that indeed I do not speak English.

[@Liggliluff]

You can also answer with a statement. "Are we not going to the park?" "We're not" "Do you not speak English?" "I do speak English".

[@RonWolfHowl]

It’s “yea”, not “yay!”

[@krawek445]

"Pacific ocean" This word alone killed me learning english. Every c is pronounced differently and without sound language I never could have learned english, and especially speak it!

[@floydlechner2445]

Krawek say o-ce-an to flex on people who say oshaan and if they say your wrong say the c is in front of vocal and therefore pronounced more like a z.

[@fjhatsu]

Pasifik sound cooler tbh

[@SatumangoTheGreat]

I believe that, like Dutch, English has a simple rule: if the C is followed by either an I or an E, is is pronounced like an S. Otherwise, it is pronounced like a K. Hope that helps...

[@yash1152]

Ghoti - _fish_ gh - f as in rough o - i as in women ti - sh as in national (this is not my idea, is from some writer or someone..... i dont remember the name... search ghoti i guess)

[@JasonHW_743]

@@yash1152 I believe this is from the "English is a Big Meme" video

[@PeterArnold1969]

"Call me an ambulance!" "Ok, you're an ambulance" "Noooo, call an ambulance, and get them to come."

[@potmki6601]

- Hello, it's ambulance? What are you wearing rn? I'm SORRY

[@wren_.]

“hi ambulance, im dad”

[@alexharrison2743]

Call an ambulance! *draws gun* BUT NOT FOR ME!

[@alexanderboulton2123]

Hi ambulance, I'm dad.

[@nothinginteresting1662]

"Call an ambulance for me" Fixed

[@finnianheart]

3:17 this blew me away when i took japanese. like saying a whole ass sentence and then saying "to omoi masu" at the end changed the entire idea of what i was saying

[@madladdie7069]

I'm guessing that little bit would mean something like "that's what [subject] think(s)"?

[@darkness74185]

@@madladdie7069 a direct comparison in English would be "but that's just an opinion of mine"

[@madladdie7069]

@@darkness74185 Oh. So it's less "that's what [SUB] thinks" and more "that's what I think"?

[@FordTruckFan]

Weeb congregation

[@oz_jones]

Did you fart it out because you were saying an ass sentence?

[@theartificer1981]

This is a bit unrelated but I hate how "bomb" isn't pronounced like "womb" or "tomb" because if it would be pronounced as "boom"

[@F100cTomas]

It's more related than you think

[@godofthecripples1237]

This is genius and I'm now also frustrated it doesn't work like that

[@ItsNotRocketScienceGD]

Don’t forget about the word comb.

[@jeffcatgreeb7262]

It’s Not Rocket Science comb would be pronounced the same as cwm

[@BuzzKirill3D]

@@ItsNotRocketScienceGD Oh god I'm combing

[@kubaborowiecki5401]

The English language doesn't have a single word for one and a half, but it, obviously, has a word for throwing someone out of a window (Defenestration)

[@paradoxmo]

Don't blame us, we got it from the Romans. (:

[@diebosenzipfelmanner7268]

You gotta have priorities mate

[@talknight2]

And what a fine word that is!

[@SergiuszOlszewski]

Just write threehalves without a space. Solved.

[@andresmartinezramos7513]

Kuba Borowiecki But it makes sense one and a half is simple, 1 & 1/2. Defenestration is also simple De- (most often without, in this case off) -Fenestra- (latin for window, proper word in latin would be fenestram) Tion- it means its a verb So its sort of throwing (if you strech the doing something part) off a window.

[@flaviusbelisarius7517]

I speak Greek as a second language and for the most part I do treat it like it's just English with different sounds. Every now and then I come across a concept that we don't have in English, it feels like discovering an entirely new view of the world sometimes

[@d0risthesheep]

Any examples?

[@jerrygreenest]

+++ for examples

[@symeonsays]

@@d0risthesheep i speak greek as a native and two from the top of my head are: - different words for plural and singular you (plural is used as a respectful singular too), - a few more words to describe family like "husband of my wife's sister" (though these are used more in some places than others)

[@mellowords]

@@symeonsays that's just "my wife's brother", really

[@symeonsays]

@@mellowords my bad, i meant husband of my wife's sister, thanks for pointing it out!

[@majm4606]

The leading ¿ in Spanish I realized is handy when reading text aloud (since you know right when you start a sentence what sort of tone you should give it). Sorta wish English had that too.

[@Blaqjaqshellaq]

Nurses sometimes say "we" when they really mean "you." And there's also the Royal We, a fancy way of saying "I."

[@leiffitzsimmonsfrey1272]

Also waiters. And kindergarten teachers, which is probably why it is annoying when the other two groups use it -- it feels patronizing.

[@unclecreepy4073]

Hispanics and Cubans (perhaps other countries to) often use the greeting “como estamos”. It’s not unique to English.

[@warpspeedchic6932]

Australians often refer to themselves as “us”

[@kv297]

Communists too

[@qualityseabunny]

I always say that (im a caregiver) i always find myself saying "what should we wear today?" Etc

[@aronengel9192]

Imagine having 16 forms of "the" **angry german noice**

[@kanalkucker14]

der die das dem den dessen....

[@azyjmexcuseokstop924]

@@kanalkucker14 deren

[@pengin6035]

Der dir das, wieso weshalb warum, wer nicht fragt, bleibt dumm. In English: The the the, why why why...

[@sophiat7459]

Imagine having 24 forms of "the" *angry Attic Greek noises*

[@greenstarlover1]

Imagine only having a single letter for the word "the". And for the word "and".

[@NadiraJamal]

As a pedestrian: absolute direction! As a dancer: relative direction! As an engineer: having flashbacks to dynamics class exam questions that mixed multiple frames of reference...

[@Zraknul]

Physics: all directions!

[@michaelball4683]

@@Zraknul Quantum mechanics? Zen Buddhism?

[@insaincaldo]

In space: There is no up

[@reddwarfer999]

@@insaincaldo In sign language, no one can hear you scream.

[@gutschke]

@@insaincaldo The enemy's gate is down

[@Thejawboys2]

I once had an idea of a story which involved a fictional language. The language required a very precise pronunciation, making it difficult for most people to speak (who weren’t born doing so). Its written version is made up of symbols that act as a guide for the exact pitches and fluctuations needed to pronounce every word.

[@doyouknowkeplertwentytwob4032]

IPA goes crazy, bro.

[@baothunguyen3424]

So, Vietnamese?

[@adamschristian]

Yórùbá? It's already been existing for a longgg time anon

[@supremechaosbeing2696]

I think this concept is referred to as a featural writing system

[@husainmhowwala2248]

Arabic does have differently pronounced pitched words.. Â is different from à

[@yadisfhaddad722]

"Thrice" needs to be a commonly used word.

[@unkreativity1596]

As well as quice, qintice, sextice, septice, octice, novice (nine times) and decice.

[@ADeeSHUPA]

@@unkreativity1596 uP

[@hkwww]

Thrice of them are sitting on a couch

[@thatb1h855]

@@hkwww ???

[@agentc7020]

@@hkwww that’s a really bad of use of the word thrice, would you use “twice” instead of “two” in that sentence

[@chicolofi]

As a native Portuguese speaker, a feature that I miss in the English language is the differentiation between temporary and permanent 'to be'. For example, in the sentence 'I am American', the verb 'to be' expresses a permanent condition, whereas in 'I am here', its meaning clearly refers to a temporary state. In Portuguese, and also in Spanish, there are two different verbs for those two sentences: 'ser' and 'estar', respectively. I also miss the plural form of you, which exists in Portuguese too.

[@hexa138]

Exactly. Ser borracho and estar borracho both translate to being drunk and they have very different meanings.

[@just.some.girl_____]

@@hexa138 Ser borracho - be A drunk. Estar borracho - be drunk. What am I missing?

[@nicolas_stradivarius]

@@just.some.girl_____ "estar borracho" means that someone is in a temporary drunk state . "ser borracho" means that someone is alcoholic. Therefore an alcoholic person is someone who has an addiction and everything else it implies, and not simply being drunk at the weekend.

[@AvalonisHere]

@@nicolas_stradivarius They demonstrated this very clearly in their post. They aren't missing that at all.

[@クイン-e8l]

I do like ser and estar but I also miss the joke “I’m hungry. Nice to meet you hungry!” when I’m speaking those languages

[@schumerus6786]

The German switcharoo of sticking 3 words together like “Haustürklingel” which means the bell of your house door

[@th3l05t-f1z]

Oh yes I really enjoy that part of German.

[@ZodiacShadow71]

Compound nouns are really useful.

[@lemurdog]

Yos i was thinking that

[@coracorvus]

This is why there are memes about German words being extremely long, like Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz. But that phrase would be even longer in English

[@Steinchen43]

I mean doorbell is a word...

[@frogery]

this reminds me of the movie Arrival (and the story it's based on), which is about how language changes perception. I wonder if people who speak languages with absolute direction and time-independence have an experience of the world slightly different from those who don't

[@joavim]

Google Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis.

[@personalexperience3637]

Arrival? Who is the author?

[@ric66521]

That's why as a Chinese user, although I have learnt a lot about English tenses, I struggle to choose the right tense in English and sometimes I just end up using present tense regardless of the time of the event

[@bluetannery1527]

Your English is remarkably good :-)

[@trequor]

Yeah thinking back this explains a lot about the confusing way Chinese people organize their sentences

[@fumfig3262]

我觉得中文的"了’比英文的时态复杂得多。我学了一年半的中文，它的意思我还不清楚。。。

[@boilpoil]

Frankie G, as a native Chinese speaker, as far as I can come up with examples it seems all "了" just indicates completion in one sense or another, and the time when it was completed doesn't matter, so it can take all the meanings in Past Perfect, Present Perfect, and Future Perfect in English. And when it doesn't mean event completion, it just means the sentence is ended at that word.

[@Dreamersnow0531]

boilpoil 試試解釋「了得」，「了不起」和「小時了了，大未必佳」的「了」字？

[@hazok4351]

Sign language has a lot of things that are hard to convey in spoken languages, like using the space around you to express movement and things like that

[@naginiriddle7091]

I was thinking the exact same thing. Sign language is extremely visual, and it has the ability to express things in a way that spoken language struggles with. One example I can think of is poetry in sign language. Since "rhyme" doesn't really exist in sign, they instead use repetition and similar handshapes and rely heavily on facial expressions and body movement. Even if you don't know sign language, there are some sign poems out there that anyone could follow along with because of how visual it is and how universal the facial expressions are. But if you try to interpret it into spoken words, so much gets lost.

[@CursedKnov]

I don't know why but while reading this I got the sudden imagination of a mute person with their hands tied behind their back being incapable of explaining why they aren't confessing to something. I'm very weird sometimes.

[@localverse]

@@naginiriddle7091 Does sign language have a written version and how well can such writings express the visuals you mentioned?

[@naginiriddle7091]

@@localverse no, sign language is strictly a spoken language and not a written one. That's because Deaf people can still read other languages, even if they can't hear them. Also, it would be difficult to write down sign since each sign has four elements to it--handshape, palm orientation, location, and movement. A sign also does not necessarily represent a word--it can represent ideas too. For example, you can establish a car in sign with a visual handshape, and then simply move the handshape around to represent how the car moves. That would be very hard to write down. Not to mention two people could use the same exact motions, but have different facial expressions and therefore change the story completely. That is why so much is lost when sign language is interpreted, and languages tend to add so many unnecessary words that sign language doesn't need, which can make an interpretation be cumbersome. One example I can think of is how in sign, there is a saying that, roughly translated, is "TRAIN GOES SORRY." But visually, the signer can make the train go anywhere, maybe even have it crash, and depending on facial expressions, can be sincere about the apology or sarcastic. None of that is captured in "Train Goes Sorry." Of course, if you tried to translate it further, then the idiom itself might not make sense to your English brain. (The idiom is "you missed the train") Hence why interpretation is so difficult, and why so much can be lost. The visual beauty of the language just isn't quite captured in spoken/written words.

[@Anonymous-df8it]

@@naginiriddle7091 For example, you can establish a car in sign with a visual handshape, and then simply move the handshape around to represent how the car moves. That would be very hard to write down. Arrows exist tho.

[@matrixphijr]

"I'm not saying Chinese doesn't have a tense system..." *1 billion stressed Asians have entered the chat*

[@HerrVonWelt]

*will have had been going to entered

[@Arthur_Hastings]

“All your base are belong to us.”

[@christong888]

Wow, that sounds tense.

[@papasscooperiaworker3649]

i don't get this someone explain

[@Tea57]

Since when are all Asians Chinese? No means to insult btw

[@tomboshoven6545]

Speaking with people from different cultural backgrounds, what I always find fascinating is the words for feelings. They seem to be very subtly different even in very similar languages (Dutch and German for example). And then there are words that just don't exist in certain languages. An often-quoted one from Dutch is "gezellig", which doesn't really exist in English. It's a form of coziness or closeness, but without any intimacy. The word "gezel" means companion. In English, I would use the super-generic word "nice" instead. For example, a "gezellig feestje" would just be a "nice party". The English version doesn't convey at all that the reason why I'm enjoying the party is the company. If you want to have fun with the subtle differences in meaning, look up a feeling in a thesaurus. You'll find many very similar, but subtly different, versions of that feeling. Now imagine a different language that doesn't have words for some of them, but has a set of completely different ones.

[@paper2222]

that's one of the reasons why languages are amazing. you learn a word that you can't convey well in english.

[@-ricardus-1972]

A great German language feature: Write all words together in one word and it still makes sense; Example: English: hat of the captain of a war ship German: Kriegsschiffskapitänshut

[@pleindespoir]

Donaudampfschiffahrtskapitänsmützenschirmpoliturdosendeckelbeschriftungsentscheidergremium

[@talknight2]

Pleindespoir goodness gracious...

[@nesa1126]

stupid...

[@connorneely3458]

I mean it does make sense... why use 8 words to describe a noun when you can just use a stupidly long compound word? It has its tradeoffs.

[@emvuosku4219]

Finnish does that too!

[@corner559]

Another feature English lacks is a spelling system that actually makes sense.

[@saltyman7888]

i ink we should revamp certain words: cake, make, bake, take, lake, sake, fake are now kaek, maek, baek, taek, laek, saek, and faek. latin/greek/french roots are calqued, if not regularised in english. Photosynthesis is Lightmaking. Internationalisation is now Betweencountrymaking. loanwords are always calqued.

[@Maki-00]

At least English should have accent marks for spellings with multiple pronunciations. Rough, through, cough, etc. "ough" is pronounced in a completely different way. If I weren't a native English speaker, this would be maddening. I worked in a cafe near the UN in New York and it was amusing listening to all the foreigners try to pronounce "whole wheat" when asking for a bagel!

[@syockit]

It sounds like something out of 1984

[@saltyman7888]

syockit Not really.

[@marcussmith7409]

/watch?v=GiVs05yq9-o It actually does make sense if you learn how the roots of words are made. You can even roughly figure out what a word means and is spelled you've never heard before just by identifying the roots in it as well as knowing what language the roots came from.

[@GheyForGames]

no word should be spelled the same but pronounced differently, and no word should be spelled differently but pronounced the same

[@Pehz63]

No letter should have multiple sounds, and no sound should have multiple letters. Also we shouldn't have letters that change the sound of other letters like 'sh'. Chinese Pinyin does this very well, but it still has things like 'sh' and 'ch'

[@leo9463065]

Pehz63 For Chinese, Zhuyin does better than Pinyin in this aspect. You need to deal with a bunch of new symbols though.

[@tookitogo]

FYI, spelling isn't actually a language feature. When linguists discuss language features, the language is considered in the abstract, since the vast majority of languages have no written form at all. Since almost all human languages are spoken-only, that's what we look at. (Of course, in sign languages we look at signs instead.)

[@cowcopter2556]

Pehz63 do you know how long our alphabet would be if we didn't have things like sh and ch

[@leo9463065]

Why do you need so much consonants anyway?

[@Abiesbracteata]

I would love a written way of indicating that something written is to explicitly NOT be taken literally. An indicator such that when someone writes something figuratively, rhetorically, or ironically this imagined written feature notifies people that what is written is NOT literally meant. So many misunderstandings and flame wars would be avoided.

[@avalonplemel8933]

The closest we have is a bit silly, BuT tYpinG LikE tHiS oFteN DoEs tHE tRIcK

[@Stormy_Slime]

i hate that idea/j slash j works well

[@ronyfhebrian2629]

Tom is right about clusivity, and I don't think it's important until Tom brought it up. It is indeed making confusing in English. I live in Indonesia and in Indonesian, we have the word for 'we' not include the listener (kami), and 'we' include the listener (kita). Tom is genius. I love Tom.

[@mk_rexx]

Rony Fhebrian In Filipino, we use KAMI for exclusive and TAYO for inclusive. We have KITA, but as one of our numerous words for YOU. Weird we have slightly different uses for same words.

[@karaa7512]

Ok Keith Mesa In Bisaya, KITA is inclusive and KAMI is exclusive, exactly like in Indonesian. Amazing to see where some of our frequently used words actually originate.

[@dreamadillo]

I didn't know what the term was until i saw this but Fijian is an example of a language that has clusivity.

[@FOLIPE]

I understand the point but people in Europe live without that difference... If I'm not mistaken it has evolved and then faded out in romance languages so... I guess it didn't have much practical usage.

[@Hippownage]

But it's not entirely correct. In Dutch, (a language which not only is European but also Germanic,) we DO actually have clusivity - while "we" can both include or exclude the listener, the word "wij" is virtually exclusive to situations that exclude the listener. It's not quite black-on-white and you can technically use them somewhat interchangeably, but in situations where it can make a difference, it is generally done that way, for clarity.

[@hurrythepeace9443]

We need a word for “I need to pee”. We have “I am hungry” and “I am thirsty”. Why don’t we have “I am urinatey”.

[@lindholmaren]

Swedish has "Kissnödig" which means "pee needy" "Jag är kissnödig, jag måste kissa" "I am 'urinatey', I have to pee"

[@hurrythepeace9443]

lindholmaren perfect. Sweden seems to be deluxe language.

[@gwishart]

"I'm busting." works quite well.

[@Blober112]

gotta piss works in Australia

[@UnYin99]

There actually is one, but we never use it. "Micturient: Having a need to urinate."

[@eugenekrabs7367]

In Bahasa Indonesia: "we" inclusive = kita "we" exclusive = kami

[@clustervideos279]

in cebuano language it is the same but in filipino language the inclusive one is "tayo"

[@clarkgerome6126]

In french we have We- nous We ( general ) - on

[@iMacxXuserXx485]

In Tagalog "kita" is how you say something was done by me to you. Such as "Tatawag kita" or "I will call you". Interesting how the meaning is similar but different.

[@aninditasakti]

@@doink4997 Bahasa Indonesia is evolved basically from Malay, and Malay is Austronesian. Yes it took many influences from Arab, Chinese, and Hindi. But it not exclusively from Hindu...

[@leeseojoon7230]

Eugene Krabs, inclusive "we" is *tayo* while the exclusive "we" is *kami* too in Filipino.

[@norbertfranqui]

In English it might be weird just saying "I love you" because it is considered a big deal and mostly used for relationship love. You can say like "love ya" to friends to be more casual but it's still to the closer friends. I'm used to having words for different versions of love like to a friend, to family, etc. I'm convinced the lack of these words is part of the reason why English-speaking only places are more awkward to show affection and communicate

[@matroqueta6825]

In my experience, in languages where you have varying degrees of "love", telling a partner a lesser form of "i love you" is interpreted as saying "I _don't_ love you", which pressures you into always using the highest form of the verb even if you don't actually mean it.

[@paulkosmala2730]

@@matroqueta6825 apple love vs orange love...

[@njits789]

Interesting. To me, this clarifies why characters finally saying 'I love you' is a huge moment in TV shows many times.

[@user-jg3yx8yu4l]

@@matroqueta6825​​⁠interestingly, this is the not the case in Japanese, where there are many varying ways to express your care and affection of another, the highest form of “I love you,” (愛してる) is sometimes said at the culmination of a fictional piece of work, and is saved for the special occasion precisely because of it’s strength and rarity. It’s rarely said in real life, as well as never being used for love confessions. The lowest and most common form actually is, (好きです) and the surrounding tensity, privacy, and tone indicate that someone is revealing their harbored romantic feelings. The slightly higher one 大好き is used when you want to express that you really like something! But when used to express feelings to another person is actually more shallow and welcomed among friends, and thus never perceived as a deep romantic confession. Love confessions, in order to kickstart a relationship, is standard practice in Japan. What couples say to each once their mutual feelings are confirmed is probably personal and varies. Another note, replying “Me too.” in Japanese when told “I love you.” is not considered non-romantic or someone too afraid to say I love you back. It’s simply a pure confirmation that their love is the same 😁

[@TheRWS96]

yes (you agree) no (you disagree) mu (the quwestion is wrong) we need MU

[@Alexaflohr]

+TheRWS96 We really do. I have used mu many times, but I often have to explain the word. Mu is surprisingly useful.

[@LLorfa]

+TheRWS96 I agree, and I've also used it.

[@FlameInsignia]

+TheRWS96 Mu is a Greek letter. It is indicative of the prefix micro. For example, micrometers or micrograms. Our blood should always have less than five micrograms of lead per deciliter in it. This quantity would be written like this: μg/dl.

[@TheRWS96]

not really random as the word MU already existed in other languages so that is why MU instead of something else Click this link for more information: c2.com/cgi/wiki?MuAnswer

[@LLorfa]

+TheRWS96 He was talking to 'Mark Streminsky', hence the "+Mark Streminsky' part, who was mentioning that the greek letter mu is used for micro, which is kind of random for this discussion. If it were to be added to say the English language, it would be written out 'mu', using the greek letter for it would be like, l33t speak.

[@KasabianFan44]

I think English needs a word to negate a negative sentence or question. For instance, if someone asks you "Do you *not* want to go out tonight?", and you actually *do* want to go, what word would you use? If you answer "no", it implies that you don't want to go, while if you answer "yes" it implies that you agree with the statement and you still don't want to go. In English, there isn't an alternative word: you have to say "I do" (or something similar) to avoid ambiguity. French, on the other hand, uses "si" to contradict negatives. I really wish English had such a word, too.

[@marclane1]

KasabianFan44 so the flippant example given by another Australian of "yeah nah" in Australian English is used to do this - Yeah Nah typically means "yes I understand you + no i do not want to", and is also used as a contradiction of a negative (same as Si in French). It is said to be a borrowing from gratuitous agreement in Aboriginal English, despite the 'bogan' overtones. So yeah, nah we have that in some English already.

[@KasabianFan44]

But "yeah, nah" still means that you don't want to go. I was looking for a word that bears the exact opposite meaning.

[@fangirl365]

The Korean language also kinda solves that issue. Their yes and no are more like saying I agree or disagree with that statement.

[@mysticfalcon8844]

Yes!

[@RQLexi]

I regret to inform you that English *used to* have this wonderful feature. It has simply fallen out of use. 'Yes' and 'no' were used in response to questions and statements posed in the negative, 'yea' and 'nay' in response to positives. You can still use 'nay' to negate a positive statement and 'yea' (or the more modern 'yeah') to confirm a positive statement (even if the latter might these days seem less formal) , but as you rightfully pointed out, ambiguity mainly arises from negatives. While it is perfectly doable to reintroduce the responses to positives, what we actually need for this to work as it used to is to remove the ambiguity of the responses to negatives, ie to change the meaning of 'yes' and 'no' back to what it used to be, and that could prove a lot harder than simply reintroducing archaic words.

[@wunnell]

It seems like a lot of people in the comments are confused between a language feature and a word for something specific.

[@0000-z4z]

@Kanashimi But how do you conjugate it? In many languages, the conjugation depends on the person.

[@godlyvex5543]

@Kanashimi

[@kurapikapika798]

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