I want to start this episode with an imaginary situation. You are shopping for some new clothes in an English department store. You point to a rack of nice looking T-shirts and you say to the shop staff: “I want the blue.”
If you are a native speaker of a language, maybe like Spanish, Arabic, French, Japanese, a sentence like that might make sense to you. You name the color and you are done. “I want the blue.”
But if you are speaking in English, it does not make sense. You have to say, “I want the blue one.” It doesn’t make sense without “one.”
Today, I want to use this kind of example to maybe change your perspective on English learning slightly. I want to do this by demonstrating that English is, on average and globally speaking, a weird language. English is, on average, different to the normal standard grammar and vocabulary and pronunciation that languages around the world use.
This episode is heavily inspired by a fantastic video from the linguistics channel NativLang, titled “What English Does But Most Languages Can’t.“ Using data from the World Atlas of Language Structures, which samples thousands of languages across the world, they showed that a lot of the features in English are incredibly rare in other languages.
Specifically in this episode, I’m going to talk about numbers, grammar, and pronunciation features that are rare outside of English. Hopefully this will give you a new perspective and more insights into your language learning journey. And maybe show you why you struggle with some parts of English, because your language might not have these features.
Unlock the full episode and join the conversation by becoming a Patreon member today!
Interactive Transcript
Listen Here
Spotify
PatreonTranscript
Vocabulary Games and Activities!
Learn and practice vocabulary from this Thinking in English episode.
Practice using 5 different study games and activities – including writing, listening, and memorisation techniques!
Flashcards
Matching Game
Learning Game
Test Yourself
Listening and Spelling
