103 Year Old Man pwns the English Language

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lsslave said:
Isn't English like the hardest 2nd language to learn or something?

No.

Fucking.

Way.

Even after all the hard asian languages there's still Finnish for you guys to get your heads dizzy with. :lol
 
Never thought GAF would read the YouTube comments.

Anywho, English is difficult almost solely because of the amount of casual speak we employ. I learned this the hard way. : /
 
Osaka said:
No.

Fucking.

Way.

Even after all the hard asian languages there's still Finnish for you guys to get your heads dizzy with. :lol


A lot of my bilingual Asian friends tell me that most Asian languages aren't too hard to speak, but very hard to write.


English is a tough language though, because none of the grammar/spelling rules follow any real pattern.
Hell... most of the people in America can't even speak proper English.
 
English has a lot of stupid things. Even before you get to words, just look at the alphabet.

C - Can always be replaced with K or S.
Q - Can always be replaced with K.
W - Can almost always be replaced with U or OO.
Y - Can almost always be replaced with E or I, even when used as a consonant.

Yet you have unique sounds that don't get letters to themselves like Ch, Sh, and Th.
 
lsslave said:
This man is my IDOL!

Isn't English like the hardest 2nd language to learn or something? My English teacher told me that in college... as my native tongue its easier I suppose, but not even every English speaking country (for native English speakers) uses the same fucking grammar and spelling >.<
no, actually it's one of the easiest languages to learn
 
..pakbeka.. said:
no, actually it's one of the easiest languages to learn
Really. I think having masculine/feminine connotations with words is dumber than anything that guy mentioned.
 
SpeedingUptoStop said:
Really. I think having masculine/feminine connotations with words is dumber than anything that guy mentioned.

I never understood why this was done and it was never explained to me. Why do some languages do this?
 
Regulus Tera said:

He's 100% correct


JzeroT1437 said:
I never understood why this was done and it was never explained to me. Why do some languages do this?


Even worse... I know this happens in Spanish, so I'm assuming other languages, at least similar ones (Italian, Portuguese) have it too...



Why are there irregular verbs? They change stems because if they didn't the word would be too hard to pronounce.
Ok... so why the hell didn't they just make up a different sound for the damn word? Use something than be spoken with every conjugation!
 
!) That guy is reciting a bit by Gallehger from like 30 years ago. The bomb/tomb/comb part is word for word, I'm not sure about the rest. It's on on of his specials

2) WHY the fuck do I remember that? I knew it the second he started too.
 
Immortal_Daemon said:
Why are there irregular verbs? They change stems because if they didn't the word would be too hard to pronounce.
Ok... so why the hell didn't they just make up a different sound for the damn word? Use something than be spoken with every conjugation!

You want the honest answer? Because some prick decided it sounded better that way.

That's all there is to why languages evolve, really.
 
SpeedingUptoStop said:
Really. I think having masculine/feminine connotations with words is dumber than anything that guy mentioned.
Oh yeah, I never got that. It seems to exist solely for the sake of making things more complex.
 
Immortal_Daemon said:
Why are there irregular verbs? They change stems because if they didn't the word would be too hard to pronounce.
Ok... so why the hell didn't they just make up a different sound for the damn word? Use something than be spoken with every conjugation!

English has irregular verbs, too. A lot of them.

Fix = Fixed.
Hate = Hated.
Love = Loved.
Buy = Buyed. ... Oh wait, it's bought. Why the fuck isn't it buyed? Language can be stupid everywhere. But, I like the home team language the best. Go English.

Also, I think early English had gender rules. Modern obviously doesn't.
 
vas_a_morir said:
English has irregular verbs, too. A lot of them.

Fix = Fixed.
Hate = Hated.
Love = Loved.
Buy = Buyed. ... Oh wait, it's bought. Why the fuck isn't it buyed? Language can be stupid everywhere. But, I like the home team language the best. Go English.

Also, I think early English had gender rules. Modern obviously doesn't.

..Because the pronounciation ends into a vocal, and "buyed" just sounds stupid?

I bet someone will now come up with a word that is an exception for that rule.
 
whoever said that english is the 2nd most difficult language in the world is completely wrong.
I would argue that languages like Arabic, finnish and hungarian are much more difficult to learn.... im so struggling with hungarian now... but it is really a rich language.
 
Osaka said:
..Because the pronounciation ends into a vocal, and "buyed" just sounds stupid?

I bet someone will now come up with a word that is an exception for that rule.

Cry => Cried
:3

It proves what I said. Pure personal preference.
 
Osaka said:
..Because the pronounciation ends into a vocal, and "buyed" just sounds stupid?

I bet someone will now come up with a word that is an exception for that rule.
Dunno about the first point, but "Bide" is a word, so sounding stupid probably isn't an issue.
 
KevinCow said:
English has a lot of stupid things. Even before you get to words, just look at the alphabet.

C - Can always be replaced with K or S.
Q - Can always be replaced with K.
W - Can almost always be replaced with U or OO.
Y - Can almost always be replaced with E or I, even when used as a consonant.

Yet you have unique sounds that don't get letters to themselves like Ch, Sh, and Th.

I don't know if the first words that I thought of just happened to contradict these or they are truly incorrect. I'm thinking you are just way off base.

vas_a_morir said:
English has irregular verbs, too. A lot of them.

Fix = Fixed.
Hate = Hated.
Love = Loved.
Buy = Buyed. ... Oh wait, it's bought. Why the fuck isn't it buyed? Language can be stupid everywhere. But, I like the home team language the best. Go English.

Also, I think early English had gender rules. Modern obviously doesn't.
Don't forget flammable means inflammable. What a country!
 
European Union to the rescue:

http://www.topix.com/world/puerto-r...ll-be-official-language-of-the-european-union

English Rather Than German Will Be Official Language of the European Union

The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility.

As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5- year phase-in plan that would become known as "Euro-English".

In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy.

The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of "k". This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f". This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.

In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible.

Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.

Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent "e" in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.

By the 4th yer people wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v".

During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensi bl riten styl.

Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.

Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.
 
Why devolve our language? One of his words, "some" which he said should be spelled as "sum", is already a word. English is the result of a LONG process of evolution from Latin to old English to now, with many steps in between. It has also borrowed so much and been affected so much by other languages from surrounding regions, this is why you get so many oddities. It is what it is.
 
Wow.

John McCain is 72.

Ed Rondthaler is 103.

Unbelievable that Rondthaler looks the younger of the two :lol
 
my grandfather is about to upload his rant about the 7 words you cant say on television, truly revolutionary stuff! you should watch it! Oh btw he is 100 years old so its cool
 
I think most of the people here saying english is not hard to learn are actually native english speakers. Of course it's not going to seem hard to if you have been doing all your life, i am pretty sure that people from Finland thinks Finnish is easy too.
 
flintstryker said:
I think most of the people here saying english is hard to learn are actually native english speakers. Of course it's not going to seem hard to if you have been doing all your life, i am pretty sure that people from Finland thinks Finnish is easy too.
think you are missing a "not" somewhere in this post
 
English is pretty fucked up, but dumbing it down isn't the answer. God, that worries the shit out of me to even think of that happening.
 
english is not hard to learn to speak, i know several people who learned it on their own and became relatively fluent in about a year. however, several of them cannot write or spell properly. that's the hard part.

SpeedingUptoStop said:
Really. I think having masculine/feminine connotations with words is dumber than anything that guy mentioned.

if you think that's bad, german adds another one to the mix. not only do they have masculine and feminine (he/she) but neutrum (it), too. also, there is no indication from the word as to what gender it is, like exists in some other languages with m/f articles.

since i am a native english speaker i am always tempted to call inanimate objects "it," even though it's usually wrong. but saying "the chair, he is comfortable," will never seem right to me i guess. i don't see a penis on my chair.
 
cloudwalking said:
i don't see a penis on my chair.

You're shopping at the wrong places then, let me tell you.

p1010032.JPG
 
lsslave said:
This man is my IDOL!

Isn't English like the hardest 2nd language to learn or something? My English teacher told me that in college... as my native tongue its easier I suppose, but not even every English speaking country (for native English speakers) uses the same fucking grammar and spelling >.<

Absolutely not, thats a complete load of shit. English is the most forgiving language there is, you can completely screw it up and it's still usually clear to a native english speaker what you are trying to get across.

teachers just tell us that to make us only english speakers feel smart.

I've had a lot of euros tell me that english is piss easy as well.
 
Eiji said:
Wow.

John McCain is 72.

Ed Rondthaler is 103.

Unbelievable that Rondthaler looks the younger of the two :lol

to be fair a few years in a vietnam camp could add a few years cause of the stress and all that
 
catfish said:
Absolutely not, thats a complete load of shit. English is the most forgiving language there is, you can completely screw it up and it's still usually clear to a native english speaker what you are trying to get across.

teachers just tell us that to make us only english speakers feel smart.

I've had a lot of euros tell me that english is piss easy as well.

My native language is spanish and I would like to let you all know that scratching my ass is harder than learning english was.
 
lsslave said:
Isn't English like the hardest 2nd language to learn or something? My English teacher told me that in college... as my native tongue its easier I suppose, but not even every English speaking country (for native English speakers) uses the same fucking grammar and spelling >.<
I remember taking French and everyone complaining about how many irregular verbs there are... until our teacher pointed out how English has far more of them.

Go -> Went (rather than 'goed')
Sing -> Sang (rather than 'singed')
Swim -> Swam (rather than 'swimmed')
Run -> Ran (rather than 'runned')
Be -> Was

They're a pain to learn in any language, but when you think about it English has a ton of them, and it does it with fundamental verbs like 'go' and 'be'.

But yeah, English is one of the most lax languages about word order, and even allows you to drop a lot of words and still be understood. It's probably the same if you're a native speaker of any language, but it's hard to find to any English speaker who doesn't have some grammatical errors in their speech, but it's still perfectly understandable. Plus none of the evil masculine/feminine nouns.
 
Yeah english spelling is pretty dumb. It also sucks that we don't use the metric system.. I feels so stupid when I go overseas... well not stupid.. more like a kid that got taught creationism and then went to a regular school:(
 
The guy was 102 when he did that, looking like that and remembering it perfectly like that?

He needs to release a book on his diet and lifestyle for real - dude looks like he's 60-something, wow...
 
I think every language has reports of how it is terribly hard to learn as a second language whether that's true or not. I've certainly heard it said a few times about Swedish though I have no way of knowing if it's actually true. I will say though, English was quite easy to learn, at least compared to German. To this day I still feel like punching somebody anytime I hear anybody speak that language...
 
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