Features English is missing - but most other languages have 

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

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

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."

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

5:45 yes, when it rains, we should point out the window and yell “RAINING”

I think the majority of Austronesian languages have different words for inclusive and exclusive "we". This avoids awkward conversations.

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.

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

“I like him, but I don’t like like him” we have repeating words (and sounds too!) but they’re mostly used informally and speaking so you wouldn’t see them in a book. In addition you can use adjectives as verbs but, again, you don’t verbify nouns and adjectives in formal writing, just informal :)

in danish (and i think other scandinavian langauages too) we have different words for grandparents based on whether they're your father or mothers parents it's really simple tbh, the words are: mormor: mom mom (mom's mom) morfar: mom dad (mom's dad) farmor: dad mom (dad's mom) farfar: dad dad (dad's dad)

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

This must be why Google sucks at translating to English.

In our Cebuano (Central Philippine) language, which is a Malayo-Polynesian language, reduplication is a prominent feature, the implications of which often refers to a second-rate version of the original word, regardless whether a noun, an adjective, or a verb is reduplicated. 1. NOUNS: refers to second-rate versions of things. asáwa = wife asawa-asawa = common-law wife anák = child anák-ának = adopted child; child in a role-play arrangement baláy = house baláy-bálay = makeshift house With nouns, reduplication could also imply multiplicity of the nouns: baláy = house baláy-baláy = houses; neighbourhood 2. VERBS: refers to less-serious versions of the actions being done. túlog = sleep túlog-túlog = pretending to be asleep kaón = eat kaón-kaón = leisurely eating, or eating not quite seriously 3. ADJECTIVES: refer to descriptions which are just second-rate to the original adjective from where it came from. dakû = big dakû-dakû = biggish; quite big ulán = rainy (usu refers to the noun “rain”, but could also be used as adjective, like in this example) ulán-úlan = drizzling; light showers

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.

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

What English has that other languages don’t: phonetical inconsistency

There are three you's in Marathi: तू (tu) तुम्ही (tumhi) आपण (aapan) The first one is used for someone your age, like a friend. The second one is used for people elder than you, your parents and your teachers. And the third one is used for strangers or someone you do not know very well.

In the Philippines, we also have two words for the word "of" In tagalog, its Ng- referring to any abstract object, or a common noun Ni-refering to a specific person. Example House of my friend- bahay NG kaibigan ko House of Juan- bahay NI Juan

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.

Australian english has reduplication. Yeah = tell me more Yeah yeah = I've heard enough yeah nah = no nah yeah = yes na na = bannana

One observation about a slight deficiency in the language that no-one's mentioned (although it's not really a missing feature). The difficulty in differentiating in speech between "thirteen/thirty", "fourteen/forty", "fifteen/fifty" etc. This happens with native speakers all the time, where we commonly find ourselves either saying the number very slowly an emphasizing the final syllable very carefully, or spelling out the individual digits (e.g. "one-three" or "three-oh"). It's a genuine inconvenience. This is a pecularity of English because during the Saxon period it lost the distinctive "-g" endings which German and Dutch have. For example, you'd never get confused between "vierzehn" and "vierzig".

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!

Me: "I was watching this video and the guy said English doesn't put 'what' or 'who' at the end of a question." Friend: "He said what?"

English has reduplication, though it might not seem like reduplication reduplication.

English does have reduplication; there are plenty of examples of repeated words which changes the meaning. Some examples fall into sarcasm, but many don’t, and sarcasm is fairly important in social interaction anyway.

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!

As a native Russian speaker, I love English for its kind of... Mysticism. When I write songs about something that's hard to explain, I always use English, because my native language is too direct and detailed for describing what can have a million meanings. Personally, I don't think there are bad or dumb languages in the world, they're all just different and good at their own purposes!

"We each read three books." There, that wasn't hard, was it?

Learning Mandarin was amazing. It's such an intuitive language even if the writing is monstrously difficult

I love how the english language sounds. Native english speakers use so many interesting sounds that no other language uses or at least they are rare. I learned most of them but they still fascinate me as someone who studied english as an adult

English is missing a word for "the day after tomorrow"

I'm alway shocked that there are no words for "the day after tomorrow" and "the deay before yesterday". 😵

I, for one, prefer to have to add a couple more words to the phrase to generate the same effect instead of having to deal with extremely complicated grammar stuff that might make some sentences shorter and wittier, but make the learning of the language way harder in general. I particularly have the German cases in mind while writing this.

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.

“You” was polite version so we’re just really nice all the time

What’s wrong with “We read 3 books each” - this clarification is just as easy as adding to a word.

“I’m gonna read a book” “A book book or an e-book?” “I think I like him” “You like him or you like-like him?” English definitely does have reduplication

I have never heard saya-saya in Indonesian. We have a lot of duplication - usually to indicate plural but sometimes a similar but different meaning. For example we have a joke: what is far shorter if you double it? Langit (sky) vs. Langit-langit (ceiling). Usually to change meaning we add suffixes such as -an for a pretend object (mobil =car vs. mobil-mobilan)

Other than English I also speak Czech, Slovak, German, Dutch and Italian. English is by far the easiest language where everything is so so so simple. The grammar tenses are so chill and there is so few of them. In slavic languages every word has around 15 - 50 different forms with different endings you just have to know and learn. English is just simple and lovely.

"English, you're not normal." Aye, the fact that there's almost ten different ways of pronouncing 'ough' is proof enough.

English has many (many many) faults, but not one of the things you pointed out is among them. You made a great case for everything that English makes simpler and easier. By using English to illustrate what other languages can do you pointed out that English can do all of these things, usually in a simpler or better way. As the English say "Quod erat demonstrandum".

2:36 we do have ”thee” and “thou” (the informal/familiar/single of “you”) but they’ve fallen out of use. “You” used to be the formal/plural.

English does have reduplication! Example: "My brother-in-law is English" "He's from America?" "No, the UK" "Oh, so like he's Scottish or something?" "No, he's ENGLISH English!"

Is it crazy how saying sentences backward creates backward sentences saying how crazy it is? Wouldn't've ever thought 'bout this.

I was studying Old English and it turns out it had many features that we stopped doing

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.

English is very polite! I haven't heard a "thou" in some time!

As a Spanish speaker I find English's lack of a formal "you" to be a massive relief. Saves me the trouble of figuring out whether I should address someone as tú or usted.

Very funny and instructive, keep on going your good work, lad! Greetings from Belgium ;)

Turkish has evidental too. (also Korean has it) Withnessed past tense (-di suffix) and Heard past tense (miş suffix) are different in Turkish. (I saw that ) A thief broke into the house. =eve hırsız girdi. ( I did not see but I heard or learned/realized it later) A thief broke into the house.=Eve hırsız girmiş. (when you are back to your home, you see some objects are missing so you understand/realize that a theif stole them. gir=come in di=withnessed past tense miş=heard/learned later/realized later

“You saw who?” is perfectly good colloquial English.

English does exhibit some reduplication: "I'm going out." "Are you going out-out?" (A special occasion, like a date).

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)

"You saw who?" is a perfectly rational English question.

4:30 Swahili: Nani means who. Japanese: *何？！*

English has no way to express the idea "we read three books each?" You know, like by adding the "each?"

In conversational English, we have ways to do many of these.

We have the two withs in English! Using and alongside/along with. In any sentence where you would use "with" to mean "I used this to do the thing," you should be able to replace "with" with "using." I made this soup using organic carrots. We built the roof using hammers. You can write using a pencil or a pen. Similarly, in any sentence where you would use "with" to mean "in cooperation with" or "in the presence of," you should be able to replace "with" with alongside or along with. Did you go along with Joe and Amy to the fair? I made cookies alongside my mom. We built the roof alongside our friends. It's a little clunky, for sure, and doesn't get used much, but we absolutely do have a way to communicate which "with" we're using when we need to.

In England “there there” is used. To show somebody comfort and support when you don’t know what else to say to make them feel better. And it often comes with a pat on the back or maybe a hug

Person: “What is the weather today?” Me: “rains”

With the strong verbs in English, the vowel differences are from Proto-Indo-European dissimilation of reduplicating vowels in the stative stems.

Something that made my informal english understanding better was when I noticed that you can make any name into a verb. It's often if not always used for humor and the context will make it understandable.

For the confused non-english speakers here, lead is pronounced like read and lead is pronounced like read.

As a Kiwi, that's the best te reo Māori pronunciation that I've ever heard from a foreigner. Good job, man. Credit where credit is due.

In Esperanto you say, “pluvas” for it’s raining, and “negxas” for it’s snowing, etc. But my kids keep saying, “gxi pluvas” and “gxi negxas”, incorrectly inserting the word “it” before the verb. 100% sure it’s the English informing them, but they keep saying it despite my efforts to correct them.

It's difficult to express "cannot NOT to do something" in English. For example "I can't not (to) ask" is incorrect BUT it's still doable: "I can't help but ask"

"I'm good at chess, but I'm not GOOD good." Reduplication?

Reduplication: Wake me up before you go-go

Italian-speakers can omit the subject because the conjugation of a verb changes according to the subject. In English, an 's' is added to the 3rd person singular. In the Past Simple even that 's' is not added.

In Serbian we don't have many of these features. But when we want to say "It's raining" we say "Pada kiša" which literally translates to "The rain is falling".

To me, the only really useful thing that's missing from modern English is two distinct pronouns for singular "you" and plural "you". I don't really miss any polite pronouns or other grammatical politeness markers, just an simple, non-awkward way of distinguishing between 2nd person sing. vs. pl.

as someone from holland, who studies english, italian, german and french, i still think english is the easiest language

"We read three books." Context

the crazy thing about english is that it is VERSITILE! you can change it however you want and still be understood sometimes without issue. "who did you see?" and "you saw who?" are both perfectly reasonable and acceptable forms of asking the same question.

The video should be titled “how to make English even more confusing”.

“English, you’re not normal” Two words that look the same and sound different: Read Read

"but wait, you're English, and you don't have politeness!"

One feature I think is missing from English is how to answer a negative question, which in French is done by saying "si" instead of "oui".

You missed the most obvious deficiency: the ability to make diminutives from nouns. A small cat is a kitten, a totally different word. Afrikaans: kat - katjie. Spanish: gato -gatito. A small car in English is a small car. Afrikaans: kar - karretjie. Spanish: carro - carrito. I'm told diminutives are easy in German, too. My proposal is to add ling. Duck - duckling. Cat - catling. Car - carling.

So a reason like this is why many non-native English speakers, especially us Indians have a weird accent while speaking English because in our languages, we only pronounce the word exactly as it is written. It's just a neat feature to have in a language.

We do have limited reduplication, but we use adjectives and adverbs instead of repeating the same word to magnify it.

I suddenly remembered that one time in first grade when I hesitated to say “you” to my teacher. It just felt too informal.😂🤣👩🏻‍🏫

Surprised you didn’t mention “you” referring to a singular person and “you” referring to multiple people. (Like in portuguese, singular: você/tu, plural: vocês/vós). Now that would be useful.

Children: We read three books each Georgian: We read three times three books.

There are a few concepts that can't be discribed easily in English because the words simply don't exist. Like the German word "gelungen", it means much more than than the common translation "to succeed". It means the success came about with the help of a force that is not conveyed with the meaning of the word. This force could be god, coincidence or luck for example. As success in often not as predictable as we would want.

The simplicity of English is a blessing for those who have to learn it as a foreign language!

Hopefully they add these features in the next update.

I always thought the lack of the plural "you" is the most glaring linguistic omission English has. Unlike the lack of a you/thee distinction, the plural "you" actually causes communications difficulties, and unfortunately the solutions to it, including the most popular one (y'all) get derided as ungrammatical when they are solving an actual problem.

The English language will never rest until it has assimilated all vocabulary and grammar from all other languages! We'll start with the question particles, yes?

Omg if the “we” differentiation existed in English it would have saved me so many awkward moments! The number of times someone else has said “we’re going to lunch” and I thought I was included. So awkward! The with one makes sense to. But the double meaning of with provides so many fun opportunities for a play on words.

We read three books each. Easy to differentiate.

"politeness" JAPAN WANTS TO KNOW YOUR LOCATION

"Dummy it" is what really impresses me the most because it has no lexical meaning. I'm surprised it hasn't been dropped in informal speaking over the years.

Reduplication--Is that like saying " tiny little bug" or "great big house"? The grave, life threatening problem of not knowing how many books each child read is easily solved by saying "We each read three books" or "We read three books each." Informal and formal forms of "you." There are still some people who use the informal form of you. But it's still possible to be polite. For example, when you run into a neighbor that you've lived next door to for twenty years but have never developed a friendship with, you say "Good afternoon, Mr. Smith. How are you?" That's using the formal form. If you have developed a friendship with him you say, "Hey, Joe, how's it goin'?" You've used the informal form. "You went to work today, huh?" With? Make this joke in another language--"Today, my father washed the car with me. I wish he'd use a sponge." All these things you're saying can't be done in English, can be done in English. You find that out pretty quickly if you read English instead of just reading about English.

I am so happy that English is missing grammatical genders for nouns though.

If somebody said to me "Whom did you see?" and they were under the age of 70 I'd be shocked. Just say "Who'd you see?" like the rest of us.

When talking about inclusive/exclusive we, I think noting Cree as a language using the distinction is important as it’s one of the more popular native languages.

"Well!" compared to the knowing "well, well!"