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submitted 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[-] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

You're thinking in terms of location, rather than state-of-being. "I'm home" is your status.

"I'm driving, I am bored, I'm safe, I am away"... None of those sound weird, do they? This, combined with the more technical grammar rules others have commented...

[-] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

I can be at home, but it's not until I'm in comfy pants, on the couch, with a drink in hand that I'm home

[-] [email protected] 0 points 3 weeks ago

All languages have quirks, but English is awful.

I only realized that the more I studied other languages, making me reflect on English.

Like, English doesn't have a future tense. It seems like a pretty basic thing, but in English you say "I'm going to X". Why do you use the verb 'to go' there? Why is that the way English creates a future tense? If you're headed to the store now: I'm going to the store. If it's happening later: I'm going to go to the store. WTF is this bullshit? "going to go"? Just stop and think for a second about "going" and "go" in that phrase.

And the verb "to do", why is that part of questions in English? Statement: You have a dog. Question: Do you have a dog? What does "to do" have to do with any of that? Why is "doing" the verb that somehow is used to turn a statement into a question?

And then there's "to use". Using is to take, hold, deploy, consume... so why is it sometimes part of the past tense. Sure, you can say "I walked to school", but if you want to talk about habits or routines: "I used to walk to school". Why is "to use" even involved there at all?

That's not even accounting for spelling and pronunciation which is just ridiculous in English.

We have a letter 'k' that reliably makes a certain sound, and a letter 's' that reliably makes another sound. But, a huge variety of words use "c" which can make a 'k' sound like cat, or an 's' sound like city. The letter 'c' has no sound of its own, it's just a randomizer machine for one of the other useful sounds. The letter 'g' has one sound that no other letter makes, in words like "grip" and "great". There's another letter "j" that makes a different sound, like in "jet" and the name "Jim". But, for some reason, sometimes the "g" makes a "j" sound, so "Jim" and "gym" have the same sound but completely different spellings, leading to bullshit like the confusion over how to pronounce "gif".

English has roughly 20 vowel sounds, depending on the accent, but the vowel letters are 'a', 'e', 'i', 'o', 'u', and sometimes 'y'. So, you'd think that at least those 5/6 are sorted and the other 20 come from combinations, right? Nope. In British English, for some reason "can" and "can't" get a different vowel sound for the 'a', despite "can't" being a contraction for "can not", which literally contains "can". The letter "u" can sound different between "put" and "putt", even though you're just tacking a 't' to the end of that combination of letters. If you tack an 's' on the end it doesn't change, but if you tack an 'e' on the end... whoa, an entirely new sound different from both "put" and "putt".

I'm glad the world is slowly converging on one language that allows everyone to communicate with everyone else, but it sucks that the language that came out on top is English.

[-] [email protected] 0 points 3 weeks ago

English at least has "going to" and "will" for future. In Estonian you just use present simple and the only way to know you're talking about the future is if you hint it with some time related word.

You just say "I go to the supermarket" and it's ambiguous. You say "I go to the supermarket tomorrow" and you know it's talking about the future.

[-] [email protected] 0 points 3 weeks ago

Do you know if that's unique to Estonian, or also true of Finnish? AFAIK, Finnish (and Estonian) are a weird language branch in that most of Europe is Indo-European. Even distinct languages like Italian and German are more related to each-other than Finnish.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago

It's the same way in Finnish.

[-] [email protected] 0 points 3 weeks ago
[-] [email protected] 0 points 3 weeks ago
[-] [email protected] -1 points 3 weeks ago

I read that it in Ralph Wiggums voice.

[-] [email protected] 0 points 3 weeks ago

No, actually it's not even tickling any resemblance of confusion

[-] [email protected] 0 points 3 weeks ago

You're clearly fluent if you describe "tickling any resemblance" of an effect. Learners would likely say something akin to "make me confused" or similar or less.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

Maybe, I don't know what counts as fluent. But I am learning

[-] [email protected] 0 points 3 weeks ago

honestly I never even noticed that. But I did learn English like a native would - through near total immersion, and mainly monolingually instead of through translation. Whenever I learnt something new I was just like "alright so that's how I say the thing".

To be perfectly honest, if your language teacher points out that "I'm home" is a unique case I'd say that's a bad move, because now you'll second guess yourself every time you want to say it & might make mistakes you otherwise wouldn't.

This goes for all linguistic quirks imo, so many "watch carefully for those little bits" that instead of helping you learn they make you confused. Imagine learning about through thought though taught tough throughout thorough all in one day because "they're all very similar but very different! we put them all in the same spot to make sure you don't get them confused :)" it's a mental cluster fuck trying to remember which is which when you have all of them in one spot, the way to learn them is to have examples of their uses scattered across the ciriculum so that when you encounter one you can commit it to memory before you see the next one

[-] [email protected] 0 points 3 weeks ago

It's not amazing that you understand the omission of an unnecessary word

[-] [email protected] 0 points 3 weeks ago
[-] [email protected] 0 points 3 weeks ago

It's not amazing for anyone to understand if you leave out an unnecessary word. It happens in all languages, even those not connected to civilization at large because humans intuitively understand. You don't need to explain how you immerse yourself in language or anything, it's impossible to misunderstand the omission of an unnecessary word

[-] [email protected] 0 points 3 weeks ago

I simply gave context to how I learn English, nowhere did I say that it's amazing that I understood an omission of a word, in fact I said that I never noticed how it was omitted until it was pointed out. What are you on about?

[-] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

I am telling you something Why are you so defensive? You're entire argument implies that it is interesting that omitting a word can be understood

[-] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

You misunderstood what I wrote and are arguing with me about something I didn't say, you made up that implication yourself

[-] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago
[-] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago

I have no idea dude, once again - I do not know what you're on about

[-] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago

Lol nice interaction "you misunderstood idk what you just did have a good day"

this post was submitted on 25 Apr 2024
3 points (71.4% liked)

Showerthoughts

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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The best ones are thoughts that many people can relate to and they find something funny or interesting in regular stuff.

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