Why don't "tough" and "dough" rhyme? - Arika Okrent

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Explore the evolution of English spelling conventions throughout history, and find out why it's such an inconsistent language.
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Spelling reformers have been advocating for changes to make English spelling more intuitive and less irregular. One example of its messiness: take the “g-h” sound from “enough,” the “o” sound from “women” and the “t-i” sound from “action,” and you could argue that “g-h-o-t-i” spells “fish.” So, how did English get like this? Arika Okrent explores the complexity of English spelling conventions.
Lesson by Arika Okrent, directed by Emily Howells, Aaron Brady.
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Thank you so much to our patrons for your support! Without you this video would not be possible! Jay M, Constantino Victor Delgado, Andrea Galvagni, Andrew Tweddle, Laurel-Ann Rice, Fernando A. Endo, Helen Lee, pam morgan, sarim haq, Gerardo Castro, Michel-Ange Hortegat, Enes Kirimi, Amaury BISIAUX, ND, Samyogita Hardikar, Vanessa Graulich, Vandana Gunwani, Abdulmohsin Almadi, AJ Lyon, Geoffrey Bultitude, Mi Mi, Thomas Rothert, Brian Elieson, Oge O, Weronika Falkowska, Nevin Spoljaric, Sid Chanpuriya, Anoop Varghese, David Yastremski, Noah Webb, Roberto Chena, Oliver Koo, Luke Pisano, Andrea Gordon, Aleksandar Donev, Nicole Klau Ibarra, Jesse Lira, Ezekiel Raui, Petr Vacek, Dennis, Olivia Fu, Kari Teffeau, Cindy Lai, Rajath Durgada Manjunath, Dan Nguyen, Chin Beng Tan, Tom Boman, Karen Warner, Iryna Panasiuk and Aaron Torres.

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21 сен 2024

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Комментарии : 614

@ZechariahB 4 месяца назад

My man snuck in the HUH sound effect multiple times casually in a TED-Ed video It perfectly fits

@falinestixiaolong9691 4 месяца назад

You mean "HOUGH" ?

@hkayakh 4 месяца назад

When the screen says ‘WTF’ there’s also one

@markjosephbacho5652 4 месяца назад

How come I didn't notice it???

@AgentSeni 4 месяца назад

@@markjosephbacho5652 thats what im saying lol

@fallen_angelmemesforlife9172 4 месяца назад

@@markjosephbacho5652 it's easier to notice the first time if you have a speaker. Perchance

@wilconboofie6748 4 месяца назад

In my country we have a saying; English looks like one language from afar when in-fact it’s 3 children wearing the same raincoat. ☔️ 🧥

@dat1boi727 4 месяца назад

This is the best explanation of English I’ve ever heard of

@Becky_Cooling 4 месяца назад

Where's that from?

@Terrorising._.Schmetterling 4 месяца назад

that's AMAZING

@ITO_junji_Fan-zi9ss 4 месяца назад

@@Becky_CoolingArmenia

@Becky_Cooling 4 месяца назад

@@ITO_junji_Fan-zi9ss Ah, cool.

@airiquelmeleroy 4 месяца назад

English is hard, though through tough thorough thought you can learn it little by little

@HeyKevinYT 4 месяца назад

my semantic satiation instantly activated after reading that

@lolatiffhur 3 месяца назад

Compared to other languages it’s actually pretty easy.

@legitusername-zl7to 3 месяца назад

easier translation: "English is hard, it is difficult through the entire way but throughout your thinking you can learn it bit by bit"

@nainasingh8246 3 месяца назад

had a seizure reading that and I can only speak English 😭

@inakuvaswaldenstrm6117 3 месяца назад

@lolatiffhur maybe some, but if you are a native speaker, you have to remember that things might seem way easier for you than others. I have learned Spanish and it's easier. Italien is easier. You can argue that Mandarin is easier too. Dutch might be easier. I don't know a lot about other languages than that, but they are some examples

@lovesunnyskies 4 месяца назад

the subtle "huh" when things got confusing killed me 😭

@ItsN3rdy 4 месяца назад

I was like whose Gen Z a** put that in there. 😂

@OmicronOmega0 4 месяца назад

Agreed

@littledudefromacrossthestr5755 4 месяца назад

Fr 💀

@starmaker75 4 месяца назад

Huh is best the way to describe the feeling when you see English spelling.

@Nosewrecky 4 месяца назад

Huh

@matematixyt 4 месяца назад

wonderful! can't get *enough* of these "english spelling is complicated but there's actually a reason behind it" typa things

@the_unknown8807 4 месяца назад

Yep, thats how it is

@bananaforscale1283 4 месяца назад

watch otherwords

@Rabbitforce97 4 месяца назад

but.... there's no reason behind it? It just happened?? 4:10

@matematixyt 4 месяца назад

@@Rabbitforce97 i didn't mean it like "we know EVERY SINGLE nook and cranny about why its like this, i meant like "oh this word was originally said how it was spelled and then OOPS great vowel shift happened."

@boxtenbox 4 месяца назад

no way matenatixxx

@somerandomguy___ 4 месяца назад

I find it absolutely hilarious they decided to use the "huh??" Sound effect XDD

@kalamay 4 месяца назад

And multiple times and in different variations too lmaoooo

@arthurdomq 4 месяца назад

Exactly lol

@sriyashreepanda4912 4 месяца назад

Exactly 💯

@demonthegamer3624 4 месяца назад

I can't believe that one of the most respected educational channels in youtube would put the "HUH?" sound effect in their videos

@alfonsoribada9607 4 месяца назад

2:27 It's the subtle WTF for me. 😂

@thelocalgoose 4 месяца назад

holy- I didn't notice that! That's WILD

@shivamsolanke4660 3 месяца назад

WTF - Wow that's Fun

@elenavinod2301 3 месяца назад

saw it tooo 😂

@Linogiven Месяц назад

@@shivamsolanke4660 It meant what the fk

@Sleepyfairies 4 месяца назад

The title made me say “tough” like “toe” just so it could rhyme with dough 😭

@adrianblake8876 4 месяца назад

And then admitted that it was originally pronounced like that...

@reya..4668 4 месяца назад

Same

@jim6038 4 месяца назад

Ken ia Keno?

@KrisJairedDeCastro 4 месяца назад

While me pronouncing dough as duff to rhyme with tough lol

@jangzhang7323 4 месяца назад

English: There has to be a way to blame this hot mess on the French.

@FlopgamingOne 4 месяца назад

i love the french

@1monki 4 месяца назад

Mon dieu!

@marceloschwob3787 2 месяца назад

I love french language and its similarity with english. Almost all the latin words in english are homonimous with french words, more than 5 thousand words like moment, simple, empire, source etc.

@Abbood_1 4 месяца назад

I always wondered why English pronunciation rules were a bit difficult, and now I hope this video provides an answer.

@ethan________ 4 месяца назад

can we just take a moment to appreciate how insane the animation and visual storytelling is?

@orfikstudios 3 месяца назад

Yes!

@cormacsmithy3975 4 месяца назад

0:20 Lmao one of the protestors holding a sign saying "Have I nothing better to do?" 😂

@aidahanwar7311 4 месяца назад

the baby's sign saying "language is arbitrary, change my mind" SENT ME HAHAHHAHA

@novemberninth4392 3 месяца назад

I love the one saying "silent letters are dum", that is SO smart

@LightBlueVans 4 месяца назад

“making it especially tough” absolutely adorable dough ball ☺️ i adore the printing press animation, that was lovely

@Becky_Cooling 4 месяца назад

To anyone who has learnt English as a second language: Well done! English isn't easy, even if (like me) you've spent your whole life speaking it!

@jimmyseavp 4 месяца назад

literally, i admire people who speak more than one languages and/or english

@ITO_junji_Fan-zi9ss 4 месяца назад

Why are you monolingual? So sad

@benjaminb5889 4 месяца назад

My first language is french so I know that spelling can be a nightmare 😂 (I also speak german and a bit of italian).

@starmaker75 4 месяца назад

To be fair, being a native speaker, they a lot of stuff in English that go "HUH?"

@chiragsharma5624 4 месяца назад

@@jimmyseavp i can speak 3

@Queen1001N 3 месяца назад

One good thing about English spelling: “queue” is certainly worth more points when playing Scrabble than “q.”

@theindiejurnee 13 дней назад

It's also more than "cue."

@topi1374 4 месяца назад

omg I never realised until now that "daughter" with the guttural "ch" sounds like "Tochter", the german word for it thank you!

@b.a.erlebacher1139 4 месяца назад

German underwent a consonant shift, part of which was d shifting to t. The youtube channel RobWords has a neat video about how to read German without knowing German by unshifting the consonants to make it look more like English.

@ntlrdm 4 месяца назад

'Tough, Trough, Through, Though, Thorough, Thought' and 'Pause, Pores, Paws, Pours' are 2 examples of why English probably looks confusing and doesn't make much sense to non-native speakers. I also find it silly a lot of the time as a native speaker, and it makes it even more apparent as I have 2 native languages and my second language although complex and difficult to learn, has many rules that give it structure and order. Since it isn't based on other languages if you understand the rules you will know the pronunciation and often be able to deduce the meaning of some words just by reading them. Something interesting though, in defence of English as a language, is an example the Spanish language writer J. L. Borges brought up once in an interview which also demonstrates the complexity and nuance of English. Having roots in Germanic and the Latin language means that for many ideas or examples you may have, you often can find words that have different meaning and nuance, which can express a subtle or important difference and distinction in the idea, object, or situation you are describing. The examples he gave were the words 'fraternal' and 'brotherly' or 'regal' and 'kingly' which all have different meaning, as well as the use of 'Holy Spirit' and 'Holy Ghost', which in a poem would evoke a different feeling, as the former is a light Latin word and the latter is a dark Saxon word, as he described them. Other examples he gave were the freedom and adaptability of verbs and prepositions such as 'laugh off', 'dream away', or to 'live something down', 'live up to something'. Maybe it's the chaos and nonsensical things sometimes about English that also bring the best out of it too.

@coleashraf9621 4 месяца назад

At 4:09 the “hus” pronunciation reminded me of how we tend to pronounce house in Scotland. I guess because Scots and Scottish English have retained more Germanic roots?

@penand_paper6661 4 месяца назад

Actually, yes.

@olivia-fz8dn 4 месяца назад

As a native English speaker, I always figured it had to do with the word’s original origins, but this video makes it much more clear!

@DIOsNotDead 4 месяца назад

gotta love the "huh" sound effect being used like thrice in this video lol

@r.s.9239 4 месяца назад

2:52 Ted ed stop I’m dying why are you using this sound effect😂

@geezotics 4 месяца назад

It’s 9AM just took a blinker and I’m locked tf in for the day. Thank you for the education I didn’t know I needed 😂🙏🏽

@luizapalavizini2949 4 месяца назад

In my country most people consider english grammar easy or a little chalenging, but everybody thinks the writing makes no sense

@justinehercthehuman 4 месяца назад

Didn't notice the initials at 2:23 paired with the HUH sound effect lmao.

@stefansauvageonwhat-a-twis1369 4 месяца назад

2:25 I was not expecting the "Huh" sound effect here lol

@Twas-RightHere 4 месяца назад

Another cheeky one at 4:55. They're like little easter eggs, I love it.

@SkyClintLiquit 4 месяца назад

@@Twas-RightHere i just commented that here hahaha

@Irondragon1945 4 месяца назад

and at 2:51

@johnny_boi5456 4 месяца назад

Also WTF is spelled out

@PokhrajRoy. 4 месяца назад

Moral of the Story: Never underestimate tough dough

@Maus-nc8jo 3 месяца назад

As a German this makes so much sense now. Like for example daughter is translated to Tochter in German. Today both words sound very different. But the german ch makes exactly the sound the gh was once supposed to make before it was dropped in English. When you prounounce daughter with the original sound the th is supposed to make it sounds very similar to the german sound of the word. The same logic can be applied to laugh and lachen in german.

@PokhrajRoy. 4 месяца назад

0:03 This quote is brilliant!

@Santiino 4 месяца назад

Can you explain? English is not my first Language

@lovwanshichetan 4 месяца назад

@@Santiinodouble "o" in blood & flood sounds "uh" but in food it's "u" only i.e bluhd, fluhd, fu:d and similarly in mould, "oul" sounds like "owl" unlike in should & would where it sounds "u" only i.e mowld, shud, wud. Quote is used basically targeting the chaos in English regarding it's pronunciation, words & rules which applies to one or some case but not all or many.

@cay6578 3 месяца назад

@@lovwanshichetanoh.. i thought it would have like a metaphor under it with the mix of the wordplay😭

@MrsJudithWright 4 месяца назад

Great to have such a clear and upbeat lesson on why English is such a difficult language to learn for non native speakers. Never knew I was interested in this until this lesson.

@sanvijain5354 4 месяца назад

The animation quality is just amazing!!! Brilliant job 👏 😍

@rikabernar 4 месяца назад

The English language is long and desperately in need of REFORM. Russian has undergone several such reforms and has become more organized thanks to them. English, take notes!

@The_Observer_god 4 месяца назад

You know that English is completely broken when* Go = go So = so To = tuuuuu.............

@daveharrison84 4 месяца назад

part of the vowel shift

@bigdaddytrichardson4994 Месяц назад

I really haven't realized how difficult and complex English is until I watched this video. 💯

@Becky_Cooling 4 месяца назад

the animation is soooooo cute!

@Passion84GodAlways 4 месяца назад

2.25 was a HILARIOUS (and unexpected) touch!!! 😫😆😂🤣🤣

@yellowstarproductions6743 4 месяца назад

2:25 i agree

@Passion84GodAlways 4 месяца назад

@@yellowstarproductions6743 😆

@junjunjamore7735 4 месяца назад

I didn't even notice! 😂

@PokhrajRoy. 4 месяца назад

0:53 ‘Ghoti’ also refers to Bengalis who do not originate from what we now call Bangladesh.

@BloodAniron 4 месяца назад

And also the utensil

@anelauhaneailana1899 3 месяца назад

Have often said that English is one of the most difficult languages. This is a brilliant explanation of why

@tozboz1018 4 месяца назад

2:26 HUH 2:52 H U H 4:56 H U H

@chialuenlis5931 4 месяца назад

Thanks

@antonfeirer3408 4 месяца назад

As someone who speaks German, learning English was pretty easy once I accepted that some things just were the way they were and couldn't be changed. Happens in German all the time :D

@thenovicenovelist 4 месяца назад

German is one of the languages I'm trying to learn. So far, the hardest thing seems to be the gendered articles because I haven't figured out the tricks for determining when to use der, die, das, etc. when it comes to things that normally don't have a gender in English. In Spanish, there are rules that work the majority of the time (o/a = el/la, with a few exceptions). But I haven't figured out those rules for German articles yet.

@alyanahzoe 3 месяца назад

2:27 “wtf” 😂😂😂

@starknight103 2 месяца назад

@@thenovicenovelist words that end in keit, heit or schaft like freiheit are always feminine. 90% of words ending with an E are feminine in German. Over 95% of words ending with ling or ich are masculine. 60% of words ending with an ER, EL and EN are masculine. Most words ending with an O are neuter like Kino( cinema). There are many other word endings like ANZ,enz, ung, ie, ei,ur, and a for most feminine nouns or ant,or, är, and us for most masculine or um,ma, and ment for most neuter words. Also 90% of words starting with GE are neuter like geld and all diminutives ending in Lein and Chen are neuter.

@bedrock6443 Месяц назад

Spelling reform time!!!!!!

@narnia4703 4 месяца назад

All the little faces on inanimate objects. 😆 The animation is amazing!

@gilangp2011 4 месяца назад

I am Indonesian. The Indonesian language is arguably the easiest major language on earth. I learn English damn hard, and Arabic is much harder. But now I live in Japan, which is the hardest I ever encountered.

@lismyname7389 3 месяца назад

Bahasa Indonesia in its formal form maybe easier to learn for foreigners. But in Indonesia, we often mix Bahasa Indonesia with our local dialects, and our mother language (there are tons of it!) and I think it adds the complexity of Bahasa Indonesia

@CalpolMeister 4 месяца назад

2:26 HUH

@matvejkopyl6347 4 месяца назад

4:56 HUUUHH

@alexanderflorence7176 3 месяца назад

The strange thing about english though is that the reason it is ultimately become the dominant spoken language on the planet is because it is easy to be understand and or decern what someone is trying to despite being very difficult get correct which is a feature that many languages in the world lack i.e. if you get it wrong in most european or arabic languages its very difficult to then infer or decern meaning from what some is saying

@ChincerDante 4 месяца назад

as someone that comes from a language that is very phonetic , i always found spelling bees fascinating , it does feel english doesnt even need to use strange words from other languages just to fill a spelling bee, thanks to the "inconsistencies" in its spelling vs pronunciation. in spanish you can fabricate a word and the spelling more or less would make sense

@re_animatedabby6791 3 месяца назад

Lol love the little bread 🍞 with the rolling pins at the end! So cute! Should be a digital phone wallpaper!

@sphakamisozondi 4 месяца назад

02:26, that "huh" meme has made it into a Ted video 😂

@dorians2138 4 месяца назад

It's funny how in many countries such a thing as a spelling bee wouldn't even be posible because everything is written exactly how it sounds

@bobthegoat7090 4 месяца назад

It is fascinating when you encounter Old-English words that sound familiar in your language. I am from Denmark, where we still say "hus" like he pronounced it in the video. It is a real shame we didn't keep this standardization. Almost weird germanic languages grew farther apart in the modern day. However, now that English has the same role as Latin and French played many centuries ago, we may end up changing our own languages as all European countries steadily embrace English. Still, I am all for simpler spelling that conveys how they sound.

@gabrielas7596 4 месяца назад

Thank you Ted-Ed ! Now please do the same with the Spanish, French, and Portuguese languages !

@LEFT4BASS 3 месяца назад

The way we know a lot of old pronunciations is because the lack of standardized spelling left many people writing words as they were spoken. Being unstandardized actually tells us a lot about our linguistic past.

@katherineknapp4370 3 месяца назад

My last is Knapp, a German last name. In English the K is silent so it sounds like "Nap" but in German, the K isn't silent and is said in a tough German accent. This video reminded me of that, thanks Ted-Ed!

@Stratelier 4 месяца назад

Don't think we didn't see what you did with the three manuscripts at 2:25 !

@GamingStudio798 27 дней назад

WTF

@mst671 4 месяца назад

when I learnt writing English, for some words I memorised how to pronouce it in my language, so in my head when writing beautiful I think "Be-au-ti-ful" or for language "lan-gu-a-ge"

@marceloschwob3787 2 месяца назад

Beautifull is french...

@wholesand 4 месяца назад

Should a spelling reform take the old spelling and change it a little to fit the modern pronunciation in a phonetic way?

@nerdlingeeksly5192 4 месяца назад

I would like to point everyone to a Gallagher video where he tackles the flaws in the English language.

@invalidaccount6147 4 месяца назад

English is new language that's why it didn't get much time to evolve. So, the older languages from India China are well evolved and hence well defined. This must be the case.

@aaronsz6749 3 месяца назад

Me as a non-native English speaker was very easy to understand and learn English grammatically but when it came to speaking, pronunciation was and still is very hard to understand.

@chickenfish15 4 месяца назад

The "ghoti" thing doesn't really work for me because otherwise I'd pronounce it as "fœush"...

@liandremarcoricafort6606 4 месяца назад

Why should it always make sense when humanity itself sometimes don’t

@firestarter6039 4 месяца назад

As a Brazilian who learned English basically by myself, I can confirm that about half the words in English, I don't know how to correctly pronounce, even though I do know what the word means in Portuguese. When reading books, this doesn't create a big issue, but in conversations, sometimes things become fuzzy, especially because Brazilians tend to be paranoid about our accent when speaking English.

@ntlrdm 4 месяца назад

As someone who knows very little Spanish but enough to recognise some Portuguese words when I hear them, my opinion is that Brazilians have better sounding accents than the Portuguese when speaking your native language. There's something about the way Brazilians speak Portuguese that sounds so much cooler. Don't be paranoid about your accent when speaking English, most native speakers like people's accents when they speak English anyway, so if anything they will find it more charming 👍

@fhz3062 4 месяца назад

@@ntlrdm , Brazilian Portuguese sounds closer to Spanish (even the European one) than the Portuguese from Portugal. Strange enough, the Brazilian version is also closer to the old Portuguese from 1500 than the current one from Portugal is to the old Portuguese. In a nutshell, our sound are more, so called, opened sounds.

@ntlrdm 4 месяца назад

@@fhz3062 Makes sense, maybe that's why I prefer the sound of it also as I can understand it better from the limited Spanish I know. Portuguese btw is also my favourite language to listen to music in after my two native languages. I hope one day I'll be able to speak it at least so I can have a casual conversation with somebody.

@brunohannud 3 месяца назад

Its simple grammar rules and fantastic possibilities makes British English the most indicated language as a first language, one's own language coming in once basic English becomes Universal.

@tovarishchfeixiao 3 месяца назад

English and "simple grammar" in one sentence without negation? wow Then i guess having 12 tenses (JUST WHY 12 AND NOT 2 OR 3?) and nightmarishly more irregular words than regular words are nowadays counted as "simple"..........

@latercube5884 4 месяца назад

Everyone: Why is English spelling so weird? French: Uhhh

@AntTonyLOLKID 4 месяца назад

I remember someone saying "English is easy if you know the history of the words" which makes it comparable to Chinese... (but Chinese memorises characters itself, rather than history of words)

@Crichi404 4 месяца назад

the "huh" sound took me out, I didn't expect it to be in a Ted Ed vid 😭

@thenovicenovelist 4 месяца назад

And then the weirdness increases when comparing American English and British English. Also, if you are an American from the South who runs into someone who speaks Geordie it can get even more confusing (I know from experience). I still loved my time in the UK and hope to visit again one day.

@anoriolkoyt 4 месяца назад

Another "indirect" aspect is the culture's literary tradition. English literary tradition is realtively young, compared to French and Latin. So gor thr French, even today, their language is something at the core of their culture and as such, everyone outside the academic world takes an interest in its evolution. For the English world, we see our language as more of a "tool". Its why we are so flexible and improvisational with it. For example, French imported the word "weekend". There was a huge debate whether there ahould be a dash or not (weekend, or week-end). Im living in France and i was asked my opinion since im American. My response: "who TF cares?". English being so loose on its rules its one of its strengths, im my opinion. Its also why sci-fi and fantasy is much more "palatable" in English... Its interesting and fun to invent words. The French tend to have a resistance to this. For example, in Harry Potter, Rowling inventes the term "deathly hallows", which is a clever invention. The French translation calls them "reliques" (relics). Less fun.

@GregorWSky 4 месяца назад

Maybe it's time to create an “Easy English" where everything makes sense

@drewdabbs418 4 месяца назад

Not really possible. Too many different countries speaking it and too many dialects

@Sevara0806 4 месяца назад

As a person who learned english intentionally,,l didn't even notice anything wrong/weird when learning it.I just got used to it as l listened and read

@suprememaxpayne 4 месяца назад

The "un peu" to "la vache" scale is a nice touch

@pinkgreenmelon2209 4 месяца назад

English is so reasonably complicated. It reminds me of how hard spelling bees were when the words were actually so simple.

@DuyNguyen-ks8dc 4 месяца назад

the animator went nuts over this topic XD the transitions, the scenes, it's all so random and chaotic lol somewhat like Bocchi the Rock! Huhhhhh 🙀🙀

@luvotheoduntsu708 4 месяца назад

Not forgetting 'Ok', which was an abbreviation of 'Oll Korrect'. Before 'All' was given then letter 'A', and majority of words starting with 'K' were amended to start with 'C'😂🫶🏽.

@falinestixiaolong9691 4 месяца назад

There's no definitive answer and many theories around the origin of "OK", and even your theory originates from the 1840s where it would have come from an intentional mispelling, not before spelling was standardized. Plus "correct" comes from Latin and was never spelled with a K.

@b.a.erlebacher1139 4 месяца назад

Not quite. It derives from mid-19th century US newspapers where rural people were made fun of for their illiteracy, and represented as writing crudely and spelling phonetically. Btw, 'correct' is a French-derived word and was never spelled with a k in English.

@peze80 3 месяца назад

This is false advertising. The title says Arika Okrent, but she's nowhere to be heard! I was so happy to see her name again. She has her own RU-vid-channel (just search for her name) and she uploded the original video of this 9 years ago, back in April of 2015. Sadly she has not uploaded anything new in 3 years. So I was excited to hear from her again with this video. No such luck. I DO very much recommend her material found on her channel though. Check it out!

@justinehercthehuman 4 месяца назад

Imagine traveling into the far future and then you see they fixed the English language and our present films and literature are then treated like how we treat the old language used by Shakespeare and the likes.

@lindseyfishead2181 3 месяца назад

no way i just wanted a ted ed video that includes the "HUH" sound effect multiple times

@gustavocarvalholoboleite3526 4 месяца назад

Hey Ted -ed sugestion to next history video about Los Angeles ritos of 1992

@heristyono4755 4 месяца назад

People : English is so weird Also people : Nice. Let's make it our universal language

@Flint-g4h 4 месяца назад

Well, in terms of being a spoken language, it is less complex than Spanish and German

@paytonturner1421 4 месяца назад

When it comes to spelling, I'm terrible at it and I need help from technology to spell the words that I can't spell. I can agree upon the point that English is a very difficult language when it comes to spelling. Sounding out words won't help me at all. You probably need to guess the letters.

@erdvilla 4 месяца назад

Easier getting the Metric system in the US than getting rid of those silent letters and letters that sound different depending on the word. But I've noticed that kids who get Spanish in their school are better at spelling in English because they learn a language where every letter has to be pronounced, not to mention the plentiful words with identical or similar writing in both languages.

@lingandetyrox 3 месяца назад

Great Vowel Shift and Consonantal Shift. The former turned meat being pronounced as /mεt/ to /mi:t/, and the latter turned the /x/ sound into a /f/ sound

@awesomehpt8938 4 месяца назад

Well at least in English we don’t have to worry about everything being either masculine or feminine or even neutral like either in the Romance language or with German. For example why in Spanish is a car masculine but a table is feminine? They’re inanimate objects they shouldn’t need a gender

@Becky_Cooling 4 месяца назад

at least English only has one word for 'the'. I'm learning Italian and so far I have come across La, Le, Il, I, Gli, Lo, and L'

@HerMi.T 4 месяца назад

I mean it is present in my language Hindi. It kinda doesn't matter.

@b.a.erlebacher1139 4 месяца назад

English lost gender except for pronouns and verb declension except for 'be' because it repeatedly went through a process of creolization. Each time it was invaded by people speaking a different language, a pidgin mixture arose so conquered and conquerors could communicate. Pidgins are stripped down proto-languages which turn into creoles in a few generations. Creoles are full languages incorporating elements of their parents, usually with simplified grammar. Indo-European languages other than English have two or three genders. In German, knife, fork and spoon are three different genders. It doesn't have to make sense. It's something native speakers pick up without thinking, and second language learners just have to memorise until they get the feeling of what sounds right.

@joegrace2690 Месяц назад

The animation is stunning!

@Kiumon-gn6em 3 месяца назад

When I learned english I had problems with the pronounciation because of how different the spelling is from the pronounciation, until I started watching english RU-vid videos.

@Asian1056 3 месяца назад

How to master any spellings: Practice, Practice, Practice, Practice!💯

@josemanuelburgara1680 4 месяца назад

Arika Okrent , I knew it sounded familiar, she is the author of the book highly irregular

@LNC4P 4 месяца назад

I'm all for reinventing the written English language to make it more phonetic. As a native English speaker, I hated learning to read as a child because it was more rote memory than logical composition of letters to form words. Take the Hawaiian language for example. Most, if not all, their words are spelled in a logical phonetic manner where any one who understands the rules of the sounds each letter makes can read it fairly easily.

@DerpDerp3001 4 месяца назад

Nah, let's go the Japanese route and slap in some Kanji with latin for foreign words and runic for native words. BWAHAHAHAHA!!!

@Kaputt512 4 месяца назад

My grandfather used to say: "In English they write 'Manchester' but read 'Liverpool""

@SocialBubblia 4 месяца назад

If i were to pronounce ghoti like how you say it, but change the pronunciation to be that of how i would pronounce those words, i would pronounce it as "thutch" (θʊtʃ) because i pronounce "enough" as "enouth" (ənəθ), "women" as "women" (wʊmɪn), and "action" as "action" (æktʃɪn)

@Matthew.Morycinski 3 месяца назад

The solution is simple: rationalize the spelling - over a long time. It's an oversight: many other European languages make corrections to spelling at least once or twice a century, because inevitably, pronunciation changes happen. You need a 500 year program to catch up, and a global-reach agency that will introduce these changes and measure progress. Otherwise you will end up like the Tibetan language: after 2000 years, basically NO connection between speech and written word.

@lourdf0x 3 месяца назад

This is why i love my language Tagalog. I remember there was a picture that went viral and the comment section was clowning how our police was spelled "PULIS" In hindsight, our spelling is much more intuitive.

@SkyClintLiquit 4 месяца назад

4:56 "huhhh"

@RandomCronch 4 месяца назад

I made a rant about this in drama a week or so ago. Kinda funny, we have a lot of the same points. To be fair, its not that hard to point out these inconsistent words in English.

@michaelcarbone6101 3 месяца назад

I’ve been spelling it fish all my life. I’m not changing now!

@virendrasahani6871 4 месяца назад

Beautiful explanation. Thanks for sharing.

@mollyhoffman7313 4 месяца назад

I'm gonna start pronouncing "house" like "hoos" and "boat" like "bawt." Also the French meter goes from "a bit" to "the cow."

@ElectariumTunic 4 месяца назад

Many (All?) other neighbouring European languages did also go through these types of changes and variations. It's not uncommon to find 5 to 15 historic spelling variations in their dictionaries too. But then, how does it come that many of the contemporary versions of these other European languages are not as messy as English?

@dayanaparedes7362 4 месяца назад

This video blew my mind in ways I didn't expect it would 🤯

@friskycuber 4 месяца назад

Anyone else pronounce it as "duff" when they read the title???

@radiusbecka1799 3 месяца назад

I feel like if I was just given a brief explanation of this in school, my spelling would have been better. It's hard to remember something that at the time didn't make sense.