Recently while browsing the internet I’ve found a really funny and interesting video called „Why English alphabet is stupid?” and I thought that I will share it with you.
Watch the video above and answer three questions:
- What do you think about other alphabets like Japanese Kanji? Are they needed?
- Does your native language have some letters that does not have sense?
- Did you enjoyed this video? Do you think that this kind of ”lecture” is good for learning because of it’s funny approach?
Comments
I don't think that my language has any letters that have no sense. Maybe letters like щ or ї can be replaced by шч or йі respectively. Although I don't think that letters can be considered useless if you only replace two letters with one.
I liked the video but I kan't kompletely agree with GradeAUnderA that the letter C should f*k off because how would you pronounce word "channel" or "challenge" then? English doesn't have "ч" or "cz", so if you want to get rid of it you need to add a new letter instead.
2. There are a few examples I can think of. The letters “ż” and “rz” sound the same. Same goes for “u” and “ó”, and also for “h” and “ch”.
3. I really did enjoy this video. In my opinion learning via humor is the most effective approach. It not only gives you knowledge, but also keeps you entertained, which is very important since boredom can lead to procrastination.
When it comes to Polish language, there are some weird things like letter "ż" which can be replaced by "rz", but I'm not language expert, maybe it must be like it is.
Polish language have some redundant letters which make similar sounds or there is “ch” which is pronounced literally in the same way as just letter “h”. However, as I have written before, there are all part of our culture and they are need.
I really enjoyed the video, and I think that in some cases, such funny way of learning things is very useful, because our brains save information mostly as association. When I was learning Japanese kanji, it was the best way to create some funny story about given Kanji.
I think the movie was fun. I think that at the beginning of learning English everyone has similar thoughts.
Polish, which is my native language, is full of diphthongs and diacritics. Not all of them are useless. Contrary to what others wrote in the comments, I believe the distinction between „rz” and „ż” or between „u” and „ó” seems invisible and unnecessary at the first glance, especially when looking and nominative forms of nouns. However, it’s still very important when inflecting them through other grammatical cases, as the difference between them provides rules and hints.
To answer the third question, I’d like to remind you one thing — this conversation course is part of university space. You don’t run around the campus screaming and swearing so don’t post videos whose primary feature is high frequency of vulgarisms. I agree it’s funny and I’m not offended in any form, it’s just deeply disrespectful towards the academic environment, our group and most importantly, our teacher. I am completely certain you could have found a less profane video to prove your point.
If there is a group of people who are communicating only with the use of this alphabet then yes it is needed.
Does your native language have some letters that does not have sense?
Yeah, we do have some "redundant" letters which can be replaced with the others ("rz" /"ż", "zi"/"ź", "ci"/"ć", "u"/"ó", "ch"/"h" etc.)
Did you enjoyed this video? Do you think that this kind of ”lecture” is good for learning because of it’s funny approach? I loved this video, this was the second time I saw this, but I still laughed hard :) Of course this approach is good for learning because it is connecting knowledge with emotions - that's the best way to learn.
Also great to hear that you liked my video, it's always good to laugh a little bit.
I don’t have enough knowledge to confidently answer the first question, but I think that alphabets like kanji are needed as many sounds are not included in Latin alphabet. It would obviously be easier for everyone if we’d use one alphabet, however this is also part of culture that can’t be simply changed or forgotten. Regarding useless letters yeah, sure we do have many of them. As others have shared examples from polish language like singular letters “ó” and “u” or coupled “dz” etc.
My native language is Polish and I think that the only thing that comes to my mind is the fact that there could be the only letter „u” instead of „u” and „ó” which sound the same but differ in case of spelling. And there are many people that mess up with these two letters.
To be honest I didn’t like the video too much. The form of it is not the best and I would probably not watch it again.
In Polish we do have letters that we could just drop. For example “h”, “ch”, “ż”, “rz”. The sound is the same but it’s important to keep in mind which one you write, so it just makes life a bit harder than it could be.
I enjoyed the video very much. In such a way the information, such as a proper pronunciation, get stuck in my head without even me knowing. And because the form is so simple and visual It didn’t feel boring to me.
I know that this is an important part of the Polish alphabet, but for me it is not necessary to use u-ó, ci-ć,ni-ń,zi-ź, which sounds the same.
I was interested in it and I support lectures that can be learned and laughed
In my opinion, Ukrainian language has no useless letters. But polish definitely has. “U” and “Ó” sounds same, as well as “RZ” and “Ż” or “CH” and “H”. So I still didn’t get what’s the point :)
Funny approach is always the best way to learn languages. We always can learn languages by playing videogames, by watching YouTube blogs or listening to music. Also it’s the best way to get rid of the accent if you’re in higher level.
I've never really thought about whether the polish language has any uneccessary letters - perhaps the letter 'x' is rarely used, mostly in words of foreign origins. There's also letters like ó or ż which make sounds identical to u or rz, but removing them from the language isn't really something I would want. I'm not entirely sure why - perhaps it's simply because I'm used to them, but it just wouldn't feel right to stop using them.
I've definitely enjoyed the video - it's a lot easier to learn when the learning material is funny and memorable, and this is definitely the case for this video.
needed or not.
2. I think that all letters which sounds similar either alone or in combination might don't have a lot of sense, like "h" and "ch"
3. I really enjoyed this video - I think it's a lot easier to memorize things when it's fun to read/watch the material
Sad to hear that you have not enjoyed video, nothing I can do about it :(
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2. Polish has some letters like ó and u, moreover i doubt that x is ever used, and so on: j and i that sound so familiar that one of them could be removed.
3. funny approach is always good for learning. Ignacy Krasicki was well known for similar opinion in this case
2. Hmmm.. in polish we do have "rz" and "ż" which have the same sound. Same goes with "ch" and "h" in some words. If anyone removed that from polish about 1000 years ago that would make no difference in our spoken language and would make our grammar a lot easier.
3. It's hard to say. I think that video was made in a funny way, but the content was hmmm... useless? Ok, now we can speculate what would be IF. But every languege is unique and we must respect ancestors who made our culture, language etc. In XXI century we have no problem with learning languages, some of them could be easier, but for native speakers it takes about 5-6 years to learn it. And it goes with japanese, english, polish, hungarian etc. I would like to learn useful knowledge in a funny way, some more serious problem resolved in a funny way.
So maybe some of these are because English speaking people have problems pronouncing stuff the right way ;))
A lot of words from different language become part of every country. For instance: football, hockey, university etc.
Every alphabet is limited to its letters. So to express other words using it takes some combination of letters.
And yes. Yes, it is.
It easier for a person to remember something when his brain creates an association.
Also do not take this video to serious - it's supposed to be a funny video (just) and not some life-changing video.
I think that latin alphabet is the most optimal one.
Spelling accompanies us from an early age and in my native Polish language I sometimes don’t understand some spelling issues. "Ó" or maybe "u" - it gives me a puzzling riddle why you cann’t use just one option for everything, and confusing is that different words have their own "u" ... There are plenty more examples of something similar to this exeption.
The manner of expression seemed to be comical, it didn’t work with me – maybe because I’m tired. I don’t consider this lecture as a good joke or an effective presentation in my opinion. It seems to me that such a lecture can cause many doubts in people who have never thought about it and create their own opinions on this subject, which is a big plus of such films.
Clearly, just like any other language or alphabet, the Russian and Ukrainian languages and the Cyrillic alphabet have their difficulties. In contrast to alphabets like Hiragana and Katakana, which are mostly syllable-based and therefore lack the phonetic flexibility of a sound based alphabet, the Cyrillic alphabet, which contains a wider variety of letters and sounds, may lack phonetic interpretation.
I did very much enjoy the video. But I don’t know if some people will recognize its comedic nature and not take it literally.
It would certainly be easier if there was only one common alphabet, however, having more languages allows us to learn and so experience the process of commitment, which makes it much more enjoyable when we perfect something new.
2. What do you think about other alphabets like Japanese Kanji? Are they needed?
Having various letters that sound the same e.g. “ch” and “h”, “rz” and “ż”, “ź” and “zi” etc. does not make sense but on the other hand it allows us to use more words which do sound the same but have different meaning when written.
3. What do you think about other alphabets like Japanese Kanji? Are they needed?
Being able to learn with a dose of humor is most efficient as we tend to pay more attention to something that attracts us.
2. Of course. For example "г" and "ґ". It will be difficult to notice the difference for a person who does not know the Ukrainian language. The sounds are very similar, but the second is pronounced more firmly. In my language, there are not many words using the second letter.
3. The video was very fun, I really liked it. I do not consider this video as a lecture, because it is more a comparison of sounds than a training video.
I have completely no idea about Japanese language but a friend of mine told me that there were like 4k different symbols you needed to know in order to speak Japanese or write in Japanese. Writing is especially hard because if you write a slightly different sign it will mean completely another thing. That’s why I am not even trying to lear this language because I don’t believe in my ability to draw.
Yes, there are a couple of them. Such letter are used in 0.0000001% situations/words. Actually have no idea what they are doing in vocabulary but who am I to judge. As for me all those additional letters were created in order to complicate life not to make it more pleasant. Just image how hard it’s for children to learn all these words and exceptions.
Can’t actually say that I liked it(because I saw a couple of such before) and can’t say it was completely bad. It was funny and a bit interesting at the time, that’s why it deserves some time to be spent on watching it :)
2. In Polish (my native language) there are such letters like "u"/"ó", "h"/"ch", "rz/ź" or "ć"/"ci", "ś"/"si". Great example which make no sense for me is word "morze" and "może" which has different meaning, difference in written form, but the same pronunciation
3. This video is good change of TED talks. I like funny approach of lecture. In my opinion it's more interesting and more memorable.
I think that they're imporant, history is the main factor. Imagine that you are building something for a very long time, and then someone says "meh, I don't need it". Once it has been developed it should stay as it is.
Does your native language have some letters that does not have sense?
Yes, I think that things like "ż" and "rz", "ó" and "u" does not make any sense. It is only for visibility, you can't pronounce it wrong so why there is a space for things like that?
Did you enjoyed this video? Do you think that this kind of ”lecture” is good for learning because of it’s funny approach?
I'm a big fan of a funny aproach for a science and learning stuff. I think it's much better to interest someone in that kind of topics. Sometimes the topic may be interesting, but the way it is being explained is very boring.
In polish also are letters that sounds exactly the same and even mean the same, eg. 'u' and 'ó'. They mean the same, they sound the same but they are "different". For me, it's a way too stupid.
Honestly, I laughed all video, It's amazing. I really loved it. In my opinion, these kinds of lecture have a lot of pros. I've watched it with pleasure and remembered almost everything from it.
Hmm, I think that 'the same' worlds with different meanings are so hard in my native language. Of course, the same situation is as with special letters 'ó' vs 'u'.
Yes, of course. I like to learn from videos with funny approach... not always but sometimes is good for me.
I know nothing about Japanese language, and there was no mention of Japanese in text and video above.
Does your native language have some letters that does not have sense?
Of coarse there are. My native language is russian, and it has as many stupid letters as english does.
Did you enjoyed this video? Do you think that this kind of ”lecture” is good for learning because of it’s funny approach?
I like this video, but for there wasn't enough conclusion, why did this happen in English, and video didn't answer that question.
actually, I don't have a background about Japanese Kanji.!
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Does your native language have some letters that does not have sense?
actually, my native language has a full sense.
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Did you enjoyed this video? Do you think that this kind of ”lecture” is good for learning because of it’s funny approach?
I already enjoyed, this video has a simple way and funny for explaining something.
In Polish there are some letters which are doubled for example u and ó. Also some of them can be created by combination of the other ones like ż and rz. Because of this many people make mistakes and have problem with gramatics.
I enjoyed this video very much mostly because of its funny voiceover. This kind of funny aproach makes learning easier and more pleasant.
I don’t know about the alphabets of other countries, but I can tell something about my native language and its alphabets - Ukrainian. We have the same letters as English ‘x’, that just present one letter made out of two. ‘я’ - ‘йа’, ‘ю’ - ‘йу’, ‘ї’ - ‘йі’, ‘є’ - ‘йе’.
We have four of them in one alphabet and without this video, I will never ask myself - ‘Do we actually need it?’.
Thanks for the video!
2. I find every letter of my alphabet usable and needed. Maybe that’s why polish language is one of the hardest to learn for foreigners.
3. Hell yeah I did! :D It was awesome, I laughed so hard. Yes, it’s an interesting way to earn some new knowledge (with silent ‚k’ :D).
I think our native language could be simpler, but it just how it's made and in my opinion every letter or sentace are needed to express our opinions, feelings and thoughts.
It wa sa good video for sure, I enjoyed it and have fun in the same time. This kind of approach is good for learning - it is connects knowledge with positive emotions - I find this method of learning/teaching the best.
Haha :) I liked it. Such videos like this very effective in learning at all, furthermore, doesn't matter what are you studying, you will have learned more quickly and better with funny approach, because it causes emotions which help our brains assimilated an information. This is a science fact!
> What do you think about other alphabets like Japanese Kanji? Are they needed?
I've just looked up a couple of videos on YouTube about this question and I found out that Japanese Kanji needed, at least, because the Kinji adds readability for the language. (It helps to separate words in a sentence)
> Does your native language have some letters that does not have sense?
In my native language, I think only one letter definitely extra in Russian alphabet - silent letter 'ъ', which can be replaced by "brother" - 'ь', easy enough :)
In my opinion if languages would be viewed through the lens of author's infected mind, there would always be useless letters or sounds. But in the real world this letters have hundreds of thousand years, they were changed and upgraded during the human's history for some reason, so we can't just say that this letter is unnecessary and that letter is very important. Even as a joke the video is idiotic too much.
In my native language there are no useless letters. All letters are in the right place.