when i first realized what this was and
then had to explain it to
my argentinian students i was like oh my
god
i've been doing that all this time hello
and welcome
back to this series where i complain
about languages
on the internet for those of you that
are not familiar with what i'm talking
about i've been doing this
up until this point on my other channel
on no backup plan
i've done a few episodes already on
french and italian
vramo baman which means really not bad
which actually means really
quite good depending on how you say it
one finger in italian is
logically you would think okay one
finger is masculine so maybe
two fingers would also be masculine
right if only you were that simple and
it has gotten such an amazing
reaction so far that i decided to bring
it over to here so i can complain about
languages to more people
this is where i air my grievances it's
all in good fun
of course and i think it's high time
that we talk about
english which is a language that doesn't
make very much sense
[Music]
first of all a little bit of context
i've lived many lives before i became
a filmmaker and a creator of things
online and one
of those lives which was very
short-lived it was brief but
i taught english to argentinian students
while i was living in argentina now
it is only when you teach a language
that you speak natively to non-native
speakers that you
realize and quickly how little certain
things can make sense
the difficulties that you suddenly face
in trying to explain certain concepts
that you just took for granted i feel
like i was spared
a lot of learning english
because i learned it as a kid
and that was that and recently i saw
this tweet which kind of reminded me
why my argentinian students would look
at me like i was insane
so often yes english can be weird it can
be understood through tough
thorough thought though and when i read
that i was just like
that's right we have a very strange
language when it comes to when it comes
to spelling and also pronunciation and
there are
infinite examples of this i mean english
is just made up of
these sorts of mind-boggling
constructions
so i'm going to dive into three points
that i remember causing my argentinian
students
absolute hell insane inconsistencies
this is like the warm-up round i want to
throw another example to you right now
40 is spelled f-o-r-t-y
okay so not four f o u r f o
r just f o r and 90 is spelled n i n
e t y so like 9 t but
fourth is spelled f o u r t h and
ninth is spelled n-i-n-t-h should be
ninth the rules just don't
i don't know they just don't apply you
know i saw someone on the internet
you know firefly is the opposite of
waterfall
it's like cool great english is weird
read and lead rhyme and read and lead
rhyme
but read and lead don't rhyme and
neither do read
and lead english
feels like this mishmash of different
rules
and systems that we try to make
make sense if that makes sense we tried
to
justify it but i don't think there's
anything anyone could say or do
to prove to me that this makes sense i
remember growing up learning
these sort of like easy to remember
rules
for spelling so for example i before e
except for after c i couldn't even say
that properly
i before e except after c so in practice
it helps sometimes i believed
in that rule because i had thought that
i had received
good advice see what i did there except
no
because it feels like there's more
exceptions than actual words that follow
this rule
isn't that weird see that right there is
an example i thought i was proficient in
spotting the
deficiencies and inconsistencies of
society clearly
english doesn't make it easy for
foreigners i thought it was juicier than
that
this makes me feel like a feisty
scientist
this language is an idiomatic mess look
i feel like i have a right to say that
as an american right
i've been kind of being careful i've
been treading lightly as i complain
about
french and italian i don't want to
offend the native speakers but i'm a
native speaker of english so i feel like
i can say whatever i want this language
is an idiomatic mess we say as quiet as
a mouse right or as quite as mice
to mean quiet but have you ever
heard mice they are anything but quiet
they're extremely loud maybe i've spent
too much time in big cities
and that's just on me but mice
are one of the loudest things like one
of the major reasons that i've stayed up
at night in the past
why is it that a fat chance and a slim
chance
essentially mean the same thing also why
is
a wise guy and a wise man
like those are two opposites except they
should mean the same thing but the skin
of your teeth means to have narrowly
avoided something but
that's disgusting and it doesn't make
any sense like i don't have any skin
on my teeth i don't think your alarm
goes off in the morning when it turns on
you can see the stars when they are
out but when the lights are out you
can't see anything
compound verbs compound verbs have got
to be like one of the worst things
about the english language i mean truly
when i first realized what this was and
then had to explain it
to my argentinian students i was like oh
my god
i've been doing that all this time
basically according to wikipedia
in linguistics a compound verb or
complex predicate
is a multi-word compound that functions
as a single verb
basically it's multiple words coming
together to act like one verb
so for example and we're going to use
this example i think this is a great
example
instead of saying to rise you can say to
get up
two words to get up the whole concept of
compound verbs
it's like you don't realize it until you
have to explain it to somebody get is
actually an incredibly versatile
word in the english language and instead
of coming up with original words
for each of these verbs we just wanted
to remix and rehash the same words that
we already had
so there's of course to get right kind
of like to acquire something
but then if we're gonna talk about
telling somebody to stand up you say get
up
if you're telling somebody to avoid
something that might hit them you say
get down
with friends we try to get along with
breakups
we try to get over it when you're trying
to explain something to somebody you
want to get through to them
if you're barely scraping by with money
you're getting by if you're getting
frustrated
with somebody and explaining something
to them you might say get with it
all of these different verbs that when
you're trying to explain
to a non-native speaker they're like
what so
get up get down
get through get by
like it just it doesn't make sense at
all these these
words that have other meanings you smash
them together and they have new meanings
and it actually leads to some really
hilarious misunderstandings because
you might be saying something to
somebody right just
normal conversation but if they don't
have the meaning they don't understand
the meaning of that compound verb
they can utterly miss the point of what
you're trying to say
you know if i just said i got up and
left
if somebody doesn't understand the
meaning of to get up
they're going to completely not
understand what you're saying it's just
going to sound like a mishmash of words
i got up and left like
that's not it doesn't even sound like a
proper sentence
okay bonus round here one really funny
thing that
native english speakers do that i didn't
i was unaware of
is to say no yeah where we answer in the
affirmative but starting with the word
no and it's just taken for granted i
suppose we just know that you're
supposed to not
accept that first no you just get that
when somebody says
no yeah they mean yeah so why are we
saying no
and this becomes really apparent when
you're talking to foreigners who maybe
don't understand that and they get
confused they're like wait
are you saying no are you saying yeah be
clear please
so now i take extra steps i make an
extra effort to be as clear as possible
if somebody says something to me and i
want to answer as clearly as possible
i don't say no yeah i say yeah no
totally
so there you have it i'm gonna leave it
at that for now
but if you guys enjoy this please give
this a like
and i will do more of these i'm gonna
basically base it off of your reaction
there's so much material with the
english language and with all languages
in general
it doesn't feel like any of them make
any sense whatsoever because of course
it's humans
that made these languages up and humans
don't like to do things very rationally
do we if you're curious as i mentioned
before i do already have other episodes
in this series out now on my other
channel on no backup plan
i'll link to them down in the
description below i will also link to my
language learning class in the
description below for those of you
interested
and passionate about language learning
as i am could be an interesting resource
to look into if you're curious
and having said that thank you so much
for watching and i'll see you soon