How Languages Work: A Quick Grammar Guide

[@klarissaclairiton9010]

With languages, the learning never ends when you consider that the average dictionary contains at least 30,000 words.

[@stevesmith291]

Mark Twain agrees with your advice on adjectives: "When you catch an adjective, kill it. No, I don't mean utterly, but kill most of them-then the rest will be valuable. They weaken when they are close together."

[@DavidMorris1984]

When I started doing languages again after about 20 years, I was only aware of the terms I'd learned in school. I only knew the terms past, present and future for tenses for example. When I did a bit of Latin and when I first started Spanish, I discovered a vast range of linguistic terms I'd never heard of. Everyone else seemed to understand them, but they were confusing to me. I hope you do more videos about linguistic terms because this is so incredibly useful.

[@anandadaquino3604]

I'm Brazilian and I remember learning these terms in grammar classes, but I totally forgot 😂 it was good to remind me. Now I'm wondering how other people learn in school 🤔 I went to a good elementary school, so I'm aware not everybody needed to learn these things, but either I learned or I would repeat the year

[@tohaason]

I learned a whole bunch of terms in school.. for just about everything. That didn't help though, because now all the tenses we learned changed names so I'm clueless anyway. Some bureaucrat somewhere decided this? I don't know. Made my previous knowledge useless though.

[@DomCOuano]

i like this a lot because it's a list of the first things to learn in a new language, but it's also a list of the last things you'll forget in an old language.

[@petersizirony2320]

Awesome! You summarized it perfectly. One must learn his/her language first, before learning a second language. Basically, the way they execute, all languages are same. Just learn the rules of what makes it a language then you are good to go.

[@franpolidor1581]

"Or dulce de leche to pretty much anything." Loved that specific part of the video! Keep it up Olly ! I truly appreciate your content. Cheers from 🇦🇷

[@kaleidoscopesoul6487]

I'm learning Spanish and Russian right now; this video was very helpful!

[@RhapsodyinLingo]

This is such an important video for people who didn't grow up studying languages 😍 I'll send it over the next time someone isn't sure what is and isn't a pronoun!

[@lunalui]

Basically everything that is taught about grammar in elementary school (or used to be, at least in some countries) in 11 minutes: now that's a feat. You should make a similar video about syntax!

[@mariawesley7583]

When I was growing up in the 70's during Saturday morning cartoons in the States there was a series of educational cartoons called "Schoolhouse Rock". All the subject matter you just covered was set to some catchy tunes with cute animation that most Gen X'ers knew by heart. My favorite was the one on interjections because the music perfectly fit.

[@annarboriter]

Verb, that's what's happening! Had it not been for this series, I would have learned nothing about language from English teachers

[@lisamarydew]

❣

[@polyglotsjourney]

It is amazing how good you are at storytelling, Olly 😊👏🏻

[@sophiaisabelle027]

We appreciate your videos. Keep up the good work.

[@deutschmitpurple2918]

❤❤👍👍

[@AdamYLM]

What an incredible video, its now in my list of most important videos, I will forward many people here when they ask me questions related the adverbs, adjectives etc. Maybe you should also make a part 2 and include things like Subjunctives etc.

[@eliotdurczak3362]

I will have my grammar test in some days and I absolutely didn't understood and loved grammar but now I fully understand it ! Thank you so much Olly ! Thank you !

[@Roly679]

think this is perhaps the bit that I turned off to at school but perhaps 40 years later I now realise i'm missing, thank you

[@kathryndavies7367]

Thank you . I need a video like this for a while now. I like learning a new language but I don't get all these linguist terms so this is really helpful.

[@Martianwojack47]

We really appreciate your content

[@massmanute]

Very nice explanation.

[@paper2222]

2:00 more specifically _person pronouns_ "pronouns" itself cover more words like "what, how, one, that, this" "what is that, that is a thing, how are you, this is a sentence," etc. etc. with this in mind, you can go and joke around saying "my pronouns are this/that"

[@storylearning]

How long does it really take to learn a language? 👉🏼 kzbin.info/www/bejne/hpebgWZun7-ir9k

[@brianquinayas2853]

Hl olly me encanta tus vídeo y tus recomendaciones estoy aprendiendo inglés y tus vídeos son muy entretenidos y con ese carisma con el que hablas me encanta

[@amaranthim]

While learning Italian, I have discovered I am generally clueless about grammar. Therefore it is particularly hard to understand the explanations given to words (so that I can remember and learn the word). I somehow managed to get through college even without quite understanding the construction of the language and I have the same failing in Spanish which is my mother tongue.

[@TomiPalese]

_Or dulce de leche to pretty much anything._ I love it because it's true

[@Miro.13]

Thank you for the great videos. It helps me to understand English native speakers better! And your content is really interasting.

[@APlusRussian]

Thank you, Olly!! If I nerd out like that on _my_ channel, I don't think it would fly 😅 But you make it FUN 👏

[@CamilloCamus]

I love your passion for language and languages. Your enthusiasm is contagious and inspiring. I have to say though, I find the image of your opened skull disturbing. It reminds me of an equally disturbing scene in Hannibal with Anthony Hopkins :)

[@annarboriter]

The collective term is adposition and English has both prepositions and a handful of postpositions. Particles are simply inflections or adverbs

[@ЮраН-ь2к]

Are "Yes", "No", "Not", "Neither", "Nor" _simply inflections or adverbs_ ?

[@annarboriter]

@@ЮраН-ь2к An inflection is any morphological change to a word so none of these are inflections. Neither, nor are conjunctions. Words are defined by how they function within a sentence. Not, therefore, can be an adverb or it can be used as an interjection. Yes and no are typically adverbs in the same manner

[@ЮраН-ь2к]

@@annarboriter I agree that "neither" and "nor" are conjunctions because "or" is a conjunction. But adverb is word which usually mean a feature of verb. to run (how?) quickly, (where?) towards, (when?) tomorrow. Can you run yes? Or do something other yes? Any word can be used as an interjection. Once I used as interjection the word "gnom!". But standard interjections are words like "oh!", "wow" or "ha-ha-ha". They express emotions. "Yes" expresses agreement, "no" expresses disagreement or absence, "not" expresses negation and may be qualified as a preposition like "without".

[@annarboriter]

@@ЮраН-ь2к I assure you that not is not a preposition. One frequent use of an adverb is that it can also modify an entire clause. This is why the arguments against hopefully are baseless

[@annarboriter]

@@ЮраН-ь2к I should also note that neither can also function as a pronoun

[@gulammohamed2541]

You are an absolute phenomenon. Sharing on LinkedIn, too!

[@OSFUB]

Love your videos mate, all of these reminded me of Esperanto, but I bet you already hear or know about it

[@ioannishoeft1272]

That's a very nice video👌 keep up the good work. Greetings from Germany

[@ledysgonzalez3142]

This video deserve to be applauded 👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏............ Thanks

[@deutschmitpurple2918]

Excellent video like always

[@foreverlearningfrench]

Salut Alex ! C'est tellement bon de te revoir. Cette vidéo a été très utile.

[@sethaniel1]

I've waited for a video like this since before time had a name

[@sidgurjar]

I feel that often people are discouraged in their language learning process because not enough attention is paid to the language mechanics. Without realising, language learners assume that the way their 1st or 2nd language works is the same way their target language works, which is most often not true. Before beginning to learn any language, I feel one must get familiar with as many language mechanics of the target language as possible.

[@schwagecko5589]

Hi Olly. I was wondering if you could make a video on adapting textbooks/grammar books for your method? Just started watching your videos. At first I was very sad because I thought what the hell am I supposed to do with all these cool textbooks and grammar books that I bought? Then I remembered when teaching we learnt to use the textbook in ways other than it was intended. For example I was given an elementary book for beginner students and had to adapt it to their level. So instead of going through the textbook as normal I used the pictures and got students to describe them etc. Ignored the difficult grammar exercises and supplemented them with easier activities. How would you go about doing this as a language learner? I know how to do it as a teacher but am struggling on how to do it for myself. Also what activities do you think are worthwhile in textbooks? For example would you use vocabulary games? Do you completely ignore all grammar activities or do some?

[@tjspeakslanguages]

just bought your book

[@genemw]

Do you ever plan on making a video on Romanian?

[@hnglbanana]

really not sure about the editing on this one, but great content

[@brycemott138]

I’m trying to figure out how to translate the phrase “you become what surrounds you” into Latin but I can’t quite get it

[@danielwolfram8046]

Nice

[@solarpunk_hive1306]

7:45 Coccodrillo bipete

[@sebbyboi4255]

Cool

[@andrewprentice4096]

You didn't mention infixes, a feature of Georgian verbs

[@solarpunk_hive1306]

8:36 Ecco da dove derva shish!

[@kimballhansen2629]

Can you do a vid of this by breaking down the parts in Japanese so I can figure out how to understand it?

[@oskayaltn4058]

wow

[@ruedigernassauer]

German uses particles, too. It is these little words such as "mal", "halt" and "eben", maybe some more, that add nuances to one´s speech and that are skipped when translating into English.

[@ЮраН-ь2к]

Isn't "halt" a verb?

[@rudigernassauer6075]

@@ЮраН-ь2к Yes, it's also a verb. And besides it's a particle.

[@callmeswivelhips8229]

Why do people believe it's impossible to learn new sounds??? I legit don't understand where this belief came from. How is it any different to learning new words?? Really?? We invented the IPA for a reason! Just take your mouth to the gym, problem solved!! Yeesh! Also, tense versus aspect versus mood is super important in language learning. You'll get confused otherwise.

[@Adam-vv9co]

我在学习中文，我喜欢中文

[@zowiephoebe]

De-li-be-rate-ly 😂😂😂

[@wuyl660]

C1

[@ellotheearthling]

Video idea: Most useless languages to learn

[@Adam-vv9co]

Mandarin doesn't have tenses... best language ever

[@utopianforce7895]

Latin has three genders, like German. Masculine, feminine, and neuter. I wonder why Romance languages only have two, when their ancestor had three.

[@sardasjr]

👍👍

[@wild_insomnia]

😃

[@wuyl660]

C2

[@zigsynx5364]

But, who’s in paris?

[@just_some_guy_innit]

fellas

[@eliascsjunior]

English capitalizing months and days of the week is kinda ????

[@mrh4900]

Deez

[@Dandikbobrek]

i love deez

[@LesserMoffHootkins]

Keep peddling false hope, Olly!

[@romsoul3101]

The author of this video has a such strong British pronunciation . really American is more comfortable to hear.

[@roul4842]

He's British. That's just his natural accent. 😅😂 But nice to know you like my accent better.

[@JuneJ322]

Something I found interesting was how different "Pig-Latin or Gibberish" is in different languages. Like in Spanish: Muyfuy bifienfen, grafacifiasfas. machañachanacha.

[@sbclaridge]

Something that sounds like Spanish but is unrecognizable? That sounds like Greek to me! No seriously, I've heard about Spaniards who have traveled in and around Greece and found Greek to not sound "foreign" despite the words being totally different. Not to mention my own experience; I've been exposed to Spanish and its phonology by growing up around Hispanic people, and remembered the first time I listened to one of Anna Vissi's Greek songs, the cadence and sound of that language felt strangely familiar. Turns out that modern Greek and (especially Castilian) Spanish share many of the same sounds.