Features English is missing - but most other languages have

"You can't repeat a word twice to create a new meaning." Yeah, yeah.

I had a german friend tell me that english is perfect for constructing jokes because it doesn't give away the punchline until the end of the sentence

A clear detriment I’ve noticed in English is only one word for “love.” Greek (see the New Testament) has 6 different words for love, depending on whether you mean self-love, long-standing love, deep friendship, playful love, love for people in the world in general, or sexual love. You can get in big trouble in English if you mean one of those but someone else who speaks only English thinks you mean another.

In Indonesian, we use reduplication for several things: - as plural indicator - as “ish” in english (e.g childish, reddish etc) - imitation of something (e.g mobil = car, mobil-mobilan=car toy) - or completely different meaning (irregular) e.g langit = sky langit-langit = ceiling. We use “-“ for the repeated words to indicate they are one word. Anyway I don’t think saya-saya is Indonesian word tho but reduplication is indeed a thing in our language

This whole comment section reminds me of a story. "An english teacher said to his class, 'in many languages there is an equivalent to a double negative, in which two negatives make a positive. But there are no languages where a double positive makes a negative.' From the back of the class a student said, 'yeah right."

I'm surprised grammatical gender wasn't mentioned. I never knew it was a thing until I took a foreign language class and realized my door was in fact a girl.

5:56 In Russian, the Instrumental is formed just by using the Instrumental form of a noun. A comitative case is formed when you add the preposition с to the instrumental noun.

I remember for a long time I wondered about clusivity all on my own. I realized that it would make sense to have two different forms of we, one where you include the person you’re talking to and one where you don’t. Glad to learn that this is in fact a thing in other languages!

The correct way to address short people: "You don't tall."

Reduplication: "So, do you like her, or do you like like her?

And ps - simpler isn't always better. I live in Central America and have learned Spanish. There are soooooo many "simple" things... But the "simple" things often lack any ability to talk about or describe the much more complex things. For example, when talking about barrowing or lending things.... In English, if I borrow something that means I received it. If I lend something, the other person received it. So much more clear. But in Spanish there is only 1 verb - prestar. And the conjugation indicates some of the direction the thing travelled... From and to whom.... But it is often only understood by context, not directly expressed in words.

In Polish we have imperfective and perfective pairs of verbs, like robic = to do, zrobic = to have done. Besides, we have frequentative pairs of verbs, like jesc = to eat, jadac = to eat regularly or often. Finally, we have short-time action forms of verbs, jesc = to eat, pojesc =to eat for some short time, biec = run, biegac = run for some time. P. S. Polish nouns decline for 7 cases and 5 genders, yes 5!

So you think English doesn’t have question particles at the end of phrases, eh?

Native lang: we need reduplication My sixth grade self: Do you like her? Like, like like her?

7:25 i wrote a paper in undergrad arguing that english DOES have an evidentiality marker: like. "Like" follows very specific and predictable patterns of use, and it is almost always used to distance the speaker from the statement/indicate a lack of exactness. Contrary to popular belief, it is NOT peppered haphazardly into speech! For example, using 'like' instead of 'said' (or even 'goes'/'went,' for very informal language) indicates that you are paraphrasing instead of giving a direct quote. It's often used with numbers to indicate approximation ("he left at like 7"; "it takes like 20mins"; "we hung out like 5 times"; "she's like 5'3""). I can't remember the other contexts off the top of my head, but those are the obvious ones. I also argued that this use is consistent with the stereotype that women use the word 'like' more frequently than men. Women use question tags and hedging more than men, and, imo, 'like' as an evidentiality marker has a similar function.

Regarding clusivity: in Skarù·ręʔ (Tuscarora), we distinguish "we" in four different forms. Which one you use depends on who your relationship to the audience and the subject of the sentence. 1.) í·θ yęknę̀·ruh = (EETH yik-nehh-roo) = you and I 2.) yęknę̀·ruh = (yik-nehh-roo) = someone else and I (you excluded) 3.) í·θ yękwę̀·ruh = (EETH yik-wehh-roo) = you all and I; we all (you included) 4.) yękwę̀·ruh = (yik-wehh-roo) = they and I (you excluded)

This must be why Google sucks at translating to English.

The lack of levels of formality in Engilsh is a blessing. Sometimes it's not clear cut which one to use so it just creates awkward moments and linguistically imposed hierarchies.

Slight context: The historical formal/informal (tu-vos) distinction in English was thou/you, although "thou" fell out of use by the 18th century, and "you" became the universal form to the point where "thou" is often used in period dramas to add an air of historicity and (erroneous) formality.

To me, many of the shortcomings and aspects of simplicity of English make it the best language for humor, which is immensely valuable to me.