Small grammatical details to look for when learning a language

[@deadlyespresso6166]

I had no idea that the Catalan language had such a terrifying time counting system.

[@teucer915]

Swahili time confused the hell out of me when I was doing that course on Duo.

[@garry_productions]

As a native Hungarian speaker who also has a passion for linguistics, it’s great to see someone mentioning it :)

[@garry_productions]

Also in Hungarian, the English “I like” conjunction can be said both in a way where the speaker is the one doing the liking “(én) szeretem”, or in a way in which the object does the pleasing, like in Spanish “me gusta”, which is “(nekem) tetszik”.

[@hsjoihs_linguistic]

Funny quirks of the Japanese number system that is not commonly known: - When counting up from one to ten, we can use both the Sino-Japanese "shi" / "shich" or the native "yon" / "nana" to signify 4 and 7, but when counting *down* from ten to one, only "yon" / "nana" are allowed. - There is a rule that changes the pitch accent when two words combine to create a compound noun. However, even though this modification rule applies to numbers in 10s, 50s, 60s, 80s ["rokújuu" (60) and "ichí" (1) combine to form "rokujuuichí" (61)] , it does not apply to numbers in 20s - 40s, 70s and 90s ["nanájuu" (70) and "ichí" (1) makes "nanájuu ichí"]

[@mr.flibblessumeriantransla5417]

Sumerian is quite fascinating in how differently from English it approaches various concepts. For instance, it has a relatively small number of basic verb-stems, and almost no derivational morphemes to form them from other parts of speech. As such, Sumerian relies on circumlocutions via so-called “compound verbs.” However, these are not simply two verbs stuck together. They consist of an initial verb stem which may or may not be affixed with a demonstrative or possessive marker, and a core stem which is the part which undergoes conjugation. For example: There is no simple verb stem for “to see, behold.” Instead, you would use one of several compound verbs (which one depends on the manner the person is doing the “seeing,” similar to the semantic differences between English “see,” “look,” “examine,” etc). The most basic of the above is “igi ĝal.” This is comprised of the morphemes “igi” (_eye_), and “ĝal” (_to be, to exist, to be at_). Thus, you could formulate the phrase “I saw the sheep” as: _udu igi-ĝu inĝal_ = “the sheep, my eye is at it” However, while this is the most basic lexically, it also has the most irregularities in how it is formulated. A more straightforward compound verb with similar meaning is “igi ĝar,” or “eye put/set.” _udu-še igi i’ĝar_ = “to the sheep, an eye I set” ~basically being “I saw the sheep” or “I looked at the sheep.” Sumerian is rife with these sorts of formations, which is somewhat baffling at first glance to an English speaker. A few other elements that are truly bewildering include: -Aspectual distinction in verbs instead of tense -Non-human-gender subjects/objects aren’t pluralized (and if they must be it is done by altering the verb-stem’s form) -the Copula (like all verbs) is essentially tenseless and can mean “is/was/will be” depending on context. -clauses aren’t linked by a discrete conjunction, but are instead merely placed beside one another in juxtaposition. (By the Ur III Period Sumerian adopted the Akkadian coordinating conjunction “u” meaning “and, also,” but it’s use remained primarily restricted to separating individual nouns, and only more rarely for entire clauses). Sorry for long comment. Hope you found some of this interesting! :)

[@Neversa]

1:00 Kazakh language doesn't use "that" for binding sentence parts to one another at all. We have unlimited supply of suffixes

[@khelian613]

7:17 Works the same in French: "Je voyage plus QUE toi" "Le vol a duré plus DE dix heures" (In that case, if you were to use "que", it'd work in the case of correcting your interlocutor, eg: "Le vol a duré dix heures. - Non, le vol a duré plus que dix heures."

[@B0K1T0]

10:46 I learnt this the hard way when I was going out of town with some Irish and British friends and we agreed to meet at the station around "half 7". Which made me wait an hour to learn for them that meant 7: 30 🤦‍♂I wasn't aware of this way of saying times in (informal) European English variants, so I guess my brain was just hot-wired to apply the Dutch system where it would mean 6: 30.

[@iameap]

Would add on counting: whether or not languages use different words to quantify different types of nouns, or even different ways to say numbers. Like in Swedish (as far as I can tell) every inanimate thing can be quantified as pieces (stycken), whereas Japanese uses different words based on qualities of the objects being counted (flat things counted in -mai, small containers of fluid counted in -hai, generic pieces as -tsu, etc), as well as different number forms and how they affect pronunciation of the quantifier (eg one of each of those things would be, respectively, ichi-mai, i’p-pai, hito-tsu)

[@prywatne4733]

An intetesting little detail I found that is not in the video, is that some languages with noun cases, in sentence like "X is a Y", put the object "Y" in the instrumental. For example, it happens, as you know, in Polish (I don't know more Slavic languages maybe that happens there too) so "he is a cat" would be "on jest kot*em*". This also happens in Japanese, but in regular speech it's a bit hidden in plain sight sort of. The Japanese verb meaning "to be" is "aru" (polite conjugation being "arimasu") (there's also "iru" but that's irrelevant for now), so theoretically "he is a cat" would be "kare wa neko*de* aru"/ "kare wa neko*de* arimasu" ("wa" is the topic postposition), BUT afaik nobody speaks like that in modern Japanese, instead the Instrumental clitic "-de" is contracted with the verb, so "-de aru" becomes "-da" and "-de arimasu" becomes "-desu", so an actual speaker would say that sentence more akin to "kare wa nekoda"/" kare wa nekodesu", or I've heard some people drop the verb completely (leaving only "kare wa neko", literally "he cat") but that's another topic

[@TheMrMe1]

Icelandic time is interesting: We traditionally count towards the next hour, so 10:10 is *(klukkan er) tíu mínútur gengin í ellefu* ((the clock has) gone ten minutes towards eleven). After the half hour, we start counting down, so 10:50 is *klukkuna vantar tíu mínútur í ellefu* (the clock is lacking ten minutes to eleven) However, this is fairly complicated, so modern speakers tend to use X minutes over the last hour or X minutes to the next. So, 10:10 is *tíu mínútur yfir tíu* (ten minutes over ten) and 10:50 is *tíu mínútur í ellefu* (ten minutes to eleven). In addition, most Icelanders are used to digital 24h clocks and it's very common to simply read off the time; 10:10 is thus *tíu tíu* (ten ten) and 10:50 is *tíu fimmtíu* (ten fifty)

[@datchisan25]

Dutch also has some interesting way of going about telling the time: For one, let me state that we are inconsistent when it comes to the 12/24 hour clock system, so you're likely to hear both. Secondly in Dutch we have a system that is divided by whichever half of an hour the current minutes are closest to, as well as indicating quarter hours separately.. and halves belong to the next hour, presumably for the same reason as 3.5 becoming 4 when rounded up. Basically this is how you'd say each: 8:00 Acht uur | Eight o'clock 8:05 Vijf over acht | Five past eight 8:10 Tien over acht | Ten past eight 8:15 Kwart over acht | A quarter past eight 8:20 Tien voor half negen | Ten before half (until) nine 8:25 Vijf voor half negen | Five before half (until) nine 8:30 Half negen | A half (until) nine 8:35 Vijf over half negen | Five past half (until) nine 8:40 Tien over half negen | Ten over half (until) nine 8:45 Kwart voor negen | A quarter before nine 8:50 Tien voor negen | Ten before nine 8:55 Vijf voor negen | Five before nine Also want to mention the insanity that is 8:44, "veertien over half negen" | "fourteen past half past nine". And if you were to specify AM/PM, you'd add "'s nachts/ochtends"(of the night/morning) and "'s middags/avonds"(of the (after)noon/evening). Nowadays, mostly young people, tend to neglect this system in favor of basically copying English where 8:44 just becomes "acht vierenveertig" | "eight forty-four", with only halves and quarters being used as they used to.

[@Liggliluff]

Similar in Swedish, you use: 08​:05 fem över åtta | five over eight 08​:10 tio över åtta | ten over eight 08​:15 kvart över åtta | quarter over eight 08​:20 tjugo över åtta | twenty over eight 08​:25 fem i halv nio | five in half nine 08​:30 halv nio | half nine 08​:35 fem över halv nio | five over half nine 08​:40 tjugo i nio | twenty in nine 08​:45 kvart i nio | quarter in nine 08​:50 tio i nio | ten in nine 08​:55 fem i nio | five in nine You can use both 12 and 24 hours and it varies, 24 hours is used when you want to clarify "Sover du än? Klockan är tretton!" = Are you still sleeping? The clock is thirteen. Swedes seems to prefer terms like night/morning/day/evening in addition to just using forenoon/afternoon. So 01​:00 can be referred to as 1 at night/morning and 13​:00 as 1 at day/afternoon. This avoids ambiguity if 00​:10 is forenoon or afternoon, by just saying "10 over 12 at night".

[@Liggliluff]

(6:30) "This isn't just a Spanish thing" he says showing an earth focused on USA, instead of the Spanish speaking world. I would assume it was meant to show the Spanish speaking world.

[@Krl-j5y]

9:48 nowadays most Russians will count hours similar to English. For example 3:07 will be три ноль семь (three zero seven). The exeption is when there are 30 minutes like for example 3:30 will be пол четвертого (half of the forth) but a lot of people just say три тридцать (three thirty) and this isn't considered wrong

[@Liggliluff]

Worth adding that in some cultures, noon is 12:00 am, which adds more information to consider.

[@xwtek3505]

Isn't am and pm itself only used in English? In my language, Indonesian, even when using 12 clock time, we don't use am/pm, but using a time adverb like pagi/siang/sore/malam.

[@B0K1T0]

A bit of nuance (and added layer of lovely complication) regarding the Dutch 12/24 hour thing: In text you'll always see the 24 hour system, while in spoken form, you'll mostly hear the 12 hour system (with added period of the day when not obvious from the context). Although this depends on the precision needed: "Laten we rond vijftien uur in de kroeg afspreken" would sound quite odd (even if you like day drinking), but "Laten we de trein van vijftien uur drieëndertig pakken" would make perfect sense.

[@2712animefreak]

In Croatian the word for "that (connected to a single noun)" mostly works like in Polish or Russian. It is technically a kind of pronoun, though. For the numbers that end in 5-0, an explanation that makes the most sense to me is that in such phrases is that numbers 5-10 are quantity words and form the main part of the noun phrase with the counted noun being a descriptor. To translate very literally into English we don't say "five cats", we say "a five of cats" in the same way we'd say "a sack of potatoes". For the numbers 2-4 the "genitive singular" is actually an old dual form. You can see this because in Slovenian, which still has a functional dual, number 2 takes nominative dual and numbers 3 and 4 take nominative plural as one would expect. The loss of the dual caused mixing of the old dual and plural endings which ended up messing up counting system.

[@tageholmquist3926]

I really appreciate this video, it has opened my mind to many cool phenomena. I also appreciate your attempts at speaking swedish, but you made a few mistakes, such as: -Your throat seems to be very constricted, this gives the vowels a weird quality. -long e is higher and long å is lower -there's often consonant deletion in common morphemes when unstressed "till" and "jag" are "ti" and "ja" -the pitch is essential for the words to sound natural. -/r/ is almost always an approximant except in old speech or the dialects where it's uvular -in "den är skålen som jag äter glass i", 'den här/denna' is perhaps a more common expression. Still really appretiate your effort and some words were perfect. (sorry if this sounded nitpicky i'm just nerding out over your pronounciation)

[@miki3uwu]

4:12 to jest miska (misa is not generally used, mainly to emphasise how big it is), z której (from which, the construction which would be used here) jadam (i feel like jem would be more common) lody. in standard Polish these /ɛ/s in jest and której would both be pronounced as [e] due to them being right next to /j/. Also earlier, the ą in którą is actually pronounced somethibg like [ɔw̃~ɔɰ̃~ɔŋ~ɔm] (the last one being regional and not officially part of standard language)

[@benji272]

oh god, catalan chronology scares me. thank god i'm learning mandarin.... didn't think i would be saying that but here i am

[@orthohawk1026]

The object pronouns are even more scary

[@B0K1T0]

3:50 "piper" being a girl's name weirds me out more to be honest, that's a common name in the US? For me associations with some Dutch word would pop up.. (let's just say it's somewhat related to pipe smoking or whistle blowing)

[@watchyourlanguage3870]

I wouldn't say it's common, but it's definitely known, I went to grade school with a Piper, and I'm also aware of an actress named Piper and even a recurring TV character named Piper

[@B0K1T0]

@@watchyourlanguage3870 People's names is a fascinating part of languages on its own :) I don't think calling your daughter "Pijper" would even be allowed by law in the Netherlands due to the meaning of that word (in vulgar language) 🫢

[@2712animefreak]

@@B0K1T0 I presume it started as a surname that came from an occupation, like Smith or Potter. In the US there seems to be this phenomenon of last names becoming first names.

[@orthohawk1026]

the Pied Piper played a recorder, JSYK I believe the Celtic languages also use pronominal resumption, though I'm not sure of how extensive this use is. And the preposition thee uses in teh eating ice cream example is weird to me. I would say "from" (unless I was sitting inside a giant-ass bowl eating ice cream, lol)

[@pawel198812]

One of the most difficult things in German to conceptualize and learn is the usage of modal particles. They are hard to translate into single words in a foreign language (thus more difficult to learn than other vocabulary) as well as hard to explain by native speakers (so good comprehensive descriptions are hard to come by) Second hardest thing: word order in languages like Hungarian. What's wrong with using stress and intonations for emphasis, I wonder. It would be so much simpler

[@jonasbrown1]

you should learn chinese it fits into this very interestingly

[@carlbrian7551]

In dutch, you don’t do preposition stranding but “pied-piping”, de kom WAARIN ik het ijs at. [the bowl “wherein” I at the ice cream]

[@oravlaful]

what flag are you using for spanish?

[@flaviospadavecchia5126]

I hate learning numbers and telling the time when learning a new language :')

[@mandaring8825]

You've never heard of the pied piper before????

[@chuckyfoan]

for russian (and for serbo-croatian, they share the same cases along with polish, I'm not really familiar with other languages) the reason why for 2,3,4 the genetive singular is used, is that the endings of the gen. sg. agree with the obsolete dual in the earlier forms of the language. The closely related slovenian kept the dual forms though and thus declines differently. For serbo-croatian it's 1 dog - jedan pas- nom. sg. 2,3,4 dogs - dva psa - gen. sg 5 dogs- pet pasa - gen. pl as in russian while in slovenian it's 1 dog - en pes - nom. sg 2 dogs - dva psa - nom. dual 3 dogs - trije psi - nom. plural 4 dogs - štirje psi - nom. plural 5 dogs - pet psov - gen. plural *in slovenian the number 1,2,3,4 get declined* so the croatian and slovenian genetive corresponds to the dual forms in slovenian in all declensions. and the example maledeclensions if you want to see them dog singural in slovenian is (L being locative, also called prepositional, same as in russian) N. pes G. PSA D. psu A. psa I. s psom (with dog) L. o psu (about dog) and dog dual N. PSA G. psov D. psoma A. psa I. psoma L. psoma while in serbo-croatian it's N. pas G. PSA D. psu A. psa I. psom I. psu hope this was interesting and comprehensible